set the beans on the counter and flipped me off. “No, Jenn. It’s not anything like that. I want to meet Red Billy. Soon. I want to check him out and make sure he’s not some old pervo.”
“He’s not. Why do you keep bugging me about this?”
“I don’t know. It just freaks me out. It’s not like anything weird ever happened to me or anything. It’s just that old guys are so weird. You know like those geezer hipsters that hang out at the hippie café and try to flirt with the waitresses. They are so pathetic. Plus they are really ugly.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but Billy’s not like that. He’s got like a calm in him and he’s old, but he’s not ugly. I’d love for you to meet him. Trav too. Why don’t you guys come visit tomorrow? There’s hardly ever any visitors, so the staff won’t give a care.”
Trav and Liana picked me up after school. Trav had bought himself a classic Morongo Basin beater, a 1999 Malibu that was so rusted out you could see air through the fenders. He figured some greenhorn easterner had driven it west till it gave out and died. Cars don’t rust out here. The tires melt. You can see old wrecks looking like they had melted down into the sand everywhere outside of Twentynine Palms and J Tree.
“I brought a little treat for this guy and us,” Trav said. “Check out the glove compartment.” It was easy to do that because the door was hanging by one hinge. Liana poked around and came up with a plastic bag with three fat brownies in it. I sniffed them.
“I don’t know, Trav,” I said. “There’s this nosy activities Nazi lady who checks up on Billy every five minutes.”
Trav pulled his dad’s Make War, Not Love hat further down over his eyes. “You let me worry about that. It’s all gonna be good.”
“Okay,” I said, though I remembered the way the last three times Trav’s all-gonna-be-good had played out. The best had resulted in me and Liana grounded for a week with no texting privileges. “Billy’s room is 136.”
I pointed Trav and Liana toward Billy’s room and checked in with the aides to see if there was anything urgent on my to do list. There were three newbies coming in and three silk flower deliveries. As I walked toward the first room, I heard giggles coming from behind Red Billy’s closed door.
I cop-knocked. The giggles stopped. “Just a sec,” Billy said. I waited and Liana opened the door.
“These are good people,” Billy said.
“We are,” Liana said. “Okay, you win Jenn, so is he.”
“Told you so,” I said. “I’ve got to go, you guys. I’ll check in later.”
I finished up the newbie room preps and was headed back to Billy’s room when the Activities Nazi called to me. “Jenn, Ms. Lane said you could help me out for a few hours. I’ll need Rooms 201 through 220 and 106 to 118 brought down for bingo. And I’d like you to call the numbers. Mrs. Cray isn’t feeling well and I don’t really trust anybody else to do it.”
I didn’t say what I was thinking, which was, “Most of them could call the numbers. You treat these people like they’re little kids.” I just said, “136 has company, but I’ll check on everybody else and see who wants to come.”
The Activities Nazi smiled her dead frog smile. “Well, I’m afraid most of them will have to come whether they want to or not. It’s these activities that keep their brains working.”
I wondered what kept her heart working. I was learning so much about psychology working at Hopecare, more than I could ever have learned in college or anywhere. I nodded. “I’ll bring everybody I can.”
By the time I’d rounded up the twelve folks who wanted to take a chance on winning a pen or an extra dessert or an old Reader’s Digest and we’d endured an hour of B-6 and O-12, six of the residents were asleep and I wanted nothing more than a smoke. I wheeled and walked everybody back. Mrs. Wilkins was the last one. She’s not really Mrs. anymore since her husband died, which is how she came to the home. She always dresses up for meals and activities. And her hair is in a modern cut. I helped her into the chair by the window. She looked up. Her eyes were wet.
“Mrs. Wilkins?” I said. “What’s wrong? Can I help?”
I’m not really supposed to get too involved with the residents. My supervisor says that most of them have detached from the real world and too much closeness upsets them. It’s probably really risky for me to hang out with Billy, so I always have a cover story.
Mrs. Wilkins took a note out of her dress pocket. “I don’t think you can,” she said, “but I need to tell somebody.” She handed me the note. “Jennifer, please read it.”
“My dear Maddy Wilkins,” the note said. “I so enjoy those times when we eat dinner together and talk. With your permission, I shall endeavor to make those times happen more often. Sincerely—I do not write that lightly—Roger Abbott.”
I handed the note back to her. She held it carefully. “You see, don’t you?” she said.
“I’m not sure.”
“I have to decline his offer. Someone is bound to notice and there will be a great fuss made about Roger Abbott and myself. We will be that cute little old couple.” She began to tear the note up.
“Wait,” I said.
“No, child, it’s best this way. I couldn’t bear to be made into a ridiculous joke about two old people finding affection. I couldn’t bear to be made to wear a crown when we are forced to go to the weekly dances. Can’t you just hear that dreadful activities woman, ‘And lets have a round of applause for the Homecare King and Queen of the Week.’”
She tore the note into tiny pieces and handed them to me. “Keep them safe,” she said. “It will be our little secret.”
“I promise,” I said.
“I’ll rest for a while now,” Mrs. Wilkins said. “Thank you.”
I walked down the hall and knocked on Billy’s door. It took him a couple minutes to open it. Liana and Trav were gone and Billy was grinning even more than good dope can make happen.
“Jenn,” he said. “You and your friends just made my day. That Travis kid had me listen to a bunch of tunes. He said they were old school but they sure sounded modern to me. That band, Rage Against the Machine? I couldn’t understand a word they sang, but they sounded for real. I’m not too sure about My Chemical Romance, but Jenn, it doesn’t really matter. You three give me hope for the future.”
“Awesome,” I said. “I need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Anytime,” he said.
I held out the note scraps. “This has to be a secret, right?”
“Sworn,” Billy said.
I told him what the note said and what Mrs. Wilkins had said. He bowed his head. “This fuckin’ place.” He handed me back the scraps.
“I’m going to keep them safe,” I said.
“Of course you are,” he said. “You get it, right? There is nothing cute about two people falling in love—not if they’re two years old or a hundred and two. We’re like animals in a zoo to these people. For chrissakes, all we are is them forty or fifty years down the road. I sure hope that instant karma stuff is real.”
I knew that very minute what I needed to do next. Billy and I talked till I heard Ms. Lane calling me from the front desk. “I gotta go,” I said.
“That’s okay,” he said. “You and your gang might not be here tonight,” he said, “but I’ve sure got some righteous memories of today to keep me company.”
I walked home that evening. The mad heat of the day had faded into a few sweet warm breezes. I could hear the thump thump of hip hop in some white boy homey’s car. There was a sliver of moon