“Two older and two younger?” I ask.
He nods.
I wish I could ask him more questions.
He writes something on the board and I sigh heavily and throw my head back in defeat. This part of it is torturous. I would rather have someone pull my teeth with a pair of pliers than I would read. But his brother has freaking cancer. The least I can do is try.
I look down at it and the words blur for me. I try to unscramble them, but it’s too hard. I shove the board back toward him.
He narrows his eyes at me and scrubs the board clean. He writes one word and turns it around.
You, it says. He points to me.
I point to myself. “Me?”
He nods and swipes the board clean. He writes another word and shows it to me.
“Can’t,” I say.
He nods and writes another word. He’s spacing the letters far enough apart that they’re not jumbled together in my head. But it’s still hard.
My lips falter over the last word, but I say, “Read.” Then I realize that I just told him I can’t read. “I can read!” I protest.
He writes another word. “Well.”
He knows I can read. Air escapes me in a big, gratified rush. “I can read,” I repeat. “I can’t read well, but…” I let my words trail off.
He nods quickly, like he’s telling me he understands. He points to me and then at the board, moving two fingers over it like a pair of eyes, and then he gives me a thumbs up.
My heart is beating so fast it’s hard to breathe. I read the damn words, didn’t I? “At least I can talk!” I say. I want to take the words back as soon as they leave my lips. But it’s too late. I slap a hand over my lips when his face falls. He shakes his head, bites his lip and gets up. “I’m sorry,” I say. I am. I really am. He walks away, but he doesn’t take his backpack with him.
While he’s gone, a man approaches the table. He’s a handsome black man with tall, natural hair. Everyone calls him Bone, but I don’t know what his real name is. “Who’s the chump, Kit?” he asks.
“None of your business,” I say, taking a sip of my root beer. I fill my mouth up with a chip, and hope he goes away before Logan comes back. And I hope deep inside that Logan will come back so I can apologize.
Logan slides back into the booth. He looks up at Bone and doesn’t acknowledge him. He just looks at him.
“You got a place to sleep tonight, Kit?” Bone asks.
“Yeah,” I reply. “I’m fine.”
“I could use a girl like you,” Bone says.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” It doesn’t pay to piss Bone off. He walks away.
“You all right?” I ask Logan.
He nods, brushing his curls from his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. And I mean it. I really do.
He nods again.
“It’s not your fault you can’t talk. And...” My voice falls off. I’ve never talked to anyone about this. “It’s not my fault I can’t read well.”
He nods.
“I’m not stupid,” I rush to say.
He nods again, and waves his hands to shut me up. He places a finger to his lips like he wants me to shush.
“Ok,” I grumble.
He writes on the board and I groan, visibly folding. I hate to do it, but I can’t take it. “I should go,” I say. I reach for my bag.
He takes the board and puts it in his backpack. He gets it, I think. I’d rather play twenty questions than I would try to read words.
He opens his mouth and I hear a noise. He stops, grits his teeth, and then a sound like a murmur in a cavern comes out of his mouth.
“You can talk?” I ask. He put me through reading when he can talk?
He shakes his head and bites his lips together. I shush and wait. “Maybe,” he says. It comes out quiet, and soft, and his consonants are as soft as his vowels. “Just don’t tell anyone.”
I draw a cross over my heart, which is swelling with something I don’t understand.
“What’s your name?” he asks. He signs while he says it. It’s halting and he has to stop between words, like when I’m reading.
“People call me Kit,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “But what’s your name?” he asks again.
I shake my head. “No.”
He nods again. The waitress brings the burgers and he nods and smiles at her. She squeezes his shoulder again.
When she’s gone, I ask him, “Why are you talking to me?”
“I want to.” He heaves a sigh, and starts to eat his burger.
“You don’t talk to anyone else?”
He shakes his head.
“Ever?”
He shakes his head again.
“Why me?”
He shrugs.
We eat in silence. I was hungrier than I thought, and I clear my plate. He doesn’t say anything else. But he eats his food and pushes his plate to the edge of the table. He puts mine on the top of it, and looks for the waitress over his shoulder. I’m almost sorry the meal is over. We shared a companionable silence for more than a half hour. I kind of like it.
He gets the waitress’s attention and holds up two fingers. He’s asking for two checks. I should have known. I pull my money from my pocket. He closes his hand on mine and shakes his head. The waitress appears with two huge pieces of apple pie. I haven’t had apple pie since I left home. Tears prick at the backs of my lashes and I don’t know how to stop them. “Damn it,” I say to myself.
He reaches over and wipes beneath my eyes with the pads of his thumbs. “It’s just pie,” he says.
I nod, because I can’t talk past the lump in my throat.
Logan
Black shit runs down from her eyes and I wipe it away with my thumbs, and then drag my thumbs across my jeans. She’s crying. But I don’t know why. I want to ask her, but I’ve already said too much.
I haven’t talked since I was thirteen. That was eight years ago. I tried for a while, but even with my hearing aids, it was hard to hear myself. After the kid on the playground teased me about my speech, I shut my mouth and never spoke again. I learned to read lips really fast. Of course, I miss some things. But I can keep up. Most of the time.
I’m not keeping up right now. “Why the tears?” I ask, as she takes a bite of her pie. She sniffs her tears back, and she smiles at me and shrugs. This time, it’s her who won’t talk.
Hell, if pie will make her cry, I wonder what something truly romantic would do to her. This is a girl that deserves flowers and candy. And all the good shit I can’t afford. But she likes to talk to me. I can tell that much, so she’s not with me simply because I wouldn’t give her bag back.
She asks me a question but her mouth is full of pie, so I wait a minute for her to swallow. She gulps, smiles shyly at me and says, “Were you born deaf?” She points to my ear.
I point to my ear and then my cheek, showing her the sign for deaf. I shake my head.
“How old were you when it happened?” Her brows scrunch together, and she’s so damn cute I want to kiss her.
I make a three and flick it at her.
“Three?” she asks.
I shake my head and do it again. She still doesn’t get it. So, I put one finger in front of the three and she says, “Thirteen?”
I nod.
“What happened when you were thirteen?”
“High fever one night,” I say, wiping my brow like I’m sweating, hoping she’ll understand.
She opens her mouth to ask me another question, but I hold up a finger. I motion back and forth between the two of us, telling her it’s my turn.
I can’t figure out how to mime this one so that she’ll understand, so I say very carefully, “Where are you from?”
She shakes her head and says, “No.”
I put my hands together as though in prayer.
She laughs and says, “No,” again. I don’t doubt she’s serious. She’s not telling me. I have a feeling I could drop to my knees and beg her and she still wouldn’t tell me.
“So, Kit from nowhere,” I say. “Thanks for having dinner with me.”
“How do I say thank you?” she asks. “Show me.”
She looks at me, her eyes bright with excitement. I show her the sign and she repeats it. “Thank you,” she says. And my heart expands. Then she looks at her bag beside me and says, “I should go.”
I nod and stand up, and then I put my backpack on, and throw her bag over my shoulder.
“I’ll take that,” she says as she picks up her guitar case.
But I throw some bills on the table and wave at Annie, the waitress. She throws me a kiss. Kit is following me, but Annie doesn’t throw her a kiss. I laugh at the thought of it. Annie loves me. And she’s known my family since before our mom died and our dad left.
I stop when we get out to the street and light a cigarette. Kit scrunches up her nose, but I do it anyway. I take one drag from it, show it to her, pinch the fire off the end, letting the embers fall to the ground, and throw it in a nearby trash can. What a waste. But I can tell she doesn’t like it. My brothers don’t like it either. At least now they’re in good company.
She holds her hand out for her bag, and I position her under a street light so I can see her mouth.
“Where do you live?” I ask. “I’ll walk you home.”
She looks confused for a minute. She glances up and down the street. Cars are rushing by and she’s looking at me like she’s suddenly lost.
“I live around the block,” she says. “Give me my bag.” This time, she stomps that black boot of hers and gives me a rotten look. She shakes her hand at me like that’ll matter.
I lean close to her, because I’m kind of scared someone I know will see me talking to her. My brothers would be hurt if they thought I could talk and just chose not to. I let them think it’s a skill I unlearned, instead. “You can’t walk home alone. It’s not safe.”
She glares at me. “I’m not taking you home with me, you perv,” she says, and she tries to take the bag from me. But I don’t let her. She’s tiny. And I’m not. I win. She balls up her fist, and I know I’m in trouble.
I lean close to her. “I don’t want to sleep with you,” I say. “I just want to make sure you get home safe.” I hold up my hands like I’m surrendering. I draw a cross in the center of my chest like she did before and say, “Promise.”
It’s pretty late. It was already dark when we left the subway tunnel. Now it’s really late. Later than she should be on the streets by herself. Particularly in this neighborhood. This is my neighborhood. I’m perfectly safe here. But she’s not from here. This I can tell without ever hearing her voice. She’s not my kind of people.
I put my fingers down, and pretend they’re someone walking. “Let’s go,” I say.
She stands there, and crosses her arms in front of her. “No.”
There’s one thing I’m already sure of and it’s that this chick means no when she says no.
Suddenly, the guy from the diner, the one she called Bone, walks up beside us. “Need some help, Kit?” he asks.