I began to drift. I could see Al sitting across from me in one of the diner booths, his paper cap tilted over his left eyebrow. Photos of smalltown bigwigs looked down at us, but Harry Dunning was no longer on the wall. I had saved him. Perhaps the second time I’d saved him from Vietnam, as well. There was no way to be sure.
I started to say no, then thought:
I opened my eyes, and for the first time in what felt like weeks, a big smile creased my face.
It was in a safe deposit box.
The door opened. “Are you hungry? I kept it warm.”
“Huh?”
“Jake, you’ve been asleep for over two hours.”
I sat up and swung my legs onto the floor. “Then let’s eat.”
Sadie wanted to do the dishes after the meal she called supper and I called dinner, but I told her to go on and pack her overnight case instead. It was small and blue, with rounded corners.
“Your knee—”
“My knee can stand up to a few dishes. You need to hit the road now if you want a full night’s sleep.”
Ten minutes later the dishes were done, my fingertips were pruney, and Sadie stood at the door. With her little bag in her hands and her hair curling around her face, she had never looked prettier to me.
“Jake? Tell me one good thing about the future.”
Surprisingly few things came. Cell phones? No. Suicide bombers? Probably not. Melting ice caps? Perhaps another time.
Then I grinned. “I’ll give you two for the price of one. The cold war is over and the president is a black man.”
She started to smile, then saw I wasn’t joking. Her mouth dropped open. “Are you telling me there’s a
“Yes indeed. Although in my day, such folks prefer to be called African-Americans.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. I am.”
“Oh my God!”
“A great many people said that exact thing the day after the election.”
“Is he… doing a good job?”
“Opinions vary. If you want mine, he’s doing as well as anyone could expect, given the complexities.”
“On that note, I think I’ll drive back to Jodie.” She laughed distractedly. “In a daze.”
She walked down the ramp, put her case in the cubby that served as her Beetle’s trunk, then blew me a kiss. She started to get in, but I couldn’t let her go like that. I couldn’t run — Dr. Perry said that was still eight months away, maybe even a year — but I limped down the ramp as fast as I could.
“Wait, Sadie, wait a minute!”
Mr. Kenopensky was sitting next door in his wheelchair, bundled up in a jacket and holding his battery-powered Motorola in his lap. On the sidewalk, Norma Whitten was making her slow way down toward the mailbox on the corner, using a pair of wooden sticks more like ski poles than crutches. She turned and waved to us, trying to lift the frozen side of her face into a smile.
Sadie looked at me questioningly in the twilight.
“I just wanted to tell you something,” I said. “I wanted to tell you you’re the best damned thing that ever happened to me.”
She laughed and hugged me. “Ditto, kind sir.”
We kissed a long time, and might have kissed longer but for the dry clapping sound on our right. Mr. Kenopensky was applauding.
Sadie pulled away, but took me by the wrists. “You’ll call me, won’t you? Keep me… what’s that thing you say? In the loop?”
“That’s it, and I will.” I had no intention of keeping her in the loop. Deke or the police, either.
“Because you can’t do this on your own, Jake. You’re too weak.”
“I know that,” I said. Thinking:
When her Bug turned the corner and disappeared, Mr. Kenopensky said, “Better mind your p’s and q’s, Amberson. That one’s a keeper.”
“I know.” I stayed at the foot of the driveway long enough to make sure Miz Whitten got back from the mailbox without falling down.
She made it.
I went back inside.
The first thing I did was to get my key ring off the top of the dresser and pick through the keys, surprised that Sadie had never shown them to me to see if they’d jog my memory… but of course she couldn’t think of everything. There were an even dozen. I had no idea what most of them went to, although I was pretty sure the Schlage opened the front door of my house in… was it Sabattus? I thought that was right, but I wasn’t sure.
There was one small key on the ring. Stamped on it was FC and 775. It was a safe deposit box key, all right, but what was the bank? First Commercial? That sounded bankish, but it wasn’t right.
