Dance Real Slow by Michael Grant Jaffe

sanded down every six months or so.”
    I open a folder in front of me, leafing through the tune-up records. “I don’t see anything here that shows you get the drums sanded.”
    â€œWouldn’t be there. Joyce’s brother usually does it, in Nebraska. We visit ’em a couple times a year and he always messes with her car. He’s got his own tire-and-wheel place in Lincoln. Does it in an afternoon.”
    â€œWhen was the last time he looked at the car?”
    â€œOh, I guess it must have been May.” Rob stops, scratching at his eyebrows with his forefinger. “No. We took my car up in May. Don’t usually take the Camaro ’cause I don’t want to put the miles on it. But this time we did, on account of I needed a new set of tires. Mark, that’s Joyce’s brother, he sells ’em to me at cost. So it must have been last December, for the holidays.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t happen to know his phone number up there?”
    Rob shakes his head.
    â€œGot it at home, though.”
    â€œCould you call me with it, when you get a chance?”
    â€œSure.” Rob shrugs. “But what do you wanna talk to him for?”
    â€œI just want to check the brakes through him—that nothing could have gone wrong.”
    Rob covers his mouth with his right hand, brushing down several times, stopping before the end of his chin. He lets out a hard breath through his nose, causing his nostrils to flare. “Wasn’t anything with the brakes, Mr. Nash. She just damn drove through the wall. Comin’ for me.”
    â€œWhy was that?”
    â€œI know you know why,” he answers, looking straight, not blinking.
    â€œBecause you were seeing one of the waitresses.” I glance down at my legal pad for the name. “Carol?”
    He does not respond for several minutes, standing rigid, hands quiet at his sides. “It’s a queer thing. It wasn’t like I was ever intending on seeing someone on the sly, you know? Me and Joyce was happy—geez! We still are, sort of. I love Joyce as much now as when we first got married. It ain’t about that. It ain’t about not loving her.”
    Rob takes several steps toward me and stops. I want to tell him that he does not have to go on, he can keep this to himself. But I don’t.
    â€œI used to think that Joyce was all there was for me, that we belonged together. I still kinda do. But … well.” He looks to the sky, spreading out his fingers and running them back through his straggly brown hair. “I feel the same way with Carol. Like maybe there’s not one or even two women out there that I’d be happy spending the rest of my life with. That maybe I could be just as content with someone else.”
    A soft ticking noise rises from the distance, like thesettling of an engine or a baseball card stuck in the spokes of a bicycle. But after several minutes it stops.
    â€œYou lose some of your desire for things, for people. There was a period of my life when I wanted only Joyce. But now I’m not so sure. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s not about one perfect match. A person could have five, maybe five hundred, perfect matches. I just happened to run across two in my lifetime. Two at the same time.”
    Our living room smells horrible. Calvin is lying spread-eagled on his back staring up at the ceiling, the man-o-war floating beside his head. I lean close and sniff first Calvin and then the jar.
    â€œThe man-o-war reeks,” I say, tapping Calvin’s chest.
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYour man-o-war is rotting. We’ve gotta get rid of it.”
    Calvin rolls onto his side and pulls the jar near to him, squeezing it between his stomach and thighs.
    â€œCal, can’t you smell that?”
    Mrs. Grafton walks in from the back porch, placing Calvin’s gunnysack on a straight-back chair beside the doorway.
    â€œI know, isn’t it just