Heft by Liz Moore Page A

took her phone out with two fingers, holding it up in its flipped-open state and looking at me.
    “Is everything all right?” I asked, and she nodded.
    “O Yolanda,” I said, to change the subject. “O Yolanda, I have never said this before, but please feel free to make yourself at home while you’re here. For example, would you like a glass of water?”
    She considered my offer silently.
    I looked at my watch. “I see it’s twelve fifty-six now,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
    She nodded. And then she said, “Do you have any milk actually?”
    “To drink?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I certainly do,” I said, & then I tried to get up off the couch as gracefully as I could but I failed & had to rock several times.
    “I can get it,” said Yolanda, & I said “Nonsense nonsense. As a matter of fact I was going to make lunch & would you like some.” (At this point I had launched myself successfully and was standing on my own two feet.)
    “What do you have?”
    I paused. I wasn’t quite sure what to offer a girl like Yolanda. She herself was delicate and therefore deserved delicacies. But ideas for delicacies escaped me.
    “Do you like sandwiches?” I asked, and she nodded.
    “What kind? I should have . . .”
    & then I realized that I had everything, almost everything anyone could dream of in my house.
    “You got PB&J?” asked the girl.
    “I do.” (That peanut butter is a peculiar favorite of mine, that I mix it with vanilla ice cream—I did not mention.)
    “Can I have one?” she asked.
    “Certainly,” I said. “Sit right here & watch whatever you like.”
    I handed her the remote and walked into the kitchen & there I found whole milk & crusty white French bread & raspberry preserves & Skippy peanut butter. I poured her a tall glass of milk and spread the peanut butter & jelly thickly onto the bread and then I took a soup spoon out of the drawer and helped myself to a mouthful of Skippy from the jar. & then I went into the freezer and helped myself to a mouthful of ice cream. & then cold hot fudge from the refrigerator. & then my stomach started rumbling badly so I opened my pantry and got out a bag of potato chips and ate as many as I could very quickly just to quiet my gut.
    From the other room I heard her murmuring & laughing & assumed she had returned Junior Baby Love’s phone call.
    When I was finished, I waited until I was certain she had finished her conversation. Then I walked back through the swinging kitchen door & through the dining room & into the living room where Yolanda was waiting expectantly & watching a soap that I don’t watch.
    “Thank you!” she said brightly. Her feet once again were sticking out ahead of her and she was bobbing them up and down.
    I placed the sandwich and the milk on the table before her & she ate the sandwich very meticulously and left the hard crust on the plate. Her little tooth marks had crenellated the remains.
    In silence we watched the soap opera. At one point Yolanda said “You know what’s going on?”
    “No I don’t,” I confessed.
    “She’s sleeping with his son,” said Yolanda, pointing at a tight shot of a middle-aged female character and an older man. “But he don’t know.”
    “Oooh,” I said, but I still couldn’t follow.
    After a moment I asked, “What are you finding upstairs?”
    She shrugged, her eyes glued to the television. “Not too bad,” she said. “Lotta dust.”
    Yolanda saw the picture of Kel Keller today and asked who he was and for just a moment I was tempted to say he was my son but then I realized the preposterousness of that, how she would know in an instant that nobody who looked like him could have come from anyone who looked like me.
    “My nephew,” I said.
    “Cute. How old?” she said, and I have to admit that I was proud, absurd as that is.
    “Seventeen,” I said, but really I was guessing because his mother did not tell me his age.
    “Too young for me,” said Yolanda. “I got two years on him.”
    I