The New York by Bill Branger Page A

confused, and jest a little bit thinking about Deke Williams telling me that the government got me by the balls now with that confidential thing I signed for George and how he wasn’t going to call me on the telephone anymore for fear it might be tapped.
    I drove out to Rice University Hospital, which is a big complex where they do routine miracles of healing and research. I admire it greatly and more so since Charlene showed me around one day to the good things being done there Charlene was due to be working. I parked in the visitors’ lot and walked three or four miles through the complex to the building where Charlene hung out.
    I saw her when I stepped off the elevator.
    It’s a special, even warm kind of thing to spy on someone you are crazy for when they don’t know you’re there. She was writing something down and biting her lip the way she does sometimes and I just wanted to give her a kiss long enough to last till morning.
    â€œCharlene,” I said instead.
    She looked up at me and said nothing for a moment. Then she put down her pen and got up. She was wearing brown slacks and a brown sort of blouse with pleats and her black hair was tied back with a red piece of rope or yarn. She has incredible skin, which I won’t go into describing because I can’t. I can say her eyes are gray and they go from the edge of blue to the edge of an Arctic kind of ocean, depending on what she’s thinking about. Her eyes were about medium at this moment.
    She stepped from behind her desk and came around to me, but she didn’t give me a hug, which I expected her to do. “Come on, Ryan,” she said.
    She led me to a cafeteria at the end of the hall where we got coffee and carried it to an empty table. We sat down at almost the same time. I told her she looked beautiful. It had been five weeks since I last saw her.
    â€œWhen did you get in?”
    I told her, and told her about going to see Jack Wade, but I didn’t tell her about Jack Wade and the tax man. And I didn’t tell her about Deke Williams and his conspiracy theory of government.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?”
    â€œI guess get a job for the winter,” I said.
    â€œBut not with Jack.”
    â€œHe rethought the whole thing and figured he couldn’t use me right now,” I said, making it light and easy. Telling the truth is just frying eggs in bacon grease. Lying is making an omelette. “No hard feelings. I figure maybe I can get back on with Bruce Construction, if they’re doing anything.”
    â€œBack to the hammer and saw.”
    â€œHonest work,” I said.
    â€œIt’s that,” she said. There was trouble in her gray eyes still. She wasn’t exactly here at the table with me, she was somewhere out of the hospital, I figured.
    â€œCharlene, I been honest with you,” I lied. “I really miss you and I’m glad to be back in Houston but I got to know if you got someone else on the line now and if I’m a thing of your past.”
    â€œWhy would you say that?”
    â€œBecause I been trying to reach you and you’re always out.”
    â€œYou think I should hang around a telephone on the chance you might take time out from your busy social life and call?”
    â€œWhat has gotten into you, Charlene? Five weeks ago, we was lovey and dovey. A week ago when I called telling you I was staying in New York a couple of days, we were still cooing and doing each other. Now, the last couple of nights, I been on the road coming home, it’s all changed.”
    â€œMaybe it all changed a while ago,” Charlene said. “Maybe you were just stringing me along. And then you tell me you’re rehired by the team just when everyone else is getting fired.”
    â€œWhat’s got into your head?”
    â€œMiss Roxanne Devon,” she said. Just like that. As if it meant anything to me.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œCome off it,” Charlene