WHICH MEANS THAT WE ARE forty miles south of Erie, Pennsylvania, one hundred miles east of Cleveland, Ohio, and only about sixty feet from the bar where we are going to find Claire a new boyfriend. A minute ago Pete was driving us there, but now he and Evan are pushing a station wagon into the gas station. The owner of the car is the woman who runs the American Red Cross Society in Meadville. She knew she was low on gas, but tried to make it to the Boron station, the only place open on a Sunday here in this town of 20,000.
Claire sits quietly in the front seat watching them struggle up the incline that rises just before the gas pumps.
“Wouldn’t it be easier if they just brought a gallon of gasoline to the car?” I ask. The heat vents blow out stale air and I sit back to avoid the draft.
“The guy who runs the station won’t keep gas cans,” Claire says. “He’s afraid people would steal them.” Claire knows most everything about everybody in Meadville.
“That’s a pretty big car,” I say, though I’m really thinking that it’s a stupid thing to run out of gas.
Claire turns around to face me. “Did Pete tell you he was going to break up with me?”
I shake my head.
“Did he say anything to Evan?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Would Evan tell you that kind of thing?” Claire is wearing makeup, the works—light brown eye shadow and rose lip liner. I want to tell her that she looks pretty, because she does. But she would think I was just having a pity party for her and would tell me it’s not right to feel sorry for her.
“I don’t know,” I say. Evan and I have only been dating for two months, and there’s a lot I don’t know about him.
“I mean, does he usually tell you things that Pete tells him?” Claire has a slight overbite—as if she has too many teeth in her mouth—which makes her whistle certain words. Sometimes I find myself imitating her.
But just at that minute, I can’t think of what Evan and I talk about. Mostly we do things to keep ourselves busy. We go for long drives into the Pennsylvania countryside and buy things at the Amish markets we don’t need and will never use. We drive fifty minutes to play pool at a roadside bar and eat microwaved chicken wings and cheddar cheese french fries cooked in vinegar. We spend time in Erie, in Cleveland, in Pittsbutgh, so we can remember that we are not from this small town, but are only working here. We try to convince ourselves that the teaching jobs we have at this small Methodist college are only temporary. We tell ourselves that we will not be doing this forever and we try to ignore the fact that we are beginning to act small-town.
But it’s true. We are starting to act like the people in Mead-ville. Why else would I get so excited when I see yard sale signs? Why else would Evan go on a weeklong fishing trip with some locals when he’s never fed a line before? And why else would Pete agree that it was his duty to find Claire a new boyfriend if he was going to break up with her? Why would someone not influenced by this small-town life promise he’d spend a whole day looking for his replacement? Pete says it’s like some sort of drug got into his system, clouding his better judgment and making him do all kinds of things he wouldn’t normally do.
Claire is from Meadville. I watch her as she looks out at the streets. Gray and dull, it has been raining since the start of the weekend. I try to imagine what Claire sees as she stares at this place that she has always called her home. Her family was old oil money—some of the original settlers who first discovered the stuff. They still live in the mansion on the hill overlooking the now-closed railroad station. At one time it must have reflected the opulence of this boomtown, but any glory has long ago faded. There is not even a memory of it.
“I wish he had told me sooner,” Claire complains. “It’s almost summer. I don’t want to spend the summer without a boyfriend.”
I agree with her, though I do not quite understand the significance of seasonal dating. Pete told me he’s not really sure why he’s breaking up with Claire. It has to do with everything, but mostly it has to do with the fact that he no longer enjoys spending time with her. And judging by the way she’s acting right now—bossy and bitchy—I can see why he’s not happy with their relationship.
“We better find someone today,” Claire says. “I mean it.”
And she does mean it. That’s why we’ve agreed to spend the afternoon searching. She wants us all to give 100 percent in this search. Meadville’s not that big a town, but there is a high concentration of bars. Or, as Claire calls them, places where potential prospects are at large.
Evan and Pete return, and the car instantly smells of their wet clothes and their perspiration. Evan gets in the backseat and apologizes as he brushes up next to me. I tell him I don’t mind. There’s something relaxing about our relationship. We don’t have much to fight about—there’s nothing to get stressed out about in Meadville. We have told each other that we love each other, but I think it’s a given that we would not be going out together if the choice of mates were multiplied.
Pete starts the car. “Now we’re ready,” he says. “Where to?” He asks as if we have not spent two hours at the diner deciding on the order of bars we’d be frequenting. Claire has them listed on a napkin.
“I told you,” Claire snaps. “We’re going to Otter’s first.”
“That’s right. On to Otter’s.” Pete toots the horn. A man on the street corner stares.
I see that Pete is struggling to start the day on a festive note, so I slide forward into the stale drafts of air and join the conversation.
“Which one is Otter’s?” I ask Claire. The bar is only a block away, but I want to get the conversation rolling.
“It’s got a pool table. The jukebox is in the back,” Claire explains.
“It’s on North Street,” Evan says. He is watching the rain with what seems to be determined concentration and I don’t bother to tell him that there are over fifteen bars on North Street and they all have pool tables and jukeboxes in the back.
“We were there in February,” Pete looks in the rearview mirror to talk to me. “The night when the undergrads came in and one of them threw up on the dance floor.”
The bar comes to mind instantly—orange lounge chairs that look like they belong in a Florida motel lobby, not a woodpaneled bar in northern Pennsylvania. The student was one of my freshman composition students. I thought it might be awkward the next time I saw her in class, but she came in on Monday bright-eyed and cheerful. I don’t think she remembered, or maybe she never even knew, that I was the one who drove her home and put her to bed that night.
Pete pulls into the parking lot and we get out of the car. The rain is lighter, but still falling. The potholes are filling with water. I walk around a puddle. Pete doesn’t see it and steps right in it. He curses. His pant legs are already soaked from pushing the car into the gas station. It doesn’t make much of a difference. I don’t feel like drinking so early, but bar coffee is unheard of in Meadville.
We follow Claire into the bar, but before she gets all the way in she turns around and walks back out. The four of us collide in the doorway.
“Where’re you going?” Pete stops her. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s no one here,” Claire announces. “I’m not wasting my time in a bar without men.”
The bartender is on the customer side of the bar eating a bag of potato chips. She seems unconcerned as to whether or not we stay.
Claire reads her napkin when we get back into the car. “The Sports Page.” She announces the next bar. “I don’t know that one,” Pete says.
“Yes you do,” she tells him. Her makeup is still fresh, but her face is hardening with frustration. Perhaps she is already getting anxious about the time we are losing, the time we are wasting.
“Remind me again,” Pete says.
“Downtown. Right next to the tanning place.”
Pete still hesitates, but heads south, which is in the general direction of the library and the town hall. I know why he is confused. For a town the size of Meadville there are too many tanning places. There are just as many tanning places as there are restaurants that serve dinner after six o’clock in the evening. Evan thinks they are a cover for something, I don’t know what. Claire insists that the college kids use them, but there are only 1,200 students at our college and I can’t believe all of them tan. There just isn’t that kind of social pressure to look good up here.
From the outside, the Sports Page looks identical to Otter’s. The parking lot is full of potholes filling with water and the same OPEN sign hangs in the window to the right of the door. Only this time, Claire informs us that this place looks like it’s going to be good.
“This is what I need,” she says pointing to the half-dozen cars in the parking lot. “There’s some action here.”
Most of the people huddled around the bar are men. This is a good thing, it means we can stay. The guys are watching the TV, which is tuned to a beer commercial inside a bar. It looks an awful lot like the one we’re in, which makes perfect sense to me.
“Don’t act like you’re with me,” Claire tells us. “I don’t want these guys to think I’m part of a couple.”
We start to walk to one of the back tables, but stop as Claire continues talking.
“Because I’m not,” she says. “Am I?”
“You’re not what?” I ask. I don’t always understand what she’s talking about and have gotten used to asking her to repeat or explain herself.
“Not part of a couple anymore,” Claire says. “Am I, Pete?”
Someone has glued pennies to the wall. When I first saw it, I thought it was just that—pennies stuck on the wall—but Pete told me it’s supposed to be a baseball diamond. The spray-painted pennies—the rows of yellow, red, and blue—are the fans sitting in the stands. I still can’t see it, but I’m probably looking at it from the wrong angle.
“Am I part of a couple anymore, Pete?” She’s staring at him.
“No,” Pete tells her, and then he tells Evan and me that he’ll be right back.
“I was just checking,” Claire announces. “Just checking to see if you had changed your mind. You know, you might have slept on your decision and reconsidered. It’s no fun being alone in the summer in Meadville.”
“I haven’t changed my mind, Claire,” Pete tells her and then leaves the bar.
“Where’s he going?” I ask Evan, who only shrugs and looks away. Evan has been unusually quiet the past couple of days. I don’t know him well enough to know if these are his regular mood swings or if he’s suffering from spring cabin fever. He’s not pouting, but you can tell he’s not fired up about the day’s entertainment. Maybe he thinks the whole thing is stupid or just too small-town. Maybe he is bored. I hope he will tell me if something is wrong, that he will talk to me when he has something to say.
Claire bellies up to the bar next to a man who offers to buy her a drink. Claire raises the glass to thank him, then sips the drink in short swallows.
“Do you want something?” I ask Evan. I reach in my back pocket for my money. I used to carry a purse before I started living in Meadville, but now there is no need for anything except cash. No bar takes credit cards or checks, and makeup, even lipstick, seems unnecessary.
When Pete comes back in, he walks the long way around the pool table so as not to bother Claire. The bartender brings us a round of Rolling Rock longnecks. It’s brewed in central Pennsylvania, and every bar in the state keeps a full stock of it.
“What’s the score?” Pete asks after we have paid for the beer. I think he is talking about the basketball game. I tell him I haven’t been watching and he says he’s talking about Claire. “Has she found someone new? Can we go home now?” He smiles and I can tell he’s being sarcastic.
“That guy bought her a drink,” I say. I don’t want Pete’s replacement to be that easy to find. I do not want to go home right away. I rent an apartment half a mile from the college. It’s the whole second floor of a large Victorian home. I pay three hundred dollars, including utilities. It would be a steal anywhere else. I don’t even tell my out-of-state friends how much I pay because they wouldn’t believe it, but I can’t explain to them how depressing it gets. Especially on Sundays when my downstairs neighbor has her in-laws over for an early afternoon meal. The husband /son is always late and the wife and his parents fight about whose fault it is that he isn’t there. “If you hadn’t done this—if you hadn’t done that—if you—if you—if you—if you.” It goes on until the son /husband comes tearing down the street on his motorcycle. Within minutes, everyone’s laughing and eating and having a good time and I’m upstairs in my apartment surrounded by the echoes of their fight.
Pete gets up and puts some quarters in the jukebox. Evan continues to stare out into space and I’m suddenly irritated at his silence.
“You okay?” I ask him.
He nods, suddenly intent on wiping the condensation off his bottle. He wipes the dampness on the cocktail napkin and drinks without saying anything.
“You seem quiet,” I say. It’s true, and hardly worth saying. But I start to wonder if he is mad at me for something. We went out on Friday night. Everything seemed fine. We went to the Chestnut Street Bar for dinner, drove to the other side of town to see what movie was showing. It was Indiana ]ones and the Temple of Doom, which was playing a week ago, so we went to Pete’s instead and had a few beers with him and Claire. Afterward we went to my apartment and watched the Lakers on cable. Evan doesn’t sleep in past eight o’clock, even on weekends, so the next morning he got up and made coffee and left before I woke up. We didn’t have sex that night. Neither one of us made a move. But we don’t always have sex every time we go out. The relationship is a bit low-key, but I think it’s because there’s nothing to do in Meadville. We sometimes get bored with each other, but all couples go through that, even in cities where there are plenty of restaurants, and movies that change more than once a month. In places where there are interesting sights, interesting people.
“Okay, folks,” Claire is at our table clapping her hands like a football coach. She has already buttoned her coat. “Let’s go.”
“What’s wrong with that guy?” Pete asks.
“Which guy?” Claire shakes her hair loose from her coat collar.
“The one who bought you the drink.”
“Ugly.”
“You think he’s ugly? I don’t think he’s ugly at all,” Pete tries to stall. It’s still raining. I can hear the drops falling on the roof. I don’t feel like leaving either, but it’s obvious that Pete’s not going to win this fight.
“Real ugly,” Claire says.
“You’re not getting picky on us, are you?” Pete asks.
“I’m not getting anything except out of this bar,” Claire says. Evan stands and she locks her arm in his. “You know what I really want?” She is talking to Evan, not to Pete or me. Evan tells her he can’t imagine.
“I really want to find someone as cute as you,” she says.
I am surprised by this comment. I have never heard her pay anyone a compliment, not even Pete when they first started going out. Evan has his back to me so I can’t see how he’s taking the compliment.
We only drink one beer at the third bar. The guys there are people Claire know from Meadville High School and she tells us that they’re all married. Pete points out that there might be one or two who are divorced by now. It’s been ten years since her graduation. Claire shakes her head. “People get married in this town and they stay married. There’s no reason to get divorced. Everyone’s got the same problems. Not enough money, too much drinking, and too many kids. Those kinds of things don’t change when you get a divorce.”
“What about death? Do you think maybe you could find a widower?” Pete asks her. “Doesn’t anybody die in this town?”
“Not before they’re supposed to.” Claire is not in the mood for his humor, but I laugh at the joke. Claire hisses at me.
In the fourth bar Pete and I start up a game of pool. Evan and Claire are sitting next to each other, and before I even get a turn, Claire is ready to go. She puts her fingers in her mouth and blows a sharp whistle in our direction.
“Let’s go,” she orders and holds the door open. The bartender yells at her, asking her if she grew up in a barn or what. Claire ignores him and glares at Pete and me.
“This is the longest scavenger hunt in the world,” Pete says. He puts his pool cue back on the rack.
I try a shot, but just then Claire whistles again and I don’t even make contact with the cue ball. My bladder is full of beer, but there is no time for a bathroom stop.
Evan and Claire are already in the backseat by the time Pete and I get to the car. They are not talking, but I somehow feel that we have taken sides, that Evan is siding with Claire against Pete and me, even though I do not understand what we’re fighting about.
Claire calls out the next bar and then goes back to whispering with Evan.
“Who said anything about going to Hunter’s?” Pete says. “We never agreed on Hunter’s.”
“It’s on the list,” Claire says. “Right here on the list.” She tosses the napkin into the front seat. It lands between Pete and me, but neither of us touches it.
“Couldn’t we go somewhere closer to town?” Pete asks.
“The guys in there just told me that it’s turkey day out there,” Claire says. “That always attracts a crowd. Guys go for that kind of thing.”
“I don’t want to get into that mess,” Pete says. “Isn’t there another place we could try?” It’s obvious that Pete has lost his energy for Claire’s boyfriend search. I understand why. Hunter’s is seventeen miles east of Meadville in a place called Frenchtown. The “town” part of the name is an exaggeration. There isn’t any town out there, just a few deserted houses. The bar is popular enough. Set right between Meadville and Titusville, it’s got a reputation for the best barbecue wings in northwestern Pennsylvania.
Turkey competitions are common in this part of the country. At least that’s what people tell me. It’s a spring competition for the best turkey. Before I went to one, I thought the turkeys would be alive. I imagined the bar crowded with farmers modeling their turkeys the way dog owners show their dogs. I didn’t think there’d be tricks or anything. I mean I didn’t think the turkeys would lie down or beg or shake anybody’s hand, but it did surprise me when I went to one and saw that the turkeys are all dead. And they’re huge. Most of them weigh more than dogs—up to and over one hundred pounds. The turkeys are judged mainly for size—biggest is best—but the judges also score and remark on the color and overall feel of the turkey, how much white and dark meat it will yield.
Pete drives northeast, totally the opposite way from Hunter’s, and Claire keeps quiet. I turn to look at her a few times to see if she is fuming. Both she and Evan are staring out the window. They’re looking out the same window—out across the marsh where two hawks are diving into the tall grasses. Pete stops the car, then makes a 180-degree turn right in the middle of the road. Claire sighs to let him know that she’s acknowledging his giving in.
The parking lot of Hunter’s is not just full—it’s packed. Cars and pickup trucks are double-parked along the side of the one-story red building. The cars are up on the grass and all along the shoulder of the highway. Pete circles twice, but no one’s leaving. He goes back the same way we drove in and pulls up behind the long line of cars on the side of the road. Hunter’s is a long way ahead.
“You having fun?” I ask Evan after we are both out of the car. I try walking next to him, but it’s difficult with the potholes, the weeds, and the cars driving by at sixty miles an hour.
“What do you think?” Evan asks. His attitude disappoints me because it’s not such a bad afternoon. Looking for Claire’s boyfriend has given the afternoon shape. It’s not just listless movement from one place to the other, like how we usually spend the weekends when there’s nothing to distract us from the long afternoons and the even longer nights.
“It’s not that bad, is it?” I say. He is walking fast and I have to half skip, half run to keep up with him.
“It’s not a whole lot of fun,” he says, and this time I can’t ignore the tone of his voice. He’s not happy, and his foul mood is directed at me. As if the day is my fault.
“What is it?” I ask. “What’s so wrong with everything?”
His eyebrows are pulled together and he looks exhausted, as if the three or four beers we’ve drunk have sapped all his energy. He really seems to be struggling to make it through this day.
Behind us I hear Claire and Pete—their footfalls on the gravel. “Hey, slow down, you two,” Pete calls out. “There’s no race to get there. Hunter’s isn’t going anyplace soon.”
Claire catches up to us and starts walking alongside Evan and me, forcing me onto the blacktop. I drop back and let her go on ahead with Evan. Pete seems happier than he was in the car and we start talking about summer vacation. Pete has been teaching in Meadville longer than I have. He’s the one who told me you have to plan your vacations way in advance so that you have something to look forward to. He told me that it makes the days more tolerable if you know exactly when you’ll be leaving.
The sound of a gun being fired comes out of nowhere. I stop in surprise and spin around to see where it’s coming from. It sounds farther away than it really is because of all the open space, but the man who shot the gun is standing in the field right across from the bar. Evan yells for us to watch out. He grabs Claire by the shoulders and pulls her to the ground with him. The two of them roll between the cars and take cover under the back bumper of a rusted-out LeMans.
“It’s okay, guys,” Pete says. “He’s not aiming at us.”
I can see the man perfectly. He looks like a hunter. He’s wearing a plaid overcoat and a red cap. He’s got the rifle balanced on his shoulder and fires a second shot at the turkey standing a couple of yards in front of him.
Evan and Claire stay huddled under the bumper. They must think they’re still in some kind of danger. “It’s just some guy killing his turkey,” I tell them. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“Look,” Pete points to the field near the group of abandoned trailers. “He’s right over there.”
Pete and I both laugh when the two of them stand up. Evan has rolled them through the mud and their clothes are streaked with the damp dirt. Claire has it worse than Evan. Her coat must have been open and her sweater is muddy.
“You really think someone was out to get you?” Pete asks Evan. “You must really be a city boy.”
“Hey, the guy had a gun,” Evan says. He tries to brush the dirt off the front of his jacket, but his hands are covered in mud and he only streaks it worse.
They look so odd standing there all dirty and I can’t stop laughing. Pete reaches in his pocket and hands Claire the crumpled bar napkin he must have picked up off the front seat. Instead of wiping the dirt from her face, she blows her nose. Evan tells me that he doesn’t see what’s so funny.
“You would if you could see the two of you,” I say.
Claire must have rolled through a puddle, because the ends of her hair are wet. She brushes them with her fingers so they won’t tangle.
Evan spits out the dirt in his mouth. “I’m going to go wash up,” he says. “You want to go on ahead with me?”
Claire says yes and the two of them walk toward Hunter’s. Pete and I watch them leave.
“I guess I shouldn’t have laughed at him,” I say. I’m sorry that I’ve made Evan mad.
“It’s no big deal,” Pete says. He is still trying to keep the afternoon light, full of fun. “He’ll get over it.”
“You think so?” The clouds shift a bit and rain falls for a second as if the clouds are shaking the drops loose. It is not that cold out, but I’m chilled and would like to go inside where it will be dry. We go on walking.
A small group is watching the guy kill his turkey. We can hear them taunting him when we approach.
“You’re supposed to kill the turkey at home, guy.” I recognize the men in the group. I don’t know any of them by name, but I have seen them around town—at the grocery store, in the bars. We must look familiar to them too, because one of them waves. We stop and stare. The man clears the rifle and then goes over to his turkey.
The men head for Hunter’s. We follow a few feet behind.
“I don’t know why he does that,” we overhear them saying. “Every year he waits to kill his bird until he gets here.”
“That’s ’cause he falls in love with it.”
“It’s got to be something like that.” Their voices echo over the open fields. The guy with the turkey is right behind us. He can hear what they’re saying about him.
“Is that what it is?” one of them shouts. “Are you in love with your bird?”
“Just forgot to kill her,” the guys says in his own defense. “I just forgot to do it until right now.”
This cracks everyone up, including Pete and me.
Hunter’s is full. Most everyone is standing around the dance floor with their turkeys. There are plenty of empty tables on one side of the bar. I tell Pete I have to go to the bathroom. I’ve had to go since we left the last bar. He says he’ll get us a table.
Claire is waiting for me when I walk out of the stall. She has washed the dirt off her face, but her sweater is stained with large brown-green circles. Her elbow is cut but clean and she has matching dirt circles on the knees of her pants. She is talking, but with the sound of the toilet flushing, I don’t hear what she’s saying.
“Listen,” she says and points her finger at me. “I want to talk to you about the way you treat Evan,” she says. Her makeup has faded, making her look younger. Her sentences are clear, her words not slurred, though it takes me several minutes to understand what it is that she wants. “You don’t treat him very good. Not very good at all.”
“I don’t?” I am surprised by her accusation, but do not deny it.
“Not at all,” she moves closer. I am trapped in the corner, where the smell of industrial cleaning solution is strong. “He’s a real sweetheart. He is always saying nice things and you don’t care about him.”
“I think you’re being melodramatic, Claire.” I try to step away from her, but she puts her arms on either side of my shoulders, caging me in further. Guys have been buying her drinks all afternoon, and I imagine she’s a bit out of it.
“You better start appreciating him a whole lot more than you do.”
“I appreciate him just fine.” I push away her arms to break free of her trap.
Our conversation is so strange, even for Claire, that I don’t take her seriously until I go out to the table and find Pete sitting there alone.
I assume Evan is in the bathroom. The dance floor is packed with people and turkeys. The women hold them like babies, cradled in their arms, while the men hold them by their necks, their bodies dragging on the wood floor. The bar smells of the dead birds. It’s a rotting smell, nothing at all like Thanksgiving.
“Evan left,” Pete tells me.
“He left?” I ask. I give the bar a quick search as if I don’t believe him. “Why? Why’d he leave?”
“He said he was tired,” Pete tells me. “He wasn’t in the mood for all this.”
“How’s he going to get home?” I didn’t think Pete would lend his truck to Evan. Not that they’re not buddies, but Pete wouldn’t leave us stranded out in Frenchtown. It’s not like we could call a cab or hop on a bus.
“Randy Coyne didn’t make it into the final competition,” Pete says. “He was eliminated in round two. Evan drove back with him.” I can tell Pete is uncomfortable having this conversation. He’s someone involved in something he didn’t want to be. Pete stays out of other people’s business.
“Randy Coyne?” I ask, and though Pete nods, I ask again. “Evan drove back to town with Randy Coyne?” It’s odd that Evan would leave like that, even for the kind of dark mood he was in. He has never done something like this and I find it odder still that he would choose to ride home with Randy Coyne, who is one of the most famous locals around. Everyone can tell stories about him, even those of us who don’t participate in gossip and don’t listen for it. We all know that he has been blamed for every accident in town, even the burning of the Meadville Press office when there were four witnesses who swear that he was out at camp deer hunting. They did convict him of one robbery. He robbed the town bakery on its last day of business, three hours before it closed for good. The owner said that Randy didn’t even have a gun. He simply asked for the money—all twenty-eight dollars and fifteen cents. The guy handed it over to Randy because, he said, he didn’t think there was any reason to fight. Randy spent a month or two in the Crawford County jail. Evan’s not the kind of person to drive home with someone like that. This much I know about Evan.
“Did I do something wrong?” I know Pete can’t answer these questions, but I want somebody to tell me what’s going on. “I mean, was Evan upset about something?”
“I don’t know,” Pete shrugs, then asks if I want to play a game of pool. The tables at Hunter’s are usually crowded. They get serious players out there, but today, because of the contest, because there’s more money at stake in turkeys, both tables are empty.
“Is Evan mad at me?”
Pete tells me he doesn’t know.
“Would he tell you if he was?” I pick up a pool stick and rub rosin on the tip. It occurs to me that I sound an awful lot like Claire, and this bothers me, but I have to find out what’s wrong.
“Who knows?” Pete shrugs.
“Does he talk to you about things like this?” I ask, insisting that I get an answer.
Pete breaks and the balls scatter to the sides of the table. The seven ball rolls into the corner pocket and he shoots again. I don’t look to see if he makes the shot. I don’t care if he cheats.
Claire walks up to us and someone follows right on her heels. I don’t recognize him. I figure she’s going to introduce him to Pete. It would seem fitting to end the day by letting her new boyfriend meet her old boyfriend.
“Evan’s the only decent single man left in Meadville,” Claire says, and again I’m so surprised by what she’s saying that I don’t register her remark. For a minute, I forget that I am Evan’s girlfriend, but then remember and tell her that he’s not so single.
“He is as far as I’m concerned.” Claire moves in closer, and right then her teeth whistle. Pete smiles at the way she’s trying to be so serious about everything and still sounding like a kid’s toy.
“Why do you say that?” I ask. “What did Evan tell you?” I know she knows something I don’t. I look to Pete to see if he is in on it, too, but he’s concentrating on his shot, trying deliberately to stay out of our argument.
“He said he was planning on breaking it off with you,” she tells me loud and clear. This time there is no whistle. “He said there was nothing interesting about the two of you together.”
The guy behind Claire tells us that he’s going to the bar. He wants to know if we want anything. “A beer, maybe some whiskey?” he offers.
“We’re leaving,” Claire turns slightly as if just remembering him. “You promised to give me a ride back to town anytime I wanted it, and I’m calling it quits on this place right now.”
The guy seems unconcerned if they stay or go.
“I just wanted to let you know that I’m going to Evan’s tonight,” Claire tells me. “I don’t do things behind other people’s backs. I’m not sneaky or underhanded. I told Evan I wanted to come over, and he said that was fine with him. He said he’d like that just fine.”
“He said that?” I ask and I put it all together and realize that Evan’s leaving was his way of breaking it off with me.
Pete is quiet, not saying anything, not acting surprised, so I know that Evan must have told him that he wanted to let things cool between us.
“That’s what he said,” Claire says. “I promise you. I’m not making any of it up. I’m not a cheat. He said those things and I have to go now.” She looks at her watch, and I wonder if she timed herself in finding a new boyfriend. Has she set a new record? Has she at least beaten her own best time?
Pete and I are quiet on the car ride home. The road turns sharply five or six times before we see the lights of town. The clouds have lifted some and the sky is almost clear, but not quite. There are no stars. From here, Meadville looks quaint, almost inviting.
“Did he just get bored?” I ask without mentioning Evan by name. “Is that what you think happened? Did he just get bored with me?”
“Maybe,” Pete says. “That kind of thing happens.” Then he speaks with the wisdom of someone who has lived three years in northwestern Pennsylvania. “That kind of thing happens all the time around here.”
We coast down the hill into town and Pete asks me if I’m hungry.
“Not really,” I say. I am upset, but I can’t quite figure out what it is that bothers me. I don’t think it’s Evan specifically. I will miss him, but Claire’s right. We were never that good a match. I’m mad about the way he’s handled the whole thing and wonder if I’ll ever mention it to him or if I’ll just let things go their own way.
“It’s not that late,” Pete tells me and I agree. Neither one of us teaches on Mondays, but we usually go into school to grade papers, to check our mail, to be around people.
“We could watch TV at my house,” Pete says. “There might be a movie.”
“That sounds good,” I say, because it does. I would like to avoid my apartment, avoid being alone as long as possible. And just as if he has the same idea, Pete passes his house and we drive downtown. The streets are heavy with traffic. It’s the high school kids cruising around the diamond, the park in the center of downtown. They circle the diamond every night in their parents’ cars and trucks. If it’s a nice night like it is right now, the kids from the farming community drive in and join the townies. We drive around and around the diamond honking at one another, drinking beer, and calling out to one another. They always drive in the same direction, clockwise, as if following some predetermined pattern. Like all rituals, the customs are complicated, some not even apparent.
Pete cuts over on North Street and we get into the cruising line and follow the traffic around the gazebo, past the bronze statue of Crawford, the man who founded the county and who some say was eaten by Indians. Others insist that no one ever found his body and have no concrete proof that the Indians even touched him. We circle past the Meadville Public Library and the fifteen-foot American flag dedicated to the town by the Daughters of the American Revolution, even though there is no chapter in Meadville. We pass the funeral home where the clay point setter stands by the front door. The dog is frozen in motion. His ears stick straight up, his right paw is bent as if wounded. His face is illuminated by the small yellow spotlight. He looks almost alive. Denying all town rumors, Bradford, the owner and mortician of the funeral home, insists that it was never a real dog. He claims the statue is not his own dog killed, stuffed, and set on display. He thinks it makes the funeral home less frightening—more inviting—especially for the kids in town.
Pete turns down the radio and we lower our windows and listen to the noise and music coming from the other cars. The air is still damp from the afternoon rain. It smells of spring—of warmer days to come.
After two turns around the diamond, Pete pats the edge of the seat and asks me if I want to sit closer. I think about Evan before I make a move. Evan has made it clear that he wants out of my life. He didn’t even discuss it with me. He never gave me an option or cared to hear my opinion on the matter. Our relationship doesn’t seem a reason not to get close to someone else, so I do. Pete puts his arm around my shoulders. He rubs my upper arm and I cross my left hand to my chest and hold his hand so he will know I like what he is doing. We circle the diamond four more times, not saying anything important, just commenting on the trucks and the kids. Pete turns off the diamond and we drive to the west end of town where the dark streets eventually wind into Cleveland.
Pete slows the car and pulls onto the graveled shoulder in front of a farmhouse. The inside lights flicker, and the shadows bounce off the ceiling, telling us that the family is inside watching TV. They won’t be paying attention to a car parked on their property. We’re making out even before Pete’s turned off the engine. He’s holding me on the back of the neck, his grip firm on my skin, his hands warm. He pulls me into him. His kiss is strong. He seems sure that this is what he wants, and I kiss him back to tell him that I want it, too. What I’m doing no longer feels small-town. All over the world, people are called upon to replace love. It happens everywhere, even when we don’t expect it. Meadville’s not the exception this time. Not on this.