Lenny Ryan’s beard was coming in nicely. He turned from side to side, dragging his fingers through the thick, dark whiskers. He finished running the razor over his bald head, and when it was shaved clean, wiped off the rest of the shaving cream with a towel. He put his glasses back on and considered his face in the mirror—like a reverse portrait of himself, no hair on top, lots of hair on his chin, the weakest prescription of glasses he could find. When he was done, he held up the driver’s license and turned side to side, checking it against the picture of Angela’s ex-husband, David Nickell, a bald man with glasses and a beard.
He heard Angela outside the bathroom. “Gene? You ’bout done in there?”
He came out and she was standing there in her bathrobe, smiling at him. She rubbed his bald head. “You take longer in the bathroom than a damn woman.”
He watched her walk into the bathroom. He didn’t like heavy-set women but there was something about Angela that made him feel good, made him feel safe and unhurried. He walked into the kitchen and pulled on a pair of boots. That was the best thing about meeting Angela at the truck stop that night. Her husband had run off in such a hurry, he’d left not only his driver’s license but his car and most of his clothes too, and damn if they didn’t mostly fit, except the pants, which were a little loose in the waist and a little too short. But these boots were great; whatever eventually happened with Angela, he was going to keep these boots.
He went out. He liked stepping outside and not hearing any cars, just the hum of the single power line and the clicks and whispers of the woods around Angela’s cinder-block cabin. The house was an hour north of the city, in a narrow valley where the farmhouses and trailers were spaced almost a mile apart along the highway; the minute he saw it, Lenny remembered how much he liked the country.
It was warm already, the sun baking down between the pine and fir trees. He trudged across the dirt driveway toward the chicken house, reached over, and unlatched the hook. Inside the pen, alfalfa and straw crackled beneath his feet. He reached beneath the roost into the first nest and found an egg, causing a hen to protest by pecking at his leg. Without thinking, Lenny swung his foot toward the chicken—much harder than he’d planned, like a punter—raising a great cloud of straw and dirt and at its center, one howling chicken. He found himself shocked again by his stored-up anger and he stared at his wake, at the dirt settling into the beam of sunlight, at the agitated bird racing from the henhouse.
After a moment, he went back to looking for eggs. He found eight. Holding out the bottom of his white T-shirt, Lenny made a little pouch to carry them back to the house, taking small, careful steps. He opened the back door without looking away from the nest of his shirt, the bell jangling as the door swung closed behind him. He eased the eggs from his shirt to the table. He could hear Angela showering in the bathroom down the hall as he cracked the eggs and plopped them into a metal mixing bowl. He added a little milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon, the way his momma had always made eggs. He supposed she added the milk to stretch out the few eggs they had, but he’d learned to like the taste of eggs done that way. He whipped the egg mixture and set it aside, then grated some onion and cheese, chopped up a green pepper and the little bit of ham they had left over from dinner last night.
The gas flame sputtered and sparked and glowed blue. Lenny dropped a chunk of butter into the pan and held it just above the flame, until the butter was completely melted and just beginning to brown. Then he poured the eggs in and set the lid on the pan.
“Boy. Smells good.” She trudged past him and started upstairs to get dressed. But she paused on the bottom step. “So what are you doing today, Gene?”
He lifted the edges of the omelet and let the uncooked egg run beneath it. Then he put the lid back on the pan. “Going into town.”
“Spokane?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I gotta work tonight, but if you want to come back by two, I could go with you.”
He didn’t look up. “I’m gonna be later than that.”
“That’s okay, I guess. I got plenty I can do around here.” She went upstairs.
He dropped two slices of bread in the toaster and poured two glasses of orange juice. He folded the cheese, ham, and vegetables into the omelet and put the lid back on. And then he sat reading last Sunday’s paper, which Angela had brought home from the restaurant. He flipped to the real estate section and ran his finger along the commercial section. Nothing. This was crazy, thinking he would ever figure anything out. He leaned over the newspaper and stared out the window.
She came back down in her waitress dress and shoes, something on her mind. He cut the omelet into two halves and put one half on a plate for her with a slice of toast.
“So what do you do when you go to Spokane, anyways?”
“I told you. Get my mail. See a couple people. Do some things.”
“What kind of things?”
He looked up and finished chewing, but didn’t answer.
She picked at her own eggs. “You gonna be late, then?”
“Don’t know yet.”
She stared at her fork. “It’s just, you haven’t been to Spokane in quite a while.”
“A few weeks.”
“Seems like things are going pretty good around here, yeah?”
He chewed a mouthful of eggs and watched her. She took a drink of her orange juice. This wasn’t like her to ask a lot of questions, even though Lenny knew she had good reason. She had to know he was hiding. After all, he’d moved in the night they met; the next day he’d shaved his head and started growing this beard. But if she found it strange that he looked more and more like her ex-husband, Angela never mentioned it. She seemed like the kind of person who had decided long ago there were things she didn’t want to know. So she rarely asked about his business unless Lenny brought it up first—which he realized he had to do now if he wanted to enjoy the rest of his breakfast.
“What is it?” he asked finally.
“It’s just…you’d tell me if there was somebody special in Spokane, right?”
“There’s nobody special.”
“But you had a woman like that, for a while?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s not around anymore?”
“No.”
Angela nibbled around the edge of her toast. “I’m sorry. I probably sound like a jealous old biddy.”
He looked up. “You sound fine.”
She rolled her eyes at herself, laughed, and took a bite of omelet. “Boy, them’s good eggs, Gene. You’re gonna make somebody a good wife some day.”
Lenny ate his eggs.