Chapter 19

Saturday morning. Big chores day. Fred and Dad had divided up the shopping and errands. I was stuck with the vacuuming. I did the downstairs, then I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’d rather wash a bathtub full of dishes than drag the vacuum cleaner around the house.

I went outside to shoot baskets. It was cold, there’d been a frost last night, and the grass was still white.

“Hi, Ami,” someone said. It was Bill. He had his guitar slung over his back. He was wearing a white knit fisherman’s sweater and the curved silver earring. He looked really nice. “Is Fred around?”

“No. He’s doing errands.”

“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

“Maybe not for a while.”

“I’ll wait.” He put his guitar down. “Want to play one-on-one?”

We played for about half an hour. Bill would make these great leaps, shoot, and the ball would either bang against the backboard or bounce on the rim and come flying off. He just laughed. “I give up. I’m leaving basketball to you, Ami.”

I looked at my watch. I should go in and finish the vacuuming. Or would that be rude? “Well, I guess I’ll go in,” I said.

“You’re going in?”

“Uh-huh.” I dribbled the ball. “I have to do some things, but you can wait for Fred.”

“Out here?”

“Sure, that’s okay.”

“So when did you say Fred would be back?”

“It might be a while.” Maybe I could vacuum the upstairs fast and then come out again and talk to Bill.

“Ahh, Ami.” Bill stood up. “It’s pretty cold out here.” He pointed to his head. “Notice? Left ear, turning red?”

I was embarrassed. I should have told him he could wait inside. “Oh! Come on in, I’m sorry, I thought—”

Bill followed me into the house. “I don’t mind the cold for myself, Ami. But my guitar, he’s a sensitive lad. If he gets too cold, he won’t play nice for me.”

We went into the living room. Some blankets were rumpled up at one end of the couch. I pushed them out of the way. “Well, um, sit down.” I was still holding the basketball.

“Do you sing, Ami?”

“Just in chorus, in school.’”

“You ever try singing solo?”

I shook my head and looked around for someplace to put the basketball.

“You should try it. From your speaking voice, it sounds like you might have a really special singing voice.”

“Some people call me Foghorn Ami.”

“Yeah?” Bill tuned his guitar. He strummed a few chords. “I have a song I just wrote, that’s why I came over. I wanted to play it for someone. You want to work on it with me?”

“Me? How?”

“Can you read music?”

“A little.” Maybe I could drop the basketball into the magazine basket. “I took piano lessons for a while when I was younger.”

“Why’d you stop?”

“They were sort of expensive and, you know, I wasn’t that good.”

“Did you like piano?”

I nodded.

“There. You see. You should have gone on.” He tightened a string. “I don’t know how people live without music. Sit down.” He patted the couch next to him.

I sat down. I was still holding the basketball.

Bill took a sheet of music paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “Now, see, this is the song I wrote. I’ll sing it for you. Just for the words, first. We’ll work on the phrasing and stuff after we’ve got the words down.”

The song was about a girl “with a sad little face” who worked in a pizza place, and how he used to watch her and think about talking to her. Then he stopped going there for a while, and when he went back, she was gone and nobody knew where, or what had happened to her. “Looking for the girl … looking all over for the one I used to see in Dom’s Pizza Place,” he sang. “Hey! Oh, hey! Why didn’t I tell her, why didn’t I say.… Babe, it’s okay.… Yeah, it’s okay, it’s okay.…”

“So, what do you think?” he said.

“I like it.”

“Yeah? You do?” Bill pulled his guitar around and bent over it. “Not a whole lot, though, huh?”

I was really surprised. He sounded so unsure of himself. I didn’t think he was like that at all. “No. I love it. I think it’s wonderful.”

“Oh. Really?” He smiled.

“Is it true? I mean, the girl—”

“Sure, she worked in Dom’s Pizza. You know the place I mean, on the Boulevard?”

“Were you in love with her?”

“Liked her a whole lot, but just like the song says, I never even talked to her.”

“Why not?”

He struck a couple of chords. “Too … shy.…” He raised his eyebrows at me. “I … confess.…”

“You should have taken your guitar.”

“Hey, that’s smart,” he said. “That’s the only time—how did you know?”

I shrugged. I was embarrassed the way he was looking at me, but I liked it, too. “I know some things,” I said.

“You sure do.” He ruffled my hair. “Okay. Let’s you, me, and that basketball do some singing here.”