—
As he was leaving, Bob walked through the dining room, and Matt came with him. Matt sat down, and so Bob sat down across from him. “How’re you doing?” Bob asked him.
“So-so.” Matt held out a hand and rocked it slightly to indicate this. “One of those women who wrote me, turns out she’s pretty nice. We’ve talked on the phone a few times and she sent me a pic of herself. But she wants to have dinner.”
“So have dinner.” Bob shrugged one shoulder.
“Bob. Have you been paying attention at all to who I am? I don’t know how to have dinner with a woman.” Matt’s face looked pained.
And then Bob had a thought. “Listen,” he said. He held both hands together before him on the table. “Tell her you need just a little more time, that you’re still going through stuff, and meanwhile go see Katherine Caskey. She’s a social worker in town, and I swear she could help you.”
Matt looked alarmed. “You’re sending me to a shrink?”
“Hold on, and listen to the story of Katherine Caskey,” Bob said. And sitting there he told Matt the whole thing, about his father’s death, his mother going to Reverend Caskey’s house with him in the backseat of the car, how he stared and stared at this little girl who was standing on the porch with her father. “She’s a lovely woman,” Bob concluded. “I swear to God she could help you.”
But Matt’s mouth was partly open as he gazed at Bob. “So—you thought you killed your father?” He asked this very quietly.
“Yeah, but that’s not the point.”
“Bob, that’s pretty hardcore.” Matt turned his gaze to the window, and then finally back to Bob. “Is that why you took my case? Because you thought maybe I had killed my mother and you’d spent almost your whole life thinking you had killed your father?”
Bob’s face broke into delight. “Matthew Beach. You are so smart. You’re smart and you’re a brilliant painter. Matt, Matt, Matt.” He pointed a finger at him. “Go see Katherine Caskey.”
“Only if you’ll come with me.”
“I’ll walk you into her office. That’s all.”
—
And so, three days later, Bob—having made the initial phone call to Katherine Caskey—walked up the steps to her office with Matt, who had put on a shirt with a collar and washed his jeans, which were still wrinkled from the dryer. He was killing Bob. Katherine opened her office door, and she did not hug Bob (as he knew she would not), but her smile was lovely as she greeted both men. “Come in, Matt. Oh, do come in. I’m so happy to meet you.”
And Bob left them, Matt stepping into her office like a guilty schoolchild.
—
An hour later Bob got a call from Matt. “She’s wonderful!” Matt said. “God, she’s great! I’m going back next week for two sessions!”
*
Something about getting Matt to go see Katherine made Bob miss Lucy in a more clearheaded way. And so he texted her—Bob was standing out by the old inn that had the vines all over it, smoking a cigarette—and said, Call me when you can. It was midafternoon.
She called him right away.
“Bob, have you been mad at me?” Lucy asked this immediately.
“Oh Jesus, no.” He paused and then said, “This is really embarrassing, Lucy. But, ah, I got this haircut—” Bob ran the hand with the cigarette over his face and his head. “And I look like an idiot. No, I really do. And it made me too embarrassed to see you, and I’m even embarrassed to tell you because it makes me seem vain and I guess I am because I just couldn’t stand you seeing me with this, Lucy, it’s bad.”
“Oh Bob.” Lucy said this—he thought—with quiet understanding. And then she broke out into laughter. “I’m sorry to laugh, but I’m just so relieved. I really thought you didn’t like me anymore.”
“It’s just my haircut, Lucy. It’s embarrassing.”
“Listen to me. I don’t care what you look like. They could cut your head off and you’d still be—you’d still be Bob.”
This surprised Bob. It was what Matt had told him.
But as we have said earlier, Bob had very little sense of who he was. Which is true for many of us, but this was especially true for Bob.
—
And then two days later, Bob got a zit on his forehead. “Margaret, I can’t believe this.” She squinted at him as they got ready for bed, and she said, “I think it’s because you keep rubbing your hand up over your face and head to see if you have any hair. Just go pop it,” she said, getting into bed, she was wearing her summer nightgown, it was white and sleeveless and cotton.
And so Bob went into the bathroom and put a very hot facecloth to his head and the zit popped. But in the morning, it looked like what it was: a popped pimple.
12
When Lucy saw him by the fence she laughed, and Bob could feel his face becoming hot. “Bob!” Lucy looked at him and said, “Oh Bob, you’re blushing.”
“I look awful,” Bob said.
They began to walk, and Lucy said, “You kind of look like a kid, except you don’t.”
“I know, I look like a twelve-year-old with an old man’s face,” Bob said.
She looked over at him again and said, “Who cares, Bob.”
And gradually his face cooled down. But later, in the afterimage in his mind, she had not looked at him with the kindness he had expected. And also, as they walked, it seemed to him later, she did not look at him much at all.
—
