Boys & Girls Together by William Goldman

the same creases and stuck it into his back pocket. Maudie busied herself with Walt’s lunch.
    “Watcha got?” Walt asked.
    “Same as always.”
    “What?”
    “Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
    “They any good?”
    “You never had one?”
    “No.”
    Maudie brought them both glasses of cold milk. Then she brought Walt’s lunch. It consisted of a slab of roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy and fresh green peas.
    “Lemme taste,” Walt said.
    Gino handed him a sandwich.
    Walt took a small bite. “So this is peanut butter and jelly.”
    Gino nodded.
    Walt could say nothing more.
    Then Gino said, “You ate my whole sandwich.”
    “Gimme the other.”
    Gino hesitated.
    “Here,” Walt said, and he shoved his steaming plate of roast beef across the table. “If you don’t like it, you can have something else. But I gotta have that other sandwich.”
    Gino started eating the roast beef.
    “Oh boy,” Walt said. “Oh boy.” He finished half the sandwich, then forced himself to slow down. “You get these every day?”
    Gino nodded. “Whaddya call this?”
    “Roast beef.”
    “Oh, sure,” Gino said, and then neither of them spoke until the meal was done.
    The next day, Maudie made Walt peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he ate them, but all the while he was watching Gino eat his. Because Maudie’s weren’t the same. Peanut butter is peanut butter; jelly, jelly; bread, bread—but they just weren’t the same. After lunch, he took her aside while Gino waited for him in the doorway.
    “Those were terrific sandwiches, Maudie. I really liked those sandwiches.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well.” Walt smiled at her. Finally he whispered, “I think it’s that brown bag gives them the flavor, you know what I mean?”
    “I know what you mean.” She sighed. “And ask the marble shooter how he likes his steak. We aim to please around here.”
    “Yes, Maudie. I’ll ask him, Maudie.”
    From then on it was hot lunches for Gino.
    Afternoons, they played in the yard, the two of them. (Once Arnold tried to ruin it, but they were stronger than Arnold, the two of them together, so he tried it only once.) They played marbles, of course, battling grandly on the gravel driveway, or tag or two-man touch, or they lay on the grass adding numbers or counting animals in the sky. One afternoon it rained so they ran up the stairs to Walt’s room and lay on the floor.
    “Ducky Medwick in ’35,” Walt said.
    “.353. My turn. Pepper Martin in ’34.”
    “.296. My turn.”
    “Belinda ...”
    “No, it isn’t your turn. He hit .289, so it’s still my turn.”
    “Aw, nuts,” Walt said.
    “Dizzy Dean in ’34.”
    “ Belinda ...”
    “Dizzy Dean in ’34,” Walt repeated. “Thirty wins, seven losses. O.K. My turn. Daffy Dean in ’34.”
    “ Belinda ...”
    “What is that?”
    “My grandfather. He lives in the back. Sometimes he yells a lot.”
    “Daffy Dean in ’34.” Gino closed one eye, then sat up. “Who’s Linda?”
    “Not Linda. Belinda. A monkey. Grandfather’s a little ...” And he twirled his index finger around his ear.
    “Is he really ...” Twirl of the index finger.
    “Don’t you believe me? You want to see?”
    “Can we?”
    “Follow me.” Walt stood and crept out of the room down the long hall to the back of the house. He stopped in front of a partly open door and turned to Gino. “Don’t be surprised at how the room looks. It’s all his stuff. Very old.”
    “O.K.,” Gino whispered.” I’m with you.”
    Walt knocked and gave the door a push. “Grandfather?”
    “Belinda?”
    “No, it’s me, Grandfather. Walt. You remember me?” He moved into the room a step at a time.
    “You. Yes. I remember.” The old man sat in a corner by the window. A torn blanket comforted his shoulders. The room was furnished sparely, a bed, a tired chair, a trunk without a lid. The old man peered at Walt, his eyes very pale, very wet, hardly blue.
    “Can I get you anything,