The Book of Joe by Jonathan Tropper Page A

in the way his eyes distractedly wander around me without ever coming to rest. “I hope you’re not pissed,” he says.
    “What red-blooded American teenager can resist an empty house?” I say. “It’s practically your patriotic duty to be in here with a girl.” I hook the strap of my duffel bag over the head of the banister as I did a million times before, a lifetime ago. The act, completely instinctive, sends a flutter through my stomach, and for the briefest instant I can smell my childhood again.
    “What happened to your shirt?” Jared says.
    “A woman poured her drink on me.”
    My nephew grins. “Chicks.”
    “This chick was upwards of sixty years old.”
    “Why did she do it?”
    “She had her reasons.”
    “Hey,” he says, absently rubbing his impressive abs. “I really liked your book.”
    I raise my eyebrows. “Well, that would put you in the minority in this town.”
    “Literacy in general puts you in the minority in this town,” he says. It is, I think, an unexpected comment, coming from someone who moments earlier was dry humping the girl who is still hiding, naked and trembling, behind the couch in the living room. There is more to Jared than meets the eye. As if on cue, the girl now emerges, cute and colorful as a Gap ad in her green and blue striped crew neck and jeans, with negligible hips and those perfect high school breasts, not large but commanding attention by their sheer exuberance, like a pair of frisky puppies.
    “This is Sheri,” Jared says, pulling on the shirt she hands him. “My uncle Joe.”
    “Nice to meet you,” I say.
    “Hi,” she says, staring at the floor. She won’t be recovering from my untimely intrusion anytime soon.
    “So, just by way of summary,” Jared says. “You won’t be mentioning this little incident to my dad.”
    “Your secret’s safe with me.” I think Jared might appreciate the irony if I were to tell him about how I discovered Brad and Cindy in the garage way back when, but most well-adjusted boys don’t want to hear anything that even remotely connects their mother to oral sex, so I keep my mouth shut.
    “Besides,” I say, “I think he’s got more important things on his mind right about now.”
    “I guess so,” Jared said. “If you’re here, Gramps must really be in bad shape, huh?”
    “It seems that way.” His eyes widen with what looks to me like fear, and I realize that he and my father share a special relationship. I experience the same stab of jealousy that I felt at the hospital, watching Brad adjust Dad’s blankets.
    “Damn,” Jared says softly.
    There follows a brief moment of silence in honor of the things we’re thinking but won’t say, about death and its proximity to my father. We’re interrupted by the electronic chime of my cell phone, which I snatch off my belt with the apologetic smile of an addict. “Hello,” I say.
    “You’re a lying, egotistical son of a bitch,” comes Nat’s voice. I put my hand over the mouthpiece and look at Jared and Sheri. “I have to take this. Be a minute.”
    “Jared,” Sheri says, chewing her lip. “I’ve got to go.”
    “I’ll walk you,” he says. “Later, Uncle Joe.”
    “I’ll be here,” I say, putting the phone back to my ear to catch the rest of Nat’s remarks. “. . . used me, you asshole.
    And when you were done ... ” I watch Jared and Sheri from the living room picture window as they shuffle down the walk, his arm around her, their hips gently bumping. It makes me suddenly feel old and used up. Nat finishes and hangs up, and I close the phone and slide it back into the plastic holster on my belt. With a heavy sigh, I grab my duffel bag and head upstairs to my old room to get that part over with. Coming home, I think. It’s never quite how you pictured it would be.

Ten
    At night, Lucy swam naked. Not actually, although for all I know she really did, but in my mind, where every night she habitually doffed all constraints and plunged naked into the