Beautiful Stranger

A small, intense crease appeared between her eyebrows, but her eyes were steady and clear. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “Probably lucky for her that her mother kicked her out of the house.”

“She’s pretty lucky to have you, that’s for sure.”

That caught him in the solar plexus. “Thanks.”

“Do you know anything about the father of her baby?”

He sighed. Shook his head. “She’s not talking, and I haven’t pushed. I gather it was consensual—beyond that, I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

“I guess that’s true.” She seemed about to say something else, frowning into the distance. “It’s just…”

“What?”

She shifted a little, brushed a wisp of dark hair from her cheek. “She stares out the window in class like she’s waiting for someone to appear. Like she expects it.”

Robert suddenly thought of Crystal’s favorite spot in the house: an overstuffed chair in front of the big picture window, where she would curl up as much as her growing belly would allow. She could sit there for literally hours, just looking outside. He’d thought she was simply looking at the mountains. “Very observant,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see if she has more to say.”

A nod. “Well, I guess we ought to go back in. I’m starting to get cold.”

“Yeah, me too.” But before she moved, he touched her hand. It surprised him that he did it, and he wasn’t aware that he had until he felt the tiny bones beneath his palm. She looked up at him, a little alarmed, and he was alarmed himself, though he didn’t pull away. There were a million reasons that starting anything with her would be a mistake, so he wouldn’t, but he wanted her to know that the thought had crossed his mind. It was an offering, maybe.

He couldn’t think of the right lightness of words to offer, so he only stood there, his hand covering hers, looking down into the wide dark blue eyes for a long, silent moment. “Don’t let anybody ever tell you it’s stupid to care,” he said quietly, more fiercely than he intended. “You don’t have to understand it to reach out.”

She nodded, dipped her head and slipped her hand from beneath his. “Thanks,” she said. “We should go back in.”

Every Saturday morning, Robert and Crystal did their chores, and this day was no different. The routine varied little—they put loud music on the stereo, taking turns choosing CDs, and scoured the house top to bottom. She liked tackling the kitchen, something he hated with all his heart, so he let her. Robert dusted and vacuumed the living room, shook out the couch cushions, singing along with the classic rock Crystal rolled her eyes over. Her choices were even sillier—movie soundtracks, mostly, with a lot of very gentle, pop love songs that she knew every word to. None of the rap or blaring rock some of the younger laborers on his crew were so fond of.

Thank God.

This Saturday-morning ritual delighted the girl. She rose early, pulled back her hair, discarded her windbreaker and rolled up her sleeves. Singing, she scoured the sink and stove, wiped down cupboards and walls, practically spit-shined the floors. Every other week, she even washed the windows, something it had never occurred to Robert to do. When she finished, she tackled the bathroom and gave it a similar polishing, then stripped off her rubber gloves and walked happily through the house, lighting strategic sticks of incense that smelled of grass and fresh air.

Midmorning, he took a list—one that Crystal insisted on preparing every week—to the grocery store. When he returned, she popped her head out of the kitchen, grinning happily. “Hey, Uncle, come look what I did for you.”

He followed, dropping his bags on the counter. The room was fairly large, with a big window looking out toward the mountains, and all the cupboards, stove and refrigerator on one wall. A small windowed alcove had previously held a small breakfast bar and two stools, where they usually ate. But she’d dragged the breakfast bar into the kitchen below the window and dragged the old Formica-and-chrome table into the alcove.

“You shouldn’t have been moving this stuff, babe. I would have helped.”

“I used my butt,” she said with a grin. “Look at what I brought in, though.” She opened the drawers set into the alcove one by one. “All your stuff, so you can have a good place to work.”

“Ah, Crystal, this is so good,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. The drawers had held miscellaneous kitchen junk before, which she’d sorted out and moved. From his bedroom, she’d carried all his jewelry and glass supplies, and carefully organized them by type, even fitting the drawers with cardboard dividers to keep things neat. Touched, he kissed her head. “Thank you.”

“I know you gave up your workroom to give me a place to sleep,” she said. “This will work pretty good, don’t you think?”

“It’ll be even better. Look how much great light there is in here.”

“Okay.” She slapped her hands together—that’s that. “I’m going to get my sheets. Then will you show me again how to do those corners?” Now that the weather had warmed up, she loved washing the sheets and hanging them out on the line to dry.

“Sure.” He put the groceries away, then followed her to her room when she came in with an armload of sweet-smelling linens. On her narrow twin bed, he illustrated the army corner, tight and smooth, then pulled it loose. “You try.”

Adroitly she did it, but he saw her trouble was in the fact that she couldn’t quite bend well enough to get it tight. “Let me help, babe.”

She straightened, laughing a little, her hand on her round belly. “It gets harder to do things, and I forget.”

It startled him, that happy, girlish laugh, especially in reference to her pregnancy. Trying not to make too much of it, he knelt and tucked the corners tight. “I don’t want you to move anything heavy anymore, got it?”

“Yes, sir.” She saluted.

“You really love cleaning, don’t you?”

“My mother thinks it’s crazy, too. She never stuck to routines—but it makes things so cheerful when they’re clean, don’t you think?” She looked around with a little smile.

Robert straightened and looked at it through her eyes. Sunlight streamed in through the clean windows with their pressed, clean curtains. No litter of beer bottles or ashtrays sat on the coffee table, only a nice arrangement of plastic fruit that appalled him, but Crystal had picked out. She washed it every week and patted it dry.

He’d rented the place because it was the right size for him, a little box with a kitchen and two small bedrooms and a living room that opened on to a small wooden porch. It sat at the outskirts of town, so he didn’t have to deal with neighbors much or any lawn to speak of, just the omnipresent meadowlands with their offerings of columbines and long-stalked grasses. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a great house.”

“You should have a cat or something.” She plumped her pillows vigorously and slid one into a crisp pillow-case.

Aside from little requests like the feather duster she’d gone nuts for at Kmart, and the plastic fruit, it was the first time she’d even obliquely asked him for anything. “You want a cat?”

A shrug.

It struck him forcefully that he was no longer alone. After years and years and years of eating dinners by himself in front of the television, and getting up to everything exactly the way it had been the night before. He had somebody to talk to when he was blue. He had someone to say, “Hey, look at this,” when there was something on the news. Somebody to share chores with, eat meals with.

He’d only done what was necessary when Crystal showed up; he’d made room for her, done the best he could. But now he realized how much she’d done for him. “Maybe we oughta go see if they have any at the pound.”

Her face glowed. “Really?”

“Sure.” He tugged on the end of her braid. “I like cats. Maybe we can get two, one for me and one for you.”

“They have to be inside cats, though. No going outside. I don’t like that.”

“Okay.” He wandered to the door, pulling his T-shirt over his head. “I’ll jump in the shower, then you can have it. Maybe we could have lunch first somewhere.”

“McDonald’s?” she asked with hope.

“Ugh. No. Someplace better.”

She grinned, looking impossibly young and pretty and sweet, the way she should. “Grown-ups are so boring.”

He tugged the rubber band out of the bottom of his braid and shook out his hair. “Look who’s talking.” He threw his T-shirt at her. “McDonald’s is not high cuisine.”

“Yuck!” She threw the T-shirt back at him. “And don’t use such fancy language.”

“It’s good for you.”

The doorbell rang, and Robert picked up his shirt from the floor. “Get ready and we’ll go.” Probably the paperboy, who showed up at the dot of eleven every second Saturday. He stuck his hand in his pocket and found he only had a five. “Hang on!” he called, and went to the bedroom for a ten.

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