Free On Shifting Sand by Allison Pittman Page A

in his company while excusing me from small talk. By the second day it is an accepted habit, as he tells me he doesn’t read a single word in the time between. I am soon invested in the story of Anthony Patch and the glamorous life I am supposed to condemn. I read, he eats; he reads, I listen. On the third day I bring myself a glass of water to ease the dryness of my mouth, and on the fourth I bring four fresh-baked cookies—two for him, two for me.
    Every day, before Ariel comes downstairs, before Russ can interrupt our story with the ringing of the shop bell, Jim slips in the scrap of cardboard to mark our place and I slip the book deep in the back of one of the drawers where we keep the files of customer accounts. With times so hard, Russ has all but given up on expecting payment from anybody, so I know he’ll not likely find it there.
    And that, of course, means he doesn’t know. About the meal, yes. It is Jim’s payment for watching the store in the afternoons. But not about the book, and not about my presence.
    Perhaps there’d be no harm had I said, on any given day, when he asked what I did with myself all afternoon, “Oh, nothing much. Your friend who’s been watching the store? That Jim? He and I have developed a little lunch routine of reading an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel together.” There are times when such a confession burns at the base of my throat, especially when Russ’s voice tugs at the edge of my thoughts, asking me where I’ve gone away to, and I have to come up with an answer that has nothing to do with beautiful, damned people.
    It is dangerous enough how often he invades my thoughts, how I find myself structuring my day in terms of before and after lunch. My salvation has been knowing that when Russ comes home, Jim goes away. Out there, somewhere in the dusty streets of our little town. I have no idea where he comes from in the midmorning, or where he goes at night—an ignorance that keeps my feet on solid ground when thoughts of him threaten to uproot me.

    “No,” I tell Russ. It is late at night—dark, at least, and we are sharing a last piece of pie, which itself is the last of the meal we shared with Jim that evening. It has taken nearly two weeks for me to fulfill my promise. Finally, though, I found time to spend an afternoon at Rosalie’s getting my hair freshly set and spent half our weekly grocery budget on a beef roast and enough potatoes that none of us would have to share. I used the money from my kitchen purse to pay the grocer, leaving Jim’s half dollar hidden at the bottom of my talcum powder, for reasons I cannot even explain to myself.
    Ronnie sits at the table with us, fretting over a math problem. Ariel busies herself on the sofa in the front room, cutting out newspaper furniture for her paper dolls.
    “He doesn’t have anyplace else to go. There’s no choice.”
    The subject of our disagreement is Jim Brace, who at that moment sits downstairs, having been sent there with his battered duffel bag slung across his back.
    “Where has he been staying until now?”
    “He’s been renting a room at Bernice’s,” Russ says, an odd impatience to his reply.
    “So why can’t he stay there?”
    Russ looks at me, his brows knit together. “I told you last Sunday that Bernice was leaving town. Going to live with her sister in Oklahoma City.”
    “Sorry.” I pick up our plate and rinse it in the sink. “So many of our people are leaving, it’s hard to keep track. My mind clouds up with everybody’s stories. It’s a shame she can’t let him stay there, look after the place until . . .”
    “Until when? He decides to move on?”
    “Well, how long are we going to keep him here?” I keep my back to Russ and train my words to hide my thoughts. “Do you think it’s a good idea to keep a drifter under our roof? Aren’t you worried about the children?”
    “He ain’t a drifter, Ma,” Ronnie says.
    “I don’t know what else you’d call him.” I scrub the