Free Linger by M. E. Kerr Page A

said.
    “I think she wrote that for Valentine’s Day, for Bobby,” said my mother. “Did Mr. D. mention seeing that ?”
    “He only said to tell you he doesn’t like smoking above the first floor in Linger.”
    “He obviously didn’t see it then.”
    My father said, “She could have written that poem to anyone.”
    “Not anyone is away but Bobby. She never brings any boyfriends around, either, not anymore!”
    “That’s true,” my father said.
    Then he said, “Wouldn’t that be something!”
    “Our Bobby!”
    “Well, don’t write him any congratulations,” I said.
    “No, don’t,” said my father. “Let those two kids tell you in their own time.”
    “I wouldn’t think of writing anything to him until he says something,” said my mother.
    I thought: Don’t hold your breath.
    My father said, “What’s your long face about, Gary?”
    “I know what it’s about,” said my mother.
    “It’s about having to go to work,” I said.
    “It’s about your crush falling for your big brother,” said my mother.
    “Oh, sure, she’s my crush.”
    “You always act shy around her, and you get a red face.”
    “Leave him alone,” my father said. “He had a date the other night with Jack Scott’s daughter, didn’t he?”
    “She’s no Lynn Dunlinger, though,” said my mother.
    “Wanda, for Pete’s sake, give the boy a break.”
    “You wonder why Bobby joined the army,” I said.
    “I like Sloan just the same,” said my mother. “She’s a very nice little girl.”
    My father said, “What the heck is Bobby going to do with Lynn Dunlinger? He didn’t even finish high school.”
    “He doesn’t need a diploma for what she has in mind,” my mother said laughing.
    I left my folks in fantasy land and headed up to Linger. In addition to busing weeknights, I was working two extra afternoons helping to set up, so I could afford to hear more of Sloan Scott’s opinions on capital punishment and the Gulf War.
    I didn’t care that she was a liberal. Dating her made me realize I didn’t have many strong feelings about anything. When she said, “What kind of a lawyer are you going to be—one of those corporate kinds who just go for the Wall Street money?” I said, “Well, I don’t plan to fight for the rights of serial killers like Hannibal the Cannibal.” But I couldn’t give her a straight answer because I didn’t know whose rights I’d fight for.
    On the way home from that date, after we dropped the girls off, Dave Leonard said, “You want to make out? Say you’re pro-choice, against all war, thinking of becoming a vegetarian, and very concerned about the environment.”
    “Some of it I am,” I said.
    “But all you talk about is Linger.”
    “Well, I work there.”
    “But it isn’t the world, old buddy. This lady is the intellectual type. She reads and stuff.”
    “I read.”
    “She’s the opposite of her old man, too. Sloan’s into lefty politics, and she doesn’t eat anything with a face. She’s too deep. You want easy? Date Lolly Newman.”
    “I like Sloan all right.”
    “You’re practicing safe sex in its purest form, Gary. No sex. I really don’t think she’ll come across at all, because she’s got those principles. It’s the reason I don’t date her.”
    When I got up to Linger that afternoon, Mr. Dunlinger was setting up an end-of-the-war pool.
    It cost five dollars to enter. You had to guess the day and the hour when the Gulf War would end.
    He’d dragged out an old wishing well from the basement and draped an American flag over it. It was sitting in the front hall next to the packages for our servicepeople.
    Jules was already at the piano in The Grill.
    He was playing “Joan’s Song,” and the cat was sitting on the bar licking her paws, watching him. She and Lynn watched him the same way, practically drooling.
    “Gary?” Mr. Dunlinger called out to me. “Take a look here.”
    He was waiting for me, all smiles, under a hand-printed sign that said WISHING