The Hotel Eden(66)

“We think so too,” she said. “Come by and I’ll have your last check cut early, so we don’t have to mail it.”

“Thanks, Nadine.” I moved to the door; I had a full day of deliveries.

“Old Gil Benson is going to miss you, I think.”

“I’ve met a lot of nice people,” I said. I wanted to deflect this and get going.

“No,” she said, “you’ve been good to him; it’s important. Some of these old guys don’t have much to look forward to. He’s called several times. I might as well tell you. Mr. Ayr heard about it and is writing you a little bonus.

I stepped back toward her. “What?”

“Congratulations.” She smiled. “Drive carefully.”

I walked slowly out to the truck. I cinched the chain hitches in the back of my Ford, securing the cylinders, climbed wearily down to the asphalt, which was already baking at half past eight, and pulled myself into the driver’s seat. In the rearview mirror I could see Victor and Jesse standing in the shadows. I was tired.

Some of my customers knew I was leaving and made kind remarks or shook my hand or had their wife hand me an envelope with a twenty in it. I smiled and nodded gratefully and then turned businesslike to the dolly and left. These were strange goodbyes, because there was no question that we would ever see each other again. It had been a summer and I had been their oxygen guy. But there was more: I was young and they were ill. I stood in the bedroom doors in Sun City and said, “Take care,” and I moved to the truck and felt something, but I couldn’t even today tell you what it was. The people who didn’t know, who said, “See you next week, David,” I didn’t correct them. I said, “See you,” and I left their homes too. It all had me on edge.

The last day of my job in the summer of 1967, I drove to work under a cloud cover as thick as twilight in winter and still massing. It began to rain early and I made the quick decision to beat the Salt River flooding by hitting Mesa first and Scottsdale in the afternoon. I had known for a week that I did not want Gil Benson to be my last call for the summer, and this rain, steady but light, gave me the excuse I wanted. Of course, it was nuts to think I could get out to Mesa before the crossings were flooded. And by now, mid-September, all the drivers were wise to the monsoon and headed for the Tempe Bridge as soon as they saw overcast. The traffic was colossal, and I crept in a huge column of cars east across the river, noting it was twice as bad coming back, everyone trying to get to Phoenix for the day. My heart was only heavy, not fearful or nervous, as I edged forward. What I am saying is that I had time to think about it all, this summer, myself, and it was a powerful stew. The radio wouldn’t finish a song, “Young Girl,” by Gary Puckett and the union   Gap or “Cherish,” by the Association without interrupting with a traffic bulletin about crossing the river.

I imagined it raining in the hills of Boulder, Colorado, Linda Enright selling cookies in her apron in a shop with curtains, a Victorian tearoom, ten years ahead of itself as it turned out, her sturdy face with no expression telling she wasn’t a virgin anymore, and that now she had been for thirty days betrayed. I thought, and this is the truth, I thought for the first time of what I was going to say last to Elizabeth Rensdale. I tried to imagine it, and my imagination failed. I tried again, I mean, I really tried to picture us there in the entry of the Scottsdale townhouse speaking to each other, which we had never, ever done. When I climbed from her bed the nights I’d gone to her, it was just that, climbing out, dressing, and crossing to the door. She didn’t get up. This wasn’t Casablanca or High Noon, or Captain Blood, which I had seen this summer, this was getting laid in a hot summer desert town by your father’s oxygen deliveryman. There was no way to make it anything else, and it was too late as I moved through Tempe toward Mesa and Gil Benson’s outpost to make it anything else. We were not going to hold each other’s faces in our hands and whisper; we were not going to stand speechless in the shadows. I was going to try to get her pants off one more time and let her see me. That was it. I shifted in my truck seat and drove.

Even driving slowly, I fishtailed through the red clay along Gil’s road. The rain had moved in for the day, persistent and even, and the temperature stalled and hovered at about a hundred. I thought Gil would be pleased to see me so soon in the day, because he was always glad to see me, welcomed me, but I surprised him this last Friday knocking at the door for five full minutes before he unlocked the door, looking scared. Though I had told him I would eventually be going back to college, I hadn’t told him this was my last day. I didn’t want any this or that, just the little visit and the drive away. I wanted to get to Scottsdale.