Now Is the Hour Read Online Free PDF Page A

then, I knew the baby was a boy and that she was going to keep the baby.
    Then it was Billie’s voice, deep from sleep, deep from not speaking yet, and deep Simone Signoret from too many cigarettes the night before.
    Hey, Rig, Billie said.
    I had her cigarette ready for her, lifted the snap of orange up to her hand, the only part of her out in the rectangle of moonlight.
    When she inhaled, she stepped her face out into the moonlight. The gold earrings, the moonlight in each of her dark blue eyes.
    So, she said, blowing her breath out with the smoke, you’re leaving.
    The only other time I’d cried in front of a girl it was Billie.
    When I found out she was pregnant, and at Russell’s grave in Mount Moriah Cemetery. Now that I think about it, there were other times too.
    Then this morning, sitting on the hearth in Billie’s beige living room under the paramecia, when I heard Billie’s voice, something under her voice, low in her breath, sounded like the saddest thing I’d ever hear.
    My goddamn chin started doing its weird spasm thing, and my lips didn’t move the way I wanted them to.
    Then we were both on the beige carpet in the moonlight, my mouth up against Billie’s neck, my belly going up and down next to her belly, the baby boy in there. I tried to pull away because of all the snot, but Billie wouldn’t let me go. Then I cried all the harder because Billie wouldn’t let me go.
    When I finally settled down, I was looking into Billie’s big blue eyes.
    Billie had this thing with her eyes. Her tear ducts plugged up, and the inside corners of her eyes got red and puffy.
    Last time I’d seen her, her eyes were almost swollen shut. In the hospital the night of the Senior Summer All Night Party.
    Tear duct cancer, Billie called it.
    My fingertips wiped the tears off Billie’s cheeks.
    It’s a cure, I said.
    What? Billie said.
    Your tear ducts burst, I said. It’s a miracle.
    A fucking miracle, Billie said.
    Then Billie said something about Saint Bernadette and Lourdes and holy tears that cure pregnancy. In no time at all, that weird sound was coming up from down deep, and Billie and I were laughing as hard as I’d been crying.
    Mrs. Cody made breakfast. Coffee. Two eggs over easy, a big slice of ham, and hash browns. Could have spent all morning sitting in the kitchen at the green Formica table with those two jabbering away, but when the sun pushed up a gold glow of isosceles triangle onto green Formica, I knew it was time to go.
    Hugs. Mrs. Cody gave me two big hugs. Then morning breath, coffee and cigarette. I watched Mrs. Cody’s lips tell me to bend down so she could kiss me.
    A big smooch on my forehead. Then her hands together against my cheeks, puckering my face.
    Rigby John Klusener, Mrs. Cody said, you’re a brave man.
    Brimming with tears, her eyes. All along the bottom lid, brimming. Then Mrs. Cody’s hands went over her mouth, and she ran into the bathroom. The latch of the bathroom door closed.
    Billie walked me down the spiral steps. On the third step, she slipped the book into my hands. I didn’t look at the title of the book because no matter what, it was going to be the saddest title of a book ever, so instead of taking the book in my hands and saying, Jeez thanks, or something dumb, I grabbed onto Billie’s arm, just above the wrist, and pulled her to me and put my arms around her.
    I love you, Billie said.
    I went to say it too, but I stopped. Stepped back and took a good long look at her. There she stood next to the light with the ivy climbing. She’d put on her black beret. Black beret, my black T-shirt, gold earrings, red lips. Barefoot. Short in the leg and big in the bust. Another one of our jokes and what Richard Burton said about Liz.
    I thought: love.
    Almond-shaped hazel eyes.
    Flaco, Acho, Grandma Queep, Georgy Girl.
    I thought: love. Billie Cody.
    So my brain let my lips say the words too.
    I love you too, I