“How do you get that way?” She was snarling like a cougar. I liked her like that.
“How are you, Cora?”
“Lousy.”
From then on, I began to smell her again.
One day the Greek heard there was a guy up the road undercutting him on gas. He jumped in the car to go see about it. I was in my room when he drove off, and I turned around to dive down in the kitchen. But she was already there, standing in the door.
I went over and looked at her mouth. It was the first chance I had had to see how it was. The swelling was all gone, but you could still see the tooth marks, little blue creases on both lips. I touched them with my fingers. They were soft and damp. I kissed them, but not hard. They were little soft kisses. I had never thought about them before. She stayed until the Greek came back, about an hour. We didn’t do anything. We just lay on the bed. She kept rumpling my hair, and looking up at the ceiling, like she was thinking.
“You like blueberry pie?”
“I don’t know. Yeah. I guess so.”
“I’ll make you some.”
“Look out, Frank. You’ll break a spring leaf.”