Coe Review

to get information, and also to show Norma that he was interested in her.
He wanted to know her last name, for starters. He wanted to know where
she lived and which one of the cars out in the parking lot belonged to her.
He wanted to know where she was from originally, or if she had always lived
in Ellsworth. He wanted to know if she went to church on Sundays, or if
she was an atheist, or if maybe she was an agnostic like himself, never sure
what to think about the larger questions. He wanted to know the kinds of
things that grabbed her attention. He wanted to know if she had a boyfriend,
although he couldn't imagine that she wouldn't. He wanted to know if she
planned to have a career in banking, or if this was just a temporary thing
for her. Along those same lines, it was important to know whether she was
looking for another job. Because if she got one—without any way of tracking
her down — he knew he would probably never see her again.
"Any cash back today?" she asked.
Eugene shook his head.
Norma completed the transaction, and the computer printed out his
receipt. She slid it back under the window.
"You have a nice day," she smiled.
Eugene felt the question that was right there on his tongue slide back
down his throat, the way it always did. He pulled his receipt out of the
tray and tucked it into the envelope. With gritty determination, he kept his
eyes on hers. "You have a nice day, too," he told her, his voice once again
croaking out the first word.
At dinner he recounted his day to Sharon, and Sharon recounted hers
to him.
"The country club," Eugene said. "The bloody country club, the bane
of my life. I'm stuck on that roof. That's what I did all day—the roof. You
know, it always comes down to the details. The details are going to make
or break a building. They've got this interior courtyard planned, see. They
want it to be round, and it's where the roof curves that's making me crazy.
It's getting all the pieces to fit, you know, gutters, everything. Making sure
the water flows right, positioning the downspouts. If the water doesn't flow
right, the next thing you know it finds the cracks and starts seeping in.
That's when the lawsuits start coming."
Sharon nodded. "Yeah," she answered, "so you've said."
She stood up with her plate and helped herself to another chicken wing
at the stove. She was tall like Norma, Eugene thought, but far more filled
out. Thicker in every part. And not as dark, hair or skin. Older. And more
familiar to him. Too familiar—she began to chew on the wing before she
sat down, ripping away the skin with her teeth.
4 Roman Norma of the Manor