“And then Niecie send you?”
“Yeah.” Robyn sat back in her chair still holding his fingers.
“President Bush today said that America was a safer place than it was five years ago, when terrorists crashed two passenger jets into the World Trade Towers,” a female news anchor said in between the silence of the new friends. “Democratic leaders in Congress disagreed . . .”
Don’t go in there,” Ptolemy said when Robyn opened the door to the bathroom.
“I got to, Mr. Grey,” she said. “If I’ma be comin’ here an’ lookin’ aftah you I got to have a toilet to go to.”
While Ptolemy tried to think of some other way he could have Robyn’s company and keep her out of the bathroom, she opened the door and went in.
“Oh my God,” she said. “What is this?”
A large wad of blackened towels flew out from the doorway and landed with a thump on the small bare area of the crowded floor.
Ptolemy covered his face with his hands.
“You got suitcases in the bathtub,” Robyn called out. “An’ there’s black stuff growin’ in the commode. There’s, oh my God, oh no ...”
Ptolemy went to sit next to his big cabinet radio so that the woman singing opera would drown out the sounds and complaints coming from the girl.
As the singer professed what sounded like love in her sweet, high voice, Ptolemy allowed himself to drift. He was adrift in a boat in a city in Italy where all the streets were rivers. Coydog had told him about that town.
“Men stands at the back’a long boats with long sticks they push to the bottom to move ’em down the way,” the old liar told him.
“You been there, Coydog?” the boy asked. Ptolemy remembered then, so many years later, listening to opera and ignoring Robyn, that he never called Coy Mr. McCann, which was his name. It was just mostly boy for Li’l Pea and Coydog for Coy.
“I been there in my mind,” Coy McCann told the boy.