The Date on the Kitchen Calendar

Saturday

Saturday came in gray and cool, the way April does out here.

The sky was one flat sheet of cloud, but it was not raining, and the trees along the side streets had just started to bud out, that pale green haze you only get for about a week.

I put on my purple fleece and grabbed the keys to our silver minivan.

Kyle was waiting by the back door at nine sharp, in his navy work jacket from the mill because it was the only coat he owned that was not for chores.

He had trimmed his short beard and buzzed his hair fresh that morning. I noticed and did not say so.

He had all three listings in a folder on his lap. He did not say a word the whole way downtown. I did not push him.

I turned the radio to the oldies station his grandmother used to like, and after a few minutes he started tapping one finger on the folder.

The first apartment was over the hardware store, up a long narrow stairway.

The man who owned it met us at the top, and the minute he opened the door the smell came out to meet us: cat, and old carpet, and something under both of those I did not want to know about.

The man said the last tenant had a few cats. Kyle walked in two steps, looked at the brown water stain on the ceiling over the kitchen sink, and looked back at me.

I gave him a little nod. He thanked the man politely, which I was proud of, and we went back down.

“That one’s a no,” Kyle said in the van, and he sounded almost surprised that he was allowed to say it.

“That one’s a no,” I agreed. “Good. Now you know what a no looks like. That’s half of it, right there.”

The second place was over a bar on Fourth Street, and the floor was already humming at noon. Kyle shook his head from the doorway.

The third place was on Elm Street, three blocks from the park. I pulled our silver minivan up to the curb and we both sat for a second looking at it.

It was a two-story brick building, old but kept up, with a black metal railing running up the concrete front steps and a big maple in the yard just starting to leaf.

The landlord was already waiting at the front door. She was about fifty, gray-blonde, in a green cardigan buttoned up against the chill, with a big ring of keys in one hand.

Her name was Donna. I had seen her at the grocery store a hundred times and never known she owned anything.

We got out and started up the walk, me with my car keys still in my hand and Kyle beside me holding his listing.

Halfway there he stopped on the sidewalk. He was looking at that building the way I have seen farmers look at a field in May.

“This one,” he said quietly. “I can tell.”

“You haven’t even seen inside,” I said, but I was smiling, and I think he could hear it.

“I know,” he said. “But I can tell.”