All the Time in the World by E. L. Doctorow Read Free Book Online Page A

look at you? Please.
    Did he?
    When I turned around, he started the engine and drove off.
    What do you mean? So before you turned around—
    I felt his eyes. I was weeding.
    You were bending over?
    Here we go again.
    You know this creep pulls up in front of our house every morning and you go out to the garden and bend over?
    Okay, end of conversation. I have things to do.
    Maybe I can park at the curb and watch you weeding. The two of us. That’s something, anyway. Seeing you in your shorts bending over.
    I can’t ever talk to you about anything.
    It was a Ford Falcon. You said it was squared off, hard edges, a flattened look. A Falcon. They built them in the sixties. Three-speed manual shift on the column. Only ninety horses.
    Okay, that’s wonderful. You know all about cars.
    Listen, Miss Garden Lady, to know a man’s car is to know him. It is not useless knowledge.
    Fine.
    Guy is some immigrant up from Tijuana.
    What are you talking about?
    Who else would drive a forty-year-old heap? Looking for work. Looking for something he can steal. Looking for something from the lady with the white legs who bends over in her garden.
    You’re out of your mind. You’ve got this know-it-all attitude—
    I’ll take the morning off tomorrow.
    Immigrants don’t have long gray hair and roll the window down so I can see his pink face and pale eyes.
    Oh, ho! Now we’re getting somewhere.
    YOU DON’T MOVE OUT of here I’m writing down your license plate. The cops will I.D. you and see if it’s someone they know …
    You’re calling the police?
    Yes.
    Why?
    Why not, if you don’t move? Go park somewhere else. I’m giving you a break.
    What is my offense?
    Don’t play dumb. In the first place, I don’t like some junk heap in front of my house.
    I’m sorry. It’s the only car I have.
    Right, I can see that no one would drive this thing if he didn’t have to. And all this bag and baggage. You sell things out of the trunk?
    No. These are my things. I wouldn’t want to let anything go.
    Because nobody in this neighborhood needs anything from the back of a car.
    Well, I’m sorry we’ve gotten off to the wrong start.
    Yes, we have. I’m not too friendly when some pervert decides to stalk my wife.
    Oh, I’m afraid you’re under a misconception.
    Am I?
    Yes. I didn’t want to disturb anyone, but I should have realized that parking in front of your house would attract notice.
    You got that right.
    If I’m stalking anything, it’s the house.
    What?
    I used to live here. For three days, I’ve been trying to work up the courage to knock on your door and introduce myself.
    AH, I SEE THE KITCHEN is quite different. Everything built-in and tucked away. Our sink was freestanding, white porcelain withpiano legs. Over here was a cabinet where my mother kept the staples. A shelf swung out with a canister for sifting flour. That impressed me.
    I’d probably have kept it. This is their renovation—the people who lived here before us. I have my own ideas for changing things around.
    You must have bought the house from the people I sold it to. You’ve been here how long?
    Let’s see. I count by the children’s ages. We moved in just after my eldest was born. That would be twelve years.
    And how many children have you?
    Three. All boys. I’ve sometimes wished for a daughter.
    They’re all in school?
    Yes.
    I have a daughter. An adult daughter.
    Would you like some tea?
    Yes, thank you. Very kind of you. Women are more gently disposed, as a rule. I hope your husband won’t be too put out.
    Not at all.
    To speak truly, it’s unsettling to be here. It’s something like double vision. The neighborhood is much as it was. But the trees are older and taller. The homes—well, they’re still here, mostly, though they don’t have the proud, well-to-do look they once had.
    It’s a settled neighborhood.
    Yes. But you know? Time is heartbreaking.
    Yes.
    My parents divorced when I was a boy. I lived with my mother. She would die in the