Ever After Read Online Free Page B

to shoot baskets. They have a great playground here, too. Sometimes he’ll come in and give me a hand, pushing desks around.
    A couple times the big, bearded guy from Oregon comes in. He’s going to be teaching computing and is getting his room fixed up, too. He speaks very slowly, but the more we talk, the more I like him. He doesn’t waste time with anything that isn’t worth talking about. Chatter is about ninety percent of all conversations anyway, but when he says something it’s usually interesting. He can’t believe I can really speak German and I’m not German. I try explaining, but I’m not sure I come across.
    I find a refrigerator being sold by an elderly German couple, at a price I can pay. They’re willing to hold on to it till I get my check, but I need to find someone to move it.
    The next time Bert, that’s the name of the bearded Oregonian, stops in my classroom, I ask if he could help me move a refrigerator. I promise him a home-cooked meal, American-style, in return. He stares at me a minute, then lifts an eyebrow and says, “Spare-ribs?”
    I have no idea where I can find spare-ribs in Germany, although I do know how to cook them. That’s one advantage of those years cooking at home instead of washing dishes. So we make the deal. He wrestles that machine out of the cellar of these old people, across town, and up my stairs, single-handedly, as if it were a portable radio or something. He’s bushed when he’s finished and flops down on my couch.
    â€œYou don’t perhaps have some of this great German beer around, do you, Kate?”
    By luck, I have one bottle. I don’t drink beer myself. It isn’t cold because we haven’t plugged in the refrigerator yet, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He has a bottle-opener on the knife with his keys, and drinks it out of the bottle before I can find a glass. Just then, Wills comes running in. Bert lolls back and smiles.
    â€œHi there, buster, what’s your name?”
    Wills, his mouth open, is taking in this hunk of a man. Bert has to be six-three and 200 pounds.
    â€œWills, sir.”
    â€œWell, Wilzer, I’ve seen you shooting baskets down there in the gym. You like basketball?
    â€œYeah, but I can’t get the ball up high enough to go through the basket. It’s too high.”
    â€œSure you can. Next time I see you down there, I’ll show you how. You’ll be dropping in baskets like Magic Johnson.”
    I’ve prepared most of the dinner. I’ve borrowed some dishes and cutlery—so much for my bachelor life. I’ve let the spare-ribs simmer for three hours, basting them with my ersatz barbecue sauce. I’ve set the little table. Wills is as excited about having spare-ribs as Bert is. I haven’t done any real cooking in quite a while.
    Both Wills and Bert eat with such gusto that my hokey barbecue sauce is spread all over the kitchen. No cook can ever complain when people dig in like that, and I don’t.
    For me, Bert looks part grizzly bear, yet, strangely enough, it’s attractive. He’s physical, is deeply into sports; likes beer, chasing women, horsing around with the boys. He’s exactly the kind of man I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid. I also recognize in him some of the things in my dad which drove me up a wall. I wonder what Mom would think of him: dismiss him probably as one of the unwashed peasants. But I admit his very simplicity gets to me. I know I’ll need to watch myself.
    For Wills, Bert is just some other kid to play with. Bert actually listens to him ramble on, and shows him about ten different silly things you can do with a knife, fork, and spoon, including drumming. They start drumming on the table, the glasses, the dishes, anything they can touch, while Bert sings or hums, “When the Saints Come Marching In.” That’s how a lot of the sauce is spread all over the place.
    In