These were boys with hands like fine-grained sandpaper, slightly sweaty and yellowish. They spit their Skoal into Dr Pepper cans or right out the window onto two-lanes as George Strait sang it sad and too true. One of them wore Wranglers, thirty-two by thirty-six, with a fade mark on the back right pocket as perfect and distinct as the sweat of a highball glass onto a cork coaster. I came upon them as I rooted under Teresa’s bed for her diary. The blue spread hid dust motes and carpet smells, a dinner plate with fossilized mustard, one wilted gym sock. The jeans were folded, not balled or stuffed. If not for them, I could have been looking under my own bed: same navy spread with its gold flowers, same matching pillow permanently sleep-creased. The jeans were a blue you’d see through someone else’s window. They smelled like asphalt and fresh eggs, and a good six inches swam over my feet when I stood to hold them at my waist. What boy had filled these with his long teenage legs?
