or unbrushed, no make-up, hands chapped from constantly cleaning and sterilizing her father’s house, obsessed with the mortal consequences of infection.
“She can share all this with a friend of the accused?”
“Are you and I friends?”
It’s true I hadn’t seen her for a while, ever since I took up with Amanda. I hadn’t been conscious of it, but I guess I’d steered clear to avoid misinterpretation. Or temptation.
She smiled at me.
“Don’t panic,” she said. “We’re still friends. Of a type.”
“I guess I deserved that.”
“You didn’t come to Dad’s funeral, but you sent a note to the rabbi, who slipped it to me. You didn’t sign it, but I knew who it was.”
“Never try to get one past a psychologist.”
“I told Edith about it. Didn’t do any good.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“And to answer your question, she didn’t share much with me. Just the vaguest outline. But I could fill in the blanks. I know an awful lot about you.”
“Awful waste of time.”
“I’ve had time to waste. Basically lived on the Internet. Doing research, after a fashion. You were one of my favorite subjects.”
She looked at me with her soft, sensitive eyes, made more so by the dominating presence of the mountain ridge in between. They were moist blue, filled with commingled sadness and humor.
“Probably know more than me,” I said.
“Definitely,” she said with some conviction.
“Puts me at a disadvantage.”
She considered that.
“Yes, of course it does. Not a place you like to find yourself.”
“See, I didn’t know that,” I said.
When she smiled, razor-thin crow’s-feet flared up from the corners of her eyes.
“What I don’t know is why you’re here,” she said. “Specifically.”
“You’re good at research. Already been stipulated.”
“It bothers you that I’ve researched you,” she said.
“A little.”
“Did I ever tell you why I broke up with my husband?”
“No,” I said, knowing I’d never ask and would pray she’d never bring it up herself.
“Whenever I pressed him on anything, he’d push back. And the harder he pushed back, the more I pressed. The more you try to protect your secrets, the more curious I get. It’s a problem of mine.”
“You need a psychologist.”
“Or something to research,” she said. “A place to put all that curiosity.”
“What do you know about Southampton High School? Say about twenty-five years ago.”
“Robbie Milhouser was a student,” she said.
“I’m curious about what he did. Who he hung out with. His record.”
“His confidential record.”
“Yeah. The good stuff.”
“Which of course I can’t reveal.”
“Of course not. All you have to do is read it, then we sit around and you tell me what you think.”
“Why don’t I photocopy the file and bring it over to your house?”
“I don’t want the file,” I said. “I want to know what you think.”
“No one else cares.”
“About what you think?”
“About Robbie Milhouser,” she said, smiling again. “No one has asked.”
“Why would they? High school was a long time ago.”
“Then why are you?”
“Curiosity.”
She stopped tapping her fingers, but then started twitching her foot. She looked at it and frowned, perturbed by the errant body part.
“I am a very good researcher,” she said, looking back up at me. “If modesty will allow. Lucky for you, I’m also open to barter.”
“I liked your other business model. I asked you for favors and you did them for nothing.”
“My accountants have encouraged me to make adjustments. Anyway, your balance with me is paid in full.”
“With what?”
She pointed to her nose.
“This.”
Like she said, Rosaline knew me a lot better than I knew her. What I mostly remembered was sitting around her father’s living room, drinking tea or rye depending on the hour, and comfortably marking the final ticks of the old man’s clock.
“Okay. Now you’re out ahead of me.”
“The offended always has a clearer recollection than the offender.”
“Ah, thoughtlessness. Now I get it.”
“You told me I’d been hiding my insecurities behind my nose, so to speak. And if I fixed it, they’d have to live out in the sunlight. Or words to that effect.”
“You call that offensive? I can do better than that.”
“I took your advice, but did you one better. I kept the nose and shed the insecurities.”
From the way she looked, and was looking at me, you could almost believe her. Even if part true, it was all for the good.
“If that’s how my personality affects people, I’ve brought a lot of joy to the world.”
“Too bad I’m the only one gracious enough to tell you.”
“So, what sort of insult will score some more information?”
She held up her hand and pointed a long, slender index finger at the ceiling.
“Insults have been devalued in today’s market. I’m diversifying into historical fact.”
“Whose history?”
“Yours,” she said, as if disappointed in me for asking.
“I thought you already had that cornered.”
“I want to know why you did it.”
“You’ll have to narrow that. There’re a lot of ‘its.’”
“Why you punched Mason Thigpen in the jaw.”
Thigpen was chief corporate council for the big industrial company I worked for until the last board meeting they mistakenly invited me to, proven by my change of agenda.
“In the nose. I hit him in the nose. Only stupid kids and movie actors hit people in the jaw. The nose is handier and softer and hurts the owner a lot more than it hurts your fist.”
Patrick Getty could have verified that.
“I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “Rather a nasty thought for me personally.”
“You read about Thigpen on the Internet?”
She smiled another disappointed little smile.
“A professional researcher never reveals her sources.”
“It was no big deal,” I said, as I reached in my pocket for a cigarette, then withdrew my hand, remembering the evolved state of the teachers’ lounge.
“No. Only that it abruptly truncated the steady rise of a man being groomed for the executive suite. A man universally admired, even by his rivals, as technically brilliant and blissfully unconcerned about corporate
