“Actually, it feels very similar to that molar implant I had done last year. The only difference is that was administered by a board-certified oral surgeon.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better I just met some huge fans of yours.”
“Oh, yeah, who?”
“The Acars, Nuri and Nema.” Total silence from his end. “She said you’re just about her best customer.”
“Well, sure,” Mitch said slowly. “I fill up my truck there all the time.”
“You are so busted, boyfriend.”
“Busted,” he confessed guiltily. “I throw myself on your mercy, Des. You must be so disappointed in me.”
“No, baby, I’m not,” she said, easing up off of the gas pedal. Because he could be so much worse. He could be Brandon. “You’re my boy. All I want is you, no matter what size you are-large, extra-large, jumbo, economy…”
“Okay, you made your point, Master Sergeant. I’ll tell you one thing-I’m going to get Nema for this.”
“Cut her a little slack. She’s had herself a bad day.” Des told him what had happened to their window.
“Oh my God, that’s awful. Truly detestable. You wouldn’t think.. .”
“You wouldn’t think what?”
“Nothing. I was just about to say ‘You wouldn’t think something like this could happen here,’ but I stopped myself because any time something bad happens in a small town the bystanders always say ‘This is more the kind of thing you’d expect to happen in New York City.’ And, as a New Yorker, I always get hopping mad. Things like this go on everywhere, because there are total assholes everywhere. Will you catch who did it?”
“That’s up to Hate Crimes, but if I had to guess I’d say yeah.”
“They’re a smart crew?”
“They are, plus the people who go in for these types of crimes tend to be genuinely stupid. Real, I think Nema knew more about it than she was letting on.”
“Why would she hold out on you?”
“Because her husband told her to.”
“You don’t like him, do you? You think he’s oleaginous.”
“Damn, is it that obvious?”
“Only to me, girlfriend.” From the first day they met Mitch been able to read her mind. Des had never understood how. “I’m glad you called-I was just going to call you and tell you to press your white flannels.”
“You just said what?”
“We’ve been invited to the highly exclusive Dorset Beach Club for dinner tonight, lovey,” he said, putting on his best Locust Valley Lockjaw. Which was not good at all. It traveled by way of Canarsie, where his parents were from. “Esme told Dodge what happened between Tito and me. Dodge thought if he got all of us together for a cookout and a swim it would help chill things out.”
“And Tito’s down with this?”
“Esme said she’d get him there. Dodge is inviting the rest of the Mesmers so as to defuse any possible tension.”
“The Mesmers?”
“That’s the name of our walking club.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“They don’t know it either. I’m bringing corn. Will and Donna are bringing everything else. You like them, right?”
She did like Donna. Will was polite but a bit reserved. Some of the locals were like that. Hell, most of the locals were like that.
“Jeff will be there, too.”
Jeff Wachtell she could live without. Des thought he was a whiner, plus he walked like a duck. “I thought you didn’t like to socialize with movie people.”
“That’s absolutely true. But under the circumstances I think this is something I need to do. Tito and Esme are going to be around for a while. I don’t want to get into a fight with this guy every time I try to go to the store.”
Which was why Des had wanted to march the actor straight to Westbrook in handcuffs. But she held her tongue. They’d been over this already.
“So are you game? I was kidding about the white flannels-it’s casual.”
“Thanks, baby, but I don’t think I’m up for that tonight.”
“You’re still mad that I didn’t press charges against him, is that it?”
“No, no. It’s not about you. I need to draw tonight, that’s all.”
“It’ll happen, Des,” he said encouragingly. “You just have to be patient.”
“Damn it, doughboy, don’t you ever get tired of being so supportive?”
He didn’t respond. Just gave her back a big dose of stung silence.
Now she sat there cursing her bad self. When she was frustrated she could go bitch cakes and then some. All the more reason she should be alone tonight. “That’s exactly what Professor Weiss told me,” she acknowledged. “He said I’d get it, and that the process would make me stronger. But it’s just not happening.”
“So why don’t you talk to him some more about it?” Mitch said, his voice a good deal cooler than it was before she bit his head clean off.
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Who is he, the Dalai Lama?”
“I have to figure it out myself, that’s all. I just wish I knew how. I keep, I don’t know, thinking this bolt of inspiration will strike me or something.”
“Tex in the stamp stalls, sure.”
“Tex in the what?”
“In Charade, when James Coburn is walking through the stamp stalls in the Paris park and suddenly, kerchunk, the whole plot falls right into place.”
“Damn it, Mitch, this is not some fool movie!”
“I do know that,” he shot back. “And I know something else- that I’ve already had my bellyful of childish, self-absorbed, pain-in-the-asses today, thank you very much.”
Des drew her breath in, stunned. He’d never spoken to her this way before. Not ever. “You’re right, baby,” she said. “My miss. I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.”
But she was too late.
Mitch Berger, the kindest, sweetest love of her life, had already hung up on her.
CHAPTER 5
Mitch was not happy that Des wouldn’t come with him to the beach club.
In fact, he was so not happy that he decided he’d better get off the phone awfully damned now. His jaw ached. His mood was vile. And he didn’t want to say anything that he might really regret. He found it hard to believe she was so self-centered she couldn’t see that he was in the midst of a monstrous professional crisis and that he needed her by his side-not going on and on about her damned trees.
His situation could not have been more of a nightmare. The twenty-four-hour cable news channels were already broadcasting video highlights of The Fight by the time he got home to Big Sister Island. The digital photos of Tito with his hands wrapped tightly around Mitch’s throat were out all over the Internet. There was Tito astride him like a wild beast, teeth bared, ready for the kill. There was Mitch pinned helplessly underneath him, looking like some form of slow, terrified water mammal.
It was America Online’s top news story of the day. The headline on the service provider’s main screen read “Tito Lowers Boom on Highbrow Critic.”
The arts editor of Mitch’s paper, Lacy Mickerson, had e-mailed him twice and left an urgent message for him on his phone machine. Dozens of his fellow critics from around the country had sent e-mails as well, many humorous. He would respond to them at some point, but right now he was too busy fending off calls from one
