“I thought you were friends.”
“Best of,” she said.
“And she won’t talk to you?”
“Afraid not.”
“So she knows something.”
“Afraid so,” she said.
“And could be in trouble?”
“Maybe.”
I told her about the mother-daughter visit to my office and about how they went home on friendly terms. And then I said, “Dierdre’s pregnant. I promised her I wouldn’t tell you and I probably shouldn’t have. But you need to know.”
“She’s pregnant? But she’s just a little girl.”
She nearly choked inhaling the smoke from her Gauloise.
“Knocked up.”
“Please, McCain. You’re vulgar enough just standing there. You don’t need to enhance it.”
“With child. In a maternal way. Preggers, as our British friends say.” She was something of an Anglophile. I thought maybe she’d go for it.
“Poor Sara,” she said.
“Poor Dierdre.”
“And no idea who the father is?”
“Not so far.”
“Probably some greasy-haired high-school boy who drives around with his car radio turned all the way up. Like you, in fact, McCain.”
“Thank you for the third time today.”
“No wonder she doesn’t want to talk to me.” Then: “Are you any closer to figuring this thing out than you were before?”
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
“Then what do I pay you for, McCain?
You’re my investigator-investigate, for God’s sake. Don’t sit here soaking up my brandy and wasting my time.”
“You haven’t offered me any brandy.”
“Oh.”
“And as far as wasting your time goes, I thought you’d appreciate being brought up to date.”
She went to the window and swept a graceful arm toward the grounds.
“You maybe have noticed all the activity out there.”
“I did indeed.”
“Dick will be here very soon.”
“I’m trying to hide my enthusiasm so as not to embarrass myself.”
“I want him to be comfortable here and to think well of us. I don’t want him to think that we’re a bunch of hill people who throw snakes around in our religious ceremonies. And murder each other.”
“You’ll have your killer.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
A knock at the door.
“Yes?”
Max, the butler. “There seems to be some trouble with the lilies, Judge.”
“The lilies?”
“They’re lagging.”
“The lilies are lagging?”
“That’s what the floral man says, Your Honor.”
“Florist, not floral man, Max.”
“The florist says the lilies are lagging, Judge. He’d like you to join him in the tent.”
After Max was gone, the Judge, obviously unhappy, said, “Did you hear that, McCain?”
“I certainly did. Your lilies are lagging.”
“I pay this kind of money and they lag.”
“I don’t want to live in a world like this anymore.”
“You’re more sarcastic than usual today, McCain. And since you don’t seem to have any sensitivity toward my lilies, I may as well be honest with you.”
“Honest? About what?”
“That ridiculous story you made up about tying two rattlesnakes together.”
“You didn’t believe it?”
“Not for a second.”
“Well,” I said as I left, “it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than lagging lilies, I’ll tell you that much.”
Fourteen
On Main Street, sitting primly on a bench in front of the Dairy Queen, I saw Kylie Burke and I almost pulled in and talked to her. But she looked so happy just then and I imagined her head was filled with all sorts of hopes and blissful fantasies about her life ahead with Chad. It’s funny how love can do that to you like nothing else. You put your hand on fire just once and you know enough never to do it again. But you listen to the same person make the same empty promises again and again, and you still come back. And back. And back. And there’s always the friend who knows the couple (they always live in Des Moines or Cleveland or somewhere like that) that went through exactly the same thing you’re going through-all the bunco and pain and humiliation and degradation-and you know what?
It was worth it because today these two are The Happiest Couple In The World. They have seventy-three children and eighteen dogs and eleven cats and they live on love. They don’t need groceries, they don’t need cars, they don’t need baths. Who needs that stuff when you’ve got Love, and we’re talking capital-letter
Love here, of course. So maybe if you can just hang in there just a little longer you’ll be exactly like this couple-maybe just like Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher who look, I have to say, as if they’re living on Love for sure-and then all this suffering and shame and emotional sucker-punching will be well worth it. She was probably thinking stuff like that. Because that’s the sort of thing I used to think about the beautiful Pamela Forrest when she’d give me just enough hope to hang on for another couple weeks. But in the end it’s us, isn’t it?
We could walk away anytime if we had the pride or common sense we should have. And yet we cling and hope. And have those happy-scared moments like the one Kylie was probably having now when the object of our affection throws us another sunny bit of hoke and hope.
A visitor waited for me in my client’s chair.
When he turned around, I said, “Lesbo Lummoxes. About really lazy lesbians.”
“Not bad,” he said.
“I was kidding.”
“Gee, McCain, so was I. I suggest a title like Lesbo Lummoxes, the editor probably wouldn’t ever give me any more work.”
As I walked around the desk to my chair, I said, “How about Lesbo Laundromat?”
“Lesbo Laundromat?”
“It’s where all these lesbians go to wash their clothes.”
“See, McCain,” Kenny Thibodeau said patiently, “this stuff isn’t as easy as it looks.”
“I guess not.”
“Are you by any chance a frustrated writer, McCain?”
