slightly open. She was snoring, not very loudly, but quite clearly. The only other noises in the mobile home were the faint hum of the refrigerator somewhere forward and a faint tingling sound which was probably from the heaters.
My voice seemed booming when it spoke again. “You are a mess,” my voice said thoughtfully, “you are a terrible mess.”
I went out of the mobile home and closed the door carefully behind me.
Chapter 4
I COLLECTED Susan from the wardrobe trailer, and we I walked down across the Common toward Boylston Street. As the afternoon shortened it had gotten colder, and now in the late half-light of a winter afternoon the temperature was maybe ten above. The wind had died and it was still and brittle among the black trees. Around the Common the city lights had begun to show weakly, pale heatless flickers at the fringe of the hard silence. There was no one on the Common. Susan’s shoulder touched mine as we walked. Her hands were jammed into the big pockets of her coat. Only a small white oval of her face showed inside the turned-up collar, under the fur hat, framed by the black hair. I had my hands in my jacket pockets. There were times for holding hands, and times for not. I had my watch cap pulled down over my ears too. It wasn’t raffish but I knew Susan would let it pass.
“Cold, cold, cold, cold,” Susan said.
“Cold,” I said.
“Ah, the master of compression,” Susan said. “How far is Biba?”
“Other side of Charles Street,” I said.
Susan had been to Biba exactly as often as I had, since she’d always gone with me. But she always asked distances like that as if she was just in from Boise.
At Charles Street the commuter traffic had started to develop and the exhaust of newly started engines plumed in the iron air. We crossed Charles and then Boylston and went past the Four Seasons Hotel and turned in under Biba’s blue awning.
The bar was not crowded. The cold slowed everything down. Susan ordered a cup of tea with Courvoisier on the side. I had a brandy and soda. She had draped her coat open over the back of her chair and pulled off her gloves. Her face was bright with the cold. She kept the fur hat on and it seemed almost to blend with her thick black hair. Her chin rested on the heavy fold of a black turtleneck sweater. With our drinks we ordered some crab tacos and some empanadas. It was warm in the bar and I knew downstairs the brick oven was baking bread. A hint of its warmth and smell drifted down, or it seemed to. I could feel the stiffness leave me as I drank maybe a third of the brandy and soda and felt the warmth under the cold soda ease through my system. I looked at Susan, at the width of her mouth, the fullness of her lower lip, the line of her cheekbone. I watched her dab a microscopic portion of salsa on one corner of a crabmeat taco and bite off an edge. It was a small taco, the kind you pop into your mouth all at once, if you’re any kind of an eater at all. It would take Susan fifteen minutes to finish it. She chewed her tiny bite carefully, watching me look at her.
“So,” she said, and her teeth flashed white and even as she smiled at me. “How do I stack up against Jill Joyce?”
I popped one of the empanadas into my mouth and chewed. I washed it down with more brandy and soda.
“I think I’d need to see you both naked before I can make a full judgment,” I said.
Susan nodded thoughtfully.
“Well, I could arrange that at my end,” she said.
“Nicely phrased,” I said. “Jill has already made a similar offer.”
Susan poured a splash of cognac into her tea, took a small sip, and put the teacup down. She watched a couple of guys in tweed overcoats and plaid scarves come in, rubbing their hands and hunching their shoulders from the cold. They crossed to the bar, put briefcases on the floor, and ordered Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Susan looked back at me. Her big dark eyes seemed bottomless.
“Hard to blame her,” Susan said.
“Yes,” I said, “of course it is. I think for her it was love at first sight.”
“It happens to her a lot, I understand.”
“You mean there’s someone else?” I said.
Susan’s smile widened. She sipped a little more tea, assessed its impact, added another small splash of cognac.
“I think so,” she said.
“Oh, well,” I said. “There’s always you.”
“I adore it when you sweet-talk me,” Susan said.
“Emphasis on the always,” I said.
“Yes,” Susan said. She finished the first crab taco. “So,” she said, “she made a pass at you?”
“Almost an assault,” I said.
“And you turned her down.”
“I didn’t get the chance to. She passed out.”
“Tell me about it,” Susan said. “Everything. Every detail.”
I did. By the time I’d finished it was time for another brandy and soda. When it arrived I slid down a little in my chair and stretched out my legs in front of me and watched the amusement play on Susan’s face. Outside in the darkness life barely moved in the sullen cold. Inside was food and drink and Susan and the whole evening ahead.
