'Regal.'
'This is Pearl,' Susan said. 'I inherited her from my ex-husband because he's transferred to London, and her daddy is building her a fence.' 'This is embarrassing,' Paul said.
'Let's go get a beer,' I said, 'and you can see how regal she is inside.'
It took Pearl maybe fifteen minutes to calm down, climb up into the white satin armchair in Susan's living room, turn around three times, and lie with her head on her back legs in a tight ball and watch us drink beer.
'I recall,' Paul said to Susan, 'that you used to kick me off that chair.
It was for looking at, not sitting in, you said.'
'Well, she likes it,' Susan said.
Paul nodded. 'Oh,' he said.
'You going to stay awhile?' I said.
'Maybe,' he said. 'I left my stuff at your place.' I nodded. There was more.
I'd known him since he was a fragmented little kid. I waited.
'How's Paige?' Susan said.
'Fine.'
'Have you set a date yet?'
'Sort oњ'
'How does one sort of set a date?' Susan said.
'You discuss next April with each other, but you don't tell anyone else. It allows for a certain amount of ambivalence.'
Susan nodded.
'Want a sandwich or something?' she said.
'What have you got?'
'There's some whole wheat bread,' Susan said. 'And some lettuce…'
Paul waited.
'Oregano,' I said. 'I think I saw some dried oregano in the refrigerator.'
'In the refrigerator?' Paul said.
'Keeps it nice and fresh,' Susan said.
'That's it?' Paul said. 'A lettuce and oregano sandwich on whole wheat?'
'Low in calories,' Susan said, 'and nearly fat free.'
'Maybe we could go out and get something later,' Paul said.
I went to the kitchen and got two more beers and a diet Coke, no ice, for
Susan.
'Makes me question myself sometimes,' I said when I brought the drinks.
'Being the love object of a woman who likes warm diet Coke.'
Susan smiled at me.
Paul said, 'My mother's missing.'
I nodded. 'Tell me about it.'
'We've been getting along a little better. She's a little easier mother for a twenty-five-year-old man than for a fifteen-year-old boy,' Paul said.
'And I used to call her maybe every other week and we'd talk, and maybe two three times a year we'd see each other when she was in New York. She even came to a couple of my performances.'
On the armchair, Pearl sat up suddenly as if someone had spoken to her and gazed off silently toward the bookcase on the far wall. Her head in profile was perfectly motionless and her face was very serious.
'One thing made her easier was she had a boyfriend, has a boyfriend, I guess. When she's got a boyfriend, she's pretty good. Kind of fun, and interested in me, and not, you know, desperate.'
Pearl put her head slowly back down, this time on her front paws, which hung off the front of the armchair. She gazed soberly at the dust motes that drifted in the shaft of sunlight that came through Susan's back window.
'Anyway,' Paul said, 'I've called. her three or four times and got no answer, even though I left messages on her machine. And so I came up and went by her place in Lexington before I went to your place. There's no one there.'
Paul drank some beer from the bottle, held it by the neck, and gazed for a moment at the label.
'It's got that look, you know, that says it's empty.'
'You have a key?' I said.
'No. I think she didn't want me walking in on her when she had a date. She was always a little embarrassed
