'She's smarter than Jocelyn.'
CHAPTER 45
The first thing I saw when I woke up was Susan's pink and lavender flannel night gown in a heap on the floor. This was an excellent sign. I peeked under the covers. Susan was naked except for a pair of thick white athletic socks. This was another good sign.
Susan normally slept in thick flannel from late August until mid July. She wore the socks all year. On her night table was a half empty martini glass. I thought back over the night. My memory of the night, though furtive, confirmed the evidence of the morning.
Susan, apparently on the basis of if-you-can't-lick-'em-join-em, had jumped into the martinis with me and we had talked of everything but Port City, and eaten spaghetti late, and gone to bed and the flannel night gown had ended up on the floor. I looked at Susan; she had the covers up over her nose and her eyes open, looking at me.
'What are you going to do?' she said.
'After I get us some orange juice, I'm going to fondle your naked body until you are racked with desire,' I said.
'I know that,' Susan said.
'I mean what are you going to do later, about Jocelyn.'
'I don't know. Should I find her?'
Pearl pushed her nose through the nearly closed door and wiggled the door open and came into the bedroom. She jumped up on the bed and looked at the covers until I held them up, then she snaked down under them, in between us, and went to sleep. Susan patted her.
'How will you do that?' Susan said.
'She probably went to a motel,' I said.
'If you're going to kidnap yourself, it may make the papers; you can't stay with a friend.'
'But wouldn't she use a false name?' Susan said.
'She'd need a credit card, and she probably doesn't have any false ones,' I said.
'So you'll just check area motels?'
'Yeah.'
'And unless she had a bunch of cash, you'll find her.'
'And if she had a bunch of cash, someone will remember her for that,' I said.
'It's harder to hide than one might think,' Susan said.
'Especially for amateurs. But should I find her? She has almost certainly staged this to get my attention.'
'Yes,' Susan said.
'But we don't want her to keep escalating what she does until she gets your attention.'
'Good point,' I said.
We drank some orange juice and fooled around a little and then Susan looked at the clock, and rolled out of bed.
'My God,' she said.
'My first appointment comes in an hour.'
She began to speed about her bedroom while I lay in bed and watched her.
'Why not start a little earlier?' I said.
'So you don't have to dash around?'
'Because I was being grabbed by a hyper-gonadic thug,' Susan said as she stared into her closet. She was the only person I knew who could ponder hurriedly.
'Happen to you often?'
'Fortunately, yes.'
Susan took out a jacket, studied it frenetically, and threw it on a chair. She took out another jacket, held it against herself and looked in the mirror.
'Maybe that would look better,' I said, 'if you were wearing something on the bottom.'
'The guys at the health club tell me just the opposite,' Susan said.
'They may have a point,' I said.
But she didn't hear me; she had zoomed into the bathroom and closed the door. I finished my orange juice and got up and put on my pants and let Pearl out and fed her. I heard the shower running.
I went back to the bedroom and made the bed. The blue pinstripe suit that Susan had chosen for the day hung neatly on hangers from a hook inside the closet door. The things she had discarded were scattered around the room like autumn leaves the west wind fleeing. I heard the shower stop. I hung the clothes back up on their hangers. In the closet the clothes were carefully separated so as not to wrinkle. I never figured out her neatness rules. Whatever they were, they were suspended while she dressed. I took the martini glasses to the kitchen and put
