“Yes, but Ann Kiley loved him and he loved her enough to get himself caught.”
“Ann who?”
“Kiley,” Susan said and paused. “Oh,” she said. “You’re going to keep her out of it.”
“Yes.”
“Because she loved not wisely but too well?”
“Yeah. That’s one thing.”
“What else?” Susan said.
“Her father loves her,” I said.
Susan looked at me for a while. I looked back. It was like looking into my own soul.
“Now who’s sentimental,” she said.
I nodded.
“Do you think we could get Pearl to move?” I said.
“Sure,” Susan said. “I’ll bribe her with a cookie.”
“Okay.”
Susan got up, elegantly stark naked, and went to the kitchen and returned with a dog biscuit, which she waved under Pearl’s nose. Pearl perked, and tracked the cookie to the foot of the bed, where Susan helped her down. She settled onto the floor with her cookie and Susan jumped back onto the bed.
“Now what?”
“I owe you about a thousand dollars’ worth of nude looks,” I said.
“Maybe we can work out a payment schedule.”
“I could maybe bop your rear molars out,” I said.
Susan smiled at me. “Well,” she said, “since you put it so nicely.”
Surprisingly, her molars remained stable… though I think they might have loosened a little.
