Chapter 65
PEARL WAS ASLEEP on the living-room couch. I was having the first drink of the day, sitting at my kitchen counter, watching the ball game and trying to keep myself under control. It was September. The Sox were still in it, and this might be the year again ... or not.
Suddenly, Pearl sat bolt upright on the couch, her ears forward, and stared at my front door unwaveringly. There was the sound of a key in the lock. Pearl began to whimper softly. I did not, being more restrained. The door opened, and Susan came in with a shoulder bag. Pearl bolted over the back of the couch and rushed at her. Susan put her shoulder bag on the floor and crouched down. Pearl capered over and around her, lapping her face and making small crying sounds. I felt the same way, but there was no room for both of us in my small hallway. Instead, in an act of great symbolic import, I picked up the remote and shut off the Sox game.
Susan stood and worked her way around Pearl and came to the counter. I got off the stool and put my arms out, and there she was. I was complete again. Pearl weaseled around us as we hugged.
'The limo took me home,' Susan said. 'And I unpacked and took a bath and changed my clothes and came right over.'
The room seemed full of oxygen.
'Why the hurry?' I said.
My voice sounded odd to me, and remote.
'Because I have missed you so badly I couldn't breathe,' Susan said. 'And I love you so much I could explode.'
'Wow,' I said.
'Exactly,' she said.
Pearl didn't like being shut out of the bedroom, but she had grown somewhat used to it, and didn't yowl. When it was appropriate, Susan got up, a little uneasy, as always, about being naked while upright, and opened the bedroom door. Pearl joined us.
'Home,' Susan said with me on one side of her and Pearl on the other.
'Wherever we are,' I said.
'Yes.'
We talked for a long time. She about the conference at Duke, me about the Jared Clark situation. Pearl lost interest and fell asleep with her head on Susan's thigh, which made it impossible for Susan to get under the covers without disturbing Pearl, which I knew she wouldn't do. I did not lose interest. I could listen to Susan talking to me, or me talking to Susan, for as long as either of us could sustain it. And when neither of us could, our silences together were just as symphonic.
'Jared really didn't have much of a chance,' Susan said.
'No.'
I had my arm around Susan's shoulders. Her head was on my chest.
'The other kid probably didn't, either,' Susan said.
'No.'
'Lot of kids don't have a chance, do they,' Susan said.
'You and I see the adult residue of that every day,' I said.
'Perhaps the one absolute essential to growing up well is being tough enough,' Susan said.
'Like us,' I said.
'Just like us,' Susan said. 'But maybe not so lucky.'
'I'd have found you,' I said, 'with or without luck.'
Susan smiled and kissed me gently on the mouth.
'Probably not,' she said. 'But if someone could, it would be you.'
Pearl shifted her position, and Susan whipped the covers over herself I smiled.
'At last,' I said.
'I wonder why I'm so uneasy naked,' she said.
'Maybe it's the gimlet-eyed lechery of my gaze,' I said.
'Probably,' she said.
We lay quietly, listening to our silence for a while.
'What will happen to him?' Susan said.
'He'll do time,' I said. 'He's confessed. We know he wus in that school with a loaded gun. He's the only one who really knows if he shot somebody.'
'But . . . ?'
'But aside from being hotter than the rockets' red glare,' I said, 'Rita Fiore is a goddamned genius.'
'So he has some hope,' Susan said.
'The answer to that is more your department,' I said. 'His parents have put him aside. The love of his life is a child molester. He's going to be convicted in one way or another of a capital crime. How much hope is he likely to have?'
