patent pleasure in seeing her, thanked him for his compliment to her dress, and then to her hair, and not giving him any time to go further, handed the wine to Mr. Edwards and took shelter in the kitchen.
'Emilio might be a little late,' Dr. Edwards told her, kissing her cheek. 'Baseball game. Don't be alarmed if he shows up in a full-body cast, dear. His team's in second place and when it's that close, Father Sandoz plays ball for keeps.'
But Sofia heard his voice only ten minutes later, announcing the score, clearly pleased with the result. Greeting George and Jimmy on the run, Sandoz came straight to the kitchen, hair still damp from his shower, shirttails flying, with flowers for Dr. Edwards, upon whom he bestowed a brief courtly kiss. Obviously at home, he reached past Anne for a vase on one of the shelves, filled it with water and put the flowers into it, arranging them a little before turning from the sink to take them out to the table. Then he saw Sofia, sitting on the stool in the corner, and his eyes warmed while his face remained gravely dignified.
Drawing one flower from Anne's bouquet, he tapped the moisture from it and inclined his head in a short, formal bow.
After dinner, they moved into the living room and Sofia Mendes felt herself relaxing in a way that she had never experienced as an adult. There was a kind of safety here that she found as exotic as a dogwood and as beautiful. She felt that she was wholly welcome, that people in this home were prepared to like her, no matter who she was or what she'd done. She felt she could tell Anne, or even George, about the days before Jaubert, and that George would forgive her and Anne would say that Sofia had been brave and sensible to do what she had to.
As dusk deepened into night, the conversation trailed off and Anne suggested that Jimmy play something, an idea that met with universal approval. He looked like a child looming over a toy piano, Sofia thought, his knees splayed to the outside, almost level with the keys, feet angled in toward the pedals. But he was a graceful and fluid player, his big hands easily dominating the keyboard, and she tried not to be embarrassed as he sang a rather obvious love song.
'Jimmy, I know you adore me, but try to be discreet,' Anne said in a stage whisper, glancing at Sofia and hoping to change the mood before the boy dug himself in too deeply. 'George is standing right here! And anyhow, this stuff is too damned sentimental.'
'Come on, punk, get out of there,' George ordered, laughing, waving Jimmy away from the piano. 'Sofia, your turn.'
'You play?' Jimmy asked, knocking over the piano bench in his haste to vacate for her.
'A little,' she said and added honestly, 'not so well as you.'
She began with a small piece by Strauss, not too difficult but pretty. Gaining confidence, she tried some Mozart but got lost in one of the more complicated passages and gave up, despite the encouragement mixed with good-natured razzing. 'I think I must be very nervous, to play like this,' she said smiling ruefully, turning toward the room.
She meant to apologize for her ineptitude after Jimmy's lovely playing and to yield the instrument to him, but then her eyes fell on Sandoz, sitting in a chair in the corner, at a little distance from the rest of them, withdrawn by choice or by nature or by circumstance. Unclear about her own motives, warmed by the wine and the company, she began something she thought would be familiar to him, a very old Spanish melody. To everyone's surprise, probably even his own, Emilio left his corner, came to the side of the piano, and began to sing in a clear light tenor.
Judging him, Sofia changed keys and then the tempo as well. His eyes narrowed slightly but he started the second verse in the minor key she was using, following her lead. Pleased that he'd understood her intent, holding his eyes with hers, she began to sing a different song, in counterpoint.
She had a grainy contralto and the voices were gorgeous together, despite or perhaps because of the oddity of a male taking the higher notes, and for a little while there was no other sound in the world than the song Emilio Sandoz and Sofia Mendes sang.
Jimmy looked sick with envy. Anne moved behind him, bending over the sofa to put her thin, strong arms around his big shoulders and rest her head next to his. When she felt the rigidity give way, she tightened her embrace briefly and let him go, straightening up and standing quietly as the song went on. Ladino, she thought, recognizing elements of Spanish and Hebrew. Sofia's song was a Sephardic variation on the Spanish tune, perhaps.
Anne looked at George and saw him come to his own conclusion, suspecting the outcome, but not from the music, only from a feeling of inevitability about these two people. And then her silent analysis fell away and she listened, trying not to shiver, as the two songs diverged and interwove until, at the very end, the harmony and counterpoint resolved: lyrics and melodies and voices coming together, across the centuries, to a single word and note.
Tearing her eyes away from Emilio's face, Anne led the chorus of praise, restoring a fragile equilibrium. Jimmy did his best, but ten minutes later he made excuses about having work to catch up on and, calling out his good-byes, headed for the door. This was the cue for a general exodus, as though all of them needed to put space between themselves and a kind of intimacy no one had planned or anticipated. Anne hesitated, feeling that as hostess she should wait until Emilio and Sofia left as well. But it was taking them a few minutes to get organized, so she covered herself with a plausible excuse and followed Jimmy out the door.
He was more than halfway to the plaza when Anne caught up with him in the dark. The neighborhood was quiet, although there were snatches of music coming in with the sea breeze from La Perla, where things went on later. Hearing her footsteps, he turned, and she stopped two stairs upward of him, so she could look him in the eye. It wasn't cold but Jimmy was shaking, a gigantic Raggedy Andy doll with his spiraling yarnlike hair, mouth drawn up in his silly crescent smile.
'Do you suppose suicide is a viable option?' he joked lamely. Anne didn't dignify that with a reply, but her eyes were compassionate. 'Why didn't you stop me sooner when I was playing? I don't know if I can stand to be in the same time zone with her after tonight,' he moaned. 'God, she must think I'm a complete idiot. But, Jesus, Anne,' he cried out quietly, 'he's a priest! Okay, okay, he's a really good-looking priest, not a big ugly Mick with shit for brains—'
Anne stopped him with a finger on his lips. She could think of dozens of things to say: that nobody can make anyone else love them, that half the world's misery was wanting someone who didn't want you, that unavailability was a powerful aphrodisiac, that Jimmy was a sweet, intelligent, dear man—None of it would help. She joined him on his step, laid her head against his chest and put her arms around him, marveling again at the sheer size of the boy.
'Jesus, Anne,' he whispered above her. 'He's a priest. It isn't fair.'
'No, my darling, it never is,' she assured him. 'It never, ever is.'
That time of night, it was less than an hour's drive back to Arecibo. By the time he pulled into the apartment parking lot, Jimmy was done crying and almost past the desire to get drunk, which he'd rejected as too dramatic a response to the situation. Sofia had never given him any encouragement. The whole thing had been a fantasy, and that was that. And really, what did he know about Emilio? Priests were just men, Eileen Quinn had always reminded him when he'd come home from school full of hero worship and awe. Ordination doesn't make you a saint. And anyway, in other religions, priests married and had children.
Shit, he thought. It was just a song. I've got them married, with kids! It's none of my business.
But he couldn't get the sound of them together out of his mind. It was like watching…Sleep was out of the question. He tried a few pages of the book he was reading but ended up tossing it across the room, unable to concentrate. He rooted around in the cupboards and wished he'd taken Anne up on her offer when she asked him if he wanted to take some leftovers home with him. Finally, he decided to make good on the excuse he'd used to leave early and connected with the dish system. He opened the SETI log, picking up where he'd left off with Sofia on
