flat on the counter and looked directly at me and said, 'I'm drunk.'
'Big secret.'
She frowned. 'Don't laugh at me.'
'If I don't laugh at something I'm going to have a stroke.'
She said, 'When you went back to Los Angeles I realized how much I was liking you. I don't want to be involved with a man who lives two thousand miles away. I was mad at you for going. I got mad at you for coming back. Why'd you have to come back?'
The blood seemed to be rushing through my head, and my ears were ringing and I was blinking.
She said, 'I have this rule. I don't get involved with people I work with. I'm feeling very confused and stupid and I don't like it.'
I got a handle on the breathing, but I couldn't do anything about the ears. I looked at the table in the dining area. Candles. Elegant seating for two. I said, 'Where's Ben?'
'I sent him to sleep over at a friend's.'
I stared at her and she stared back.
She said, 'Jesus Christ, what kind of lousy detective are you? Do I have to draw you a map?'
I looked at the table and then I looked at the wine and then I looked at the rumaki. I went around the counter and into the kitchen and I said, 'Help me detect some coffee.' I started opening cabinets.
She waved her arms. 'I just offered myself to you and you want coffee?'
I found a jar of Folger's Mountain Grown. I started looking for cups. 'We're going to have coffee. We're going to eat.' I found cups. I looked for a spoon so I could fix the goddamned coffee. 'I do not want you to go to bed with me if you have to get drunk to do it!' I stopped all the slamming around and looking and turned back to her. 'Do you understand that?'
Lucy opened her mouth, then closed it. She put one hand to the side of her head, then lowered it. She nodded, then thought for a moment, and then she shook her head, confused. 'Is this some kind of male power trip or something?'
'Of course. Isn't that why men do everything?' I think I was yelling.
Lucy grew calm. 'Please don't yell.'
I felt the way I had when I'd lied to the Ville Platte librarian.
She crossed the kitchen and took my face in both her hands. She said, 'I think the coffee is a good idea. Thank you.'
I nodded. 'You are absolutely beautiful.'
She smiled.
'You are all that I think about. You have filled my heart.'
She closed her eyes, and then she put her head against my chest.
We had the coffee, and then we had the duck. We sat on the couch in the dim family room and we listened to Janis Ian and we held hands. At a quarter to ten she made a phone call and asked how Ben was doing and then she wished him a good night. When she hung up she came back into the family room and said, 'Watch this.'
She stood with her feet together, held out her arms, then closed her eyes and touched her nose with her right index finger. She giggled when she did it, then opened her eyes. 'Do I pass, officer?'
I picked her up and carried her to her bedroom. I said, 'Ask me that in the morning.'
'Studly, you probably won't last until morning.'
CHAPTER 23
I woke the next morning relaxed and warm and at peace, with Lucy snuggled beside me in her king-sized bed, small beneath light gray sheets and a comforter. Her breathing was even, and when I burrowed under the sheet and kissed her back, she said, 'Mrmph.'
I touched my tongue to her skin, and she said, 'Sleepin'.'
Her back was salty with sweat dried from the hours before. The bed and the room smelled of us and our lovemaking and the warmth of our bodies, and under it was the sweet smell of her fragrance and shampoo and soap. I lay there for a time, enjoying the warmth of her and the memories that the smells triggered, and after a while I could smell the food from the night before and the jessamine that grew around her home. Lucy's bedroom was large, her bed facing toward double French doors that opened toward the backyard.
There were drapes, but the drapes were open so that I could see the used-brick patio and the Weber where we'd grilled the hamburgers. Three or four cardinals and maybe a half dozen sparrows were clustered around the bird feeder, chirping and scratching at the seed. We had cardinals in L.A., but you rarely saw them. The patio and the yard beyond it were filled with bright light, and somewhere there was the two-cycle whine of a lawn mower. It seemed as if there was always the sound of a lawn mower in Louisiana. Maybe that was the nature of this place, that the land was so fertile that life grew and expanded so quickly that a never-ending maintenance was in order, and without it the people who lived here would be overcome. I wondered for an instant if it could be that way with love, too, but then the thought was gone.
I eased out of the bed, careful not to wake her, then pulled on my underwear and went into her bathroom. I brushed my teeth with my finger, then went out to the kitchen. We had probably burned twenty thousand calories last night, and it was either make breakfast or fall upon Lucy and end up arrested for cannibalism.
I washed the dishes from the night before, then searched through her cupboards and fridge until I found Bisquick and frozen blueberries and some low-fat cottage cheese. There was a pancake griddle in a tall drawer beside the dishwasher, but I found a large skillet instead. Old habits. I poured a cup of the blueberries into a little bowl and covered them with water, then found a larger bowl and made a batter with the Bisquick and the cottage cheese and some nonfat milk. I sprayed the pan with butter-flavored Pam, then put it on a medium fire. While it was heating I ran out into the garden, clipped a pink rose, then ran back inside. I drained the blueberries and was mixing them in the batter when Lucy Chenier squealed, 'Somebody help! There's a strange man in my house!'
She was standing on the other side of the counter, wrapped in a sheet. I gave her Groucho. 'Don't be scared, little girl. That's not a chain saw. I'm just happy to see you.'
'Ho, ho. Keep dreaming.'
I held out my hand, fingers spread. She laced her fingers between mine. Her fingers were warm and felt good. I said, 'Good morning.'
'Good morning.' We grinned at each other. She made a big deal out of looking around and shook her head. 'You cleaned up. You're making breakfast.'
I turned back to the berries. 'We're a full-service agency, ma'am.'
She let the sheet drop and came around the counter and snuggled against me. 'You can say that again, trooper.' She looked ort from under my arm at the batter. 'Pancakes. Yum. What can I do?'
'Find me a spatula?'
She did.
I gave her a kiss. 'Will you go in today?'
She snuggled against me again. 'Maybe after lunch. I can barely walk, you animal.'
I increased the heat under the pan, then spooned in four equal amounts of batter, making sure each pancake had a like number of berries. I made the batter dry so that the cakes would be thick and fluffy. I said, 'A woman of your advancing years needs regular workouts, else she gets out of shape.'
'Pig.' She dug her thumb between my ribs, then hugged me again and widened her eyes. 'Hmm. I could think of something to eat besides pancakes.'
I adjusted the heat down. When they're thick like that you have to be careful with the heat, hot at first to set the cake and keep it from spreading, then low so that it will cook through without burning. 'A man of my advancing years needs enormous sustenance to even pretend to keep up with a woman of your years.'
'I guess that's right. Female superiority.'
'Tell me about it.' I put down the spatula, touched the tip of her nose, then her lips. I said, 'You are
