thinks she's Ann Miller. She said it was hard to dance in her bedroom slippers, so I gave her an old pair of tap shoes I had.'
'She any good?'
'Not bad for not having taken lessons.'
'It was on Royal Poinciana Way you ran him down,' Fran said, finished with his salad, wiping the plate clean with half of a roll he stuffed in his mouth.
'If you want to get technical about it,' Debbie said, 'but Collins Avenue works better in the set.'
Fran was pushing up from the table. He said to his brother, 'You know I'm going to Florida in the morning, early. We better leave soon as I get back.'
Debbie watched him heading toward the men's. 'He was in Florida last week.'
'The girls are out of school,' Terry said, 'so Mary Pat stays down with the little cuties and Fran's joining them for a long weekend. But I think he wants to go home 'cause he's still hungry. Mary Pat loaded the freezer with her casseroles, and they're not bad. Mary Pat's a professional homemaker.'
'I've never met her,' Debbie said. 'I've never been invited to the house.'
'Fran's afraid Mary Pat would see you as a threat.'
'He told you that?'
'I'm guessing, knowing Francis. I think he would like to believe you're a threat.'
'He's never made a move that way.'
'Doesn't want to risk being turned down.'
'You're saying he has a crush on me?'
'I can't imagine why he wouldn't.'
Looking right at her, like he was saying he'd feel that way if he were Fran. It startled her. She said, 'Oh, really?' and it sounded dumb.
His gaze still on her, he said, 'I was wondering, when you hit Randy, were you still married to him?'
'We never were. In the bit I call him my husband and I've got the divorced women in the audience with me. I say I hit my ex-boyfriend it doesn't have the same, you know, emotional effect.'
'But you lived with him?'
'He lived with me, in Somerset. Where I am now, back again. Fran got me the apartment.' She said, 'Does that sound like I'm being kept?'
'If it was anyone but Francis,' Terry said. 'Did you really put Randy in a body cast?'
He kept going back to Randy.
'No, but I banged him up pretty good.'
'Have you seen him since?'
'You mean, did he visit me in prison?'
'That's right, you've been out of circulation. What I was thinking,'
Terry said, 'the next time you see him, get him to hit you and sue him for sixty-seven thousand. I thought working with Fran, the personal-iniury expert, you might know how to arrange that kind of accident.'
The priest sneaking up on her with a straight face. Playing with her.
'Fran and I,' Debbie said, 'have never staged a car wreck, ever.
Or hired people who do it.' She paused for a beat. 'And I've never smuggled cigarettes.'
It brought his smile. It told her they could kid around, not take each other too seriously. She said, 'We're not in a confessional, Father, so I'm not telling you any of my sins, business-related or otherwise.'
'You still go?'
'Not in years.'
'Well, if you ever feel the need I never give more than ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Maws.'
She said, 'Really?' She said, 'Do you hear the same kind of sins in Rwanda you do here?'
'A typical one over there, 'Bless me, Fatha, for I have sin. I stole a goat by Nyundo and my wife cook it en brochette.' Here, you don't get as many goat thieves.'
'Did you ever try it?'
'Goat? We had it all the time.'
'What about adultery?'
'I was never tempted.'
Having fun behind his innocent expression.
'I meant, did you hear it much in Confession?'
'Now and then. But I think there was a lot more fooling around than I was told about.'
'What's the penance for fooling around?'
'The usual, ten and ten.'
'What about murder?'
'I only had one person confess to it.'
'What did you give him?'
'That one, I laid it on.'
She paused to see if he'd tell her what that meant. When he didn't, she said, 'Have you ever called a man 'my son'?'
'That's only in movies.'
'That's what I thought.' She said, 'Well, now that you're home'-and saw Fran coming back from the men's-'what'll you do, take it easy for a while?'
'I have to see about raising some money.'
'For your mission?'
Fran reached the table saying, 'You ready?' and Terry didn't get a chance to answer.
He said, 'I am if you are, my son.'
Fran said, 'What's this 'my son' shit?'
In the parking lot Terry took her hand and told her again how much he liked the set and enjoyed talking to her; all that. Then, as Fran stepped toward his Lexus and pressed the key remote to unlock the door, Terry said to her, 'I'd like to see you again.'
Sounding like a guy after a phone number.
It gave her a funny feeling, a priest saying it. She turned to Fran and said, 'Why don't I drive your brother?' Saying it before she had time to think about it and change her mind.
'He's staying at my house,' Fran said, sounding surprised because he'd told her that.
'I know where you live,' Debbie said. 'I want to hear more about Africa.'
9
IN THE CAR HE TOLD Debbie he almost wasn't invited to stay at Fran's, Mary Pat worried he might leave an African disease around the house like cholera or a tapeworm on the toilet seat. But now, since Mary Pat and the girls were in Florida and Fran was flying down, it was okay.
'Did you have any African diseases?'
'We boiled the water and always slept under mosquito netting,'
Terry said, catching a glimpse of Chantelle's slim body. 'So I'm pretty sure I'm clean. I did worry about worms, but never spotted any.'
When they got in and Debbie started the car-a Honda Fran had leased for her-the radio came on, Sheryl Crow and the sun coming up over Santa Monica Boulevard. Lowering the volume she asked if he listened to music in Africa. Terry told her Congo-Zaire rock until Fran sent some CDs. Joe Cocker, Steely Clan, Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers. She asked if the natives liked reggae and he said he never thought of Rwandans as natives, since they wore clothes. He told her his housekeeper, Chantelle, wore cool skirts she wrapped around her hips, a lot of colors in the design, and told how Chantelle had lost part of her left arm during the genocide. Debbie asked how she cleaned the house and cooked with one hand. Terry said she managed.
