comfortable. When Larry put the key in the ignition, the valet shut the door gently and held his palm out, smiling.
Larry looked over at me. I winked. Larry grinned, rolled up the window, and started the engine. I strolled past the cars, heard the wheeze of the Chevy’s engine followed by curses muttered in some Mediterranean language. Then, a clatter and squeal as the wagon accelerated. Larry zipped past, stuck out his left hand and waved.
I’d walked several yards when I heard someone calling. Thinking nothing of it, I didn’t break step.
Then the call took on volume and clarity.
“Alex!”
I looked over my shoulder. Navy-blue dress. Swirl of black hair. Long white legs running.
She caught up with me, breasts heaving, upper lip pearled with sweat.
“Alex! It really is you. I can’t believe it!”
“Hello, Sharon. How’ve you been?” Dr. Witty.
“Just fine.” She touched her ear, shook her head. “No, you’re one person to whom I don’t have to pretend. No, I haven’t been fine, not at all.”
The ease with which she’d slipped into familiarity, the effortless erasure of all that had passed between us, raised my defenses.
She stepped closer. I smelled her perfume- soap and water tinged with fresh grass and spring flowers.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“Oh, Alex.” She placed two fingers on my wrist. Let them rest there.
I felt her heat, was jolted by a rush of energy below my waist. All at once I was rock-hard. And furious about it. But alive, for the first time in a long while.
“It’s so good to see you, Alex.” That voice, sweet and creamy. The midnight eyes sparkled.
“Good to see you too.” It came out thick and intense, nothing like the indifference I’d aimed for. Her fingers were burning a hole in my wrist. I dislodged her, put my hands in my pockets.
If she sensed rejection, she didn’t show it, just let her arm fall to her side and kept smiling.
“Alex, it’s so funny we should run into each other like this- pure ESP. I’ve been wanting to call you.”
“About what?”
A triangle of tongue tip moved between her lips and licked away the sweat I’d coveted. “Some issues that have… come up. Now’s not a good time, but if you could find some time to talk, I’d appreciate it.”
“What issues would we have to talk about after all these years?”
Her smile was a quarter-moon of white light. Too immediate. Too wide.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t be angry after all these years.”
“I’m not angry, Sharon. Just puzzled.”
She worried her earlobe. Her fingers flew forward and grazed my cheek before dropping. “You’re a good guy, Delaware. You always were. Be well.”
She turned to leave. I took hold of her hand and she stopped.
“Sharon, I’m sorry things aren’t going well for you.”
She laughed, bit her lip. “No, they really aren’t. But that’s not your problem.”
Even as she said it, she came closer, kept coming. I realized I was pulling her toward me, but with only the faintest pressure; she was allowing herself to be reeled in.
I knew at that moment that she’d do anything I wanted, and her passivity touched off a strange meelange of feelings within me. Pity. Gratitude. The joy of being needed, at last.
The weight between my legs grew oppressive. I dropped her hand.
Our faces were inches apart. My tongue strained against my teeth like a snake in a jar.
A stranger using my voice said, “If it means that much to you, we can get together and talk.”
“It means a lot to me,” she said.
We made a lunch date for Monday.
5
The moment she disappeared behind the gates, I knew it had been a mistake. But I wasn’t sure I regretted it.
Back home, I checked with my service, hoping for a call from Robin, something to make me regret it.
“Your board is clear, Dr. Delaware,” said the operator. I thought I detected pity in her voice, told myself I was getting paranoid.
That night I went to sleep with a head full of erotic images. Some time during the early morning hours I had a wet dream. I woke sticky and cranky, and knew, without having to reason it out, that I was going to break the date with Sharon. Not looking forward to it, I went through the motions of a normal morning- showering, shaving, swallowing coffee, dictating reports, killed another couple of hours filing and skimming journals. At noon Mal Worthy called and asked me to reserve Wednesday for a deposition on the Darren Burkhalter case.
“Working on Sunday, Mal?”
“Brunch,” he said. “Waiting for a table. Evil never rests; neither can the good guys. Going to be seven attorneys on the other side, Alex. Have your bullshit detector finely tuned.”
“Why the army?”
“Multiple pockets. The other driver’s insurance company has assigned two of their downtown hotshots; the estate’s sending another. The drunk who rammed them was a fairly successful building contractor- there’re some bucks involved. I told you about the brakes, which gives us the auto manufacturer’s mouthpiece and the one representing the dealer who serviced the car. The restaurant that served him the drinks makes six. Add to that a county attorney because we’re claiming inadequate lighting and insufficient cones around the ditch, and you’ve got seven
“Should I be?”
“Nope. It’s quality that counts, not quantity, right? We’ll do it at my office, get a little home- base advantage. I’ll start by reading off your qualifications, and as usual, one of them will cut it off before it gets too hoo-ha and stipulate to your expertise. You’ve done this before; you know the whole thing’s supposed to be fact- finding, polite, but I’ll be there to cover your ass if it starts to get nasty. The insurance guys will probably put up the biggest kick- their liability is clearest and they’ve got the most to lose. My hunch is that, rather than attack your information per se, they’ll question the validity of early childhood trauma as a concept- is it scientific fact or just shrinky bullshit. And even if it is, how durable is the damage? Can you prove that a traumatic experience at eighteen months will warp poor little Darren for life.”
“Never said I could.”
“I know that and you know that, but please be more subtle on Wednesday. The important thing is
“Nothing like it.”
