“I don’t want to. I never did before. I never will.” She was scraping her ice-cream bowl clean with her spoon. “See, that’s where everybody’s wrong, at least about me. About many of us. I mentioned a friend to you, a real friend. She works at Ben Franklyn, too. We’ve made our money. Next week, we’re splitting. We’re going to Colorado, going to buy a dog-breeding ranch, and live happily ever after.”
“You’re lovers?”
“You bet. See, making love to a man means nothing to me. Emotionally. Morally. Whatever those words mean. I don’t care about men. Going to bed with a man doesn’t bother me any more than it would bother you to go to bed with a boy, or a dog.”
Fletch said, “What kind of a dog?”
Cindy sat back from her empty bowl. “The way I was brought up, eating that ice cream was more of a sin for me than going to bed with a man. Or men. Or a whole track team.” She looked at her empty bowl. “I enjoyed it.”
“Things are different, for me,” Fletch said.
“I suppose so. That’s your problem.”
At the corner of the block, walking toward them, was a yellow skirt familiar to Fletch. So was the dark blue, short-sleeved blouse above the skirt.
“Oh, my God.”
Cindy stretched her arms a little. “But, for you and me basically it’s the same thing, I expect. I was developed into a supposedly brainless, cultureless beautiful body, a sexual object, and told men are materialistic oppressors and making babies is a no-no. I’m not really an athelete. I’m not an actor.”
Fletch had sat up straight. Under the table he had moved his feet into a sprint position. His eye measured the distance between his table and the door of Manolo’s. “Oh, wow.”
“It comes time to make a living,” Cindy continued. “What am I supposed to do? Pretend I’m a big intellect? Or, worse, pretend I’m a worker-ant?”
The woman approaching them spotted Fletch.
Then she spotted Cindy.
Fletch said, “Oh, no.”
With certainty, Cindy said, “I am doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. I am exactly who I am supposed to be.”
“Fletch!” the woman said.
“Uh…”
Then she said, “Cindy!”
Cindy turned around. Delight came on her face.
“Barbara!” she squealed.
Cindy jumped up and hugged Barbara around the neck.
Barbara hugged Cindy.
Fletch stood up. “Ah, Barbara…”
When the hugging and squealing abated, Barbara looked at Fletch. She was still holding Cindy’s hand.
Barbara said, “I didn’t know you two know each other!”
“You have a hickey on your neck,” Barbara said to Fletch.
The waiter had brought a third chair to the table, heard with relief they wanted nothing more than the bill, and gone away.
“A passion mark,” Barbara added, looking closely at him from under the shade of the umbrella. “It wasn’t there when you left me this morning.”
Fletch fingered the mark on his neck. “I, uh…”
Cindy’s eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.
“And that’s not the way you were dressed when you left this morning.” Barbara put her hand on his rolled T- shirt and jeans on the table. “How come you’re in shorts?”
Fletch folded his arms across his chest.
“What does your T-shirt say?” Barbara leaned forward and moved his arms. “ ‘You want a friend?’ What does that mean?” She reached into his lap. “Your shorts say the same thing.”
“They do,” Fletch admitted with dignity.
“Did you get a bargain?” Barbara asked.
Fletch croaked, “How do you two know each other?”
“We’re old friends from school,” Barbara said easily.
“You are? Old friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Good friends?”
“I’ve mentioned Cindy to you. She’s been advising me on the wedding.”
Fletch said: “Ah!”
“Fletch!” Cindy yelled. She hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. “You’re that Fletch!”
Accusingly, Fletch asked Barbara, “And why aren’t you wearing jodhpurs?”
“Ho, ho, ho,” Cindy laughed.
“I change for lunch,” Barbara answered. “I hate the beastly things.”
“This is the Fletch you’re marrying on Saturday?”
“In the flesh.” Barbara put her hand on his thigh. “Fletch, you’re awfully hot. You’re sweating. Your face is red. You all right?”
“Ho, ho, ho,” said Cindy.
“Oh, my God,” said Fletch.
“But how do you two know each other?” Barbara asked.
“Ho, ho, ho,” said Cindy.
“I, uh, we…” said Fletch.
“Is there something funny?” Barbara asked.
“Not really,” said Fletch.
“Ho, ho, ho,” said Cindy.
“After we’re married,” Barbara said, “I have the small hope Fletch comes home at night dressed something like the way he goes out in the morning.”
“Ho, ho, ho.” Cindy was choking with laughter.
“Barbara,” Fletch said slowly and seriously, “Cindy and I met in the course of business.”
“Ho! Ho! Ho!” laughed Cindy.
The secretary and the older man at the nearby table were frowning at this disturbance.
“The course of business?” Barbara asked.
“The course of business!” Cindy laughed.
“In the course of business,” Fletch affirmed. “Now, Barbara darling, if you’d just—”
“Barbara darling!” yelled Cindy.
Not understanding Cindy’s raucous good humor, Barbara said to Fletch, “Oh, by the way. I just heard on the car radio that someone has confessed to murdering Donald Habeck.”
Fletch snapped forward in his chair. “What?”
“A man named Childers, I think. Went to the police this morning and confessed to killing Donald Habeck. A client of Habeck’s—”
“I remember,” said Fletch. “The trial ended two or three months ago. He was accused of murdering his brother.”
“Well, this morning he admitted murdering Habeck.”
“But he was acquitted. I mean, of murdering his brother.”
“So you needn’t trouble your little head about the murder of Donald Habeck anymore. You can go back to
