Bonnie turned around. “Moose,” she ordered, “go to place!”
She pointed toward one of those small, oval braided rugs.
The dog ignored her. Bonnie shrugged, half to herself, half in apology: “The dog has the IQ of a cockroach.” Then she opened a cabinet and took out a little white pitcher shaped like a cow. She was waiting for me to begin questioning her.
I didn’t. She asked: “Did Sy…” She stopped 56 / SUSAN ISAACS
and started over. “The TV said he was shot.” I nodded. She held open the refrigerator with her hip while she poured milk into the pitcher. I glanced inside: no chilling white wine or goat cheese in there. God knows over the years I’d made it with enough summer women to recognize that, at least in the food department, Bonnie was not a typical New York woman. She was either on a budget, on a diet, or had given up all hope of visitors; she had a pint container of milk, whole wheat bread and a big, Saran-wrapped glass bowl that looked like she’d gotten overenthusiastic about broccoli.
“Was his death instantaneous?” Her voice was high, hopeful.
“We’ll know more after the autopsy.” Just then, Moose gave a deep, lovelorn sigh and lay down at my feet. On my feet, actually.
“Everything I can think of to say is a cliché—but I hope he didn’t suffer.”
“I hope not.”
“Well,” she said, “I guess you weren’t just cruising the neighborhood and felt like a cup of coffee.”
“I guess not.” All of a sudden I realized I had seen her before. Probably at the post office, getting her mail.
“I guess you have some questions,” she said.
“Yes.”
But I didn’t ask any. I got busy pretending to formulate a question while studying her cow pitcher. What I was actually doing was checking out if Bonnie had a body worth writing home about under that big T-shirt. Naturally, when I caught myself doing it, I got pissed because I’d always made it a point never to think about sex during work hours (which is generally a snap, homicide not being generally conducive to hard-ons), and also because wanting to know what was under her T-shirt made me feel ridiculous. If she were in a movie, she’d be the heroine’s good-natured MAGIC HOUR / 57
girlfriend, a tomboy with a heart of gold. But for someone who wasn’t attractive, she was so attractive. Here I was, half hoping she’d need something on a high shelf. She’d have to stretch up her arms; her shirt would rise and I would get to see her ass. It made me feel like a louse. Since AA and especially since Lynne, I’d stopped my bad-boy crap, my auto-matic concentration on anything female, my reflexive coming on to almost every woman I met.
“Tell me about you and Sy Spencer,” I said quickly. “How long were you married to him?”
“Three years—1979 to 1982.” She poured the boiling water through the coffee filter. “You don’t take notes?”
“I think I can manage to remember 1979 to ’82.” I’d forgotten to take out my pad. Suddenly it felt like a block of lead in my jacket pocket. “Amicable divorce?”
“Even if it hadn’t been, do you think I’d shoot him seven years later?”
“I’m open to all possibilities.”
“Well, I didn’t shoot him.” Her manner was solemn, sincere, proper; if Bonnie Spencer’s mouth was from the city, the rest of her had grown up in that nice non-New York ho-metown, wherever it was.
“Good. Now, do you want to answer my question? How was the divorce?”
“Amicable.”
“Fair settlement?”
“I got this house.”
“Just the house?”
“Yup.”
“Was there any litigation?”
“No. Both of us were just overflowing with amicability.
‘Bonnie, please take the alimony.’ ‘No, Sy, but thanks so much for thinking of me.’”
“Why no alimony? He was rich.”
58 / SUSAN ISAACS
“I know. But back then, I didn’t care about money. Oh, and I was in my wronged-woman phase: ‘Do you honestly think a monthly check will make up for the loss of a husband, Sy?’” She shook her head. “God, was I morally superior.
You can imagine Sy—and his matrimonial lawyer. They must have been shouting ‘Hallelujah!’ and jumping up and down and hugging each other.”
I didn’t like this. At the same time I was being vigilant, trying to figure out just what was wrong with Bonnie Spencer—because I knew there was something wrong—I was finding there was something about her I really liked. Maybe I was just intoxicated by the homey atmosphere—being at that bright-polished wood table in the fresh-smelling country kitchen, watching a woman open a cupboard and think for a second before choosing from a bunch of mugs. Maybe it was that big hairy black mop, Moose, warming my feet. I could just feel myself letting go, my brain turning to mush.
Bonnie put the cow pitcher and a sugar bowl down on the table and handed me a mug of coffee. The mug said “I love”—the “love” was one of those hearts—“Seattle!” and had a cartoon of a smiley animal with funny-looking flippers.
“I know it’s tacky,” she said. “It was a choice between tacky and chipped.”
“You didn’t get any alimony at all?” I tipped the pitcher.
The milk came out of the cow’s mouth. It was so dumb.
“I never dreamed I’d need it. See, when I met Sy, I was a hot screenwriter. My movie —Cowgirl— had just opened. It got great reviews, did decent business. And during the time we were married, I wrote five more screenplays. Three of them were in development.” She sat down across from me at the table.
MAGIC HOUR / 59
“When you’re a big success right off the bat, you assume it’s going to go on forever.”
“It didn’t?”
She shook her head. “No. Cowgirl was my first and only movie. Nothing ever happened with any of the others.
