“Fine,” I say. “There’s something that’s been bothering me. Can I ask you a quick question?”
“Shoot.”
“Donna Milrus said she saw you and Banderas having a fight.”
“Yeah,” he says warily.
“It’s none of my business, but what caused it?”
“Jumped on the car and his claws scratched the paint.”
“You said he was the best-trained dog in the world.”
“I know it. He always waits for me to open the door, but that day, you tell me. He jumped up and clawed the hell out of the car. If he’d been scared by something, I might have made an allowance. But there was nobody. And then as soon as I swatted him, who gets out of her Lexus but Donna Milrus, and suddenly the grocery bag slips out of my hands and splits open . . . all this stuff rolling toward her, and she points the toe of one of those expensive shoes she wears and stops an orange.”
“I can’t believe that about you and Banderas. It shakes up all my assumptions.”
“That’s what happened,” he says.
“Thanks for the information.”
“Hey, wait. I really was getting ready to call you. I was going to say maybe we could get together and take your mother to the Italian place for dinner.”
“That’s nice,” I say, “but I don’t think so.”
There is a moment’s silence.
“Bye, Vic,” I say.
“Wait,” he says quickly. “You really called about the dog?”
“Uh-huh. You talked about him a lot, you know. He was a big part of our lives.”
“There was and is absolutely nothing between me and my secretary, if that’s what you think,” he says. “She’s dating a guy who works in Baltimore. I’ve got this dream that she’ll marry him and leave the dog behind, because he’s got cats.”
“I hope for your sake that happens. I’ve got to go to work.”
“How about coffee?” he says.
“Sure,” I say. “We’ll talk again.”
“What’s wrong with coffee right now?”
“Don’t you have a job?”
“I thought we were going to be friends. Wasn’t that your idea? Ditch me because I’m ten years younger than you, because you’re such an ageist, but we can still be great friends, you can even marry some guy and we’ll still be friends, but you never call, and when you do it’s with some question about a dog you took a dislike to before you ever met him, because you’re a jealous woman. The same way you can like somebody’s kid, and not like them, I like the dog.”
“You love the dog.”
“Okay, so I’m a little leery about that word. Can I come over for coffee tonight, if you don’t have time now?”
“Only if you agree in advance to do me a favor.”
“I agree to do you a favor.”
“Don’t you want to know what it is?”
“No.”
“It calls on one of your little-used skills.”
“Sex?”
“No, not sex. Paper cutting.”
“What do you want me to cut up that you can’t cut up?”
“A letter from my sister-in-law.”
“You don’t have a sister-in-law. Wait: Your brother got married? I’m amazed. I thought he didn’t much care for women.”
“You think Tim is gay?”
“I didn’t say that. I always thought of the guy as a misanthrope. I’m just saying I’m surprised. Why don’t you rip up the letter yourself ?”
“Vic, don’t be obtuse. I want you to do one of those cutout things with it. I want you to take what I’m completely sure is something terrible and transform it. You know—that thing your grandmother taught you.”
“Oh,” he says. “You mean, like the fence and the arbor with the vine?”
“Well, I don’t know. It doesn’t have to be that.”
“I haven’t practiced in a while,” he says. “Did you have something particular in mind?”
