people.”
Just then our food arrived. I’d ordered lamb khorma. Harry had vegetable curry and rice.
“See?” She pointed to her dish. “No more dead carcasses for me. I am getting clear.”
“Where did you find this course?”
“At the North Harris County Community College.”
That sounded legit.
“When do you start here?”
“Tomorrow. The seminar goes for five days. I’ll tell you all about, it, really I will. I’ll come home every night and fill you in on exactly what we did. It’s O.K. if I stay with you, isn’t it?”
“Of course. I truly am glad to see you, Harry. And I’m very curious about what you’re doing. But I’m leaving for Charlotte on Monday.” I rummaged in the back pocket of my purse for the emergency keys I keep there, and handed them to her. “You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you need the place.”
“No wild parties,” she said, leaning forward and pointing a stern finger at me. “I have a lady watching the house.”
“Yes, Mom,” I answered. The fictitious house watcher was perhaps our oldest family joke.
She gave me a brilliant Harry smile and slid the keys into her jeans pocket.
“Thanks. Now, enough about me, let me tell you what Kit’s up to.”
For the next half-hour we talked about my nephew’s latest scheme. Christopher “Kit” Howard had resulted from her second marriage. He’d just turned eighteen, and come into a sizable sum of money from his father. Kit had bought, and was renovating, a forty-eight-foot sailboat. Harry was unsure as to why.
“Tell me again how Howie got his name?” I knew the story, but loved to hear her tell it.
“Howie’s mama took off right after he was born, and his daddy had left well before then. She left Howie on the steps of an orphanage in Basic, Texas, with a note pinned to his blanket. It said she’d be back, and that the baby’s name was Howard. The folks at the orphanage weren’t sure if Mama meant his first name or his family name, so they took no chances. They baptized him Howard Howard.”
“What’s Howie doing now?”
“Still bringing in gushers and chasing every skirt in West Texas. But he’s generous to me and Kit.”
When we’d finished, the waiter cleared the dishes and I ordered coffee. Harry passed, because stimulants interfered with her purification process.
We sat in silence awhile, then,
“So where’s this cowboy want you to meet him?”
I stopped stirring, and my mind scanned for a connection. Cowboy?
“The cop with the great ass.”
“Ryan. He’s going to a place called Hurley’s. Today is St. Pat—”
“Hell, yes.” Her face went serious. “I feel we owe it to our heri-tage to join in the recognition of a truly great patron saint, in whatever small way we can.”
“Harry, I’ve had a long—”
“Tempe, but for St. Pat snakes would have eaten our ancestors and we would never have been.”
“I’m not suggesting—”
“And right now, at a time when the Irish people are in such turmoil—”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“How far is Hurley’s from here?”
“A few blocks.”
“No-brainer.” She spread her hands, palms up. “We go over, we listen to a few songs, we leave. We’re not committing to a night at the opera.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“No. I promise. As soon as you’re ready, we’re outta there. Hey, I’ve got an early morning, too.”
That argument did not impress me. Harry is one of those people who can go days with no sleep.
“Tempe. You’ve got to make some effort at a social life.”
That argument did.
“All right. But—”
“Hee. Haw. May the saints preserve ye, ye rascal.”
As she waved for the check, I was already feeling the knot below my sternum. There was a time I loved Irish pubs. Pubs of any kind. I didn’t want to open that scrapbook, and had no intention of making new entries.
Lighten up, Brennan. What are you afraid of? You’ve been to Hurley’s and you didn’t drown yourself in beer. True. So why the trepidation?
Harry chatted amiably as we walked back up Ste-Catherine to Crescent. At nine-thirty the sidewalk crowd was
