gave Jay a place to start filtering.
Kent wiped his guitar down with the black silk and put it into the case. Jen put her instrument away.
He took a deep breath. “You, uh, want to get some supper?”
She stopped latching the case for a second, glanced over at him.
“Supper?”
“Yes. Food. Dinner. At a restaurant.”
She didn’t say anything.
He said, “Help me out here. I haven’t done this in a long time.”
“You haven’t had food in a long time?”
He laughed.
“Sure. I’d like that,” she said. “Maybe we should leave the guitars locked up here? Safer than in the car.”
“Sure. You know any good places locally?”
“A couple.”
“You want to drive or give directions?”
“I’ll drive.”
The night was chilly as they walked toward her car. She said, “So, Abe, when was the last time you asked a woman out?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Four, five years ago?”
“Really?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “Wow.”
“Better than that—she turned me down.”
Jen laughed.
“I won’t keep you out late,” he said. “Wouldn’t want your cat to get hungry.”
“Don’t worry about the cat,” she said. “She’s got an on-demand feeder in the kitchen. She won’t starve.”
He smiled. So far, so good . . .
She drove them to a little Italian place maybe a mile away from the music store. Dino’s was one of those checkered-tablecloths, candles-in-wine-bottles kind of cafes, ten tables, most of them full. The guy at the front, a good-looking dark-haired kid of maybe twenty, smiled at Jen when he saw her come in. “Ah, Miss Jennifer, how are you this night?”
“Fine, Gino. Got room for two?”
“We do.” He collected a couple of menus and led them to a small table in a dark corner. “Pasta with clam sauce is the special tonight. Enjoy.”
Before they could do more than sit, a busboy brought glasses of water, a basket of garlic bread, and a bottle of red wine with two glasses.
Kent noted the unasked-for wine as he picked up the menu. “What’s good?”
“Pick anything—never had a bad meal here. I come in once or twice a week. Gino’s father is the cook, his mother the cashier, and there are a couple of sisters who work here.”
The waitress, a young woman who was indeed obviously related to Gino, arrived. “Good evening, Miss Jen.”
“Hey, Maria. This is General Abe Kent, one of my students.”
The young woman smiled at Kent. “Ah, welcome to Dino’s,
Jen ordered the special, and Abe asked for spaghetti with meat sauce. After Maria left, he took a bite of the bread as Jen poured them each a glass of the house red. Both the bread and wine were excellent. “How did you know I was a general?”
“I have a computer and access to the Internet,” she said. “I looked you up.”
“Ah.”>
“Ah?”
“Well, I looked you up, too. You never mentioned that you had a couple of music CDs out.”
“It’s been a couple years since I did one of those. Old glory.”
“I enjoyed hearing them. I knew you played well, but those were very nicely done.”
She shrugged. “I’m no Ana Vidovic,” she said. “If you get a chance to hear her Prelude to Bach’s Fourth Lute Suite? Best version out there in the last twenty years, for my money, even if it is a little showpiece fast. But now and then, I have my moments.”
She sipped at her wine and looked at him over the rim. The candlelight sparkled in her eyes. “So, we have checked each other out.”
“So it seems.”
“To what end, General Kent?”
“Well, right now, dinner.”
She smiled, large and lazy. “And after dinner? Would you like to come back to my place?”
He paused and took a slow sip of his wine. He had been out of this game for a long, long time.
“Yes, ma’am, I would be honored.”
She smiled at him again.
They drank more wine.
Saji was holding the baby on her lap when Jay got home, rocking him in the creaking wooden chair. It had been a long day, and the traffic had been horrendous. The President had gone to some kind of function and they had shut down so many streets that it had taken Jay an hour and a half to drive home. He was really going to have to start doing more web-commuting. As soon as he could get out of having to do RT visits to the damned Pentagon . . .
“Hey, babe,” he said.
“Hi.”
“You okay? You look tired.”
“No, I’m fine.” There was a long pause. “You got a call a few minutes ago, from a Captain Rachel Lewis.”
Jay felt his stomach clutch. Why was she calling him at home?
“She wants you to call her back as soon as possible. She said it was important.”
“Yeah, sure.” If it was so important, why hadn’t she called him on his virgil? She had the number. Jay’s belly tightened even more. Why did he feel guilty? He hadn’t
He shrugged. “She’s the Army computer guy I told you about.”
“Funny, you didn’t mention she was a gorgeous blond female guy.”
Made the call on-cam, too. Damn.
“Not my type. I hardly noticed.”
“Uh huh.”
Jay went over and gave Saji a kiss, then stroked Mark’s young head. He loved to touch that silky fine baby hair.
“You’re funny,” he said. And: “I love you.”
He moved to the house phone on the table next to the couch and brought up the number from the caller ID. The call went through, and Rachel answered. She had her phone’s cam lit, and apparently she had just stepped out
