Today: the operation. I’d walked in at a crucial time.
I kept my distance from the bench and headed for the sagging brocade couch where Blanche—our little blond French bulldog—stretched, decorously inert. I sat down beside her, rubbed her knobby head. She rolled said cranium into my lap, gave my hand a single comprehensive lick, and molded her twenty-pound sausage body against mine.
Robin said, “Not only do you play around with another woman, you flaunt it?”
“What can I say? Charisma.”
She allowed herself a pause for a laugh. Readjusted the magnifiers and peered at the splice. “I’d ask you about your day but I need to focus.”
“Want more alone-time?”
“No, no, just…bear…with me…another…minute.”
Ten minutes passed before she stepped back and assessed the repair. I didn’t mind the chance to decompress.
“Okay, so far so good.” To the Martin: “You rest here and heal up, Daisy.”
“It’s got a name?”
“Orville christened all his instruments,” she said. “His Broadcaster’s named Molly. In the case was a cassette of him singing, back in the sixties. Buck Owens with more bottom. End of an era, none of the old guys are left. Remember how he used to bring her here in that Studebaker? The alleged case.”
Pointing to a soft-shelled black thing held together with duct tape and decals from national parks.
Robin took off her glasses and wiped her eyes. “Somehow Daisy never got hurt.”
I said, “What I remember is him spitting his chaw in the garden when he thought no one was looking.”
“That, too.” She inspected the guitar again. “Fingers crossed.”
I walked over and had a look, trying to locate the repair. “Invisible.”
“Oh, I see it, babe. But not bad.” Removing her apron. “She’s a supermodel, we can’t be having scars. Know what he paid for her?”
“Couple of hundred?”
“Fifty bucks. Now his conspicuously unmusical offspring will profit and it’ll probably go to some trophy hunter who keeps it in a vault.” She wiped her face, then her hands, removed the bandanna from her head, and shook out a wealth of auburn curls. “I need coffee. How ’bout you?”
* * *
—
The three of us left the studio and crossed the garden. At the kitchen door, Robin stopped and kissed me. What began as a peck but ended up a serious lip-lock, her hand shifting from my waist to the back of my head.
When we broke, I looked at her.
“Yes, I can feel you-know-who. And the answer to your arched eyebrow is you bet,” she said. “I need some relaxation and you’re the sedative.”
To Blanche: “Sorry, my little rival. You’ll have to make do with a liver snap out in the hallway.”
* * *
—
After sharing a shower, we went out to the terrace, ate Asian mix and peanuts, and drank. Sidecar for her (“don’t skimp on the XO”), Chivas for me. The sun sank lazily. We stayed there, bathed in burgeoning blue darkness as the day eased offstage.
I’d given Robin the basics Saturday night, after returning from the scene.
She’d said, “Weddings. Everyone’s at their worst. Amazing it doesn’t happen more often.”
I sipped scotch and reached for her hand. Our fingers fit like teeth in a cog. She lowered her head to my shoulder and I breathed in cinnamon and crème rinse and wood dust.
The two of us have been together forever, minus a couple of minor disconnects.
All these years, never formalized with paper.
The topic of marriage has never been taboo but it comes up less often as time stretches. Neither of us pushes the issue. I suppose that’s a type of decision.
I don’t wonder much why but sometimes the question mark slithers into my head.
The best I’ve come up with is we both endured miserable childhoods. Robin’s an only child who needed to learn how to coexist with her mother; my father was a sometimes-vicious alcoholic, my mother chronically depressed, and my relationship with my older sister nonexistent.
Marriage aside, the topic of children never comes up. Despite working with kids my entire adult life, I’m happy the way things are.
Maybe I’m missing the paternity gene.
Maybe the status quo is working too well.
Maybe the reason will always elude me.
Despite my training, I’m not one for introspection. Working with other people’s problems is a great time-filler.
Milo and Rick haven’t tied the knot, either. Recently, they’ve had to deal with not-so-subtle pressure from those who believe the legalization of gay marriage confers obligation.
“Fuck that noise,” Milo had pronounced a few months ago. The two of us at a tavern near the station, celebrating a vicious murderer’s life sentence and booze-meandering to all sorts of topics.
I said, “Do what you want.”
“Don’t I always?” He tossed back his third shot, got to work on the accompanying beer. “Let me tell you about the crap I had to deal with last night. Boring-as-shit dinner party with some of the money people who help fund the E.R.—the things I do for love. We’re talking one of those they tell you where to sit with goddamn place cards. Rick’s like an acre away and I’m stuck with this heiress from Bel Air—’scuse me, she’s a social justice activist. Weighs around ninety pounds, apparently she substitutes opinions for eating. And one of them is that Rick and I are somehow failing in our social obligation.”
I said, “And there you were thinking progress was about choice.”
He called for a fourth Boilermaker. “Being told what to do is childhood. If my body’s going to seed, least I can get are the benefits of adulthood, right?”
“Right.”
“Not that I’m saying we’d never do it,” he went on. “Maybe one day, for inheritance purposes. But hell, I’ll be the first to go anyway, you know how long they live in his family, and it’s not like he needs my goddamn pension. Which he can probably get hold of anyway, the department being so progressive and all that. According to the memos. Which I don’t read.”
Slamming his hand down on the bar. “Fuck that noise.”
I said, “Amen.”
He patted my shoulder. “I like that we’re religious tonight.”
* * *
—
Drinks finished, Robin said, “Okay, I’m sufficiently brandied to be civil. How was your day?”
“Not much to tell.”
“Indulge me, baby. I like the sound of your voice.”
I filled her in.
She said, “Anything’s possible? Yeah, I can see that as terrifying for a detective. But your point about a student does make sense.”
“Big Guy thought it was a cliché.”
She laughed. “Fresh-faced Cindy working her way to summa cum laude by taking off her clothes? Yeah, I’ve seen that movie. It does happen, though. Remember those girls up at Berkeley—the little escort service they had going?”
“Sensual Seminar.”
She elbowed my arm. “You remember at that level of detail, huh?”
“Vaguely.”
“Ha. Now tell me the names of every seminarian.”
“Fifi, Gigi, Mimi—”
She laughed and stood. “Want another drink?”
“Why not.”
She paused to study the sky. Mauve and gray and wispy pink where daylight had resisted expulsion. “Me, too, we’ve both earned our leisure. Not that we have to self-justify. But we always do, don’t we? That’s the way you and I are constructed.”
“Want me to mix?”
“No, my turn.” She stood and smiled down at Blanche, lying tummy-down, eyes shut, breathing slowly, chunky bod so flaccid she might as well be an invertebrate.
“You, on the other hand, little missy, are blessedly entitled.”
CHAPTER
10
Milo phoned at ten a.m. Tuesday.
“Dug a little more on the families, dull shovel, hard clay. No hint of bad behavior for any of them. The only surprise is Amanda. Her age you’d expect some sort of social network presence. Zilch. Same for a driver’s license, state I.D., or local address. She lives in L.A. but doesn’t drive?”
I said, “It’s happening more often. Driving used to be a symbol of freedom. Some kids today see it as a hassle.”