"I am not a vegetarian," she said. "I'm just off meat."
"Not some sort of religious thing? Or a plot against plants?"
"No…it's just that lately I've found myself with less of an appetite for things that were walking around under their own power not too long before they landed on my plate. Especially if they resemble what they looked like alive."
"Like a turkey?"
She made a face. "Stop."
"Or better yet, a squab."
"Must you? And by the way, anybody who eats squab in this city should know that they're eating Manhattan pigeon."
"Come on."
"Oh, yes." She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "You order squab, they send some guy up to the roof with a net. A few minutes later…'squab.'"
Jack laughed. "Is this sort of like the fur coat thing?"
"Please—let's not discuss fur coats today. Spring is here at last and their vacuous owners will be stuffing them into vaults for the rest of the year."
"Jeez. Can't talk about fur, squab, pulled pork—none of the fun subjects."
"I can think of a fun subject," she said. "How about your father?"
"My turn to say 'Stop.'"
"Come on, now. I've never met him, but he can't be as bad as you make him out."
"He's not bad, he's just relentless. And he cannot stay with me. You know what my place is like."
Gia nodded. "Like the 168th Street Armory."
"Right. I can't move all that stuff out. No place to stash it. And if he finds any of it—"
"You mean like I did?"
Jack nodded. "Yeah. And you know what happened."
Gia and Jack hadn't been together that long then. He'd told her he was a security consultant. She'd been doing him a favor, a little spring cleaning, when she stumbled onto one of his caches—the one in the false rear of the antique secretary. It almost had broken them up. Even though they were back together now, tighter than ever, Jack still shuddered at how close he had come to losing Gia and Vicky. They were his anchors, his reality checks, the two most important people in the world.
"He's an uptight middle class guy who already thinks his younger son is something of a loser; don't want him thinking he's a gun nut too. Or worse yet, figure out he's been lying to him all these years about being in the appliance repair business."
Gia shook her head and smiled. "You're unbelievable, Jack. Here you've spent your whole adult life cutting yourself free from just about every string society attaches, and yet you still crave your father's approval."
"I don't crave it," he said, perhaps, a tad too defensively, he realized. "It's just that he's a good man, a genuinely concerned parent, and it bugs me that he thinks I'm some sort of loser. Anybody else—present company excepted, of course—I wouldn't care. But dammit, he's my father. And I can't have him crashing with me."
"Then you should simply say your place is too small and offer to put him up in a hotel for his stay."
"I don't know if that's going to fly." Frustrated, he groaned and stared at the ceiling. "I'll think of something. I've got to."
"Speaking of thinking," Gia said softly, "you might want to think about making some time in your busy schedule to stop by sometime late Friday morning."
"I don't know, Gi. No telling what's going to be happening. What's up?"
A tiny shrug. "Nothing much. It's just that Vicky's got a play date and she's being picked up at eleven—"
"And we'll have the place to ourselves?"
Those blue eyes locked onto his. "Completely."
Jack grinned. Ooh, yes. "Something just opened up. See you one minute after eleven."
He glanced over to the motorcycle and realized with a start that Vicky was no longer on it. He stiffened and scanned the dining area.
"Relax," Gia said. "She's over there talking to those kids."
Jack looked to where she was pointing and saw Vicky talking to a crowd of children about her age. They all had backpacks and were under the wings of a couple of matronly chaperones. As Jack watched, Vicky led one of the boys over.
"Hey, Jack," she said, grinning. "His name's Jack too!"
"Jacques," the boy said.
"That's what I said. He's from France." She gestured to the group behind her. "They're all from France. They're visiting."
"And where else would they come for fine American cuisine," Jack said. He extended his hand to the little boy and repeated his entire French vocabulary. "Bon-jour, Jacques."
The kid beamed. "Bonjour, Monsieur!" and then went into overdrive Francais, incomprehensible to Jack.
Gia answered him in kind and the two of them babbled back and forth for a couple of minutes until his chaperone called him back.
Jack was amazed. "I didn't know you spoke French."
"President of the French club in college."
"It's so…sexy. Will you speak French to me on Friday?"
She smiled and patted his hand. "Easy, Gomez."
"I had no idea."
"Well, it's not like I have much chance to use it. French isn't a very useful language in Manhattan."
"Jack;" Vicky said, "will you teach me to play baseball?"
"Sure," Jack said. "But I've got to tell you, I wasn't a great player."
"I just want to hit a home run."
"That I can probably help you with."
"Swell!" she said and kissed him on the cheek. Then she ran back to the motorcycle.
"Why the sudden interest in baseball?" Jack said to Gia.
"Not exactly baseball—T-ball. Some of her friends are going out for the local team and she wants to be part of it." She looked at him. "Not a great player? I'd have guessed you for an ace player."
"Nah. Too boring. I could hit it a mile, and that's the only reason I ever made a team. I was a disaster on defense. Coaches moved me all over, infield and outfield, didn't matter—a minute out there and my eyes would glaze over and I'd be daydreaming, asleep on my feet. Or watching the bees and wasps in the clover—I was terrified of being stung."
He smiled at the memory of being literally and figuratively out in left field and hearing the crack of a bat against the ball, waking up to see everybody staring at him, the pure terror of realizing the ball was coming his way and not having the faintest clue as to where it was. Stomach-clenching panic as he looked up, searching the bright summer sky for a dark round speck, praying he'd see it, praying even harder he'd catch it, praying hardest it wouldn't land on his head and leave him in a coma.
Ah, the joy of being one of the boys of summer.
"Which reminds me," Gia said, "I hope you're not going out collecting for the West Side Little League again this year."
Uh-oh. "Well…it's for a good cause."
She made a face. "Do they know how you collect for them?"
"Of course not. They just know I'm their top fundraiser."
"Can't you just go door to door like most people? You could get hurt your way."
He loved the concern in her eyes. "Tell you what. I'll give them whatever I already have put aside for them, and that'll be it for this year. How's that sound?"
"Great," she said. "And what other kind of trouble have you got planned for yourself?"
"Well, there's that guy I told you about."
"With the missing wife?"
"Right. Shouldn't be any rough stuff with that. More like a Sherlock Holmes thing."
"But you're not a detective. Why did she specify you rather than a private eye?"
"She thinks I'm the only one who will 'understand.'"