I evaluated her words, but the two sayings seemed contradictory to me. “Calvin’s words warned against foraying into your heart, Shakespeare promoted the idea. How are they the same?”
At last she stopped studying the shadows across the yard and looked at me. “In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote, ‘To thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst be false to no man,’ or ‘thou canst not then be false to any man.’ There’s some controversy about the manuscripts that were preserved, which ones are authoritative-” She caught herself veering into a tangent and redirected her thoughts. “Anyway, that’s exactly what these guys that you track do-serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, whatever.”
“They’re being true to themselves,” I said, finding myself agreeing with her, “to their hearts, their desires.”
“Yeah. Forays into their hearts, not departures from them.”
The observation flew in the face of the popular wisdom that people should be true to themselves, follow their dreams, their heart’s desires, but it made sense because when people do that without restraint, they end up committing the worst crimes imaginable.
“That’s very incisive,” I said. “So then, Shakespeare was wrong in encouraging people to follow their hearts.”
“No.” She was starting to sound more and more like her typical sardonically-irritated-Tessa-self, and I took that to mean that she was starting to feel better. It was refreshing. “Look at the context. The Hamlet quote isn’t advice, it’s sarcasm.”
Out front, I heard a car pulling up the driveway.
“Supper,” she said.
My wallet was on the kitchen table, and I went to grab some cash. “Okay, so how is it sarcasm?” She followed me into the house, carrying my computer for me. “Everyone quotes Shakespeare’s words as advice. Besides, ‘Follow your heart! Be true to yourself!’ is the theme of every Disney movie ever made. How could Disney have gotten it backward?”
“Are you being serious?”
“Only partly.” I found my wallet, pulled out a twenty. “But I don’t see how it’s sarcasm.”
“Polonius says the words.”
I heard a car door slam.
“Tessa, I have to admit I’m not as familiar with Hamlet as you are.”
“Polonius is a fool who gets into trouble whenever he does follow his heart, when he actually is true to himself. By having him say the line, Shakespeare was underlying how absurd the advice is. Shakespeare wasn’t stupid. He’s warning people against being true to themselves, not telling them to do it. He understood human nature better than almost any other author in history.” Then she added, “Except maybe Poe.”
“Of course.”
I couldn’t help asking myself the obvious follow-up question: if we shouldn’t be true to ourselves, what should we be true to?
The doorbell rang. I crossed the living room. “I’m not so sure about the whole Polonius irony thing. I’d have to look that up.”
“Trust me.”
I answered the door and found Lien-hua standing on the porch holding three bulging bags of Chinese takeout.
“Lien-hua.” I stood there holding the door open, staring at her.
She smiled softly. “Can I come in?”
“Oh.” I stepped aside. “Sure. Sorry.” She walked past me, and I flashed Tessa a look: What in the world is going on? She gave me a light conspiratorial smile.
“Hello, Agent Jiang,” she said.
“Hey, Tessa.”
Lien-hua put the food on the kitchen table.
“I didn’t expect you.” I was searching for the right words. “So soon.”
“Well, the Evidence Response Team and CSIU guys are processing the hotel room and luggage area, so there wasn’t much for me to do there. Besides, I needed some space to focus on the profile, and even when you’re in the middle of a case-”
“You still need to eat,” Tessa said.
“That’s right,” she replied. “So when Tessa was kind enough to call and tell me how sorry you were that we missed lunch but that you would love to have me join you guys for dinner, well-”
“It was an offer too good to pass up,” Tessa said.
“Yes.”
“And here you are,” I said.
“Here I am.”
“Well, it’s nice. It’s… I’m glad you could make it.”
“Me too.” She was scouring through the cupboards, looking for plates.
I went to the fridge. “Not much to drink, I’m afraid. Pretty much just juice, soy milk, root beer-”
“Water’s fine.”
“Water it is.” I took a glass to the sink and asked Tessa to get out the silverware, but Lien-hua rebuked me with a slender, wagging finger. “This is Chinese food.”
“Oh, please not the chopsticks. You know how bad I am with those things.”
She smiled. “Practice makes perfect.”
67
After five minutes of letting me fumble around with my chopsticks while she and Tessa used theirs with annoying dexterity, Lien-hua finally leaned toward me. “Here, like this.”
She gently took my right hand in hers and slid the chopsticks into position between my fingers. Her touch was both cool and full of fire.
“This is very helpful,” I said as she glided her fingers across mine, maneuvered the chopsticks for me. “I might never go back to using a fork.”
“Hush.”
Tessa just shook her head.
Lien-hua took her time teaching my fingers what to do. I didn’t mind. “See?” she said.
No. Let’s keep the lesson going for a while.
“Reminds me of that night in San Diego,” I said. “When you taught me the sign language alphabet.”
“I remember that,” she replied softly. She patted my hand and then went back to her food.
I’d only managed to take three bites when I heard a car pull into the driveway. I gave Tessa a questioning look, and she said, “That would be our other guest. Why don’t you go get the door?”
Lien-hua looked at me. Blinked. “Other guest?”
Knowing Tessa as well as I did, I had a feeling who might be arriving outside. On my way to the door I flicked on the porch lights.
And in the fading evening light I saw Cheyenne getting out of her car.
Oh, Tessa…
Cheyenne jogged up the steps.
I opened the door for her. “Hey,” I said. “You’re here.”
“Yup.” She was carrying a supermarket brand apple pie. “Dessert has arrived.”
68
“Thanks for the invite, Pat,” Cheyenne said as I closed the door behind her.
“You’re welcome.” Then I called to my stepdaughter in the kitchen, “Tessa, you were so kind to pass along the dinner invitation to Detective Warren as well.”
“Not a problem,” came the reply.
“As well?” Cheyenne said. “So who else is-”
Lien-hua stepped into the kitchen doorway. “Cheyenne.”
“Lien-hua.”
Both women looked at each other for a moment, and then, almost simultaneously, looked at me.
“Great,” I said awkwardly. “So, good… um, I’m glad there’s plenty of food then.”
Neither of them spoke.
Oh, this was just outstanding.
Cheyenne took the pie to the kitchen, Lien-hua joined her, and I asked Tessa if she could kindly come to the hall for a moment. She reluctantly followed, and when we were out of earshot of the two women, I said, “What is this all about?”
“We missed lunch with Agent Jiang.”
“I know, but why did you invite them both over here tonight? What are you trying to do?”
She gave me a you-are-so-clueless look. “We talked about this earlier. You need to decide who you’re more interested in. The best way to do that is to have them both here. That way-”
I didn’t buy it. “Why are you suddenly so concerned about me being with a woman?”
A long uncertain pause followed, and somehow it almost made me regret pressing her for a reason. At last she said softly, “When we got back here tonight, there was so much… I don’t know… I just thought it would be good for both of us if we didn’t have to think about death for a while.”
I couldn’t come up with any argument to that.