Guidry said, “What do you know about the murder in Cupcake Trillin’s house?”
“You know about that?”
“Dixie, the entire world knows about that. Besides, Trillin’s from around here, so everybody in New Orleans is especially interested.”
Even to Guidry, I wouldn’t repeat anything I’d just heard at Cupcake’s house. Or tell him what Briana had told me. Or tell him about the men attacking me.
I could ask a question I’d been wondering about, though. “Guidry, do you know where Thibodaux, Louisiana, is?”
“Sure, that’s where Trillin grew up. It’s not far from New Orleans.”
I should have remembered that sports fans know every detail of an athlete’s history.
I said, “Do you remember anything about a sixteen-year-old Thibodaux girl killing a man? She shot him in the head and then disappeared. It would have been while Cupcake was in high school.”
“This is Louisiana, Dixie. That kind of thing is common.”
“Do you know anything about Serbian criminals?”
“Not a damn thing. Why?”
I laughed. “Because I don’t either, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only ignorant one.”
His voice took on a note of worry. “Dixie, you’re not mixed up in something involving European criminals, are you?”
“Are you kidding? The only criminal I know is a cat who stole a slip of paper from a wastebasket. He’s taken it to his lair, and he won’t give it back.”
“His lair? Cats have lairs?”
“Not all cats. Just criminal cats.”
“I do miss you, Dixie.”
“Those planes fly both ways.”
“As soon as I can get away—”
“When might that be?”
“It’s hard to say. There’s so much to set straight here.”
So there we were again, both of us putting something else first but promising to get together as soon as we could. It was the perfect time to say what was true: Neither of us would ever make that flight, because we had other things that took priority over getting together. But I couldn’t say it. I wanted to, I tried to make my mouth form the words, but I flat couldn’t. Some force I couldn’t control wouldn’t let me.
Instead, we murmured some more things, then ended the call. I sat staring at the phone for a moment, more frustrated and confused than ever. I had been a rank coward, merely putting off the inevitable, but Guidry had been an integral part of my coming out of the shell I’d crawled into after my husband and little girl died. He’d forced me to move on, to stop feeling sorry for myself, to let all the old anguish and resentment go and love again. While he’d been doing that, he’d let his own guard down and come to love me. To end what we had created together seemed to trivialize it, and it had not been trivial.
It had been a long dry spell without sex after my husband died, and making love with Guidry had been like adding water to Magic Rocks and watching them explode into glorious colors. I couldn’t bear the thought of going back to a state of desiccation, but I also couldn’t bear the thought of sex with men I didn’t love. I didn’t know if the lust I felt for Ethan might grow into love or remain a purely biological urge.
I got up and made a cup of tea. If I felt lonely and needy, it was my own fault. It occurred to me that I would make a fortune if I invented and patented a do-it-yourself create-a-man kit. It could be a large tablet that lonely women dropped in water. When it hit moisture, it would burst into the shape of a teeny man and then grow before their eyes into the exact man they needed.
I stood at the kitchen sink and drank my tea and grinned while I remembered reading a book in high school called Gorilla, My Love. In the book, a woman had explained to her sisters how a woman needed a lot of different men in her life. A lover man, a money man, a handy man, a smooth-talking, sharp-dressed man to take out in public, and a sweet, sensitive man for quiet evenings. I figured I could design my build-a-man kit with tablets that would create any one of those men. Women could keep the kits on hand and create the right man for any occasion.
The only problem I could see was that there’d have to be some system of disposing of one man when a woman was ready for another. No intelligent woman would create a man too dumb to know he was disposable, but it would be depressing to be with a man who knew his days were numbered.
The whole idea was beginning to seem like real life, so I rinsed out my cup and decided I would never get rich selling do-it-yourself man kits.
18
Before I left for my afternoon calls, Cora Mathers called. Cora is the eighty-something-year-old grandmother of a former client who was brutally murdered. The client had left a chunk of money to her grandmother and a significant sum to her cat named Ghost. Much to my dismay, she had named me the executrix of the cat’s estate. But as it worked out, Cora thought it was cool that her granddaughter had left money to her cat, and I had found a good home for him. Tom Hale has invested the cat’s money so wisely that he’s a very rich cat. The rich part for me was that Cora and I have become good friends.
Her voice thin and scratchy, she said, “Dixie, I hate to bother you, but could you pick up something for me?”
She said she wanted a hot water bottle. Another woman in her condo had one, and just the thought of it had made Cora nostalgic for the hot water bottles she’d had when she was young.
She said, “They make them smaller now, so they’re easier to handle. And there’s nothing like a hot water bottle when you have a stomachache or when your feet are cold. The woman got hers at a drugstore on Tamiami Trail.”
I said, “Do you have a stomachache?”
“It’s not bad.”
“Have you told your doctor?”
“It’s not anything to worry about, Dixie. People get stomachaches.”
I told her I’d be happy to bring her a couple of hot water bottles and hurried to get dressed so I could pick them up before I started my afternoon rounds.
Outside, the sun hid behind a scrim of ragged clouds, giving a trio of red-tailed hawks the look of dive bombers gone off course. The sun had moved away from dead center of the sky, making the light slant onto the ripples on the Gulf so their top edges glittered. A few sailboats made neat white triangles in the distance, and shore birds had come out of their siesta hideaways to stalk along the beach looking for snacks brought in with the frothy surf.
Michael was also on the beach, bare feet planted in the sand, legs braced like tree trunks while he looked at waves piling up on the shore. With a beach at our front door, we are generally considered privileged, but that only means we had ancestors smart enough or lucky enough to make choices that would one day be of tremendous value. Our grandfather bought our beachfront property for less than a thousand dollars. Now it’s worth more than Michael’s firefighting income and my pet-sitting income combined will ever total, but we still get to live here. If it’s true that we choose our families, we chose well.
I slipped off my Keds and walked out on the beach to stand beside him and dig my toes into the sand’s cool dampness.
I said, “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t pretend to be surprised that I knew something was wrong. We’ve been together a long time, and we know each other’s moods.
“Just a little concerned about Paco. He’s really stressed about something.”
“A job?”
His voice grew sharp. “Of course a job. What else? And no, I don’t know what job it is, and yes, it’s none of my business so I’m not asking. He wouldn’t tell me if I did.”