“Nobody ever cooks for me,” Mickey said, “except in restaurants.”
“Well, I do now.”
At ten-fourteen on this Wednesday night, Alicia was standing over a bowl of half a dozen broken eggs in Hunt’s kitchen by his four-burner Viking stove. Mickey had stolen one of Hunt’s short-sleeved sweatshirts and he and Alicia had maneuvered it down over his cast and now he sat-nearly reclined, actually-at the kitchen table. She’d already set out a couple of plates and utensils and had bread going in the toaster. He held his just-opened third beer in his right hand.
Pouring the eggs into the skillet, she pinched some salt and pepper over them, then opened the spice cabinet over the kitchen counter and took down a small bottle of yellowish liquid. “Truffle oil? Normal people have truffle oil?”
“Don’t leave home without it,” Mickey said. “Sure.”
“Should I put some in?”
“Every chance you get.”
In a small stream, she added some of the magical stuff, gathered the eggs with a spatula, then turned off the heat as the toast popped up. After buttering it, she put a slice on each plate, ladled the eggs onto each, covering both pieces of toast completely, then topping the mass with another pat of butter.
Mickey picked up his fork and took a bite. “These are perfect,” he said.
After they’d finished their eggs and Alicia had washed up, they were back in the den. Mickey had perked up when they’d first arrived, and that burst of energy had carried him through their meal. But now he sat slumped down in the reading chair, feet up on an ottoman, head on a pillow, covered with a blanket that Alicia had found next to the pillow on the top shelf of Hunt’s bedroom closet. “The couch opens up.” His voice sounded thick and groggy. “You can sleep there.”
“What about you?”
“I’m good here. I’m almost asleep already.”
“Sorry, Mick. You’re mangled and battered. You get the bed. Period.”
“Are we going to have a fight about this?”
She was already pulling the cushions off the couch. “No. You’re going to get in the bed as soon as I get it made.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ve got my trusty sleeping bag and pad in the back of my car out there.” She pulled out the couch mattress, which was already made up for guests with a sheet and a blanket. Then, pulling down a corner of the blanket, she turned to face him. “Do you need help getting up?”
“No.” But even as he said it, he winced at the attempt.
“Stop.” She stepped over and took off his shoes, then held his feet up while she moved the ottoman out from under them. Next she removed the blanket and draped it over the bed.
With his feet flat on the floor, he took her hand with his good arm and lifted himself into a sitting position while she went to one knee in front of him.
“Okay,” she said. “Good arm around my neck. Easy, easy.”
Suppressing the urge to moan, he was up, still leaning on her.
She guided him over a few steps, then helped him down so that he was sitting on the bed. Finally, she put his pillow down where his head would be, lifted his feet, and turned him so that he could recline fully. She pulled the oversheet and both blankets over him and tucked them in. Then she lowered herself and sat on the edge of the bed. “How’s that?”
Clearly, the movement had cost him. Any boost he’d felt when they’d first gotten here had dissipated with the adrenaline and the beer. Now a light sweat had broken on his forehead and he was breathing through the pain in his ribs, slowly and deeply through parsed lips. “Good.”
“Would you tell me if it was bad?”
“Maybe.” He broke a tired smile. “Probably not.”
“You macho guys.” She gently wiped his forehead with a corner of the oversheet, then tucked it back around him. After a minute her shoulders settled and she let out a long sigh. “I’m so sorry, Mickey.”
“For what?”
“Getting you into this.”
“You didn’t get me into this. I got me into this.”
She brooded on that for a long beat. “Not really. If I…” She exhaled heavily again. “Anyway, I don’t know how I can thank you. I don’t know what I’d be doing right now if it wasn’t for you.”
“You’d be fine.”
“No. I’d be running, I think. Though I see now how dumb that would be.”
He shook his head ever so slightly. “There’s no need to run. Not yet. Maybe not ever.”
“But I wouldn’t have known that if not for you. I’d have just screwed up more.”
Mickey put his hand softly on her thigh. “You haven’t screwed up. You didn’t do anything wrong. Look at me. Alicia, look at me. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
She turned to face him, but couldn’t hold his gaze. Rather, her mouth trembled and she closed her eyes. She put her hand over his as though grasping it for support. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Mickey studied her face, on the verge of tears. And then heavy drops formed and fell at the same time from both of her eyes.
“Hey.” Mickey squeezed her leg. “Hey, now, it’s going to be all right.”
But she was shaking her head from side to side. “No. I have screwed up. I did do something wrong.”
“No, you didn’t. You just-”
“I did, Mickey, I did. I… I lied to those inspectors. I’ve even been lying to you.” Now she looked straight down at him. “That last morning when I came in to work? Dominic’s last day?”
“What about it?”
“He did fire me. He said I couldn’t work at Sunset anymore. He couldn’t see me anymore either. He said we could never see each other again.” Her shoulders began to shake, and a deep wrenching sob broke from her throat.
Tamara got ready for bed and then turned on the television to watch the late news.
Generally preferring to read or, in the old days when she had a social life, to hang out with friends, she almost never watched TV. But tonight it was the only thing she could think of to keep herself from imploding with frustration, concern, and anger.
Mostly anger.
Jim Parr still hadn’t made it home. Where the hell had he gone, and why wouldn’t he have called if he’d known he was going to be so late? But of course, he didn’t have a cell phone, had never bothered to learn how to use one. As if this took some sort of special dexterity or brains. She had already decided that she and Mickey were going to buy him one immediately if not sooner. Of course, then he probably wouldn’t pick it up when the damn thing rang on his belt. He had nothing but scorn for her and Mickey “being the slaves to technology” anyway.
Beyond that, she would be good and goddamned if she would try getting through the Gestapo switchboard at San Francisco General again to try to talk to Mickey. She did consider testing her Volkswagen and driving down there, but in the end decided that, since it was past visiting hours, she’d have less chance actually seeing him than she would talking to him on the telephone. And wasn’t it just the perfect karma for today that Mick’s cell phone had died in the accident so she couldn’t call him directly?
That was really special, and further proof that God hated her.
And when Wyatt Hunt had dropped her off at her home earlier, he told her that he had a date with Gina Roake, and it was far too late to interrupt them, even if she thought Wyatt might have been able to help in some way. Which she didn’t.
Finally, she knew she could call the police and report her grandfather as missing, except that it was decidedly premature for that. She knew from work that authorities would do nothing about a missing person report until that person had been missing for at least three days. Beyond that, Jim had been home most nights for the past six months since Tamara had lived here, but at least three times he’d wound up staying out somewhere mysterious and didn’t seem to feel the need to explain where or to check in with his grandchildren. She’d thought it was just drinking and probably passing out at the apartment of one of his bocce-ball companions, but then she’d discovered the plastic container of Viagra (certainly not Mickey’s) when she’d been cleaning up one day, and a little later had overheard him bragging to Mick that he’d “gotten lucky.”