Late that afternoon they played a game of touch football on the beach. Consuela, Maria, and Karen sat under a big beach umbrella and cheered. It was supposed to be two-hand touch, but Rebecca put a full-body tackle on Scott; he didn't complain. Afterwards, he walked up to the house to check on the final round of the Houston Classic, but stopped on the deck and looked back at Rebecca. She and Boo were walking hand in hand far down the beach. They were growing close again. He wondered what an eleven-year-old girl talked to her mother about.
"Would you mind having sex with A. Scott?"
" Boo. "
Mother had a shocked expression.
"What?"
"You know about sex?"
Boo nodded. "Health class."
"I should've been there, to talk with you about it."
"A. Scott tried to, but he was pretty lame. He gave us a book, with drawings."
"So why are you asking?"
"A. Scott needs sex."
"He's not dating anyone?"
"Nunh-unh. Ms. Dawson-she's the fourth-grade teacher-she's got a big crush on him, but he won't ask her out."
"Why not?"
" 'Cause of you."
"Is she pretty?"
"Very."
"Prettier than me?"
"No."
Mother smiled a little.
"Do you want him to date someone?"
"He has us, but he needs someone his own age. And he needs sex. I told him Ms. Dawson would probably have sex with him."
"Why?"
" 'Cause she's got the hots for him."
"No. Why does he need sex?"
"So he doesn't have a heart attack."
" A heart attack? "
"Unh-huh. From the stress."
"Is he under a lot of stress?"
Boo nodded. "He's not making much money, because he represents poor people who can't pay. I think we're broke."
"I didn't know."
"He tries not to let on, but he's worried. And he won't take any of the medicine he's supposed to take, so sex is the only hope for him. So we were thinking-me and Pajamae-that maybe you could have sex with A. Scott again so he doesn't die on us?"
"Well, I guess I could try. For his health."
Donnie Parker won the Houston Classic. He didn't look like a killer.
Pete Puckett did. He was good with guns and better with knives. He had killed and gutted animals. He had had his hands in blood. He had threatened to kill Trey if he didn't stay away from Billie Jean, and Trey didn't. Had Pete carried through on his threat? Did he have his hands in Trey's blood? Did he stab that butcher knife into Trey Rawlins' chest? Scott needed Pete's fingerprints to prove Pete Puckett guilty and Rebecca Fenney innocent, but Pete would be in New York all week for the U.S. Open. He wasn't fleeing the country, so Pete Puckett's prints would have to wait until the tour returned to Texas. And Rebecca Fenney's fate would have to wait another week.
They cooked hamburgers and drank beer on the beach that night. At ten, Scott tucked the girls in bed then went out on the back deck where he found Rebecca standing alone at the far railing. She was still wearing that white bikini. The sea breeze blew her hair and brought her scent to Scott.
"Boo says you're stressed because you're broke."
"She's a thirty-year-old woman trapped in an eleven-year-old body."
"She also said you need sex. She's worried you'll have a heart attack, said you refuse to take your medications."
"My medications?" Scott laughed. "They want me to take every heart drug advertised on TV."
"So you're not having heart problems?"
"No. The girls just worry. Bill Barnes-you remember him? — he died of a heart attack."
"Oh, my God."
"Ever since, the girls have worried I'll have a heart attack, too."
"Is it true?"
"That I need sex?"
"That you're broke?"
"Yep, I'm broke. But I have options."
"Such as?"
"Ford Fenney. Dan Ford offered to change the firm's name, pay me a million a year to come back."
"Are you going to?"
"Not if Option B comes through."
"What's Option B?"
"Judge Fenney."
"You're going to run for judge?"
"Appointed. Federal bench. Sam Buford's dying of cancer, wants me to replace him. But that requires the U.S. senators from Texas to back me."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Oh."
"And I'm not helping, am I? My case? What if Option B doesn't come through? Do you want to go back to the firm?"
"No. But I will. For the girls. So they don't have to lie to survive."
"But what about your life? Your happiness?"
"Theirs comes first."
"So you'll never have the life you always wanted?"
"I made too many mistakes to have the life I wanted."
"Me. I was your mistake."
"It wasn't your fault, Rebecca."
"I had the affair."
"But I had the career. I didn't give you the attention you needed."
"And I had the Highland Park lifestyle, shopping and society balls, wearing five-thousand-dollar dresses."
"You paid five thousand dollars for a dress?"
"You paid two hundred thousand for the Ferrari."
He smiled. "I did." He shook his head. "That car was so…"
"Sweet?"
"I was going to say arrogant. But it was a sweet car. Sid's driving it now."
" Sid Greenberg? In your Ferrari? Now that's just wrong." She laughed. "It's a nice night, let's take a walk."
They went down the stairs and onto the beach. The sand felt warm and soft on his bare feet. The moonlight off the water provided enough light to walk the beach.
"Desolate out here," Scott said.
"Since Ike. Except for the birders during the spring and fall migrations. They come from all over the country, the birds and the birders. We get ducks, herons, loons, falcons, hawks, sandpipers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers…"
"Didn't know you were into birds."
"They're pretty."
So was she.
"You always wear bikinis?"
She shrugged. "I live on a beach. You don't like it?"
"No, I like it. You like living out here?"
"I did."
"Bobby says Lafitte supposedly buried his treasure out here somewhere. He's been reading the tourist guide in bed. Pregnant wife."
"That's the legend. No one's found it yet." She was quiet then she said, "I thought I had found happiness out here."
They walked down the beach a distance before she spoke again.
"This last week, Scott, it's been like the old times."
"Except for a pending murder trial."
"Except for that. When do I take the polygraph?"
"Karen's setting it up. You're not worried?"
"I have nothing to worry about. I'm innocent."
"Prisons are full of innocent people."
"Okay, now I'm worried."
"Sorry."
She laughed. "I'm not worried because you're my lawyer." She paused then said, "Scott, why are you my lawyer? Why are you doing this? Because you still love me?"
"Because you're still Boo's mother."
"She's lucky."
"That you're her mother?"
"That you're her father." She took his hand. "But you do still love me, don't you?"
The night air had a hint of cool. She put her arm through his and leaned into him as they strolled. He felt her skin against his, and he thought of all the times their bodies had been skin to skin. He missed those times. She abruptly stopped, turned to him, and kissed him. She pressed her body against his, and he felt the old desire for this beautiful woman rise in him again. Like the old times.
When he was at Ford Stevens, the male lawyers had often gathered after-hours and drank and talked about women and marriage, about how the heat of passion they had initially enjoyed had subsided after a year or two of marriage and it was only then that they had gotten to know their wives as people rather than objects of desire. For some of the lawyers, that had not been a good thing; they soon divorced and rediscovered the passion with a younger woman. The others had settled into a marriage in which children replaced passion. They had accepted the tradeoff-little league baseball in place of passionate sex-as an inevitable fact of life. Of course, Dan Ford's take on the matter was more succinct: "Hell, Scott," he had said, "marriage isn't about love; it's about survival." But then, Dan had always been a romantic bastard.