She arched an eyebrow. “And you didn’t want to brag about being smooth.”
Then she drove off. Myron watched the car disappear, the dorky smile still on his face. He turned and walked back to the house. Win had not moved. There had been many changes in Myron’s life — his parents’ moving down south, Esperanza’s new baby, the fate of his business, even Big Cyndi — but Win remained a constant. Some of the ash-blond hair around the temples had grayed a bit, but Win was still the über-WASP. The patrician lockjaw, the perfect nose, the hair parted by the gods — he stank, deservedly so, of privilege and white shoes and golfer’s tan.
“Six-point-eight,” Win said. “Round it up to a seven.”
“Excuse me?”
Win raised his hand, palm down, tilted it back and forth. “Your Ms. Wilder. If I’m being generous, I give her a seven.”
“Gee, that means a lot. Coming from you and all.”
They moved back into the house and sat in the den. Win crossed his legs in that perfect-crease way of his. His expression was permanently set on haughty. He looked pampered and spoiled and soft — in the face anyway. But the body told another story. He was all knotted, coiled muscle, not so much wiry as, if you will, barbed-wiry.
Win steepled his fingers. Steepling looked right on Win. “May I ask a question?”
“No.”
“Why are you with her?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No. I want to know what precisely you see in Ms. Ali Wilder.”
Myron shook his head. “I knew I shouldn’t have invited you.”
“Ah, but you did. So let me elaborate.”
“Please don’t.”
“During our years at Duke, well, there was the delectable Emily Downing. Then, of course, your soul mate for the next ten-plus years, the luscious Jessica Culver. There was the brief fling with Brenda Slaughter and alas, most recently, the passion of Terese Collins.”
“Is there a point?”
“There is.” Win opened the steeple, closed it again. “What do all these women, your past loves, have in common?”
“You tell me,” Myron said.
“In a word: bodaciousness.”
“That’s a word?”
“Smoking-hot honeys,” Win continued with the snooty accent. “Each and every one of them. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate Emily a nine. That would be the lowest. Jessica would be a so-hot-she-singes-your-eyeballs eleven. Terese Collins and Brenda Slaughter, both near-tens.”
“And in your expert opinion…”
“A seven is being generous,” Win finished for him.
Myron just shook his head.
“So pray tell,” Win said, “what is the big attraction?”
“Are you for real?”
“I am indeed.”
“Well, here’s a news flash, Win. First off, while it’s not really important, I disagree with your awarded score.”
“Oh? So how would rate Ms. Wilder?”
“I’m not getting into that with you. But for one thing, Ali has the kind of looks that grow on you. At first you think she’s attractive enough, and then, as you get to know her—”
“Bah.”
“Bah?”
“Self-rationalization.”
“Well, here’s another news flash for you. It’s not all about looks.”
“Bah.”
“Again with the bah?”
Win re-steepled his fingers. “Let’s play a game. I’m going to say a word. You tell me the first thing that pops in your head.”
Myron closed his eyes. “I don’t know why I discuss matters of the heart with you. It’s like talking about Mozart with a deaf man.”
“Yes, that’s very funny. Here comes the first word. Actually it’s two words. Just tell me what pops in your head: Ali Wilder.”
“Warmth,” Myron said.
“Liar.”
“Okay, I think we’ve discussed this enough.”
“Myron?”
“What?”
“When was the last time you tried to save someone?”
The usual faces flashed strobelike through Myron’s head. He tried to block them out.
“Myron?”
“Don’t start,” Myron said softly. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Have you?”
He thought now about Ali, about that wonderful smile and the openness of her face. He thought about Aimee and Erin in his old bedroom down in the basement, about the promise he had forced them to make.
“Ali doesn’t need rescuing, Myron.”
“You think that’s what this is about?”
“When I say her name, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
“Warmth,” Myron said again.
But this time, even he knew he was lying.
Six years.
That was how long it had been since Myron had played superhero. In six years he hadn’t thrown a punch. He hadn’t held, much less fired, a gun. He hadn’t threatened or been threatened. He hadn’t cracked wise with steroid-inflated pituitary glands. He hadn’t called Win, still the scariest man he knew, to back him up or get him out of trouble. In the past six years, none of his clients had been murdered — a real positive in his business. None had been shot or arrested — well, except for that prostitution beef out in Las Vegas, but Myron still claimed that was entrapment. None of his clients or friends or loved ones had gone missing.
He had learned his lesson.
Don’t stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong. You’re not Batman, and Win is not a psychotic version of Robin. Yes, Myron had saved some innocents during his quasi-heroic days, including the life of his own son. Jeremy, his boy, was nineteen now — Myron couldn’t believe that either — and was serving in the military in some undisclosed spot in the Middle East.
But Myron had caused damage too. Look what had happened to Duane and Christian and Greg and Linda and Jack…. But mostly, Myron could not stop thinking about Brenda. He still visited her grave too frequently. Maybe she would have died anyway, he didn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t his fault.
The victories have a tendency to wash off you. The destruction — the dead — stay by your side, tap you on the shoulder, slow your step, haunt your sleep.
Either way, Myron had buried his hero complex. For the past six years, his life had been quiet, normal, average — boring, even.
Myron rinsed off the dishes. He semi-lived in Livingston, New Jersey, in the same town — nay, the same house — where he was raised. His parents, the beloved Ellen and Alan Bolitar, performed aliya, returning to their people’s homeland (south Florida) five years ago. Myron bought the house as both an investment, a good one, in fact, and so that his folks would have a place to return to when they migrated back during the warmer months. Myron spent about a third of his time living in this house in the burbs and two-thirds rooming with Win at the famed Dakota apartment building on Central Park West in New York City.
He thought about tomorrow night and his date with Ali. Win was an idiot, no question about that, but as usual his questions had scored a hit, if not a bull’s-eye. Forget that looks stuff. That was utter nonsense. And forget the hero complex stuff too. That wasn’t what this was about. But something was holding him back and yes, it had to do with Ali’s tragedy. Try as he might, he couldn’t shake it.
As for the hero stuff, making Aimee and Erin promise to call him — that was different. It doesn’t matter who you are — the teenage years are hard. High school is a war zone. Myron had been a popular kid. He was a Parade All-American basketball player, one of the top recruits in the country, and, to trot out a favorite cliché, a true scholar-athlete. If anyone should have had it easy in high school, it would be someone like Myron Bolitar. But he hadn’t. In the end, no one gets out of those years unscathed.
You just need to survive adolescence. That’s all. Just get through it.