She tossed me a curt nod. <Thanks for coming.>
<What? Why are you mad at me? What did I do?>
She winced at herself. <I must look pretty grim, don’t I?>
<Maybe. I don’t know. I’m very off tonight.>
<So am I. I was already in bed when I decided to call you. The lights were out. My contacts were out. I was trying to sleep. But then I realized that if I didn’t talk to you now, I wouldn’t sleep at all.>
<I didn’t know you wore contacts,> I wrote.
<Yeah. The perils of computer work. What’s your excuse?>
I tapped my glasses. <I don’t wear contacts. I barely even use these things.>
<Take them off.>
With an “as you please” shrug, I took them off, folded them, and dropped them in my shirt pocket.
She tilted her head, studying me. <You look better without them.>
<You look incredible with yours.>
Expressionless, she retrieved a money order from her purse and slid it across the table. It was $975.50, exactly a hundred dollars more than I’d paid for the Saturn repairs. I’d e-mailed her the final cost this afternoon, shortly before leaving for Ralph’s.
<Why the extra hundred?>
<For the inconvenience.>
Miranda would have laughed her ass off. <Why a money order?>
<Because if I gave you a check, you might be tempted to rip it up into pieces.>
That was mildly encouraging. In her mind, I was still the kind of man who was susceptible to random acts of charity. I was about to respond, but then she pulled an item from the floor: a fat stack of papers. I recognized it immediately as Alonso’s novel.
<Jesus. Don’t tell me you finished that thing already.>
She plunked it down on the table, between our laptops. On the top page, covering the book’s dedication, was a single yellow sticky note, filled with Jean’s curvy handwriting.
GODSEND
a novel
by Harmony Prince’s lawyer
With a droll stare, she raised her eyebrows at me. See the problem now? Of course. Of course it had to do with Harmony. Everything in the world, every problem in my life, came back to Harmony.
<You were smart to get rid of the title page,> Jean wrote, without taking her gaze off me. <But if you had actually read the book, like I did, you would have discovered the ten-page afterword at the end. He refers to his novel by name. He also signs it.>
Of course Alonso would be self-indulgent enough to finish his work with a lengthy explanation of what it meant to him. Loquacious prick.
<He’s very talented,> she added. <Very strange. Very kinky. But very talented.>
By sheer reflex, my addled mind processed a weak dodge: I was simply studying the enemy. That’s the only reason I had the book. I was studying the mind of the enemy.
Shit. I was too sick to lie.
<How did you find out he was Harmony’s lawyer?>
<I saw his name on-screen last night. On that CNN show. I remembered it because it looked nice. The letters in “Alonso” kind of look like a little truck, with the O’s as wheels.>
Damn it, Jean. Don’t do this to me. Don’t be all smart and sexy and weird tonight. I’m not strong enough to handle you.
She read my discomfort, then vented herself through a long, pensive breath. <Honestly, you gave yourself away.>
<I know.>
<Last night. The way you looked at Harmony when she cried.>
<I know.>
<It made me nervous. I know it’s not my business, but you’re obviously involved in something murky here.>
“Jean…”
<And I wouldn’t care about that, except you’ve got my DAUGHTER involved.>
“Hold it!”
The remaining patrons watched me as I stood up and dragged my wooden chair around the table. I sat so close to Jean, my knees touched her thigh.
“I’m sorry,” I said with slow articulation. “I can’t type and look at you at the same time, and I need you to see me for this. I’m going to tell you two things that are absolutely, one hundred percent true. I want you to read me very carefully as I say them, all right? Read my lips. Read my face.”
Thrown by my intensity, Jean nodded. I took in a deep swath of air, then held up a finger.
“One: yes. You’re right. There’s more to this job than meets the eye. I’d explain the whole thing to you right now, but it would take an hour, and honestly, the details don’t matter. All you need to know…”
For a brief and disturbing moment, my inner teleprompter went dark. My words, my thoughts, became scrambled beyond recognition. I suddenly wished I was fluent in Sign, so I could chop through this goddamn jungle of rhetoric and cut right to the heart of the matter.
“I had a plan, Jean. I had a plan that would have channeled a nation’s idle rage off a man who didn’t deserve it and onto a bunch of people who didn’t exist. It was a crazy and ambitious plan, but it wasn’t a cruel one. I truly and honestly believed that this would benefit everybody. It just…Things took a bad turn. I know that’s small comfort to the people involved, but since you’re not involved, all you need to know is that I meant well. I screwed up, but I meant well. Did you get that?”
With wide and alert eyes, she nodded. Somewhere on the outskirts of my consciousness was the impulse to run my hands up her arms, up her sleeves, all the way to the peaks of her shoulders, which I’d madly caress with my thumbs for as long as she’d let me. Instead, I merely raised a second finger.
“Two: I have bent over backwards to protect Madison from the more complex aspects of this operation. That is the one thing I’ve done right. Your daughter is such a marvel to me. All I want to be is a positive force in her life. I want to help her process all the deceptive crap that’s floating around out there, but in a way that doesn’t make her more cynical. There are media literacy books that can help me. Websites. I’ll do whatever it takes. I just…”
I turned my head away. “Shit…”
Jean put her hand on my cheek, trying to turn it back, but I resisted her. This wasn’t what it looked like. I wasn’t about to cry. I was about to sneeze.
Finally, it came out. It was one of those full-body sneezes that shorts out the mind, forcing you to reboot. By the time I looked back at Jean, I was covering my lower face with both hands. She had a tissue waiting for me.
“Thank you.”
It was just as well that I sneezed. I was getting a little too maudlin for my own comfort. I took her tissue and whatever dignity I had left and wandered off to the men’s room to clean myself up. I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror. I was a mess. The strain on my face was visible for everyone to see. The illusion of me was a mere flicker.
As I returned to the table, I dragged the chair back to its original spot, then sat down. Jean continued to watch me, expressionless.
<You okay?>
<I’ll live,> I typed, while trying to keep eye contact.
<Scott Singer, you are an absolute mystery to me.>
<You’re not exactly an open book yourself.>
<Tell me what you’re thinking right now.>
<I’m thinking how awful I look,> I replied with a sniff. <I’m thinking how good you look. And I’m trying to come up with some clever excuse to work my way back to your side of the table.>
On reading my words, Jean closed her eyes and let out a surrendering moan. She rose to her feet and made her way to me. I was about to stand up, but she pressed my shoulders down and slipped past me. From behind, she embraced me, wrapping herself around my neck like a mink stole.