The question made Joy's eyes dance. "Oh, Jim! Are you interested? Would you like to live here?"
"It would depend on the rent — and a couple of other things." He was thinking about Koko and Yum Yum.
"Let's ask Mr. Maus right away."
That was the Joy he remembered — all instant decision and breathless action.
"No, let's wait until after dinner. Let me think about it."
"Oh, Jim," she cried, throwing her arms around him. "I've thought about you so much — throughout the years."
He felt her heart beating, and he whispered, "Why did you disappear? Why did you leave me like that? Why didn't you ever write and explain?"
She drew away. "It's a long story. We'd better go down to dinner now." And she gave him the half-smile that never failed to make his heart somersault.
The table was laid with heavy ceramic plates and pewter serving pieces on the bare oak boards, and it was lighted by candles in massive wrought-iron candelabra. Qwilleran found his place card between Hixie Rice and the white-haired woman, who introduced herself as Charlotte Roop. Joy sat at the far end of the table between Basil and Bayley Penniman, and the only way she could communicate with Qwilleran was with her eyes.
Opposite him sat the bald brute with the facile smile. The man half rose and bowed across the table with his right hand over his heart. "I'm Max Sorrel."
"Jim Qwilleran of the Daily Fluxion. Haven't I met you somewhere?"
"I have a restaurant. The Golden Lamb Chop."
"Yes, I had dinner there once."
"Did you order our rack of lamb? That's our specialty. We lose money on every one we serve." As the restaurateur spoke, he was industriously polishing his silverware with his napkin.
Spoons were raised. Qwilleran tasted the watercress soup and found it delicately delicious, yet he had no overwhelming desire to finish it. A sense of elation had banished his appetite. His thoughts, and his eyes, kept turning to Joy. Now he knew why he had always been attracted to women with translucent skin and long hair. Tonight Joy's luxuriant brown hair was braided and coiled around her head like a crown. Her dress had the same filmy quality he used to tease her about when she bought curtain remnants and made them into romantic, impractical clothes. What a crazy kid she had been!
William removed the soup bowls from the right, served the clams from the left, and poured a white wine, while whistling a tune off-key. When he had finished serving, he joined the guests at the table, white coat and all, and monopolized the conversation in his immediate vicinity.
"Unorthodox arrangement," Qwilleran mentioned to Hixie.
"Robert is very permissive," she said. "He seems stuffy, but he's a doll, really. May I have some more butter, please?"
"How do you happen to be living here?"
"I'm a copywriter at an agency that handles food accounts. You have to have some special interest in food or Robert won't rent to you. Miss Roop manages a restaurant."
"Yes, I manage one of the Heavenly Hash Houses," said the woman on Qwilleran's left, twisting her several bracelets. She was a small, sprightly woman, probably nearing retirement age, and she wore an abundance of nondescript costume jewelry. "I went to work for Mr. Hashman almost forty years ago. Before that I was secretary to the late Mr. Penniman, so I know something about the newspaper business. I admire newspaper people! They're so clever with words. . . Maybe you can help me." She drew a a crossword puzzle from the outer pocket of her enormous handbag. "Do you know a five letter word for love that begins with a?"
"It's a Greek word, pronounced a-g-a-pe."
"Oh, my!" she said. "You are brilliant!" Delightedly she penciled the word in the vertical squares.
The chicken was served, and again Qwilleran found it easy to abstain. He toyed with his food and listened to the voices around him.
"Do you realize truffles are selling for seventy-five dollars a pound?" Sorrel remarked.
The redhead was saying, "Mountclemens was a fraud, you know. His celebrated lobster bisque was a quickie made with canned ingredients."
"I'm having so much fun in the attic of this building. I've found some old letters and notebooks stuffed away in a dusty jardiniere," Joy told Basil Penniman.
Rosemary Whiting said, "You can put a sprinkle of wheat germ in almost anything, and it's so good for you."
"Everyone knows shrimp cocktail is declasse!" Hixie announced.
The redhead went on talking: "I know of one cassoulet that cooked for thirty years."
And Joy added, "You'd be surprised what I've found in the attic. It would upset quite a few people."
The man with the goatee was revealing a cooking secret: "I always grate cheese by hand; a little grated knuckle in the Asiago improves the favor."
Maus himself, at the head of the table, was speechless in a world of his own making, as he tasted each dish critically, gazing into space and savoring with lips and tongue. Once he spoke: "The croute, in my opinion, is a trifle too short."
"On the contrary, it's exquisite," Miss Roop assured him. She turned to Qwilleran. "Mr. Maus is a brilliant cook. He's discovered a way to roast a suckling pig without removing the eyeballs. Imagine!"
"Are you people aware," Qwilleran asked, raising his voice to attract general attention, "that Mrs. Graham also is an excellent cook? She invented a banana split cake when she was seventeen and won a statewide baking contest."
Joy blushed attractively. "It was an adolescent's delight, I'm afraid — with bananas, coconut, strawberries, chocolate, walnuts, marshmallows, and whipped cream."
"I don't know about her cooking," said Max Sorrel, "but she's a helluva good potter. She made this dinner service." He tapped his plate with his fork.
"It was very generous of Mr. Maus to give me such a wonderful commission," Joy said.
Qwilleran looked at the thick-textured plates of silvery gray, flecked and rimmed with brown. "You mean you made all these dishes? By hand? How many?"
"A complete service for twenty-four."
Sorrel flashed his winning smile at her. "they're terrific, honey. If I were a millionaire, I'd let you make all the dishes for my restaurant."
"You're very sweet, Max."
"How long did the job take?" Qwilleran asked.
"Hmmm . . . it's hard to say — " Joy began.
"That's nothing," Dan Graham interrupted in a voice that was suddenly loud. "Out on the Coast I did a six-hundred-piece set for one of the movie big shots."
His pronouncement had a dampening effect on the conversation. All the heads immediately bent over salads. Suddenly everyone was intent on spearing romaine.
"Tell you something else," Graham persisted. 'Wedgwood made nine hundred and sixty-two pieces for Catherine of Russia!"
There was silence at the table until William said, "Anyone for bridge after dinner? It'll take your mind off your heartburn."
3
When Qwilleran went home and told his widowed landlady he was moving, she cried a little, and when he gave her a month's rent in lieu of notice, Mrs. Cobb shed a few more tears.
The rent at Maus Haus was higher than he had been paying on Zwinger Street, but he told himself that the sophisticated cuisine was appropriate to his new assignment and that the cats would enjoy the bearskin rug. Yet he was fully aware of his real reason for moving.
The cats were asleep on the daybed when he went into his old apartment, and he waked them with stroking. Koko, without opening his eyes, licked Yum Yum's nose' Yum Yum licked Koko's right ear; Koko licked a paw, which happened to be his own; and Yum Yum licked Qwilleran's hand with her sandpaper tongue. He gave them some jellied clams from Maus Haus, and then he phoned Arch Riker at home.