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I laughed, thinking it was possible that when she’d had her first baby twenty years ago, she was a few sizes smaller than when she’d conceived Ruby Rose, but I didn’t say so.
“What can I get you?” I asked.
“Anything in the freezer compartment,” Claire said.
“Copy that,” I said, grinning at her. I returned with a carton of Chunky Monkey and two spoons, climbed back into the bed, saying, “It’s cruel to call an ice cream Chunky Monkey when that’s what it turns you into.”
Claire cackled, pried off the lid, and as we took turns dipping our spoons in, she said to me, “So how’s it going with you and Joe?”
“What do you mean?”
“Living together, you idiot. Are you thinking of getting seriously hooked up? As in married?”
“I like the way you kind of edge into a subject.”
“Hell. You’re not such a subtle creature yourself.”
I tipped my spoon in her direction — touché, my friend — then I started talking. Claire knew most of it: about my failed marriage, about my love affair with Chris, who’d been shot dead in the line of duty. And I talked about my sister, Cat, divorced with two young kids, holding down a big job, and having a bitter relationship with her ex.
“Then I look at you, Butterfly,” I said. “In your grown-up four-bedroom house. And you have your darling husband, two great kids off into the world, and now you have the guts and love enough to make another baby.”
“So where are you in all this, sugar?” Claire said. “You going to let Joe make the decision you don’t love him enough to marry him? Let some other girl make off with Joe, the perfect man?”
I threw myself back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling. I thought about the Job, about working with Rich seventeen hours a day and loving that. How little time I had for anything but work; hadn’t done Tai Chi in ages, stopped playing the guitar, even turned the nightly run with Martha over to Joe.
I put my mind on how different it would all be if I were married and had a baby, if there were people who worried about me every time I left the house. And damn — what if I got shot?
And then I considered the alternative.
Did I really want to be alone?
I was about to run all this by Claire, but I’d been quiet for so long, my best friend picked that moment to jump in.
“You’ll figure it out, sweetheart,” she said, capping the empty ice-cream container, resting her spoon in a Limoges saucer on the nightstand. “You’ll work on it and then, snap. You’ll just know what’s right for you.”
Would I?
How could Claire be so sure, when I was without a clue in the world?
Chapter 90
ONLY THREE BLOCKS from the Hall, Le Fleur du Jour is a popular morning hangout for cops. At 6:30 a.m. the smell of freshly baked bread made noses quiver up and down the flower market. Joe, Conklin, and I were at one of the little tables on the patio with a view of the flower stalls in the alley. Having never been with Joe and Conklin together, I felt an uneasiness I would have hated to explain.
Joe was telling Conklin some of his thoughts about the arson-homicide cases, saying he agreed with us, that one person couldn’t have subdued the victims alone.
“These kids are show-offy smart,” Joe said. “Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.”
“And that means what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Did everyone know Latin but me?
Joe flashed me a grin. “It means, ‘Anything said in Latin sounds profound.’ ”
Conklin nodded, his brown eyes sober this morning. I’d seen this precise look when he interrogated a suspect. He was taking in everything about Joe, and maybe hoping that my boyfriend with his high-level career in law enforcement might actually have a theory.
Or better yet, Joe might turn out to be a jerk.
No doubt, Joe was appraising Richie, too.
“They’re definitely smart,” Conklin said, “maybe a little smarter than we are.”
