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“If this is the apocalypse, where are the horsemen? They’re supposed to have fiery swords. Then it wouldn’t be so fucking dark.”
“You could ask to borrow a fiery sword to use for a flashlight,” she suggested.
“Yeah. ‘Excuse me, sir? I know you’re probably going to lop my head off with that thing in a minute, but in the meantime, could I hold it, you think?’ ”
She smiled. “Maybe he wouldn’t let you have the sword, but there’d probably be a flaming T-shirt or something he could spare.”
“You’re making out like the horsem
en of the apocalypse are going to be nice guys. I’m not sure that’s the way it works.”
“Good point,” she said. “You’ll have to find an angel.”
“Those won’t be hard to track down. They’ll be here for you.”
“I doubt it. I never go to mass anymore.”
“They’re going to bring you a fancy chair to ride up to heaven in. A what-do-you-call-it, like in Vietnam movies? Where somebody pulls you through the streets?”
“A palanquin?”
Another huff of laughter. “I’ve never even heard of that. Whatever it’s called, you’re getting one.”
He snapped his fingers. “A rickshaw. You’re getting a rickshaw.”
“I’m not sure I want a rickshaw.”
“Doesn’t matter. Rickshaws aren’t optional. But look, if you haven’t left in your rickshaw yet when the Devil shows up and starts listing all my sins, you might consider sticking around to defend me.”
She smiled. He sounded better again. Relaxed. He was funny, which was a surprise.
She liked him.
Of course, she’d already liked him, but in a faraway, movie-star-idolizing sort of way. When she’d imagined talking to him in her head, he hadn’t ever been funny.
Actually, did he even talk, in her head? Or did he just sort of … attractively smolder while chopping wood, or smashing things with a sledgehammer, shirtless?
Her imagination—so rich in some ways, so impoverished in others.
“Do you deserve to be defended?” she asked. “I thought you were trouble.”
“Who said I was trouble?”
The teasing had drained from his tone. Oops. “The same person who told me your name was Patrick.”
“You were asking about me.”
“It’s possible.”
“Well, if you did ask about me, and you found somebody who knew my family well enough to tell me and Patrick apart, they’d probably tell you I was all right. Not bad news like Patrick, but not as smart as Joe or as ambitious as Peter. They’d probably also tell you none of us boys has a lick of sense compared to Andrea and Cathy.”
“That’s a lot of nots. You’re not the bad one, the smart one, the ambitious one, or one of the girls. Which one does that make you?”
“The one who’s never going to amount to anything.”
He was trying to sound light and breezy again, but it wasn’t quite working. She heard the discomfort behind his words, and it surprised her.
Tony ran a big construction company, or at least part of it. Directed trucks. Told workers what to do. He walked around pointing at girders and directing electricians as though he had an encyclopedia of construction inside his head. Surely he’d already amounted to something?
