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The waiters came and cleared away the wretched refuse of our meal, and I bolted the door behind them. Jackie still sat at the table in a kind of introspective slouch. I wondered how long it would last. I wondered if I should do something to help her snap out of it. If so, my study of daytime TV drama gave me two clear choices: either therapeutic release by getting her to talk about it, or cheerful chatter to change the subject. But it was impossible to say which one was right, and in any case, I couldn’t be sure it was actually in my job description.
And seriously: What was my real role here? Earlier this evening we had been chatting away like true pals, but I was not really a friend—she had probably just been putting me at ease. After all, she was a rich and famous person—a star, in fact—and I was no more than a modest and unassuming forensics geek with an interesting hobby. As far as I knew, this was a situation Emily Post had never covered, and I did not know how to proceed. Should I keep things formal and businesslike, because I was a technical consultant turned bodyguard? Or was I now an employee—and if so, should I follow Kathy’s lead and pee on the floor? After a mojito and most of a bottle of wine, that option was starting to look appealing, but it would almost certainly nudge the tone of the evening in an unclear direction, so I decided against it.
So I stood there uncertainly, watching Jackie stare into blank, bleak space for what seemed like a very long time. But finally her head snapped up and her eyes met mine. “What,” she said.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just wasn’t sure, um …” And I realized I wasn’t even sure what I wasn’t sure of, so I stumbled back into awkward silence.
Jackie smiled with just the right side of her mouth, a kind of rueful acknowledgment. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Sorry.” She shook her head. “I guess I wasn’t very good company for dinner.”
“Oh, well,” I said. “That’s all right. I mean, it was a very good dinner.”
She smiled again, using both sides of her mouth this time, although she still didn’t look entirely happy. “Right,” she said. “Glad you liked it.” She got up and wandered over to the sliding glass door that led out onto the balcony, and for a moment she just stood there looking out. I was afraid we were going right back into moody silence again, and I began to wish I’d brought a good book. But apparently she saw something out on the Bay that snapped her out of it; she suddenly turned around and, with a cheerful energy that was clearly forced, she said, “Well, then! It’s too early for bed. So what should we do?”
It took me by surprise, and I blinked stupidly. “Um,” I said. “I don’t know.” I looked around the room for a clue that wasn’t there. “I don’t see any board games,” I said.
“Damn,” Jackie said. “I could really go for a good round of Monopoly.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to one side. “So, what would you do if you were at home? With your wife and kids?”
“Oh, probably watch TV,” I said.
Jackie made a face. “Yuck,” she said, and I must have looked surprised, because she laughed. “I know,” she said. “But just because I make TV shows doesn’t mean I have to like them.”
“It doesn’t?” I said, and it was really sort of hard to imagine. I mean, I enjoy my job—both of them, in fact. Why else would I do them?
“No,” Jackie said. “I mean, there’s some good stuff now and then. But mostly, I’d rather stare at the wall. In fact, I usually can’t tell the difference.” She shrugged. “It’s the business. You do an awful lot of crap, just to get into a position where you get a chance at something worth doing. But then you get a reputation as somebody who’s really good at doing crap, and the good stuff never comes along, and the money is too good to turn down.… Eh,” she said, spreading her hands in a what-the-hell gesture. “It’s a good life. No complaints.” She frowned and was silent for a moment, and then she shook herself and said, “Hey, look at me. Sliding back into the dumps again.” She clapped her hands together. “Fuck it. How about a nightcap?” And without waiting for an answer she disappeared into her bedroom.
I stood uncertainly for a moment, wondering whether I was supposed to follow her. Before I could decide, she came back out, holding a bottle in her hands. “Get a couple of glasses,” she said, nodding at the sideboard. “You know, tumblers.”
I followed her nod to the large silver tray that stood on the table beneath a mirror. It held a silver ice bucket with silver tongs, four wineglasses, and four tumblers. I took two tumblers and joined Jackie on the couch. She set the bottle reverently on the coffee table and I looked at it as I sat. It was a very nice bottle, with a large wooden stopper on top and a palm tree etched onto the front, and it was filled with a brown liquid.
“What is it?” I asked politely.
Jackie smiled. “Panamonte,” she said. “The best dark rum I ever tasted.”
“Oh,” I said. “Should I get some ice?”
Jackie gave me a look of mock horror. “Oh, my God, no,” she said. “Putting ice in this stuff is a capital crime.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I don’t know much about rum. Except the kind you mix with Coke.”
Jackie shook her head vigorously. “This ain’t it,” she said. “Mixing this with anything is like drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa.” She pulled the cork out of the bottle and poured a little rum into each tumbler. “Try it,” she said. She picked up both glasses, passing me one and raising the other in front of her face. “Sláinte,” she said.
“Salud,” I told her.
I sipped. It was not at all what I’d expected. I have never been a real Drinker, but there are times when Social Custom demands that you drink, and so I have from time to time, and I usually don’t like it. And I have found that most brown liquors that are served after dinner are smoky, with a sharp taste that I don’t like, no matter how much someone insists that it is very rare and the best ever, and I have never been a real fan of such things. But this was like nothing I’d ever tried before. It was sweet but not cloying, dark and rich and crisp, and probably the smoothest thing I’d ever tasted. “Wow,” I said. It seemed like the only appropriate thing to say.
Jackie sipped from her glass and nodded. “Yup,” she said, and for several minutes we just sat and sipped.
The rum seemed to take the dark edge off things for Jackie. She visibly relaxed as the level in her glass went down. To my surprise, I did, too. I suppose it was only natural; as I said, I am not a drinker, and I’d already had a mojito and several glasses of wine this evening. I probably should have been worried that all the alcohol would make me too dopey to be really effective as a bodyguard. But I didn’t feel drunk, and it would have been a shame to spoil the experience of sitting on a couch and drinking rare dark rum with a celebrity. So I didn’t: I sat; I enjoyed; I drank the rum slowly, savoring each sip.
Jackie finished hers first and reached for the bottle. “More?” she said, holding it toward me.
“I probably shouldn’t,” I said. She shrugged and poured a splash into her glass. “But it’s very good,” I said. “I’ll have to get a bottle.”
She laughed. “Good luck,” she said. “You won’t find it at the corner store.”
“Oh,” I said. “Where do you get it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “This was a gift.” She lifted her glass in a half toast and sipped. She rolled it around in her mouth for a moment and then put the glass back down. “Those letters,” she blurted. “They scare the shit out of me.”
