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as explorations. You’re not aware of it?”
“Somehow it escaped my attention.”
“I don’t like to say this, Ms. Louviere, but I think you’ve asked for it. You’re out with a man who’s not your husband after just losing your daughter. Does that seem normal to you?”
“Clete, I’d better get my car,” Felicity Louviere said. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I hope to see you another time.”
Clete pinched his temples as though the pressure of his fingers could impose a modicum of sanity on the situation. “Tell Alafair to come inside,” he said. “We’re going to have dinner. We’re going to talk like civilized human beings. This bullshit ends, Gretchen. Now sit down.”
Gretchen felt the blood go out of her cheeks. The candle on the table seemed to brighten and change shape and shine as though burning underwater. “She looks like Mickey Mouse’s twin sister,” she said. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Don’t talk like that,” Clete said.
“It’s your life, Clete. Be a public fool if you want. You’re really good at it,” Gretchen said.
She walked toward the French doors, her eyes shiny, an electric grid printing itself all over her back. “Don’t go, Gretchen,” she heard him say.
She gripped the brass handle on the French doors and turned to look once more at the table. Clete had stood up and was leaning over Felicity, his hand resting on the back of her chair, as though he were comforting her. His eyes met Gretchen’s. He smiled and walked toward her. Her heart was pounding so loudly, she could hardly hear his words.
“Are you all right?” he said.
“Get rid of her. Don’t do this to yourself.”
“There’s no problem. We’re just having dinner.”
“You may have the right to hurt yourself, but you don’t have the right to hurt others.”
“You want me to leave her alone in the restaurant? A woman whose daughter might have been murdered by the same guy who was stalking Alafair?”
“She’ll use you. When she’s finished, she’ll be fucking some other poor halfwit who thinks he’s the love of her life. You make me so mad, I want to get as far away from you as I can and never come back.”
People at the tables turned and stared.
“We’ll talk later. I’ll see you at the cabin,” he said.
“You mean after you get your ashes hauled. After you come home hungover and stinking like a cathouse in Trinidad on Sunday morning.”
She saw the twitch in his face, the injury in his eyes. “Okay, I messed up about supper. I got a long history of being irresponsible,” he said. “You knew that when you signed on.”
“That’s the way you feel? A bimbo lets you scope her jugs and you dump the only family you have? That’s pathetic. I hear there’s a T and A bar on North Higgins. Maybe both of you can get jobs there.”
She went through the French doors into the bar. It was crowded with college boys and tourists, all of whom were talking as loudly as they could. A television set was blaring, and someone was yelling whenever a soccer player on the screen kicked the ball down the field. She wanted somebody to start something with her, to step in her way, to put a hand on her, to make a pass, to comment on the anger in her face. She wanted to twist off someone’s head and kick it down the sidewalk. Where was the smart-ass who had called her “legs”?
She seemed to have become invisible. She walked out the front door and got in Alafair’s car.
“What happened in there?” Alafair said. “You look like someone put you in a microwave.”
“Don’t be clever at my expense.”
“What did Clete say to you?”
“Nothing worth repeating. He’s an expert at empty rhetoric. Fuck him.”
“We’re your family, Gretchen. You need to trust people a little more.”
“I told you to give it a rest, Alafair. You sound like your father.”
“Clete’s charity is his weakness. Manipulative women use it against him,” Alafair said. “And don’t be making remarks about Dave.”
