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“Porking a bitch like Felicity Louviere is an act of charity? No wonder your family is screwed up.”
Alafair drove down a brick-paved street that paralleled the train tracks. The evening star was bright and cold above the hills in the west. A solitary drop of rain struck the windshield. “I’m going to forget what you just said.”
“Did I need to put this on flash cards? Clete just made a choice. He wants to get in that bitch’s bread. If that hurts his daughter, too bad. His swizzle stick comes first.”
Alafair pulled the Honda to the curb and cut the engine. She waited for a rusted-out Volkswagen bus and two bicyclists to pass. She started to speak, then studied a reflection in the outside mirror.
“Let’s get going. I don’t need any more psychoanalytical crap,” Gretchen said.
“I thought I saw a guy come out of the restaurant and look at the back of my car. He’s gone now.”
“A guy was hitting on me in there.”
“Who?”
“How would I know? The kind of guy who sits on a barstool like a vulture. Who cares? What were you going to say?”
“You have to accept Clete as he is,” Alafair said. “When we take people to task for being what they are, we’re deceiving ourselves. It’s also pretty arrogant. We’re telling others they have to be perfect in order to be our friends. It took me a long time to figure that out. You need to dial it down, Gretch.”
“Oh, really?”
“Clete would lay down his life for any one of us. This stuff with the Louviere woman will pass. Clete has never grown up. He probably never will.”
“How would you feel if your father put another woman ahead of his family?”
The car was quiet.
“Not too goddamn good, right?” Gretchen said.
“You’re right,” Alafair said.
“Start the car and drop me by the Caddy.”
“What for?”
“I have a spare set of keys. If Clete wants to go to a motel, his punch will have to take her car, because I’m going to boost the Caddy.”
“You don’t take prisoners, do you?”
Gretchen didn’t reply and stared out the side window into the darkness. She sniffed and dabbed her nose with her wrist.
“You’re my best friend,” Alafair said. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I’ll drive you to Clete’s car. But after that, you’re on your own.”
“I’ve always been on my own,” she said. “That’s what none of you have figured out. You don’t know shit about what’s in my head.”
They were silent while Alafair circled the block and pulled to the curb by the restaurant parking lot. Gretchen got out and walked to Clete’s convertible, her tote bag swinging from her shoulder. She stuck her spare key into the door lock and looked back at the street. Alafair cut her engine and walked into the parking lot. “I’ll make this brief,” she said. “I’ll always be your friend, no matter what you say or do. Dave and Molly will always be there for you, too. But if you ever speak to me like that again, I’m going to kick your butt around the block.”
CLETE SAT BACK down at the table and drank the melt in the bottom of his tumbler, crunching the cherries and orange slices between his molars. “I shot off my mouth,” he said.
“I don’t know if I’m up to this kind of evening,” Felicity said.
“Gretchen is a good kid. She just had the wrong idea. My body doesn’t process booze the way it used to.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink.”
“It doesn’t quite work like that.”
“You treat your daughter as if she’s a child. Mature people don’t throw temper tantrums in a restaurant.”
