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“No one can drink that much alcohol.”
“I can. I’ve made a lifetime study of it. Did you ever try to leave him?”
“And go where?”
“To the state employment office, if nowhere else.”
“I haven’t explained myself very well. I was always afraid of death. When people left me, I felt as though I’d died. It was like being inside a dark house that didn’t have any doors. You ever felt that way?”
“You’ve heard about the Serenity Prayer, right? I use the short version: ‘Fuck it.’ ”
“Except it doesn’t work that well, does it?”
“When that doesn’t, this does,” he said, lifting his glass.
“Sit down.”
“I’d better go. I thought we’d talk things out. You already said it all. You got feelings for your husband. The guy lost his daughter. I’m sorry for any harm I’ve caused y’all.”
“You sit down, Clete, and sit down now. Please don’t be hard on yourself. You still don’t understand.”
He sat down next to her, his knees turned toward her, his weight sinking deep into the cushions. “Understand what?”
She picked up his left hand in both of hers. “When you made love to me, I felt like I had gone off the planet. I haven’t felt like that in years. I felt like I was seventeen again. I felt like the world was brand-new.”
“I’m old, Felicity. I don’t delude myself. Once in a while a guy like me gets lucky. I know my limitations.”
“I want you. That’s what I’m trying to say. I feel sorry for Caspian, but I want you.”
“You can do better.”
“I want you, not somebody else. You appreciate a woman. You’re respectful. You’re loving. You think that’s lost on me? Take off your coat.”
“I don’t want to,” he said.
“You spilled your drink on it. If you get stopped, the police will think you’re drunk. I’ll clean it for you.”
He stood up and removed his seersucker coat and laid it on the coffee table. She looked at the shoulder rig he was wearing and at the snub-nosed blue-back .38 he carried in a nylon holster. “Why do you need that?” she asked.
“Because not to carry it is to say I believe in the world. I don’t believe in the world, at least not the one I’ve seen. I don’t like authority, either. Anyone who wants to control other people is out to fuck you over. So I carry my own authority.”
She took his coat into the kitchen and ran cold water over the rum-and-Coke stain, then blotted it with a paper towel and put it on a hanger. She went into the living room and stood in front of him, backlit by the electricity flickering outside. “Is my conduct embarrassing to you?” she said.
“What conduct?” he asked, looking up at her.
“This.”
He looked away, then back. “You’re beautiful.”
“You don’t think I’m an adventuress or a Judas?”
“A guy with my record can’t judge anybody.”
“You do like me, don’t you? I don’t look too old or heavy and wrinkled?”
“You’re not any of those things. You’re like New Orleans, Felicity. You’re an orchid in a garden that never saw sunshine.”
Her mouth parted. “No one ever said anything like that to me.”
