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I was hungry. I hoped I didn’t have to wait too long to wait and see. “What are we having?”
“A chilled melon soup, salad, beef Wellington, and a lemon soufflé for dessert.”
I glanced at Ronnie and then asked Junior, “Do you have experience cooking?”
“You don’t need experience to cook. Not if you have a recipe. I mean, I can follow instructions.”
“What time do we eat?”
“Soon. Very soon. Have some wine.”
“I don’t drink.”
“I can never remember that. Youseemlike a drinker.”
“Is that a compliment?” Ronnie asked for me.
“Absolutely. Teetotalers are so dull, and Dom is anything but dull.”
I had the feeling he expected to be thanked for the compliment. I decided not to. “What are you making now?”
“I’m making the beef.” He’d stacked three steaks one on top of the other and then set them into the center of a crumbling pie crust. I was sure he was doing it wrong. It also seemed like we wouldn’t be eating for a very long time.
“I hope you don’t mind my taking over,” he said. “You two have been so good to me and I want to show that I’m grateful.”
“This must have all cost a fortune,” Ronnie pointed out. Something of a double-edged statement since Junior paid a reduced rent—my fault.
“I’m agoodlittle shopper.”
I refilled Ronnie’s wine glass and suggested, “Why don’t we leave Junior to it.” And then walked through the butler’s pantry into the living room. Ronnie followed.
Under his breath, he said, “I don’t trust him not to burn the house down.”
“He could do that making toast. This way we at least have a chance of dinner.”
Ronnie scowled, clearly wanting to complain some more. I distracted him by asking “How was your open house this afternoon?”
“Lonely. I don’t understand people. Prices are low, which makes it the perfect time to buy; the problem is, no one else is buying so people think it’s thewrongtime to buy. They wait until everyone else is buying, which means they’re going to pay top dollar.”
I sat in one of the orange chairs, saying, “It’s been two years since the Northridge quake. People will forget and then prices will go up so people will start buying again.”
In the kitchen, something clanged loudly as it hit the floor. Before he could budge, I told Ronnie, “Just drink your wine.”
“You don’t know how hard this is.”
I did but decided not to disagree with him. Normally at Easter, he and his mother would make a very traditional, American-style Sunday dinner. Spiral-cut ham, candied sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, crescent rolls from a cardboard tube followed by store-bought chocolate cream pie. Other holiday meals were more Asian-centric, but Mai, Ronnie’s mother, had become a Christian shortly after arriving in the United States and spiral-cut ham with a gravy boat of honey glaze had been her way of showing both devotion and patriotism.
“Do you miss your mother?”
“No. Not at all. I wish it had been me, though. I wish I’d dumped her.”
“You were patient. You gave her chance after chance. You should be proud of yourself.”
“I guess so.” A moment later he added, “The thing that makes things okay is you. I have you.”
That made me edgy. Richland Keswick was acting suspiciously and someone with the first name Hamlet was looking for me. Neither of those things made me feel safe. It was always in the back of my mind that I might need to leave Ronnie, that it might become too dangerous for him if I stayed.
I knew he loved me, but I always felt like he’d be fine if I disappeared. Without his mother in his life, it felt like he needed me more. It felt like he might not be fine if I left suddenly. It was a feeling I hated. It meant that he was in danger if I stayed and in danger if I left.
