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“And
I look like I’ve got player in mine.”
“A little. I should’ve guessed.”
“I haven’t taken up with someone who propositioned me in a long time. It was fun before the death threats started. Before I quit owning a car because it kept getting vandalized. I only keep that stuff because the lawyers suggested I should.”
“Are you extemporizing?” It would be easy to make it up, tell her anything.
“I’ve had four credible death threats. That’s over and above the number of suits people bring against me. We once had to evacuate the Courier because of a suspicious parcel.”
“Suspicious how?”
“There was a phone call to the news desk insisting we print a retraction on one of my stories or we’d be mailed anthrax. It turned out to be cornstarch, but it made everyone jumpy.”
She looked at him for the first time since sitting. “That’s so weird, Jack.”
“It’s not normal, but I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I kind of freaked out.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
She bumped her shoulder against his. “I’m so full of feeling about you and we got here so quickly. I thought I was okay with a hookup, but I’m not sure I can be another woman you sleep with in a long line of uncomplicated entanglements.”
“There’s no line. There’s just you.”
“I don’t know what to trust.”
“That makes me want to—”
“Hit something?”
He turned his head to look at her, mouth drawn down. “Cry, Derelie. I want you to trust me. This is only going to work if you do.” She leaned her head on his shoulder and his arm circled her waist. “Come upstairs, we can talk more.”
“I need more sulk time.”
“Mind if I wait with you? I feel a little sulky myself.”
They sat in silence a while and then Martha yawned. “Do you walk Martha on that lead?” The thought of Jack with Martha on a leash out on the street was almost enough to push the sulks away.
He scratched behind Martha’s ear and she gave a yip of approval. “No. But she’s such an escape artist, on occasions when I need the apartment door opened for more than a second it’s useful to put her in this and slip it around something heavy. She’s so busy trying to get out of it she’s distracted. I used to close her in one of the other rooms, but she throws herself against the door so hard I worry she’s going to hurt herself or bust through.”
“Jackson Haley, mad cat person.”
“As long as it’s not Derelie Honeywell, mad at Jack Haley.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“What’s worrying you most?”
“I’m confused about whether we’d even be here without the experiment. I’m catching up to where you were last night.”
“I’ve moved on. Now I see the experiment as a little like what would’ve happened if we’d been two single travelers who met up somewhere foreign. The only Americans we’d have turned to each other, shared the experience, hung out.”
“And then gone our separate ways. Me to a wilderness somewhere—” she thought a moment “—like Australia, you to a big city like London.”
“I’ve already seen London, but I’ve never been to Australia.”
