Part 18 (1/2)
Taking the helmet from her, Kai smiled infectiously. ”There's nothing like it, is there? Maybe some other time I can take you behind town, near the Watchung reservation and the Deserted Village. Like we did with your Jag. I can burn some serious rubber on that road. The Ducati's nothin' but engine.”
”See, the problem with you is you think that's a plus.”
He laughed. ”I'll call you when the nav's installed.”
”If I'm not here, just leave a message.”
”You want me to call you on your cell?”
”Oh. Uha”” A stutter. ”Yeah. Sure.” And just like that she gave him her cell number.
Her back was to the house, but she saw him eyeing it, top to bottom, the skysc.r.a.per trees, the ebony shutters, the volume, the breadth of it, taking it all in, the fresh gray paint and the red tulips lining the paved walk, the manicured sloping lawns, the decorative lamp posts. ”So this is where you live.” He whistled. ”Wow.”
”Thanks. We didn't always live here.”
”I imagine not. You have to earn a lot of pennies to live in a place like this.”
She a.s.sented silently.
”What does your husband do again?”
”He's the CFO of Prudential Securities.”
Kai whistled again. ”He must be pretty proud to live here.”
Again she silently nodded. ”He says the only way he's ever leaving this house is when they carry him out of it feet first.”
Kai blinked approvingly. ”And what about you?”
There was a second's pause. ”Yes, me too, of course,” she said quickly. ”Where could you possibly go from here?”
”And, more important, why would you want to?” Kai started up his bike, revved his engine. ”Listen to how secluded it is. My bike sounds like an airplane with the echo off the golf course. Hey, is that your mall across the highway?” Lightly he laughed. ”That's sweeeet. Seeing the shopping possibilities from your sparkling windows.” He raised his gloved hand in a goodbye. ”I'll call when it's ready, *kay?”
In the silence of her Bellevue life, Larissa heard his bike gunning it up the road away on Summit Avenue as she walked up her driveway and let herself into the empty house. Then she sat in her kitchen and waited. Not waited, justasat in her house, clean, spic-and-span, at the island, cup of coffee in her hands, and tried to catch a glimpse of herself in the black granite, seeing only the glimpse of herself on a motorcycle at forty. She should go let Riot in from the backyard. She should start up the computer and compose the casting call notice. She should call Ezra. She should take the Escalade and drive to Pingry and order the books. She shoulda The phone rang. It was Maggie: would Larissa like to grab some lunch? Instantly Larissa agreed. Anything to get her mind off things. She met Maggie in the parking lot of Neiman's.
”What, no Jag today?” Maggie's hair was colored, curly, dark red. She looked good after having recently been under the weather; she was even sporting some light makeup.
”Nah, the kids have stuff in the afternoon,” replied Larissa, prodding her friend away from the truck. ”Come on, I'm starved.”
”I heard you're courting trouble,” Maggie said, all twinkly and ironic, as they sat down in the checkered cafe.
”What do you mean?” Why did Larissa sound so shrill when she asked? Neiman's Cafe was empty. It was just the two of them and seven waiters.
”Ezra told me how you got into Leroy's grill and into Fred's. Well done.”
Calm down, Larissa.
”So why'd you finally agree to do it?”
”Because your husband begged like a pauper. He didn't know how else to stop Leroy.”
”No one can stop Leroy.”
”Thank G.o.d differential equations are too hard for a ten-year-old.” Larissa ordered squash soup and a Waldorf salad with grilled chicken. Maggie got a Neiman's sampler. While Maggie was ordering, Larissa surrept.i.tiously glanced into her purse, to make sure the cell phone was on ring and not on silent.
”But are you really going to do Much Ado About Nothing?” Maggie shook her head.
”Yes, that's my compromise. Apparently I have to compromise. I wanted the airy Comedy of Errors. But no. I had seven naysayers. They insisted on something other than what I wanted. Well, fine. They got their way.”
”But see, Ezra said Leroy and Fred don't want to do Much Ado anymore.”
Larissa laughed deliciously. ”Oh, they don't want to do it anymore! As I suspected. Then why'd they suggest it?”
”They said just to put something out there.”
The monkey bread came; the girls dug in.
”I knew it,” she said. ”All that yackety-yak just to be contrary. Well, too late. And too bad. We're doing it.”
They spent the rest of lunch talking about Bo, whose boyfriend, Jonny, was close to getting a job, and about Ezra, who was so overworked, with his three cla.s.ses, running the English department and overseeing the theater department that the other day he actually forgot the name of his only child. ”And I mean, forgot, Lar. He blanked at Dylan, as if he couldn't understand why this cranky drummer boy was in his house.”
As they were paying, Larissa's cell phone rang. The caller ID read Pa.s.sani, K.
”h.e.l.lo?” Was he calling her from his cell phone and not from work?
”Hi. It's Kai.”
”Hey.” She fought the impulse to turn her back to Maggie so she wouldn't have to talk to him with her face showing.
”Car's ready,” he said. ”Are you going to be able to pick it up? I know school must be letting out soon.”
”Yeahaand I'll have my son with me.” She nodded to the waiter, to Maggie, to give her the receipt to sign, to leave a tip, to take her credit card, to close her purse, to get up, push the chair back, all the while on the phone with him.
”Well, look, how about I bring the car, and you two can give me a ride back. That okay?”
”That's okay.” What else could she do? There was no way she could leave the car at the dealers.h.i.+p overnight. What would she tell Jared? ”On second thought, let me leave it overnight. I'll pick it up tomorrow. The kids haveathings this afternoon.”
”You sure? You don't need it?”
”I have my truck.”
”Well, fine. I'll bring it to you in the morning then?”
She was about to say fine, all this with Maggie watching, listeninga”to everything! But then remembered she blew off theater today, and she couldn't not show up again tomorrow. ”I've got stuff to do in the morning. Noon?”
They agreed he would bring the car to her house at noon. He had a good phone voice. Of course he did. Of course he would.
Larissa hung up without saying anything, Maggie's eyes interfering with her inane courtesies.
”Who was that?”