one

Morning sex is, in fact, everything it’s cracked up to be. The languid sharing of pre-caffeine pleasure, the gentle moaning in a sunlit room, and the natural hormonal cycles of a healthy thirty-three-year-old male combine to create one of life’s optimal experiences. Sadly, my chances at living the dream evaporated when my best friend told me that he had figured out how to catch my wife’s killer.

I had been standing in the galley kitchen of my shotgun condominium in Boston’s South End, sipping orange juice and rallying myself from a night of tequila and unexpected pleasure. I was thinking about Maggie and how she had murmured that I should get back to bed as soon as possible. I sipped my juice and felt my blood sugar rise.

Click and Clack, my hermit crabs, scuttled around on their pink sand. Hermit crabs were the perfect pets. They didn’t poop on the rug, they listened well, and they added life to a bachelor apartment. I had wanted to get a pair when I was married, but Carol thought they were gross. She called them cockroaches in mobile homes, which was quite unkind.

Clack was wearing a new shell that I had picked up for him at Revere Beach. He had discarded his original shell, a fluorescent orange monstrosity that some sadist had covered with sparkles.

“You’re looking good, my friend,” I said to Clack and toasted him with orange juice.

I reached for my BlackBerry. It was locked, so I entered the password and opened the Twitter app. What should I tweet? Oh what a night was too obvious, and Back in the saddle again was too crass. I hit upon it:

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

But then my stomach churned, and I added:

I hate tequila mornings.

I once had been a big Facebook guy, maintaining a group of friends who didn’t mind the fact that I only communicated with them in the two or three minutes where I was waiting for software to compile.

I quit Facebook soon after Carol died. The constant messages of condolence and “How are you doing?” felt like an invasion. The barrage of Farmville requests, “Repost this if you care about …” messages, and pictures of cute kittens went from being annoying to painful. I switched to Twitter, where the conversations were short.

I had downed my orange juice and was heading back to bed when the door boomed behind me. It crossed my eyes. I turned and stumbled toward the living room looking for my pants. The door boomed again. I thought about Maggie trying to sleep and said, “Coming!” The booming stopped.

My pants were piled in front of the door, still inside out from when Maggie had torn them off. I righted them, pulled them on, and looked through the peephole, expecting to see a neighbor. Instead, I saw my best friend, Kevin.

I pulled the door open, took a step back, and swept my arm in a come in gesture. Then I belched and bolted to the john as my stomach roiled. I stood over the toilet, hands on knees, catching my breath.

Kevin and I had been roommates at MIT. We were an unlikely pair. I was a smart kid from Wellesley, and he was a smart kid from Revere. We worked great together. He put up with my late nights of drinking. I put up with his late nights of studying. We had both slept as late as possible.

Kevin closed the door and followed me. He stood in the small space where my bathroom and bedroom met kitty corner at the end of the apartment. “Good God, Tucker. What happened to you?”

“Tequila.”

“You can’t drink tequila.”

“I can if I’m motivated.”

“Sure you can.”

Kevin dressed like a banker and exuded the wholesome energy of a guy who had run five miles before breakfast. His skin shone, his eyes were clear, and his spiky cropped hair was perfect. He crossed his arms and looked at me as if I were a puppy tangled in its own leash.

My stomach decided to keep its contents. I stood up and squeezed past Kevin to get back to the kitchenette. I popped open the carton of orange juice and poured myself another glass.

Kevin said, “I will never get used to you doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Drinking orange juice when you’re hung over.”

“What should I drink?”

“Pepsi. Nice, warm Pepsi.”

“That’s disgusting.” My gut lurched again. I put my hand to my mouth and collected myself.

Kevin said, “You OK?”

“I’m fine. Now scoot. I have to go back to bed.”

“Why?”

As if in answer, the door opened and Maggie peeked her head around the corner. She pulled it back when she saw Kevin and said, “Tucker, I need to get to the shower.”

I remembered that Maggie’s clothes were also in the living room. I took Kevin by the arm and led him to the door. I gave him a little push and said, “Sorry Kev, you’ve got to go now.”

Kevin resisted my push. He said, “We need to talk.”

I said, “Fine, we’ll talk later. How about dinner?”

“No. We need to talk now. In my office.”

“Why can’t we talk here?”

“It’s official business.”

“FBI business?”

“Yeah,” said Kevin, and he turned toward the front door.

Apparently Maggie needed more than the shower, because as soon as Kevin’s back was turned, she made a naked dash across the two feet that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. She looked great, even at high speed.

I was getting peeved. I opened the door and pulled Kevin into the hallway.

“Can’t you see what’s going on here?” I asked.

“Of course,” said Kevin. “I have excellent observation skills. I’m a trained investigator.”

“Dude, you’re in the cybercrimes division at the FBI. I don’ t think it makes you an investigator. You’re a hacker with a badge.”

“And you’re a hacker with a girl,” said Kevin.

“Exactly. And when was the last time that happened?”

Kevin closed my apartment door, and we stood on the little landing. He said, “I feel bad, Tucker, I really do. But this is about finding Carol’s killer. I have a lead.”

Carol and I had worked together at a security software company called MantaSoft. We were both programmers. I ran the project, called Rosetta, and she worked on it. It ended badly.

I said, “Tell me more about this lead.”

“I will when we’re in my office. I don’t want to do this in a hallway.”

My thoughts of Maggie and morning sex disappeared, burned off by memories of the impotent rage that had coursed through me when I had found my wife, dead in the kitchen. “You’re not screwing with me, right, Kevin? This is real.”

“It’s a shot. I can’t promise anything.”

“OK,” I said. “Wait for me downstairs. I’ll need about ten minutes.”

Kevin smiled. “You won’t regret it.” He turned and trotted down the stairs.

When I entered the apartment, Maggie was sitting in front of the galley kitchen, wearing a towel and sipping orange juice. She asked, “Is he gone?”

“Yup.”

Maggie stood and dropped her towel to the floor. I could feel my eyes dilating. Her small breasts stood at attention. Drops of water glistened on her toned legs. She was the best-looking fifty-year-old woman I had ever seen. She walked toward me and pressed herself against my bare chest. Her short, spiky, salt-and-pepper hair tickled my nose. Her fingers ran down my spine as she kissed my nipple and asked, “Shall we go back to bed?”

I hugged her close, feeling the lats and trapezius muscles. If this was what my body would look like when I was in my fifties, I’d be ecstatic. I kissed her on the cheek and stepped back, disengaging myself.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got to go. Do you think we’ll see each other again?”

Maggie held my face in her hands and said, “You can be sure of it, dear.”