So far it had been one of the softest winters on record, with temperatures as high as twenty degrees above average. We had come to within an inch of having a brown Christmas. It snowed again the following day, but instead of the foot we were promised, the Twin Cities was dusted with only three inches—try using that as an excuse for being late to work. Yesterday’s snowfall? Barely enough to pretty up what was already on the ground. The street crews hadn’t even bothered to plow it.
I found a spot in the parking lot in front of the Bru House and walked inside. Like just about every other retail business, the place had been decked out for Christmas. Friendly conversations, soft music, and the aroma of coffee and fresh bakery greeted me at the door.
“McKenzie?” a woman said. She was wearing black-rimmed glasses.
“Yes.”
“I knew it was you. Critter said you were tall, and Jayne Harris said you were handsome, so I knew it had to be you. Jayne said you look like Bradley Cooper the actor, but she exaggerates. Should we sit over here by the window? Oh, wait. You haven’t ordered yet. Why don’t you get your coffee and I’ll guard the table. Sometimes this place gets awfully crowded.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“I have a cup. Thanks for offering, though. It was very kind of you. I’ll be right over here. By the window. See?”
The table had two chairs and a view of the parking lot and Silver Lake Road beyond. It was littered with a large cardboard coffee cup with lid, a paper plate holding half a muffin, a well-scribbled legal pad, and an open laptop. Five minutes later, I sat across from the woman. The legal pad and computer had been placed into a shoulder bag, and the muffin had been consumed, but the cup remained. I extended my hand.
“McKenzie,” I said.
“Katie Meyer. Oh my God, I didn’t say before. You probably thought I was this crazy person accosting strange men in coffeehouses.”
“I really didn’t.”
Her coat was hanging off the back of her chair, and she was wearing a powder blue dress shirt with a button-down collar and a light brown cardigan with tiny dark blue dots. The sweater seemed distressed to me, with a couple of unraveled knits, zigzagging threads, and some pilling, and I thought, Is that a thing now? Then I realized. “Katie,” I said. “Your sweater is inside out.”
“Oh my God.” She immediately pulled it off and started rearranging it. “You must think I’m such a ditz. My client—I wore it like this during our meeting. ’Course, we’ve worked together many times over the years. He knows me. Probably telling everyone—that Katie…”
She put the sweater back on, this time right side out.
“Better?” she said.
Five foot two, eyes of blue—the lyric to the old song came to me as I regarded her over the brim of my coffee cup—with a figure the fashion police labeled petite; I doubted she weighed a hundred pounds. Add that to her effervescent personality and cheerful smile—I was convinced she was still carded in every club and bar she walked into. I told her so.
“At my age?” she said. “Besides, I don’t hang out in bars anymore, although…” She leaned across the table. “This one time I went into a bicycle shop because I was buying a helmet for Critter, these two college boys, they started hitting on me, telling me I should join them on this tour, this overnight bike trip.” Katie brought her hand to her mouth. “I was old enough to be their mother.” She dropped her hand. “Oh my God, don’t ever tell anyone I told you that.”
“Why not? It’s a pretty good story.”
“People will think I was milfing.”
“Milfing?”
“You know what a MILF is?”
“I hardly think…”
The light in her eyes went out just like that. The blue became dark and cold, and Katie said, “People blame women for all kinds of things that are not their fault.”
I didn’t know what she was thinking, and I didn’t ask.
“I’ll keep your secret,” I said.
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
And the light returned.
“Besides, women of a certain age should only be involved with men of a certain age,” Katie said. “Don’t you think?”
“Life is short. I’m not sure you shouldn’t take what you can get.”
“It’s all right for men to say that, only society holds women to a different standard, always has, always will.”
“I know a young woman who would be happy to tell you where society can go in no uncertain terms.”
“Have you met Sloane Dauria?”
“I was thinking of someone else, but based on what her mother told me, yes, Sloane, too.”
“Wonderful girl and a real beauty. Super serious, though. Like her mother. Oh my God.”
Katie glanced around the room, adjusted her glasses, and leaned forward again.
“I feel so wicked.”
“Why?”
“People know me here. They know I’m a happily married woman with two kids—one of them in college no less. Yet here I am having coffee in an out-of-the-way coffeehouse with a man. It just makes me feel so—’course, my husband knows I’m here. You know what he said when I told him I was going to meet a strange man that Jayne said looks like Bradley Cooper in a coffeehouse? He said, better that than a motel. I remember when he used to be romantic. We’re all so old now. Although I don’t feel old. Do you feel old?”
“Sometimes.”
“I bet we’re the same age, too.”
“Except you don’t look it. You look like you’re a graduate student, which is probably what those kids in the bike shop thought, not that you’re a MILF.”
Katie stared at me for a few beats.
“You’re trying to be nice,” she said. “Well, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“About Frank—Frank Harris. Wasn’t that terrible? A terrible thing. And now you’re trying to help Malcolm and Jaynie, too, I guess. That’s what we’re going to talk about, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“The police”—her eyes clouded again—“have done nothing.”
“They’ve tried.”
Katie stared at me as if she were debating whether to argue about it. Her eyes brightened; she lowered her head so she was looking at me over the top of her glasses and spoke in a Yoda voice. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Her hand went to her mouth, and she laughed behind it. “Oh my God—where did that come from? I don’t even like those movies. I mean, they’re okay…”
This is one emotional woman, my inner voice said.
“Diane Dauria told me that you founded the New Brighton Hotdish,” I said.
“Oh, that’s just silly. How can one person found a club?”
“Was it your idea?”
“Noooooah. What happened—I’m a freelance writer, mostly advertising, but some journalism, too. I worked at Carmichael Lynch, Campbell Mithun, but when Critter was born—do you know how Critter got his name?”
“Jayne Harris told me.”
“Critterfur—that still cracks me up. Anyway, when Chris was born I decided to go freelance so I could stay home with the youngsters. Agency work—the hours can be so brutal, no kidding—and back then, freelance, if you had a track record, experience working in the agencies, you could do pretty well. I did. ’Course now, the economy, the agencies downsizing, laying off staff, everyone that used to be a copywriter, art director, suddenly they’re working freelance out of necessity, which has flooded the market, making it tougher to earn a living. Anyway…”
Katie adjusted her glasses and took a sip from the cardboard cup.
“Anyway, I had pretty flexible hours while the kids were growing up, so I would go to the ballpark early, wherever we were playing that week, and scope out a picnic table or bring one of my own and set up something for the players, snacks and juice boxes, that sort of thing. They were fourteen years old that final season, thirteen and fourteen, freshmen in high school. Now look at them. College juniors every one, scattered hither and yon. Only the parents—it started getting pretty elaborate, especially that last year. We started having dinners at the ballparks, the other parents bringing all kinds of dishes, which was way better than doing fast food because that’s what happened, the games starting at six and everyone rushing to get there after work and then ending after seven, seven thirty, and us running out to get burgers or tacos or something because it was too late to cook a decent meal. We kept at it even after the season ended, the championship season, because we liked each other and the food was really good, some of the members showing off, always trying to outdo each other and the rest of us—McKenzie, you can’t bring a bag of tortilla chips and a jar of salsa when someone is bringing fifteen pounds of baby-back ribs and someone else has a slow cooker filled with jambalaya.”
She paused to take a deep breath and another sip of coffee. “What do you want to know?”
“The truth about Frank and Jayne Harris.”
“You want to know the truth?”
“The group being so close for so long, you must know each other’s secrets.”
“The truth and secrets, too? McKenzie, I’m pretty naïve when to comes to stuff like that. I always have been. When I was a sophomore in college, well, sophomore and the beginning of my junior year, I dated a grad student who was studying child psychology, and I loved him. Everybody loved him. He was kind and generous and caring, and he made me laugh right up until he was arrested for—he was a pedophile, McKenzie. He abused the kids he worked with while getting his degree, he had child pornography in his apartment, and I didn’t know. I spent a lot of time in that apartment, McKenzie. I didn’t see anything, I didn’t—even today, we’re talking twenty-five years later, and I still don’t believe it. I mean I believe it—the evidence was pretty overwhelming, but I still wonder—how come I didn’t know? Now you’re asking about Frank and Jaynie. I saw the bruises, I saw the cast on Jayne’s arm, but she and Frank said they were accidents, and I believed them just like I believed my boyfriend. Why wouldn’t I?”
“What about the others?”
“The members of Hotdish that weren’t as dumb as I was? Whatever they thought they kept to themselves. Or at least they kept it from me.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“So do I. Why are men so cruel?”
I don’t think she expected a reply, so I didn’t offer one. I didn’t have a satisfying answer anyway.
She removed her glasses and became still, her eyes locked on her hands, her hands wrapped around the coffee cup, thinking thoughts that twisted her mouth into a kind of angry pout. I gave her as much privacy as I could, turning my attention to the window. Traffic on Silver Lake Road was light. I noticed a black Acura drive past. I didn’t give it much thought until it cruised by a second time and pulled in to the Bru House lot. I was able to read the license plate, confirming that it was the same car that had followed me the evening before. I told myself it would be nice to have a gun and then dismissed the notion. Too many people carry guns these days, including me.
The Acura parked at a diagonal in the only empty slot on the side of the building. I could see its passenger-side taillight from where I sat but nothing else, which meant the driver shouldn’t be able to see me; wouldn’t see me actually leaving the coffeehouse until I stepped into the lot and walked to my car. I waited for someone to enter the building, yet no one did.
Katie’s head came up; she put her black-rimmed glasses back on. For a moment she actually looked her age.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“S’okay.”
“I don’t know why I’ve been so emotional lately. The holidays, I guess. Throwing a New Year’s Eve party, what was I thinking? But no. No, no. You know what? It’s you, McKenzie. You’re the reason I’m upset, dredging up painful stuff like you are. Jayne’s upset, too. She wishes you would stop what you’re doing. So does Diane. As for Malcolm, poor Malcolm—what happened to his father, I can see how that might be upsetting, and not knowing why it happened … it must be so very hard for him. I saw him a few times during summer vacation, gave him a big hug. He seemed to be handling it better than he did when it first happened; he was smiling a lot and joking around with Critter and the other boys. Now, though … Christmas is what does it. For some people it’s the most depressing time of year. More people kill themselves during the holidays than at any other time, did you know that?”
“Actually, that’s not true.”
“It isn’t?”
“People are offered some protection around Christmas by the proximity of their families, and also it’s winter, and no matter how hard the winter, people tell themselves things will get better. I call it the promise of spring. When spring comes along, though, and people with suicidal thoughts see that nothing has changed…”
“More people commit suicide in the spring?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know this?”
“I used to be a police officer. I used to respond to a lot of those kinds of calls.”
“That must have been hard.”
“It was.”
Katie stared for a few beats as if she were trying to reconcile that version of me with the person sitting across from her.
“What were we talking about?” she asked.
“You’re upset.”
“Yes, I am, and usually I’m not, upset I mean. Usually I’m the opposite of upset. My friends, my family, they like to make fun of me because they say I’m so cheerful all the time. It’s very annoying. I can be earthy when I want to, really.”
“Earthy?”
Katie leaned in close, said, “I use the F-word all the time,” and nodded her head solemnly.
“I’d love to read your poetry sometime,” I said.
“Dark, dark stuff,” she said. “Makes Sylvia Plath look like Shel Silverstein.” She pulled her head back and laughed. “No, it doesn’t. What do I have to be dark about?”
“Jayne Harris,” I said. “I can understand her being upset, dredging up bad memories near the anniversary of her husband’s murder, as you said, although—she did seem to appreciate that I was trying to help her son. Diane Dauria, though, has me baffled. Why does she care if I try to find out who killed Frank?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she did it and she’s ’fraid of getting caught, have you ever thought of that?”
“Yes, I have.”
An expression of horror crossed Katie’s face.
“Oh my God, McKenzie, how can you think that? Diane is just the nicest person ever, even if she is the most serious. Besides, she wasn’t here when it happened. She was in Chicago. The police said.”
“You’re the one who brought it up.”
“I was kidding. I was—I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. It isn’t something you should joke about, is it?”
Pretty much what Dauria said, my inner voice reminded me.
“The rest of Hotdish—what are they saying about it?” I asked.
“I doubt most of them know what’s going on. Heck, I don’t even know what’s going on. Probably it’ll come up tonight at the party, but … We’re friends, McKenzie, except it’s not like we live in each other’s pockets. It’s a social thing, after all. Some of the families have dropped out over the years, a couple of others have joined in; friends of friends. Dwayne Phillips, he and his son, Jalen—they called him Philly—they were members, but then they quit right after the championship party. I heard they moved to New Ulm a couple of weeks after the game; didn’t even bother to say good-bye. Kinda sad. ’Course, they were African Americans. Philly was the only person of color on the team. Could’ve been the only family of color in New Brighton for all I know; we’re not nearly as diverse as we could be. They might have been uncomfortable around us. I liked them, though. Liked them a lot. Nice people. And the others. Sometimes everyone shows up at the monthly Hotdish, sometimes it’s only a couple of families, depending on what’s going on. We all have our own lives to live is what I’m trying to tell you. People still care about what happened to Frank, don’t get me wrong. Only it’s starting to be a long time ago and they don’t care as much.”
“Then how do you explain the fact that I’m being followed by members of your Hotdish?”
Katie blinked at me from behind her glasses.
“No,” she said. “What? Being followed?”
“Ever since I took the case.”
“That’s, that’s—why?”
“You tell me.”
“McKenzie, I told you that Jayne and Diane are upset, and so am I, but we all want to see Frank’s killer arrested.”
Katie’s expression and body language suggested that she was genuinely shocked by my announcement. Either that or she was the best actress I’ve come across in a long while. Because I wasn’t a hundred percent sure either way, I stood up.
“Wait here,” I said.
“McKenzie…”
I slipped on my jacket but did not zipper it.
“Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I left the table and went out the front door of the coffeehouse, staying close to the wall; Katie watched me through the window, a puzzled expression on her face. I circled around the far side of the building, keeping it between the Acura and me. I moved cautiously past the drive-thru and came up on the black vehicle from its side, hoping the driver wasn’t letting his attention wander, that his eyes were firmly fixed on the front of the Bru House. I managed to get next to the car without him noticing.
I yanked open the driver’s door. His head pivoted toward me. Not Jerome Geddings, I told myself. A young man instead. College age. An expression of alarm on his face.
Geddings’s son, my inner voice announced, driving the old man’s car.
I said it aloud. “Does your father know what you’re doing?”
“What are you doing?” he wanted to know.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him out from behind the steering wheel.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“You know who I am.”
“I wasn’t doing anything. I was just sitting here. You have no right.”
“Shut up.”
I pulled him away from the vehicle, hip-checked the door closed, and shoved him toward the Bru House.
“Who do you think you are?” he said. “You can’t do this.” He turned toward me. I noticed he was favoring his right knee. “I’ll call the police.”
I gave him the look, the one that dared him, just dared him, to do something stupid.
“I’m not afraid of you,” he said, although I noticed he didn’t raise his hands like he wanted to make a fight of it.
“You want to talk to the cops?” I slipped the cell from my jacket pocket. “Fine, let’s talk to the cops.”
“Wait,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the police.”
“Wait a sec.”
“Make up your mind.”
“McKenzie…”
“See, you do know who I am.” I moved him along. “Come on. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
I took the kid’s arm when we entered the coffeehouse, spun him until he was facing Katie, and gave him another shove. He nearly fell in the woman’s lap but caught himself in time. Katie adjusted her glasses as she stared at him.
“Steven?” she asked
“Mrs. Meyer,” he said. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“He was waiting for me in the parking lot,” I said. “I caught him following me yesterday, too.”
Geddings’s eyes darted from me to Katie as if he wanted to deny it but was afraid of being caught lying in front of her.
“Steven, is this true?” Katie said.
“You know it’s true,” I told her. I reclaimed my chair. “How else would he know to come here unless you told him?”
“I didn’t—”
I held up a finger.
“Or someone else in the Hotdish told him,” I said. “Jayne Harris knew you were meeting me. How ’bout Diane Dauria?”
“I don’t know what to say,” Katie told me.
“How ’bout you, kid? What do you have to say?”
“Nothing.”
“Steven,” Katie said.
“I was just sitting in the car waiting for my friends. We come here for coffee, you know that. It’s our hangout.”
“That’s true, McKenzie. Critter comes here all the time, too.”
“Were you here when Critter got into a fight with Malcolm Harris?” I asked.
“Chris and Malcolm were fighting?” Katie said. “Why?”
“Mrs. Meyer…”
“The young woman who was with Malcolm,” I said. “Were you the one she punched and then kicked in the knee?”
Geddings’s fingers flew to a spot just to the left of his chin where I was sure the blow must have landed.
“She caught me by surprise,” he said.
That’s our girl, my inner voice said.
“Why were Chris and Malcolm fighting?” Katie asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” I said.
“I really don’t,” Geddings said. “Mrs. Meyer, honestly. You’ll have to ask Critter.”
“Why were you following me?” I asked.
“I wasn’t.”
“You knew my name.”
“I was guessing.”
I turned toward the woman. “See what I have to deal with?” I said.
“Leave me alone,” Geddings said.
“You were following me,” I said.
“Why would I?”
“Because someone told you to. Who? Was it Diane Dauria?”
“This is nuts,”
“What does she want to know?”
“You’re crazy.”
I asked Katie, “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Fair enough.”
“Can I go now?” Geddings asked.
What was I going to do, slap him around? Waterboard him until he told me what I wanted to hear?
“Beat it,” I said.
Katie reached out and took Geddings by the wrist.
“How’s your mother?” she asked. “How’s her cold?”
“Better. She said she’ll be at the party tonight for sure.”
“Tell her I’m going to call later.”
Geddings saw something in her expression that made him swallow hard.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He left in a hurry.
“Nice boy,” Katie said.
“I’ll have to take your word for that.”
“You didn’t need to be so mean.”
“I get cranky when people lie to my face.”
“He said he wasn’t following you. He said he was here to meet his friends.”
“You believed him?”
“I’ve known Steven since he was twelve years old. Yes, I believe him.”
“If he was waiting for his friends, why did he just leave?”
I threw a thumb at the window. Katie adjusted her glasses yet again as she gazed out just in time to see the Acura pull onto Silver Lake Road and drive off.
“You frightened him,” she said.
“He frightened me.”
“I don’t understand anything that’s going on.”
“I’m going to take your word for that, too. I’m doing it for the worst possible reason, though.”
“What’s that?”
“Because I think you’re adorable and I’m sexist enough to let it make a difference.”
Katie’s hand flew to her mouth.
“But only to a point,” I added.
“Oh my God,” she said. “You know what? I think Jayne is right. You do look a little like Bradley Cooper.”
* * *
I started the Mustang, told my onboard computer to call Erica, and canceled the call when I remembered she rarely answers her phone. Instead, I pulled out my own phone and sent a text: I want to meet with Malcolm. Arrange it.
* * *
Malcolm and Erica were sitting opposite each other on stools at the island in the kitchen area when I returned to the condominium. There was a box of vanilla wafers and a plastic tub of cake frosting between them. I watched as they took turns dipping wafers into the frosting, sliding them into their mouths, and chasing them with swigs from the same two-liter bottle of orange pop, apparently rendered germ-free by—was it love? Say it isn’t so, I told myself.
“Seriously?” I said.
“Live in a college dorm for a while, this becomes a delicacy,” Erica said. “Try it.”
I did, and thought, This is pretty good.
Stop it! my inner voice said. Don’t encourage them.
“Not particularly nutritious, though,” I said aloud.
“Sometimes I do Nutella with apple slices,” Erica said.
“Much better.”
“What do you want to talk about?” Malcolm asked. “Rickie said you wanted to talk.”
“I met a friend of yours today.”
“Who?”
“Steve Geddings.”
“Steven?”
I gestured at Erica to make sure I had her attention.
“That’s the name of the guy you punched in the face the other day,” I said. “If you see him again, watch yourself. He hasn’t gotten past it.”
“That’s because I’m a girl.”
“What did Steven want?” Malcolm asked.
“He didn’t say,” I told him.
“I don’t understand.”
“He’s been following me.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why. He followed me yesterday and again today when I went to see Katie Meyer.”
“You spoke to Mrs. Meyer?”
“We had coffee at the Bru House. I like her very much. She seems to genuinely care about her friends. That, apparently, includes you.”
“What did she say?”
“That’s not terribly important.”
“Yes, it is.”
“What’s important—why is Geddings following me?”
“How should I know?”
“You and I aren’t going to get along very well if you keep this up.”
Malcolm slipped quickly off his stool and turned toward me. “Are you calling me a liar?” he asked.
“Let me guess. You’re outraged by the allegation.”
His fists clenched, unclenched, and clenched some more.
“Mal,” Erica said. “McKenzie’s trying to help you.”
“I really am,” I said. “I’ll keep at it, too, if you would just explain why so many people don’t want me to help you.”
“Who?” Malcolm asked. “Who doesn’t want you to help?”
“Apparently, Critter and Steven Geddings for a start. Tell me about the fight again.”
“I told you—that has nothing to do with my father.”
“The fight at the Bru House. What about the one before that?”
“Before that?”
“Someone punched Critter,” I said. “Punched him several times. His nose was swollen, and his lip was bruised.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“When we met, your knuckles were scraped and bloody.”
“I hit a wall.”
“Because you were angry with your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Because she said to get over what happened to your father?”
“Yes. McKenzie, I mean it. This thing with Critter has nothing to do with my father.”
“What does it have to do with?”
“It’s personal.”
“Then why is Geddings following me?”
“I don’t know.” Malcom thought about it, then spoke in the form of a question. “Maybe they’re hoping you’ll lead them to me?”
“Really? They’re searching for you? Are you that hard to find?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would they be looking for you?”
“I don’t know. I keep telling you. I don’t know why they’re following you. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Tell me about your mother.”
“What about her?”
“She wants me to stop trying to help you, too.”
“I know. She doesn’t think any good will come of it, and … and she said it makes her sad.”
“Why?”
“I heard the stories, McKenzie, about my father hitting my mom. She never told me, but I heard. Sometimes I think that’s all he left behind when he died, the stories.”
“What about Dauria?”
That made him pause.
“Diane?” he said.
Diane? my inner voice repeated.
“She also made it clear I should go away,” I said.
“Why would she care?”
“I don’t know. Why would she care?”
The look in his eyes suggested that he didn’t have a clue.
“Sit down,” I told him. “Relax.”
Malcolm returned to his spot at the island. Erica passed him the box of vanilla wafers. He took one, but not to eat. It was just something to hold.
“Something else you should know.” I took the stool next to Erica. “There’s a possibility that your father’s murder is connected to a second killing.”
Malcolm froze in place, not moving a muscle except for what was required to snap the cookie in half. His eyes grew wide, and his voice climbed two octaves.
“What killing?” he asked.
“A couple of years ago—”
“Where?”
Erica reached across the table and touched his hand. He pulled it away.
“In St. Louis Park,” I said. “The former president of the Szereto Corporation.”
“The beauty company?” Erica asked.
“Yes.”
“Where Mal’s father used to work?”
“Yes. A man named Jonathan Szereto Jr.”
“Oh,” Malcolm said.
“What do you know about it?” I asked.
“Nothing, really. It’s just—what you said just caught me by surprise is all.”
“You’re not surprised anymore?”
He dropped the remains of the vanilla wafer on the countertop and brushed the crumbs from his hand.
“I don’t know why I reacted that way.” Malcolm was smiling at Erica when he said, “This whole thing has me pretty messed up.”
Erica smiled back.
She stopped smiling when she noticed Malcolm’s eyes lock on something over her shoulder. She turned to look. Nina had emerged from the master bedroom and moved across the living area. She was wearing a fitted scarlet gown that accentuated the imagination, and for a moment I was back in the Minnesota Club watching her shove a miscreant down a flight of stairs. She had worn a different dress then, only it was the same color, and it stopped my heart. I had no idea what she was looking for—I mentioned the dress, right?—but she apparently found it, turned, and walked back into the bedroom. Malcolm followed her every step of the way.
Erica reached across the island and punched him hard on the shoulder.
“Oww,” he said.
“Were you perving on my mom?” Erica asked.
“No. What? No, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Erica,” I said.
“What?”
“I was perving on your mom.”
“Gawd. You’re both disgusting.”
“Who’s disgusting?” Nina asked. She was now walking through the kitchen area while fixing an earring to her earlobe.
“Men,” Erica said.
“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. If you’re coming with me, you’d better change.”
“I should leave,” Malcolm said. He said it to Nina, not Erica.
Erica grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door. I nearly stopped them to ask more questions, but didn’t. They made their good-byes, and Erica all but shoved him out. She walked past us on the way to her room.
“Honestly, Mother,” she said.
She went into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.
“What did I do now?” Nina asked.
“You became the most beautiful woman in the room.”
“That hasn’t been true since Rickie turned sixteen.”
“She doesn’t know how pretty she is. She only knows how pretty you are.”
“I’m not that pretty; never have been.”
“I beg to differ.”
Nina hugged me. I hugged her back. For the fourth or fifth time that day I reminded myself how lucky I was.
“What are your plans for tonight?” she asked.
“I have a few things to do, but I promise to be at your side when the ball drops.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“I have a question, though.”
“What?”
“Do I look like Bradley Cooper?”
“No. Not at all.”