Magic Hour (40 page)

Or she wouldn't be there. She'd be on her way to the airport, to go to
Utah
. She'd stay with one of her brothers for a while, until her house was sold, then buy a cabin ten thousand feet high in some mountain by a trout stream. She wouldn't answer my letters or phone calls. I'd finally go out there and track her down, but she'd run out the back door up the mountains and wouldn't come back until I'd gone. The next spring, after the thaw, they'd find her. Dead. She'd frozen in February. She'd forgotten how hard winters in the mountains could be. She hadn't chopped enough wood for the stove.

I was so upset by the thought of her decomposing body that I didn't see Gideon until he was right next to the car. "Is Bonnie here?" I demanded. "Is she all right?"

"She's fine," Gideon said cautiously. I guess I looked a little nuts. "She's sleeping." Moose, the town slut, had already transferred her allegiance to Gideon and was licking his hand.

"I guess she must be pretty tired," I mumbled.

"Do you want to come in for a minute?"

For a barn, it was a nice place, with a vaulted ceiling and a lot of beams going to interesting places. Gideon introduced me to his friend, Jeff, who looked like a bouncer in a very rough nightclub. He stayed just long enough to shake hands, say "Pleased to make your aquaintance" and give me a thorough onceover; my guess was he could hardly wait for me to leave, so he and Gideon could launch into an exhaustive analysis.

A giant black iron chandelier hung from the main beam; it had cut-out sheep and cows and pigs all over it. Upstairs, there were closed doors off a landing that had once been the hayloft. "Bonnie's in the middle room," Gideon said, when he saw me looking up. I thought he would tell me not to trifle with her affections or something, but he just said how sorry he was about it being my brother. I told him my mother was calling Paterno, but that my brother had already given a videotaped confession—probably less because he wanted to make a clean breast of things than that he wanted to be thought of as pleasant company. And I told him about Easton's sick pride, that he'd planned the whole thing with Sy Spencer, big shot. Just the two of them. Sy and Easton, partners. I said I couldn't believe my brother had been so willing to let Bonnie take the fall for him. Gideon said, Take it easy. It's over now. He added that Shea had called Paterno and said they were rescinding the warrant and to tell Mrs. Spencer sorry for any inconvenience.

"Do you think she'll be all right?" I asked him.

"She's strong."

"I know."

"But it's going to take a long time."

"Do you mind if I go up and see her?" I asked.

"Once we knew it was officially over, after Bill Paterno called..." Gideon hesitated. "Bonnie said you might drop by. She asked me to thank you for all you've done for her, but that you and she had agreed earlier that it would be best if you didn't see each other again."

"I want to see her."

"And I want to protect her." We tried to stare each other down. "It seems we're at an impasse," he said, "and since it's an impasse on my territory, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." He stood.

So did I. "I just want to tell her something."

"I don't think that would be advisable."

"Fuck you, Friedman."

"Fuck yoy, Brady."

I tried to count up to ten, to think of something else to say, but I only made it to two. "Look, I love her."

"You love
her
?" Gideon repeated. "You must be a very loving man. You love the other one too."

"If it's any of your goddamned business, I don't love the other one, and as a matter of fact and of law, Counselor, the other one isn't the other one anymore and the position is vacant. Now can I go up and see Bonnie?"

"Be my guest," he said.

I could sense her waking as I opened the door. I came in and sat on the edge of the bed. "You're beautiful," I said.

"Sure. It's pitch black in here." Bonnie stuck her hand out and groped for a lamp. She turned it on and squeezed her eyes shut at the light. She looked like Mr. Magoo. "Now say it."

"You're beautiful. I love you. What was the third thing?"

"I'm a truly fine person." The base of the lamp was a big china chicken. She turned it off.

"You're a truly fine person," I said.

"I told Gideon not to let you up here."

"I told him I was going to tell you I loved you, so I became his pal. Anything I want. His house is my house. His chicken lamp is my chicken lamp." I turned it on again and pulled down the sheet a little. She'd taken off my T-shirt.

She pulled the sheet all the way up. "Listen, I guess you'll be hearing this a lot, but I'm sorry about your brother. I'm sure it's going to be very painful for your family, and it's too bad you can't be spared that."

"Thank you. It's too bad you couldn't have been spared your pain."

"Thank you," she said. "I don't want to seem insensitive, but I'd like you to leave now."

"Why? Are you going to cry or something?"

Bonnie gave me an angry nudge. Some nudge. It practically knocked me off the bed. "You want to hang around and watch?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I don't want you to. I want you to go."

"I can't. I promised Gideon I'd ask you to marry me."

"Well, ask me and then get out."

"All right. Will you marry me?"

Somehow, all of a sudden, she knew. She didn't make any wisecracks about my having a previous engagement. She didn't tell me to leave. She just said "Yes," but then she told me I couldn't kiss her because she had sleep breath. I kissed her anyway. It was a sweet and beautiful kiss. After it was over, she asked, "Am I
really
beautiful? Objectively."

"No."

"Am I
really
a truly fine person?"

"You're not bad."

I stood up, took off my clothes and got into bed.

"Do you
really
love me?"

"More than anything in the world, Bonnie."

"I've known that for years, Stephen."

And together we turned off the chicken lamp, and we began our life.

-=*@*=-