The Late, Lamented Molly Marx (31 page)

“This guy definitely needs a crash course at obedience school,” Brie says.

Hicks laughs. “Don’t most men?” He strokes Jones’ warm, smooth back. “You like potatoes, huh, boy?”

“He likes everything. He’s going to be a hippo when he grows up.”

I doubt that
, Hicks thinks. He considers how people choose animals that resemble them. This dog’s going to be long and leggy, like Brie Lawson, who he has decided looks a lot less brittle in a pair of faded Levi’s and a down vest than she does in her uptown attorney togs. “C’mon,” Hicks says. “I need some fresh herbs to roast these.”

“Show me,” she says. “I know nothing.”

“That I can’t believe, smart lawyer like you.”

“Hey, if it wasn’t on the bar exam …”

“So, you have something to tell me?” he says, leading Brie and Jones to a small booth for dainty, string-tied bunches of rosemary, oregano, and thyme. He lifts some rosemary to Brie’s nose and she breathes in its earthy fragrance.

“I doubt it’s anything,” she says tentatively, her eyes fixed on the herbs. It’s hard for Brie to go on, because she has convinced herself that to share this information violates my precious memory and flawless reputation, especially because she’s not even sure if she’s right. “But Molly,” Brie says, turning to look Hicks in the eye, “had a boyfriend.” She, of all people, speaks the word as if I had gonorrhea. Shame on you, Brie, but I know it’s your worry talking.

That’s the big breakthrough? “Who was he?” he asks. Hicks already knows all about Luke, and hopes Brie will be talking about another guy.

“Molly would never say, and I’m fairly sure she broke things off before she died. At least I told her to.”
Okay, I’m arrogant
, she thinks,
but
Molly usually followed my advice
. “When I asked her about him, she’d always give me that don’t-go-there look. I’m thinking the person who might know more is Lucy. Have you asked her?”

“Done,” Hicks says.

“What does she know?”

“Not much,” he says. What she had to say filled less than a page. As he leads Brie to the cheese seller, Hicks does exactly what Brie does as a lawyer—says little and hopes his prey will fill in the blanks. This time it works.

“The only thought I have is that the guy might be the one she works with, Luke Delaney, who I’m sure you’ve talked to,” Brie says. “I’ve been with them together a few times, and you know how you can feel something about a couple?”

He nods.
I certainly do
, Hicks think.
I might be feeling it now
.

“I know Luke from years ago and thought I sensed it,” Brie says, “but when I asked Molly, she flat out denied it.” Twice.

“Why didn’t you say anything sooner about this?”

“I wasn’t sure. I’m still not. If Luke and Molly were involved, I couldn’t see why he’d deny it, and also, he’s a decent guy who I don’t want to get in trouble.” As soon as she finishes her sentences, she realizes it sounds ridiculous, as if she cared more about Luke than me, but she knows she’ll make it worse if she backtracks and tries to correct what she just said.

Hicks turns his head to look at Brie for a full minute, which makes her extremely uncomfortable.
Does he think I’m lying?
she wonders. But that’s not what’s in Hicks’ head. She is relieved when he turns his attention to the guy behind the table.

“What you got today, Charlie?” he asks. Hicks tells himself that if this job doesn’t work out, he’s going to move upstate, buy a herd of goats, and learn to make cheese. He’s already ordered two used books on the subject from Amazon. Every few weeks he logs on to real estate websites and pictures himself with forty acres, a shiny green John Deere, a manure spreader, a brush hog, and a compost heap. Even one of New York’s finest can dream.

“Try this ricotta,” the vendor says, offering Brie and Hicks tiny wooden spoons filled with opalescent white cheese. “Heaven?”

That’s another thing I miss: really sharp, tangy tastes. Also anything
salty, crunchy, or spicy. Dammit—and every other word in the vocabulary of your average Tourette’s sufferer—I miss food. Fresh, home-cooked, fancy, not fancy. I especially miss Italian—even the Olive Garden—Indian, French, Thai, Vietnamese, Peruvian, everything but midwestern-bland. I miss McDonald’s fries, pastrami on rye, dim sum, dark chocolate bars studded with almonds, the hamburgers at Gramercy Tavern, my own spaghetti and meat sauce, my mother’s hokey Thanksgiving sweet potatoes with marshmallows, hamentaschen, butterscotch sundaes, and Kitty’s cheesecake. I think especially about the fudge cake covered with shaved chocolate I’d planned to buy that last afternoon.
Life is short—eat dessert first
should have been my religion.

“I’m going to have to bring home some of that, Charlie,” Hicks says, pulling out his wallet. I’ve noticed that he actually weeds out its receipts every night so its fine leather doesn’t bend and bulge. “And two of those.” He points to the chèvre wrapped in green grape leaves. As they walk away, he gives one to Brie.

“Detective, is this bribery?” she says, lifting the cheese high as Jones sniffs it curiously.

“There’ll be more where that’s coming from if you know anything else about your friend’s case,” Hicks says.

“I wish I did,” Brie says. “You have no idea.”

Every day since Brie got Jones, she’s been talking to him about me. “You’d have loved Molly, Jonesy. She was silly, like you. There was the time when we didn’t have dates on New Year’s Eve and at eleven-thirty we got all dressed up to have martinis at a hotel bar in town. And Molly couldn’t sing on-key, but she was always the first to volunteer for karaoke, so no one else would feel like an idiot. Her song was ‘Night and Day.’”

Brie carries on like that until I have to leave. I can’t take it.

When Brie turns to inspect a row of beribboned pound cakes, each loaf no bigger than a good-sized tropical fish, I see Hicks look at her in admiration and outright surprise.
I feel comfortable with this woman
, I hear him think.

The thought flashes through his mind just as Brie is thinking the same thing.
This Hicks, he’s easy. I could use a little easy right now
.

I am wondering if my powers have anything to do with this connection. Could I be willing it to happen? I’m going to have to talk this over
with Bob, who has never mentioned the spontaneous combustion of matchmaker capabilities.

I’m getting very excited.

“Detective, what’s your opinion on crawfish étouffée?” she asks.

“In my top ten,” he says. “Providing it’s swimming in garlic and cayenne like my Grandma Hattie cooks it down in New Orleans.”

I have never known my friend Brie not to act fast. Do it, Brie, do it, because there’s no way Hicks will. Don’t fail me now. Don’t fail yourself.

“I’m inviting you to dinner then, that is, if you’re available,” she says before she remembers that she can’t cook. “If you promise not to expect too much.”

Why can’t I hug her? I truly can’t recall if I have ever seen my best friend blush.

“I accept,” Hicks says.
Maybe I am getting my break
, he thinks, and then he douses the thought.
No expectations, boy
, he says to himself.
No expectations
.

“Seven?” She has shocked herself but doesn’t regret it, and since she’s on a roll, hoping tonight is a beginning and not another ending, she continues. “I have another question.”

He nods.

“May I please call you Hiawatha?”

Once again, Hicks doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not,” he says, and strolls away. Brie can’t see the smile on his face, but I can.

ow about we meet at the Morgan?”

“We haven’t seen each for three weeks and you want to meet at a library?” Luke said.

“I was thinking of the dining room,” I said, the spot where I could least imagine a fur-flying scene. Decorum bonded the hush-hush Morgan’s brown, shoebox-sized bricks, and its restaurant flew so far under the radar I couldn’t imagine anyone younger than eighty lunching there. This safely excluded Kitty and every friend she or I had except my neighbors Sophie and Alf, who I happened to know were in the Galápagos.

“Hey,” Luke said, “I admire an original Mozart manuscript as much as the next guy, but I’ve been dreaming about you.” While I was searching for a response he elaborated. “Your lips, your skin on my skin, the way you smell like sunlight and happiness—”

“Stop,” I said. Through endless motivational self-lectures—during my shower, my sleep, and my commutes—I’d promised myself that after that day Luke and I would be a wrap. But I wanted to terminate everything in person, to see him one last time and dive Lucy-style to
the bottom of our relationship’s murky pool. I told myself that whatever we thought we had between us deserved as much. “I don’t have a lot of time today.”

“So let’s reschedule,” Luke said, breathing deeply, clearly puzzled that I had brushed off his poetry. “How’s Thursday?”

I’d trained for that day as if it were the bad-girls’ marathon. Postponing was not an option. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it as if it might offer an answer. “Molly?” I could hear Luke saying. “Are you there?”

What’s one more abbreviated apartment visit?
the phone asked.
See him. You’ll take a mental picture and carry it with you for the rest of your life. Then it will be over. Skedaddled. Monogamy forever forward
.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll be at your place at one.”

When I arrived, Luke stood in the doorway wearing his usual welcome-mat grin, shy but sly. He enveloped me in a tender, tight embrace, which as my automatic pilot ignited I found I could not resist. Not that I tried. I circled my arms around his shoulders, leaning into him.
God damn you, Luke
, I thought.
I am going to miss everything about you. Every decadent molecule
.

As the kiss continued, a remote, still-functioning part of my brain noted that there I was again, whizzing down the double-black diamond that always led us to the same place. My thumbs slipped into the back of Luke’s jeans, where his warm skin invited me to come closer. No underwear. No self-assurance shortage. He easily led me by the hand to the bedroom.

“Would you like your gift before or after?” Luke asked as he lit the remains of a candle I’d given him early in the fall. A faint scent of ginger enveloped the room as the flame burst and sputtered, casting shadows that pirouetted on the walls.

“After,” I said. “After.”

“Does that mean you want me as much as I want you?” he said as he pulled my sweater and then my lacy camisole over my head.

I would never know the answer to that question. But what I said was “Allow me,” unbuttoning his shirt as if he were the promised present. I knew this much: whoever believed that couples should hurry to become stark naked is missing half the point. I lazily moved my fingers
along Luke’s bare chest, tracing his dark, curly hair until I reached his belt, which I unbuckled in one deft, practiced move, and continued on to his jeans. I pushed them to the floor as he did the same with mine.

Stop now, Molly
, I told myself.
There’s still time. All bets off
.

My flesh ignored my brain. As we went on, I was a photojournalist, out of body, circling and shooting away. Who is this wife—not old, but surely old enough to know better—recklessly playing in sheets that aren’t hers, running her hands along a man’s well-muscled back, tasting his sweet mouth with her tongue and lips? Who is this man who knows exactly how to love her and acts as if he does?

“Molly, where are you?” Luke said, stopping and finding my eyes, which had not closed. “You’re in orbit.”

I answered with numerous thoroughly animated body parts. Soon enough the journalist left the room and I alone remained, giving myself to Luke with the urgency of a woman shipping her soldier off to war. I memorized every stroke and sigh, every small scream and low, satisfied groan. They would have to last for a lifetime.

Then it was over. The two of us lay side by side, wordless. I closed my eyes and tried to think of … nothing.

Luke stepped out of the bed and disappeared into the hall. Cool air touched my shoulders and back, which were beaded with sweat, his with mine, mingled, Luke-and-Molly No. 5, the now and forever fragrance. I wanted to yank the downy comforter to my forehead and burrow beneath it, to postpone what was to come, but when Luke returned I was sitting up, half dressed, if a chartreuse lace hipster thong counts as clothing.

“It’s the last of the Syrah,” he said, handing me a glass of wine as he sat on the rumpled linen. “To us,” he said, clinking my glass. “I told you I missed you. Tell me how much you missed me. This time in words.”

He’s playing you an overture, Molly girl
, I told myself, twice.
Don’t miss your cue
. But I was preempted.

“Wait,” Luke said. “Your gift.” He put down his glass and walked to the armoire. My inner Annie Leibovitz came to life and captured the small scar on his back from when he was a Cub Scout and fell from a tree and needed seven stitches. When Luke returned, he carried a small box. I eyed the white package with curiosity spiked by guilt.