figure. “He brought the car down couple weeks ago and the real estate agent showed him around the place.”
“Have you spoken to him?” Cutty threw another handful of Watchtower tracts on the fire. The smoke stank, and the ink turned the flames green.
“No.”
She wore enormous shirts and patterned sweaters and dressed in loose layers, so that she always seemed to be wearing wizard-robes, even in the heat of summer. Roy was rail-thin and the jeans he wore draped from his bones, but even so he still sweat right through his shirts when he worked.
“Have you got anything for supper?” she asked the flames.
“No, ma’am.”
Cutty closed the grill lid and started off toward the back of the house. “Why don’t you stay and eat with us, then? Theresa is making porkchops.”
“I might just do that,” said Roy. “Thank you.”
As soon as the door came open he was bombarded by the aroma of pork rub and steak fries, corn, green beans, baked apples. Theresa LaQuices bustled around the spacious kitchen, buttering rolls and stirring this or that.
Theresa was a solid and ruggedly pretty iceberg of a woman, a few years younger than Cutty. Her raven-black hair was dusted with gray. Spanish or maybe Italian or something, because of her exotic surname and olive skin, but Roy never could quite pin down her accent and it never really struck him as appropriate to ask. She was given to dressing like a woman twenty years her junior, and today she had on a winsome blue sundress roped about with white tie-dye splotches.
He couldn’t deny that she wore it well. Against the well-appointed kitchen, she looked like she belonged on the cover of a culinary magazine. Reminded him of that Barefoot Contessa chick, only a lot older and a lot heavier.
“Well hello there, mister!” Theresa beamed. “Are you gonna be joinin us for dinner?”
Roy realized that Cutty had disappeared. She had an odd habit of doing that. “Yes, ma’am. And it smells damn good. I wasn’t even hungry before I came in here, but now I could eat a bowl of lard with a hair in it.”
Theresa made a face and gave a musical laugh. “I didn’t prepare any lard, handsome, but you’re welcome to a pork chop or two.”
“I’ll be glad to take you up on that.”
Roy passed through a large dining room, past a long oak table carved with a huge compass-rose, and into a high-ceilinged living room with delicate wicker furniture. On a squat wooden pedestal was a flatscreen television that would not have been out of place on the bridge of a Star Trek spaceship.
Behind the TV were great gaping plate-glass windows that looked out on the front garden inside the adobe privacy wall, a quaint, almost miniaturized bit of landscaping with several Japanese maples and a little pond populated by tiny knife-blade minnows.
The downstairs bathroom was one of many doors in a long hallway that bisected the drafty old house. The slender corridor, like the rest of the house, was painted a rich candy-apple red, and as the light of the lamps at either end trickled along the wall Roy felt as if he were walking up an artery into the chambers of a massive heart.
He washed his hands in a bathroom as large as his own living room. It was appointed with an ivory-white clawfoot tub, eggshell counters, white marble floor, gilded portrait mirror over a sink that looked like a smoked-glass punchbowl.
The vanity lights over the oval mirror were harsh, glaring. Roy was surprised a house occupied by three elderly women would have a bathroom mirror that threw your face into such stark moon-surface relief. Every pit, pock, blemish and crease stood out on his skin and all of a sudden he looked ten, twenty years older. And he had a lot of them for being in his forties.
His lower lids sagged as if he hadn’t slept—which he hadn’t, really, he didn’t sleep well—and his red hair was fine, dry, cottony, piled on his head in a Lyle Lovett coiff. The lights made his normally attractive face look
“Have you spoken to him?” Cutty threw another handful of Watchtower tracts on the fire. The smoke stank, and the ink turned the flames green.
“No.”
She wore enormous shirts and patterned sweaters and dressed in loose layers, so that she always seemed to be wearing wizard-robes, even in the heat of summer. Roy was rail-thin and the jeans he wore draped from his bones, but even so he still sweat right through his shirts when he worked.
“Have you got anything for supper?” she asked the flames.
“No, ma’am.”
Cutty closed the grill lid and started off toward the back of the house. “Why don’t you stay and eat with us, then? Theresa is making porkchops.”
“I might just do that,” said Roy. “Thank you.”
As soon as the door came open he was bombarded by the aroma of pork rub and steak fries, corn, green beans, baked apples. Theresa LaQuices bustled around the spacious kitchen, buttering rolls and stirring this or that.
Theresa was a solid and ruggedly pretty iceberg of a woman, a few years younger than Cutty. Her raven-black hair was dusted with gray. Spanish or maybe Italian or something, because of her exotic surname and olive skin, but Roy never could quite pin down her accent and it never really struck him as appropriate to ask. She was given to dressing like a woman twenty years her junior, and today she had on a winsome blue sundress roped about with white tie-dye splotches.
He couldn’t deny that she wore it well. Against the well-appointed kitchen, she looked like she belonged on the cover of a culinary magazine. Reminded him of that Barefoot Contessa chick, only a lot older and a lot heavier.
“Well hello there, mister!” Theresa beamed. “Are you gonna be joinin us for dinner?”
Roy realized that Cutty had disappeared. She had an odd habit of doing that. “Yes, ma’am. And it smells damn good. I wasn’t even hungry before I came in here, but now I could eat a bowl of lard with a hair in it.”
Theresa made a face and gave a musical laugh. “I didn’t prepare any lard, handsome, but you’re welcome to a pork chop or two.”
“I’ll be glad to take you up on that.”
Roy passed through a large dining room, past a long oak table carved with a huge compass-rose, and into a high-ceilinged living room with delicate wicker furniture. On a squat wooden pedestal was a flatscreen television that would not have been out of place on the bridge of a Star Trek spaceship.
Behind the TV were great gaping plate-glass windows that looked out on the front garden inside the adobe privacy wall, a quaint, almost miniaturized bit of landscaping with several Japanese maples and a little pond populated by tiny knife-blade minnows.
The downstairs bathroom was one of many doors in a long hallway that bisected the drafty old house. The slender corridor, like the rest of the house, was painted a rich candy-apple red, and as the light of the lamps at either end trickled along the wall Roy felt as if he were walking up an artery into the chambers of a massive heart.
He washed his hands in a bathroom as large as his own living room. It was appointed with an ivory-white clawfoot tub, eggshell counters, white marble floor, gilded portrait mirror over a sink that looked like a smoked-glass punchbowl.
The vanity lights over the oval mirror were harsh, glaring. Roy was surprised a house occupied by three elderly women would have a bathroom mirror that threw your face into such stark moon-surface relief. Every pit, pock, blemish and crease stood out on his skin and all of a sudden he looked ten, twenty years older. And he had a lot of them for being in his forties.
His lower lids sagged as if he hadn’t slept—which he hadn’t, really, he didn’t sleep well—and his red hair was fine, dry, cottony, piled on his head in a Lyle Lovett coiff. The lights made his normally attractive face look
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