Prayers For Rain Part 55

"Yes, again."

"So why ask me down here today?"

She considered the grape, but still didn't eat it. "If I told you Tony was scared? I mean, terrified. And that I believe him when he says there's an open contract on him?"

"I'd say you'd attach garnishing to his estate and go on about your business."

She smiled. "So cold, Patrick. He is, though, you know."

"I know. But I also know that wouldn't be reason enough to ask me here."

"Point taken." She flicked her tongue and the grape disappeared from the fork. She chewed and swallowed, took a sip of mineral water. "Clarence misses you, by the way."

Clarence was Vanessa's dog, a chocolate Lab she'd bought on impulse six months ago and, last time I'd noticed, didn't have a clue how to raise. You said, "Clarence, sit," and Clarence ran away. You said, "Here," and he s.h.i.t on the rug. There was something likable about him, though. Maybe it was the puppy innocence in his eyes, a wide aiming-to-please that filled his brown pupils even as he p.i.s.sed on your foot.

"How's he doing?" I asked. "Housebroken yet?"

Vanessa held her forefinger and thumb a hair's width apart. "So, so, close."

"Eaten any more of your shoes?"

She shook her head. "I keep them on a high shelf. Besides, he's more into underwear these days. Last week he puked up a bra I'd been missing."

"Least he gave it back."

She smiled, speared another chunk of fruit. "Remember that morning in Bermuda we woke to the rain?"

I nodded.

"Sheets of it, like walls really, vibrating off the windows and you couldn't even see the sea from our room."

I nodded again, tried to hurry her through it. "And we stayed in bed all day and drank wine and messed up the sheets."

"Burned the sheets," she said. "Broke that armchair."

"I got the credit card bill," I said. "I remember, Vanessa."

She cut off a small piece of her watermelon wedge, slid it between her lips. "It's raining now."

I looked out at the small puddles on the sidewalk. Barely teardrops, their surfaces streaked gold with sun.

"It'll pa.s.s," I said.

Another dry chuckle and she sipped some more mineral water and stood. "I'll use the powder room. Take the time to refresh your memory, Patrick. Remember the bottle of Chardonnay. I have a few more at home."

She walked into the restaurant and I tried not to watch her because a glimpse of her exposed skin and I could all too easily conjure up what hid under her clothes, could see the rivulets of white wine that had splashed over her torso in Bermuda when she'd lain back on the white sheets and poured half the bottle over her body, asked if I was a bit parched.

I watched anyway, as she knew I would, but then my vision was blocked by a man's body as he stepped from the restuarant out onto the patio and put his hand on the back of Vanessa's chair.

He was tall and slim, with sandy brown hair, and he gave me a distant smile as he pulled back on Vanessa's chair and seemed about to drag it back into the restaurant with him.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"I need this seat," he said.

I looked around at the dozen or so other chairs on the patio, the twenty more inside that weren't occupied.

"It's taken," I said.

The man looked down at it. "Is it taken? Is this seat taken?"

"It's taken," I repeated.

He was very well dressed in off-white linen trousers and Gucci loafers, a cashmere black vest over a white T-shirt. His watch was a Movado, and his hands looked like they'd never touched a piece of dirt or work in his life.

"You're sure?" he asked, still talking down to the chair. "I heard this seat was unoccupied."

"It's not. You see the plate of food in front of it? It's occupied. Trust me."

He looked over at me and there was something loose and afire in his ice blue eyes. "So I can take it? It's okay?"

I stood. "No, you can't take it. It's taken."

The man swept his hands out at the patio. "There are plenty of other ones. You get one of those. I'll take this. She'll never know the difference."

"You get one of those," I said.

"I want this one." He spoke reasonably, carefully, as if discussing something with a child that was beyond the child's grasp. "I'll just take it. Okay?"

I took a step toward him. "No. You won't. It's spoken for."

"I'd heard it wasn't," he said gently.

"You heard wrong."

He looked down at the chair again, then nodded. "So you say, so you say."

He held up an apologetic hand that matched his smile and walked back into the restaurant as Vanessa stepped past him onto the patio.

She looked back over her shoulder. "Friend of yours?"

"No."

She noticed a small splatter of rain on her chair. "How'd my chair get wet?"

"Long story."

She gave me a curious frown and pushed the chair aside, pulled another one out from the closest table and settled back into her original place.