“My background. Who do you think I am? What do you think I do for a living?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t know?” she said.
“I don’t care what you do for a living.”
“I have an antique business. I’ve done other things as well.”
“I don’t care about your history. You are what you are. You have the statuesque physique of a warrior woman and the eyes of a little girl.”
“Why are you here today?”
“To bring you these small gifts.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m here to do whatever you want.”
He touched her on the cheek with his fingertips. She was breathing through her nose, her nipples hardening. She searched his eyes, her cheeks flaming. “Call me later,” she said.
“What’s your number?”
“I just got my phone. I don’t remember what it is. Call information.”
“You don’t have a cell phone?”
“I lost it.”
“You still don’t trust me, do you? I don’t blame you.”
She wet her lips. She couldn’t take her eyes off his. Her cheek seemed to burn where he had touched her. “You called me a kike while you almost broke my fingers.”
“I’ll be ashamed of that for the rest of my life.”
“I have to go into the bathroom.”
“Do you mean for me to stay? I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret later. I’m going to leave and let you make some decisions while I’m not around.”
“I didn’t say you had to leave.”
“No, I don’t want to be a source of anxiety or guilt or conflict for you. I’d better go. I’m sorry for any offense I may have given you.”
After he walked across the gallery and out the screen door and across the grass to the Humvee, oak leaves tumbling out of the sunlight onto his hair and dress shirt, she was so weak that she had to hold on to the doorjamb lest she fall down.
“WHAT’S THE MATTER?” Clete asked her. He was sitting in his swivel chair behind his office desk, one corner of his mouth downturned, his eyes veiled.
“I feel pretty stupid,” she answered. “No, worse than that. I hate myself.”
“Over what?”
“Pierre Dupree. He was just at my house,” she said.
Clete showed no expression. “Want to tell me about it?” he said.
She talked for ten minutes. His eyes looked into space while he listened. Through the window, she could see the bayou and, on the far side of it, a black man cutting the grass in front of the old convent. The grass had already started to turn pale with the coming of winter, and the flowers in the beds looked wilted, perhaps from an early frost. The cold look of the shade on the convent walls disturbed her in a way she couldn’t articulate. “I don’t understand my feelings,” she said. “I feel like something died inside me.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong,” Clete said.