“I’d like to see the rest of your manuscript,” Fremont said.
“That’s very kind of you,” Alafair said.
“Kermit, would you either give me a refill or pass me the bloody shaker so I can do it myself?” Weingart said.
“Sorry, Rob,” Kermit said, tilting the cocktail shaker over Weingart’s glass. “Rob took the speedboat out by himself today and ran through a tree limb. Luckily, he wasn’t hurt more seriously.”
“I don’t think anyone is interested in my boating misadventure. Unless Alafair would like to use it in her novel-in-progress. Otherwise, I’d appreciate the conversation being shifted off of me,” Weingart said.
Kermit folded his hands and gazed at the sunset and at the wind blowing on the sugarcane fields, obviously avoiding eye contact with Weingart. By the time the limo reached the restaurant in Breaux Bridge, Weingart’s resentment seemed to have hardened into silent detachment. After they ordered, he stared out the window at the elevated sidewalks and old brick buildings and wood colonnades on the main street and the rusted iron bridge that spanned Bayou Teche. He broke a breadstick and bit down on it, then winced and touched his lip.
“Hurt yourself?” Oliver Fremont asked.
“I have an impacted tooth.”
“Those are painful,” Fremont said.
“Why are we here?” Weingart said, addressing himself to no one in particular.
“We’re here because they serve fine food. Let’s enjoy ourselves, Robert,” Kermit said.
“Thanks for correcting me, Kermit. Alafair, did you know that Kermit let me read your manuscript?” Weingart said.
“Yes, I became aware of that when I saw the note you wrote on the last page,” Alafair replied.
“What note?” Kermit said.
“Evidently you didn’t see it,” Alafair said. “Why don’t you ask Robert what he had to say?”
A waitress was pouring wine into their glasses. Outside the French doors, the sky was purple, the streets thick with shadow. The lights on the drawbridge had just come on. “Robert, what did you say about Alafair’s manuscript?” Kermit asked.
Weingart lifted his eyes to the stamped ceiling of the restaurant, as though searching for a profound meaning inside the design. “No, it escapes me. Do you remember, Alafair? I hope you found it helpful.”
“I believe you said it might sell a hundred copies if it was packaged with a hygiene promotion.”
“No, I think I said ‘female hygiene.’”
Kermit Abelard looked straight ahead, his gaze focused on the other diners, the white-aproned waiters and waitresses working their way between the tables. “I think Robert probably meant that as an indictment of the industry, not your book,” he said. “Isn’t that true, Rob?”
“I’m afraid I’m clueless. I can’t even remember the story line at this point,” he said. “Can you give me a nudge, Alafair? Something about first love, teenage girls being kissed on the mouth under the trees, Daddy hovering in the background. Sound familiar? It was tingly stuff through and through.”
“That’s not the story at all,” Kermit said.
Weingart leaned forward on the tablecloth, his cheeks sunken, as though he had drawn all the spittle out of his mouth. “Did you tell Alafair what you and I were doing before you gave me the manuscript? In the boathouse? Because you couldn’t wait to go inside?”
“I think you carry a great injury in your soul, Robert. And no matter what you do or say, I forgive you for it,” Kermit said.
“Oh, good try. I think I now know where Alafair gets the unctuous goo she uses in her dialogue,” Weingart said. “You forgive me? Oh, that’s wonderful.”
“You shouldn’t have written that remark on her manuscript,” Kermit said.
“I didn’t just write the remark, I said it to you, Kermit. To your face, two feet from your ear. Tell me I didn’t or that you didn’t hear me. The kitty cat got your tongue?”
“Why are you acting like this?”
“Because you’re just so you, Kermit.” Weingart drank from his wineglass and smiled at the waitress as she placed his food in front of him. “My, red snapper and a stuffed potato. Do you mind if I start now? It’s not very good if it’s cold. Alafair looks a little conflicted. What does your father call you? It’s Alf, isn’t it? Talk with Alf, Kermit.” Weingart inserted a forkful of potato and sour cream and parsley and bacon bits in his mouth.
Alafair’s gaze was fixed on the French doors and the sunset on the bayou. She waited for Kermit to speak again, to say something in his own defense if not hers, to be more than the thing she feared he was. But he remained silent. When she glanced sideways at him, his hands were limp on the table, his eyes lowered, his expression a study in gray wax. The most incongruous aspect of his demeanor was the muscular configuration of his torso, his square, blunt-tipped workingman’s hands, the cut of his jaw, the dimple in his chin, all of the physical elements she associated with his youthful masculine vigor, all of it now insignificant in contrast to the mantle of cowardice that Robert Weingart seemed to have draped on his shoulders.