The Mulberry Tree

“Good,” she said as she went to the huge stainless-steel-fronted refrigerator and pulled out a porcelain platter covered with plastic wrap. “I’ll just finishing grilling the livers, and dinner will be ready.”

“Okay,” he said faintly. Livers. “What can I do to help?”

“Would you mind if we ate outside? This house is . . . ” Trailing off, she waved her hand.

“Dark and gloomy,” he said, smiling down at the top of her head. Grilled livers? Pigeons? Apples and ginger? And what was it that Patsy had said? That “the widow” had said she wouldn’t have sex with him? If this wasn’t sex, then—“I beg your pardon?” He hadn’t heard what she’d said. His taste buds were on such overload that his ears were shutting down.

“In there, in the dining area, are utensils. Could you get them out, please?”

“Sure,” he said, then nearly ran into the next room to the sideboard and opened drawers to remove knives, forks, and cloth napkins. He opened a door to get out a tablecloth, candlesticks, and candles. With his arms full, he walked through the kitchen, then halted as he looked at what she was doing. She was putting some small, juicy-looking red things on the plates with what looked like slices of chicken. “What are those?” he whispered.

“Pickled grapes. If you’d rather not—”

“No!” he said sharply, then when his voice squeaked, he cleared his throat. “I mean, no, I’m sure they’re delicious. I’m sure I’ll love them. I’m sure they’re the best pickled grapes that—I mean, well, I guess I’ll put these things outside.”

Once he was outside, Matt had a talk with himself. “Okay, Longacre, calm down. You’re making a fool of yourself,” he said as he spread the cloth on the ground, then set the candlesticks on top of it. “Stay cool. Stay calm. Get hold of yourself. You’re selling yourself out for some chopped liver.” That analogy made him laugh a bit.

“You do that too,” Bailey said as she set two full plates down on the cloth.

Matt could hardly take his eyes off the food. It looked as though she’d made a paste out of the grilled livers, smeared it on toast, then put the sliced pigeon meat on top, with the pickled grapes sprinkled about. There was salad on the side, and it wasn’t that tasteless, colorless white lettuce that Patsy and all of Calburn served, but dark green and red, curly and straight lettuces. “I do what?” he managed to whisper. He was on his knees, in a posture usually reserved for worship.

“You talk to yourself.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” he said. A hypnotist’s subject had never stared so unblinkingly as he was staring at that food.

“Go ahead, dig in,” she said as she sat down on the opposite side of the tablecloth and put her plate on her lap.

Slowly, with hands that he hoped weren’t trembling, he picked up the plate, sat dow

n on the cloth, and lifted his fork. Moving as though in slow motion, Matt put a piece of toast with liver and pigeon on his fork, then carefully, reverently, brought it to his mouth. When the flavors touched his tongue, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. It was divine. It was heaven. Ethereal. Never in his life had he tasted anything better.

Her soft laughter brought him back to reality. “Like it?” she asked.

“Mmmm,” was all he could say.

“So do you have any ideas about how to go about remodeling this place? Did Patsy talk to you about money and the fact that I don’t have much?”

Matt couldn’t have talked about money at that moment any more than he could have walked away from that plate.

After a moment, when she didn’t say anything, he looked up at her and saw that she was smiling at him. She wasn’t eating much. “There’s more, if you want it,” she said softly.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “It’s just that . . . ” He didn’t know how to explain the fact that he was eating as though he’d not eaten in a month.

“You’re tired of fried fish and fried shrimp and pizza?” she asked softly.

All Matt could do was nod and continue to eat.

After a while Bailey put her half-finished plate down on the cloth, leaned back on her hands, and looked up at the big tree overhead. “That’s a mulberry tree,” she said. “An old one. Did you know that even when it’s five hundred years old, a mulberry still bears fruit? She’s a true woman. I mean, to be fertile at that age.”

His plate was nearly empty, and he looked up at her. Was she trying to tell him something? “Before, you said that something funny happened to you today.”

“Oh,” she said, “it was nothing. Not important, really. I just . . . ”

“Go on, tell me,” he said. “I could use some conversation that has nothing to do with business.”

“I—” she began, then looked at him as though trying to decide whether or not to tell him.

Matt understood her hesitation. She was a widow, a recent widow, according to Patsy, and it hadn’t been long since Matt’s divorce. His marriage hadn’t been much, but he did know what it was like to have someone to tell about the trivial happenings of the day. “I had a flat tire today” doesn’t seem like much, but when there’s no one there to tell it to, it can feel very big.