to turn off the jukebox that was playing a combination of 90s pop and guitar country. She did.
Since when did I develop this pathological hatred of music?
Since I could name one asshole or another who’s partial to every kind there is, from Bach to hip-hop. Since when music is playing it’s harder to hear someone coming up behind you. Since Paul played the cello and every time I hear a stringed instrument it makes me feel like the performer is jabbing the bow down my throat. Certainly I hated music long before listening to Kate Smith belt, “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain” on a hot summer night, the night I lost Jessica.
I asked Cheri to tell me about herself. “Did you come here from someplace else like the rest of us?”
“No,” she said. “My people have been ranchers here for nearly two hundred years. We were never slaves.”
She sounded proud, like she wanted people to know that about her, to see something more than the fact that she was black. I’d heard about that, that small percent of the Arizona population, African American, who found their way here through some means other than slave ships. “Are you and Emery together?” I ask.
She smiled and nodded.
“How did you meet?”
“I needed a job to help pay for school. He knew my family.”
“How are your studies going?”
“Good.” That’s all she said, and then flickered sad. Everybody lies.
I changed the topic again by ordering a burrito with guacamole to absorb some of the liquor, which was getting to me after not eating anything since that bagel in the morning.
My brief exchange with Cheri about her relationship with Emery made thinking about Carlo unavoidable. Because that seemed somewhat preferable to thinking about mass pig fatalities, I gave in to the memories.
Thirty-six
I hadn’t spent that much energy standing in my closet staring at my clothes in a long time. For my first date with Carlo, I ultimately chose a floor-length sleeveless black jersey with a low-slung cowl neck that showed off my relatively firm triceps while hiding my monkey-face knees. I let my hair hang naturally instead of pasting it to the back of my head in a twist.
Sound of a knock, he didn’t use the doorbell. When I opened the front door it didn’t take a trained eye to see the effect I had. His retinas dilated, and his pulse throbbed in the side of his throat. Surprisingly, I could feel my own pulse accelerate in response, as if our hearts were souped-up engines and we were revving for a drag. I tried to remember the last time I had sex, thought I’d rather go straight to bed, dinner was going to feel interminable. He helped me into his unimpressive Volvo, the back of his hand grazing my bare shoulder.
But dinner wasn’t at all what I expected. Oh, we went over all the usual backstory. He shared that he was an ex–Catholic priest and had been teaching since he left the Jesuits in his forties. And he talked about Jane, his wife of twenty years, with a seasoned grief that somehow made his face only more attractive. I told him my story as well, the sanitized version, how I was in law enforcement, just a desk job really, retired, not much else to tell.
“Federal or local?” he asked, ignoring the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it.
“Federal. I investigated copyright infringements,” I added to forestall any more questions about myself, with a small regret that the first lie happened so soon. To turn the focus back on him I gave him a compassionate stare mixed with a “come on, you can tell me” twinkle. “Was it too hard to be a priest? Dealing with so much horror in the world?”
“No, that wasn’t it. I found people to be essentially good. That was my problem with the church.”
“Since when?” I said, taking an ever so small sip of wine and glancing appreciatively at the soft-shell crab appetizer placed before us. He had brought me to a very nice place.
“Since when have people been good, you mean?”
I nodded, dipping a little leg into a cream sauce and nibbling on it.
“Since always,” he said. “That original sin business is crap,” he said, but in a mild tone, lacking the intensity with which people usually debate matters of faith. He sipped his Manhattan, with no intention of saying more about that. A little sissy, that Manhattan, but nobody’s perfect. Then he asked, “Why, what has