Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar Page 0,21
did you find a buyer so fast?”
So the questions began, leading to a predictable conclusion. “I put an ad in the paper,” Simon said, “like we talked about.”
Amy thought for a moment, which was what he was afraid of. “The paper doesn’t come out till tomorrow.”
Rigero smiled mischievously. “I guess I had an unfair advantage—I saw the ad early.”
“All right,” Simon said standing up now, “you do the heavy lifting, David, and I’ll slip the rug under.”
“You saw the ad early,” Amy repeated, circling them. “You work at the Register?”
“Yeah, in the pressroom. Just started a couple of weeks ago.” He ran his fingers smoothly over the top. “This is actually a pretty good piece. The wood’s not warped at all.”
“Have you tried playing it?” Amy asked.
Rigero positioned himself at the side of the piano and found two grips for his hands. “Mr. Howe told me it’s out of tune—that’s why he knocked twenty-five dollars off, right?”
“That I did,” Simon said as he knelt down, the rug in his hand.
“You can always get a piano tuned right, but you can’t fix warped wood.”
“So,” Amy said, her voice hardening now, “you’re an expert on pianos?”
Rigero shook his head. “I just know wood.”
“What else do you know?”
“Ready, lift,” Simon said, and as the piano rose off the floor, he shoved the small rug under the two side legs.
Rigero set the piece gently down, then rubbed his hands together. “I guess I know a thing or two about a thing or two.”
Amy nodded. “Robert De Niro—This Boy’s Life.”
“Yeah, he was great in that, wasn’t he?”
“In a psychotic sort of way, yes.”
Rigero grinned. “Nobody does psychotic better than De Niro.”
Amy ran her hand over the top of the piano, a caress. “Prison,” she said, and both men turned toward her, “is that something you know a little about?”
Rigero glanced at Simon.
“What about—”
“Amy,” Simon cut in but then didn’t know what to say. He had never been able to get her to hold her tongue.
She regarded him a moment, then turned back to Rigero.
“Rape?” he said. “Is that what you want to know about?”
Amy stared at him for a few moments. “Maybe Simon didn’t tell you, but I’m a therapist, and my longest-running patients have been sexually assaulted.”
Rigero rubbed his arm hard across his face, turning it red for a moment. “And like how many rapists do you have as clients?”
“I don’t treat rapists.”
“Then you only know one side of rape.”
She dismissed his point with a flick of her hand. “You think there are two sides to rape?”
Rigero shrugged. “There are two sides to everything, if you want to listen to them.”
“Okay,” Simon said, stepping between them, “let’s move a piano.”
He helped secure the old upright in the truck, positioning and repositioning, tying and retying. It took a half hour.
“That should hold her,” Rigero said as he jumped off the back. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his rear pocket. The box was crushed at the top. He opened it up and tilted it toward Simon. One mangled cigarette remained inside.
A generous offer, Simon thought. “No thanks, I don’t smoke.”
Rigero flipped open a matchbox and pulled out the remaining match. He struck it against the lighting strip, then cupped his hand around the flame and guided it toward the cigarette in his mouth. Such delicate maneuvers, the ritual of smoking. “Your wife,” he said as he expelled the first long puff, “she was getting pretty hot in there.”
Simon wondered at his choice of words. Not angry or upset—hot. “Like she said, she works with a lot of women recovering from, you know, being assaulted, so she’s kind of sensitive on the subject.”
“I just didn’t expect it, her knowing.” He said this in an offhand way, not accusatory at all.
“Sorry about that. Once she knew I hired from the prison she wouldn’t let it go. She actually guessed.”
Rigero dropped his half-cigarette to the street and rubbed it out with his foot. “You can tell her I was in seven to ten for having sex with a woman who passed out on me halfway through. Five minutes’ pleasure, seven years’ pain.”
Simon couldn’t imagine telling Amy this, but he nodded anyway, like one guy to another.
On his way back to the house he pulled out a few weeds growing up around the front walk. At the door he turned toward the sun and let the warm rays soak his face till it began to burn. Then he went inside.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, rushing into