A Farewell to Legs: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,18
in from the kitchen, where I was frantically loading dishes into the dishwasher, to better hide from “company” the fact that we load our sink with dirty dishes until someone makes us stop.
Miriam stopped and looked at my wife. “You didn’t tell him?” she asked.
“I told him about the lizard,” Abby stammered. “I didn’t tell him you were bringing it.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Miriam asked.
“He is right here in the room,” I reminded them.
“It’s simple,” said Abigail. “Miriam knew all about the whole gecko thing because Melissa already has one. So when we decided Leah could have one. . .”
“When we decided?”
Abby gave me her “the-child-is-watching-so-please-play-along” look. “Yes, when we decided, Miriam offered to buy it, and bring all the equipment, as an early birthday present for Leah.”
“Her birthday’s five months from now,” I pointed out.
“A very early birthday present.”
“It’s so cute!” my daughter was gushing. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
I considered answering “yes,” but more sensible heads prevailed. Miriam actually looked a little embarrassed. “Well, we’re not really sure yet, Leah,” she said. “We’ll have to give it a few months, and then we can look, maybe with a magnifying glass, and find out.”
“You know what they’re looking for,” giggled Melissa, and Leah laughed along with her. I finished loading the dishwasher and turned it on.
Leah walked in with the cage. “Look, Daddy,” she said. “She’s so cute!”
“I thought you didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl,” I reminded her.
“I’ve decided it’s a girl,” she said practically. “Look, Daddy, look!”
I have to admit to backing up just a tad. “It’s really nice, honey,” I said. “Why don’t you take it up to your room and find a spot for it to live?”
Miriam had brought a small fish tank and other equipment for the tiny reptile, and she set it up on Leah’s desk, with a heat lamp to keep the lizard, which the girls named E-LIZ-abeth, warm. I stayed in the kitchen, cleaning up, while the estrogen brigade set up E-LIZ-abeth with her new home. After a few minutes, Abby and Miriam walked downstairs and joined me at the kitchen table. Miriam put a small plastic container in the refrigerator.
“Is that the. . .”
“Worms,” Miriam said. “And they have to be wriggling, or the lizard won’t eat them.”
“This is a lovely pet,” I told my wife.
Abby started to make coffee, since she is the coffee drinker in the house. I tend to content myself with Diet Coke, but it was evening, and any caffeine at all would keep me up until roughly Thursday. So I abstained. Miriam sat down at the kitchen table with me.
“I’m actually glad you came,” I said to Miriam. “Leah’s been P. . . P. . . P. . . PMS all afternoon.”
Abigail turned the coffeemaker on and looked at me. “You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Less and less, as I get older. Get what?”
“She was nervous because she knew Miriam was coming with the lizard, and she was afraid of you.” Abby reached into the freezer and pulled out a box of Girl Scout cookies, which she started to arrange on a plate. Girl Scout cookies must be eaten frozen, or not at all.
“She’s afraid of me?”
“You’re the one who didn’t want the gecko,” Miriam said. “Leah knows that, and she thinks that if you say no, she can’t have it.”
“She’s right. If I had said no, she couldn’t have it. But I did-n’t say no. In fact, I don’t remember being given a choice.”
“Leah didn’t know that,” Abby said, putting the cookies down. “She still thinks you’re going to throw the lizard out of the house.”
I groaned a little. “As long as I don’t have to walk it or anything, I don’t care. I take no responsibility for that animal. It lives or dies based on how well Leah takes care of it.”
Miriam always knows how to change the subject—all she has to do is ask about me. “So, what are you working on these days?” she asked.
I told her about Legs and my conversation with Abrams. “You’re a political science professor,” I reminded her, in case she’d forgotten her profession since leaving work today. “Who would Louis Gibson’s enemies be?”
“You’ll notice the word ‘science’ in there, Aaron,” she said, nibbling a tiny bite off a Thin Mint in the time it would take me to eat three cookies. “I don’t deal in minute-to-minute politics— I’m teaching theory.”