the cause of Daphne’s sickly cough.
Betsy trundled upstairs to the studio, and Meghan cleaned up the dishes. Occasionally she heard laughter from the men, and a loudly hooted expletive here and there. Better get out there before they’re incoherent, she thought. She wiped the counters and dried her hands, then went out the back door. There was only Ken in the back lawn, lazily swinging a golf club. He lifted his head and saw her, and stared at her quite brazenly, her long legs in particular, making her wish she was wearing something more concealing than short shorts and a tank top.
“Where’s Derek?” she asked.
“Gone out to get cigarettes and papers,” he replied.
“Papers?”
“Rolling papers. Come on over—I sold a bike today, one of my motorbikes. I got some serious cash for it, and now it’s like, Let’s Party!”
“I’ll pass,” Meghan said. “Got things to do.”
“Should I tell Derek you’re looking for him?”
“Sure. Tell him it can wait until tomorrow.”
“Will do.”
She went inside, irritated that she had something important to say to Thomas, but couldn’t. There was an hour to fill before Betsy’s bath and bedtime, and what she really wanted to do was get back online and continue her research into tuberculosis, autoimmune illnesses, and medieval medicine, but with Betsy at the computer she decided instead to pick up her galley copy of Enemies with Benefits again, hoping a scene she’d somehow missed in her cursory skim-through would now jump out at her and beg to be illustrated. She spread herself out on the living room couch, but after a few minutes she realised she was sweating. The room was stuffy in the heat. She decided the best place would be out on the deck, but that meant putting herself on display to the drunks next door. It would have to be the lawn—the fence would grant privacy.
There was no one in Derek’s back yard when she went out. She brought a picnic blanket to spread on the lawn, and flopped down on it with a couple of cushions from the patio chairs. In a few minutes she could hear, but not see, Derek and Ken emerge from the house and settle back into an evening of drinking beer around a picnic table ashtray. She perked up when she heard Ken say, “Your neighbour wanted to talk to you.”
“What about?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Apparently she’s having dreams about me.” Derek said.
“Sounds promising.”
“Yeah. Some dude that looks just like me, some ancient prince in a castle.”
“Doesn’t matter. Nice ass trumps craziness any day,” Ken remarked.
“She truly believes there’s someone listening in my head, and she needs to talk to him. Thomas, his name is, and she’ll be like, ‘I’m talking to Thomas, not you.’ I’ve told her there’s no one else in there, it’s all private property, but she doesn’t care, says it doesn’t matter whether I’m aware or not, he’s there, all right. He’s in there.”
“Don’t let her see the real you,” Ken advised.
“Too late for that! Don’t you remember me yelling at her the other night? Up at her window right there? In spite of that I’ve landed in her good books. Christopher Hitchens to the contrary, there is a God. I’d do her in a minute. She’s gorgeous, don’t you think?”
“Like I said, nice ass trumps craziness.”
“Everything’s nice about her.”
Meghan, now fully focussed on her eavesdropping, waited for more, but instead there came a prolonged silence. She pictured the two of them lost in thought, hiding in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Then Ken said, “Someone like her might be good for you.”
“What do you mean?” she heard Derek say.
“Well. It’s just. Well you know. She’d have been about the same age, now.”
“Don’t even go there,” Derek said quietly. “Although I know you care. And I’m glad you care.” Then there was another prolonged silence. Then Derek broke the sombre mood with a sudden loud, elongated yowl—Meghan pictured him rising from the picnic table and stretching like a noisy cat. “You’re my best friend, old Ken,” he sighed affectionately. “It’s been a long strange journey and back through all of that, and here we are, still the best of buds.”
“Smoking the best of buds,” added Ken.
“Gimme a hug,” said Derek.
“Fuck that.”
“No, come on, do it. No one’s hugging me these days. Every human needs a hug.”
“All right then, for charity’s sake. Lonely old Derek.”
Meghan heard the beavertail claps of the manly backslaps that are inevitable when drunken men hug each other. She’d begun to worry about how she was going to