as coffee.
"Anything else?" he asked, setting down the ceramic mug.
Nothing, apparently, that this guy would help him with.
David studied the neat geometric patterns on the imitation tile floor, as Cecil tore a sheet from his pad and laid the check on the table.
"Listen..." Cecil surprised David by softening his businesslike tone. "Didn't mean to come off hard as nails earlier. It's been kind of a long day, if you know what I mean."
"Don't worry about it," David said, forcing a smile. Waiter-with-an-attitude probably wanted a tip.
Cecil pushed his pencil behind his ear in a professorial fashion and appeared to study his surly customer.
"Is it someone special? Or are you just in here shopping?"
David sighed and sipped from his cup. "I hate to shop."
"Ah, but you love to buy." Cecil folded his arms in front of him and looked smug when David didn't answer. "The direct approach always works well for me."
David gave Cecil's narrow shoulders a second look, wondering what he'd missed. A ladies' man? This guy? Well, he'd heard that some women liked the ultrasensitive, underfed type...
"Of course"—Cecil beamed—"it helps that women love artists."
"You're a painter?"
"Better yet. I write."
Better for this place, David guessed, casting a quick glance around the packed cafe. A few couples here and there. But mainly, plenty of women. Single women, David gauged, from what he knew of Covesville.
"So, then. You're into literary types, too?" David flashed Cecil his best let's-be-buds smile.
Cecil laughed. "Let's just say I've been around enough to know you can't always judge a book by its cover. And when you get between those covers..." He grinned. "You read me?" he asked with a wink. "These brainy girls"—his pale gray eyes scanned the room—"really dig a mind link. Give them an intellectual connection, and they're all yours."
"Mind link?"
"Sure, you know. Talk about Plato, or Voltaire. Meet them on their level."
The between the covers part, David understood, and Plato he'd heard of. But Voltaire sounded more like a fast car than an aphrodisiac. "So, it's books we're talking?"
"Of course, books." Cecil nabbed the bill off the table and scribbled some notes on its back. "Here are a few recommendations. And stick your nose in a Publishers Weekly. See what's hot."
"Cecil," David said, laying down a five-dollar tip, as Marie and an elderly woman walked by. "Thanks very much."
Marie leaned against the wall next to the water fountain in the narrow hallway and shook her head at Joanne.
"It's no use. I just can't pretend any longer."
"You're trying to tell me that all of this has happened in the last two days," Joanne said. "But my guess is, it's been building longer. I mean, look, I know you were disappointed with that puny excuse for an engagement ring."
Marie shoved her left hand deeper in the pocket of her nubby brown cardigan.
"He hasn't got it, Marie. Better you face it now than later. After, say, you've produced two or three kids together and are still waiting on that first advance check from a publisher."
"But what is it, Joanne? I've spent my whole life looking."
"Baby," Joanne said, patting her shoulder. "You weren't even born when I started my exploration of the great male species. The only thing I can tell you is when it's there, you know it. And when it ain't, no amount of wishful thinking will make it so."
Marie stayed still a moment, examining her friend. Though her ivory skin had wrinkled, there was an ageless quality to her features, an impish mischievousness in those coal-black eyes.
"Joanne, how is it that a hot mama like you never married?"
"Too busy being hot to cool down for the aisle, I suppose. Or maybe I just missed my chance and didn't know it."
Marie bit her lip and waited for her to finish.
"The thing is, Marie, my problem was always the opposite of yours."
"Opposite?"
"Yes, sweetie. Too into the physical aspect, that's what I was. Free love and all that. It came with the age. Age of Aquarius. I was an old maid of fifty then, and it was liberating!
"But for a spring chick like you..." Joanne clamped her hands around Marie's shoulders and stepped closer. "Honey, a nice girl like you deserves to have it all."
Marie tilted her chin toward the well-meaning older woman. "But I've had that. Don't you see? I've had all that hot-and-bothered stuff. And I ended up with a broken heart."
"And then you met Cecil, who's about as exciting as a dead fish. And you're finally starting to see that dead fish—like company—stink after three