Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,63

and the character pops into my mind, straight from Subconscious Central Casting.”

“That’s amazing,” he said.

You’re amazing, she wanted to say, but not here. Not in public.

And so, when he asked if it wouldn’t spoil the writing experience to talk about her mystery—he’d love to hear about how it was built from the inside—she used up some time spinning out the rough idea of a possible new plot, as they traded off watching the post office window.

People entered and left, but the only one who went near that section was a woman with a cane. Godiva stiffened, and Rigo broke off what he was saying to murmur, “I can get over there pretty fast if you think I should.” Then the woman bent over to a box three levels below Godiva’s.

“False alarm,” she said.

The time whizzed by. From her book, they went to the Phantom and its unexpected new career as a publicity magnet. Godiva said, “I haven’t asked Alejo yet what he loves doing, but my guess is, he’s into cars?”

“He’s into rebuilding old things,” Rigo said. “Especially beautiful things. I wouldn’t even have the Phantom if it hadn’t been for him. I was past wanting one probably by the time he lost his first tooth. But on our trip to San Francisco I happened to mention how you and I used to look at those magazine ads and wish. He remembered when he found that chassis rotting in a field. He thought he and I could rebuild it together.”

“So it was his idea,” Godiva marveled.

“Yes. It was a turning point for him, discovering how much he loves finding wreckage with what he calls good bones. Cars, cabinets, anything. He rebuilt the entire bannister in our place. It was . . . functional before, but now it’s as fine as something in one of those grand townhouses you see in the pictures. Did the same out front. Rebuilt the sagging porch into a balcony extending all along that side of the house. We have meals out there in autumn, when the leaves are turning, and the temperature is about perfect. He likes beautiful things. Especially things people made.”

Of course he did. These two men so unexpectedly, and so wonderfully, back in her life were quite a pair. She was choking up again. What a stupid time and place for that!

She pushed her laptop open again, to have something to do, then Rigo said in that mild tone, “Here’s an idea. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be wanting some lunch before too long—it’s already nearly one o’clock. If you want to make a run to get that hat, I can watch, then maybe we can turn about, and we can think about some lunch?”

And that’s the way the day went.

She found herself a new sunhat, and over lunch they talked about Alejo again. More about his childhood here, anecdotes she remembered, and ones their son had recounted to Rigo. Many of them the sort of thing boys hid from their mothers, mostly not to worry them.

In Alejo’s case, it was definitely nothing worse. “He hated wanton destruction,” Godiva said. “Though he loved fireworks on the Fourth, he never went through a phase of throwing cherry bombs to destroy things, or tossing rocks through windows.”

Rigo grinned. “He and his buddy Lance saw themselves as some kind of Avengers, from the comic book. Alejo didn’t know it yet, and Lance had been raised to know, so he didn’t think about it, but they got their strength and speed from their shifter heritage, so though they weren’t the biggest boys in their environment, nobody could beat them. He told me they liked roaming around swooping on bullies, then vanishing. He never said, but I think at age twelve and thirteen they both had to deal with severe disappointment that this was not the age of capes and masks.”

Godiva burst out laughing. “You’re absolutely right. When he was small, I remember he tied his bath towel around his shoulders when he jumped around the apartment.”

The rest of the afternoon sped by as they switched rapidly from one subject to another, until the street began to show the long shadows of late afternoon. Godiva’s stomach was beginning to remind her to look for dinner about the time Rigo took out his phone, then exclaimed, “Alejo is awake, and wants to know if it’s time to switch shifts.”

“Okay,” she said. “How about I go across the street and make one more check, then I’ll get