the corners of her eyes.
Thanks, she says gruffly.
You’re welcome.
Thomas turns onto Highway 7 and drives for a few minutes in silence. Then he says, I’m sorry to hear about Mr. Goldmann.
Trudy sits up straighter.
How on earth did you know about that?
Ruth told me.
Ruth! Trudy says, bridling. God in heaven, does everybody have to know everybody else’s business around here? You’d think we were all in high school!
Sorry, Thomas repeats. I guess I shouldn’t have brought it up. Clumsy of me. I apologize.
No, don’t, it’s fine, Trudy mutters.
She glares through the side window and applies the napkin again.
You know, says Thomas after a pause, I lost my wife two years ago. About this time of year. Car accident. I was driving.
Oh, says Trudy. Oh, Thomas, I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.
Thomas cracks his joints on the steering wheel. It’s all right. I mean, it’s not, but of course you wouldn’t know. It’s not exactly something I advertise. And I only bring it up now to let you know I’m in your corner. Life is so often unfair and painful and love is hard to find and you have to take it whenever and wherever you can get it, no matter how brief it is or how it ends. So I understand. That’s all.
Trudy looks at him. He is wearing black sunglasses that make it impossible for her to see his eyes, but his face seems serene enough. Yet Trudy feels bad, not only because of what he has told her but because she has never thought much about Thomas outside of the Project. He is just always there whenever she needs him, ready with his equipment and benign smile and words of encouragement. Trudy has a sudden flash, shocking but not unpleasant, of what Thomas would look like in the nude: a potbelly and slightly concave chest, either with scant hair around the nipples or completely smooth. She takes a small breath.
Thank you, Thomas.
You’re welcome, Trudy.
They are in Minnetonka now, a privileged suburb of huge houses set far from the road on properties the size of golf courses. Old trees reach across the street to entangle in a canopy that allows only a few coins of sunlight to fall through. Thomas slows, canvassing the bronze nameplates and address plaques screwed into stone columns, and turns into the drive of 9311 Hawthorne Way.
Heavens, he says mildly of the house at the end.
Trudy silently concurs. Mr. Pfeffer’s residence is more of a showcase than a house, a towering structure of glass and steel that seems to float on its vast green lawn, an architect’s dream of contemporary angles. It is not the sort of place Trudy would choose to live in even if she could, in her wildest dreams, afford to: with those glass walls one would be as dreadfully exposed as in a dollhouse. Particularly at night. But Trudy has to grant that it is impressive, if only for the money it must have taken to construct.
And Thomas is apparently following a similar train of thought, for as they climb from the van he asks, What does this guy do?
I don’t know, Trudy admits.
You don’t? I thought that was one of the questions you always ask over the phone first.
Well, I do, says Trudy, but to tell you the truth, I don’t remember.
She takes out her portfolio and flips it open. Of course, there is only Mr. Pfeffer’s scrawled address, but the action prods her memory as to the long-ago contact conversation.
He was fairly evasive about his profession, now that I think of it, she tells Thomas. All he said was, Oh, I do a bit of this and a bit of that; I’m a man of many interests, dear lady.
Thomas gazes around as he and Trudy proceed up the flagstones of the front walk: at the manicured grass, the clever lack of any landscaping that would compete with the house, the wink of Lake Minnetonka behind it.
No wonder he was evasive, Thomas comments. He probably robbed a bank.
Probably, Trudy agrees, and then jumps, startled, for Mr. Pfeffer opens the door before she has pressed the bell.
Come in, come in, he says, ushering them into a foyer with the echoing dimensions of a cathedral. Welcome to my home! Is it not a lovely day?
He rubs his hands, then jumps aside to let Thomas pass with his cart. He is a small and dapper man, this Mr. Pfeffer, with the wiry build of a tennis player and a head as bald as a