“All right,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “That’s it. I’ve had it. Go home, Mary-Alice. And when David gets home tonight, meet him at the door wrapped in Saran Wrap and give him the goddamned best blowjob he’s ever had in his life. According to a Cosmo I saw in the supermarket — or was it Good Housekeeping? — men don’t leave women who give good head.”
“Tom! That’s disgusting.”
“You do know how, don’t you, Mary-Alice?”
She stared at me for a handful of heartbeats, green eyes blazing and the heat rising in her face, mottling her cheeks. Then she laughed.
“Okay,” she said. “I deserved that. But that’s hardly the way you’re supposed to talk to your little sister.”
“I’m waiting,” I said.
“For what?”
“An answer.”
“Forget it.”
“I’ll rephrase the question, then. I have it on good authority that you’re a fairly attractive woman.” She smiled. “And you certainly haven’t let yourself go.” Her smile widened. “So what’s David’s nurse got, or do, that you haven’t, or don’t?” Her smile evaporated.
“Goddamnit, Tom,” she said. “I thought you’d be on my side in this.”
“What on Earth gave you that idea? You weren’t on my side when Linda divorced me and married the Fat Food King of Southern Ontario.”
“I thought you divorced her.”
“See what I mean?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?” She said it loud enough to turn the heads of the diners at the nearby tables.
“Mary-Alice,” I said patiently. “If David’s having an affair, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be insensitive — ”
“Humph. You come by it naturally.”
“ — but men don’t usually have affairs for no reason. Does David have a reason, or think he has a reason?”
“He must,” she said.
“Look,” I said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. I don’t know what you expect from me.”
“Too much, obviously.”
“Are you having an affair, Mary-Alice? Is that why you think the man that died on my roof may have been a private detective?”
“No,” she said stiffly, “I most certainly am not having an affair. But perhaps out of guilt over his own infidelity, David hired a private investigator to spy on me, hoping that in fact I was seeing someone else, which would excuse his own behaviour.”
“I think I’ll go back to work now.”
“You haven’t eaten your lunch.”
“I seem to have misplaced my appetite,” I said.
Mary-Alice didn’t say anything for half a minute or so, just sat staring down at her own untouched lunch. Finally, she lifted her head and said, “Tom, I’m sorry. Maybe I am just letting my imagination get the better of me, but things haven’t been the same between David and me lately. He’s never home, and when he is home, well, he isn’t, if you know what I mean. I’ve tried to be a good wife to him. In every sense of the word.” She gave me a wry smile. “But he just doesn’t seem interested.”
“M-A, he is nearly seventy years old.”
“He is not!” she said emphatically. “He’s only sixty-four.” Our father was sixty-five. “But I see what you’re driving at. Maybe I should suggest Viagra.”
“Sure,” I said. “Do that. Then call your lawyer.” Subtlety was not Mary-Alice’s strong suit.
She made a face. “Can we change the subject?”
“Please,” I replied.
“My therapist thinks I should get a job.”
“You’re seeing a therapist,” I said.
“Sure. Who isn’t?”
“Well, me, for one.”
“Bully for you, but not all of us are as well-balanced as you are,” she said sarcastically.
“Okay,” I said. “Your therapist thinks you should get a job. I think that’s a terrific idea.”
Mary-Alice hadn’t worked since marrying David, unless you counted occasional volunteer work for the country club or the West Bay horticultural society, which Mary-Alice probably did. The last real job Mary-Alice had had, if you can call it a real job, which Mary-Alice probably did, was doing part-time scut work in an art gallery. She’d met her husband when she’d thrown wine on him at an opening, although she claimed it was accidental.
“Did you have any particular type of job in mind?” I asked.
“I was wondering if maybe you could find something for me to do around the studio.”
“What kind of camera do you have?” I asked.
“David bought me a little Canon ELPH for my birthday. It’s digital, I think.”
“You think?”
“I haven’t used it yet. But I didn’t mean anything to do with photography, exactly.”
“Well, Mrs. Szymkowiak is only coming in once or twice a month these days.” Mrs. Szymkowiak was our part-time receptionist/bookkeeper. She was in her early sixties. She and her husband, a retired businessman a year or two older, had recently started their own business, selling ladybug colonies and homemade soap over the Internet.
“She’s your receptionist,” Mary-Alice said, miffed.
“And bookkeeper,” I said.
“I’m really looking for something a little more, well, creative.”
“Do you know anything about website design?”
“What’s that?”
When I got back to the studio, Reeny was there, leaning on her rump against the edge of the table strewn with Star Crossed paraphernalia, ankles crossed, chatting with Bobbi, who was setting up for a portrait shoot. It was a warm day, and Reeny was wearing a light summer shirtdress, with buttons from knees to neck. Not many of them were fastened, though, and she was showing a lot of long, bare leg and the deep, shadowy cleft between her breasts. D. Wayne Fowler hovered nearby, trying without success to look nonchalant, pretending to connect cables. If he’d been wearing glasses, they’d
