same young woman is in front of Benton and me on the sidewalk along Quincy Street, holding her iPhone in its ice-blue case, clamping it back into its black plastic holder, and she accidently fumbles her water bottle, sending it tumbling. It thuds to the sidewalk, rolling in our direction, and Benton bends down to pick it up.
“Sorry. Thanks very much.” She looks hot, her face flushed and dripping.
“You definitely don’t want to be without this today.” He returns the bottle to her, and she secures it in its holder as I notice a young man trotting through the grass of the Faculty Club.
Her rimless sunglasses are directed at him as she remounts the bike, steadying herself, the toes of her sneakers touching the sidewalk. He’s dark and thin, in slacks and a button-up shirt as if he works in an office. Then he’s in front of her, hot and grinning, handing her a FedEx envelope that’s labeled but not sealed.
“Thanks,” he says. “Just put the tickets in and it’s ready to go.”
“I’ll drop it off on my way home. See you later.” She kisses him on the lips.
Then he trots away, back toward the Faculty Club, where I gather he must work. She puts on her helmet, not bothering with the strap that’s supposed to be snug under her chin. Turning to me, she flashes a smile.
“You’re the peanut-butter-pie lady,” she says.
“What a nice way to be characterized. Hello again.” I smile back at her, and I almost remind her to lock her chin strap.
But I don’t know her. I don’t want to be overbearing, especially after being accused of yelling at Bryce and disturbing the peace.
“Please be careful out here,” I say instead. “The heat index is hazardous.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” She grips the flat riser handlebars, pushing down the pedals with long strong strokes.
“Not always,” Benton says.
I feel the hot air stir sluggishly as she rides past.
“Enjoy the pie and the play!” she tosses back at us, and she reminds me of my niece, sharp-featured, bold and extremely fit.
I watch her bare legs pumping, her calf muscles bunching as she picks up speed, cutting across the street, threading through the same gate I used earlier. I remember being that age when the best and worst was before me, and I wanted to know everything up front as if my fate could be negotiated. Who would I be with and what would I become? Where would I live and would I make a difference to anyone? I speculated, and at times tried to force my life in the direction I thought it should go. I wouldn’t do that now.
I watch the young woman’s retreating figure getting smaller, more distant and remote as she pedals through the Yard, between the sprawling brick Pusey and Lamont libraries. I don’t understand why anyone would want to know the future. I wonder if she does, and the conservative answer is probably. But the more likely one is absolutely. Whereas I don’t anymore.
“What did Marino want?” Benton lightly, affectionately touches my back as we follow the sidewalk.
Up ahead on our left is the split-rail paling, and set far back is the brick-and-white-trimmed neo-Georgian building, two stories with a glass-domed conservatory. The four tall chimneys rise proudly and symmetrically from different corners, and ten dormers stand sentry along the slate hipped roof.
The long walkway of dark red pavers winds through rockery and ornamental shrubs. The sun has dipped behind buildings, and the oppressive air is like a steam room that’s slowly cooling.
Benton has taken off his suit jacket, and it’s neatly folded over his arm as we walk past the bright pink bottlebrushes of summer sweet, purple mountain laurel, and white and blue hydrangeas. None of it stirs in the breathless air, and only a scattering of dark green leaves shows the slightest blush of red. The longer it’s hot and parched, the more unlikely it is that there will be much in the way of fall colors this year.
As Benton and I talk, I do the best I can to answer his questions about Marino’s intentions, explaining he was emphatic that he didn’t want me out walking by myself. But I don’t think it’s his only agenda. I have the distinct impression that Benton doesn’t either.
“At any rate,” I continue telling the story, “he was out and about all the while he was on the phone, basically bird-dogging me while he pretended he wasn’t. Then he drove me the last fifty feet, and that’s where you found me a few minutes ago.”
“The last fifty feet?” Benton repeats.
“It’s what he mandated. I was to get into his car and he would drive me the last fifty feet. Specifically the last damn fifty feet.”
“Obviously what he wanted was to have a private face-to-face conversation with you. Maybe it’s true he didn’t want to talk over the phone. Or he used that as an excuse. Or it could be both,” Benton says as if he knows, and he probably does because it’s not hard for him to profile Pete Marino.
“So tell me why you decided to go for a stroll all by yourself, dressed in a suit and carrying heavy bags?” Benton gets around to that. “Aren’t you the one who warns everybody about the heat index—the way you just did with the woman on the bicycle a minute ago?”
“I suppose that’s why there’s the cliché about practicing what you preach.”
“This isn’t about practicing what you preach. It’s about something else.”
“I thought a walk might do me good,” I reply, and he’s silent. “And besides I had the theater tickets to pick up.”
I explain that I also had gifts to find at the college bookstore, The Coop. The T-shirt, nightgown and handsome coffee-table book may not be the most original presents I’ve ever bought but they were the best I could muster after wandering the aisles. As Benton knows all too well, my sister is difficult to shop for.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what she likes,” I’m saying, and he isn’t answering.
A popular musical and a peanut butter pie, for example, and Dorothy also will be very pleased with the skimpy Harvard tee that she can wear with her skimpier leggings or jeans. Her Ivy League shirt will be amply filled by her surgically enhanced bosom, and no doubt she’ll inspire many scintillating conversations in the bars of South Beach and Margaritaville.
“And the Cambridge photography book is something she can carry back to Miami as if it was her idea,” I explain as Benton listens without a word, the way he does when he has his own opinion and it’s different from mine. “And that’s exactly how my sister will play it when she shares pictures of Harvard, MIT, the Charles River with Mom. It will be all about Dorothy, which is fine if it means Mom enjoys her gift and feels remembered.”
“It’s not fine,” Benton says as we pass through the deepening shadows of tall boxwood hedges.
“Some things won’t change. It has to be fine.”
“You can’t let Dorothy get to you this way.” His tinted glasses look at me.
“I assume you’ve heard the nine-one-one call.” I change the subject because my sister has wasted quite
