his shoulder.
“You know that night a long time ago when you met Lou?”
He nodded and walked back to the table.
“Did it really last a weekend? A three-day bender?”
“Near as I can recall. I do remember thinking Lou was very smart and if I ever wrote a sequel to Simple Simon I’d want to work with him. Of course, I didn’t think it would take me this long.”
“Have you been working on it this whole time?”
“God no. I’m not that pathetic.”
“Can I see it?”
“The manuscript?”
I nodded and washed down another burning bite of food.
“How fast do you work?”
“Very.”
“Well, then I think we should wait. I want you to understand why I wrote the book first. Otherwise you won’t understand it.”
“Post-modern?”
“Uh…not exactly.”
I lifted my fork, about to subject myself to another bite, when two rabbits appeared from behind a living room chair. They hopped toward the table. I put down my fork and squinted. I blinked. I blinked again. One of the rabbits sat up on its haunches and licked its paws. For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating. Roland turned around to see what I was looking at.
“Oh…those two fellows are Pedro and José. They’re Norwegian dwarf bunnies. Siamese. See how they kind of resemble a Siamese cat around their noses?”
I nodded. “And they just hop around the house? Like that? Loose all the time.”
“Don’t worry. They’re not vicious or anything.”
I looked at his face, trying to discern how serious he was. Apparently very. His eyes registered concern about my fear of loose rabbits, so I tried to put him at ease.
“I wasn’t worried that they’re vicious. I…I just never knew anyone who had them just…hopping around like that.”
“Later you might see Cecelia. She’s a white one. More shy. We think she might be pregnant. They’re housebroken, you know.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Most of the time. I occasionally find rabbit poop on the bathroom carpet. I keep telling Maria it’s because the carpet is green and they think it’s grass.”
I stood and slowly approached Pedro, who wisely saw I was not an animal lover and hopped away.
“So you like rabbits?”
“I never thought about it, actually.”
With that, Maria burst through the door carrying an armload of fresh cucumbers from an as-yet-unseen vegetable garden.
“Maria, this is our houseguest, Cassie Hayes.”
“Hello,” she smiled, her black eyes open wide.
“Hi.” I was struck by how beautiful she was. She was probably my age. Her dark eyes were framed by jet-black lashes, and her raven hair trailed halfway down her back in a braid. She didn’t wear a trace of makeup, and her skin was a deep yellow-brown. Wide cheekbones and a classic nose made her look like an Incan sculpture. At the same time, her hands were rough and chapped as they clutched her vegetables, and she wore ripped jeans and a T-shirt. She was chubby by the standards of Vogue. But then again any woman who has actually gone through puberty and grown breasts and hips is fat according to Vogue.
“Maria lives in the guesthouse on the other side of the pool.”
“Did you eat lunch yet, Mr. Riggs?”
“Sí, Maria.”
“You, too?” She looked at me.
“Yes.”
“You like it?”
More lies. “Delicious.” Anxious to change the subject, I asked about Cecilia. “So how many babies do rabbits have at once?”
Maria answered as she started washing and chopping vegetables, “I’m not sure. This is my first bunny birth.”
As she chopped vegetables, she set aside a little pile of cut-up pieces. She saw me look at them.
“For my birds.”
“Birds?”
“Yes. Sweet birds. Sing beautifully.”
I looked at Roland. He silently shook his head. In a moment I knew why. The loudest squawk I ever heard emanated from a sunroom off of the kitchen. It was a cross between a shriek and a banshee howl.
“One minute, Pepito!” Maria glowed. “My babies. Them and Mr. Riggs. Now shoo, I must start cooking dinner. If you liked my lunch, wait until supper. Very hot!”
“Great,” I smiled, completely lacking enthusiasm. A month of this and my ulcer would be the size of a crater.
“Let’s get you settled in.” Roland stood. We went through the gardens to my car and took out my suitcase and bags. Between the two of us, we carried everything in one trip.
Walking back to the house, I forced myself not to stare at him. I was staying with an icon, and part of me remembered when I was a little girl. There were three Christmases I remembered when my mother hadn’t yet left, and my father hadn’t yet broken down and everything was perfect. The tree was decorated like something out of a Fifth Avenue store window; a toy train chugging beneath it. Our apartment smelled of cider and mulling spices. It was a damn Currier and Ives card. And I remember pinching myself to see if it was real. And when I knew for sure it was real, I tried to remember every detail. I stared and absorbed and thought to myself, even then, that perfect doesn’t come along too often. I would remember everything about those Christmases forever. Well, for an editor, Roland Riggs was better than Christmas. He was history, and I was in his house, and when I was old and gray, I wanted to be able to remember everything about my stay. Every painting on the wall. Every word he said. Of course, I needed to remember it all for my nightly reports to Lou. He’d never forgive me if original galleys from Simple Simon sat on the bookshelf, and I didn’t tell him. Of course, neither one of us expected I’d be staying with Dr. Doolittle.
My room was better than the Four Seasons. It had its own private balcony overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and was decorated in French country, painted in a shade of blue to rival the sea’s. I felt almost serene when I stepped inside, though my eyes instinctively darted around, looking for a discreet place to plug in my coffeemaker.
“Over here is a desk…and you can plug in your laptop here.”
“Won’t I tie up your phone line?”
Roland Riggs leaned his head back and laughed loudly like a drunk in a bar whose bartender has just one-upped him in the joke department. I arched one eyebrow.
“Except for Lou, I haven’t called anyone in fifteen years. Maybe my old editor a couple of times. Then he died. But you get the picture.”
“Okay fine. So the computer won’t bother you.”
“No. I surf the Net myself some mornings. Do you get on your computer much before six a.m.?”
“No offense, but I don’t breathe much before six.”
He roared with laughter again. I realized the unseen parrot was merely mimicking its landlord. “Splendid. Well then, I will let you get unpacked. Take a nap if you want. Stroll the beach. I’ll expect you for dinner at six-thirty. Oh…hold on.” He withdrew a small roll of Tums from his pocket. “If you thought lunch was hot, you may want to keep a pack of these in your pocket at all times. I have a six-month supply of these little rolls in the linen closet at the end of the hall, behind the big stack of blue guest towels that I never use because I’ve never had