Elisha's Bones - Don Hoesel [9]
“Funny,” she says, sliding her hand into the crook of my arm as she passes. “Come and have a cup of coffee with me.”
I hesitate for only a moment. I always have time for a cup of coffee with a lovely woman.
Her apartment, although identical in layout, bears no resemblance to my own. My furnishings illustrate the interior design limitations of a single, broke college professor. Angie, on the other hand, has impeccable taste. Everything in her seven-hundred-square-foot abode is chic and complementary, and it has nothing to do with money. We bring home the same amount, give or take a few hundred dollars, and I know that a good portion of that has to go toward that new Mustang she washes and polishes every sunny Saturday morning.
I settle onto one of the two high-back stools at the breakfast nook, setting my mail and the cigars aside as Angie pours two cups of coffee from one of those faux-industrial coffee–makers.
“New shoes?” I ask.
“I bought them last month. You’re just not very observant.”
“I am about some things. Like your hair. You got it cut.” She places a cup in front of me and I taste it, finding it strong. “And a few highlights?”
“Not bad, Professor.”
Angie takes a seat on a stool across the island from me. She’s wearing a white tank top that shows off her toned arms.
Angie’s a runner, and a serious one. She wakes up at six every morning and does a circuit that takes her out of Ellen down Highway 31 and then back into town on State Road 77. It must be five miles and she hardly breaks a sweat. I know she hits some running paths on the other side of Baker Hill—my knowledge hard-earned after once making the mistake of agreeing to go with her one cold fall morning. I was new in the building, and she must have liked what she saw; and I certainly noticed her easy smile and long runner’s legs. I figured I could work through the pain for a few mornings and see what kind of interest there was on both sides. She almost lost me a quarter mile into a tree-lined dirt trail that cut at some insane angle across the south side of Baker Hill. If she hadn’t taken pity on me and cut her run short, I probably would have died. My body would have stayed on the path until some university student found me and poked me with a stick to make sure I was dead.
“I guess I just don’t look at your feet. I’ve never been much of a foot guy.”
“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a hair guy, either.”
She’s right about that. I’m not a hair guy. I am, however, a detail guy—something of which Angie is quite aware. And my old profession was all about looking for clues; it’s a required skill.
“Are you still staying here over the holidays?” Angie asks.
“When you’ve got a good thing going . . .”
Last year Angie asked me to go to Switzerland with her over Christmas. I think she felt sorry for me. The invitation was genuine, if a bit reluctant. I admit it would have been fun tooling around Europe with someone who could find a good time if it was hiding at a funeral, but I declined. A spur-of-the-moment trip to the Alps is not cheap. And seeing the relieved look on her face, even if she had tried her best to conceal it, told me I’d done the right thing.
“Are you going to invite me skiing again?” I ask.
“Not this year.”
I’m almost pleased to hear her say that. Probably because the ski trip, the Mustang, the countless pairs of new shoes, and the fact that every piece of clothing she wears has been designed by someone famous for outfitting runway models, has begun to make me think that perhaps I’m not very good with money. If she can afford to do and to purchase all of these things, then she is either much better at handling money or she has a cash cow in her closet.
“I’m going to Australia,” she says. “I got to thinking, what’s the point of taking a winter break if you’re going to spend it somewhere cold?”
My response is to raise my coffee cup and take a long drink, swallowing measured sips until the liquid begins to burn my throat. I