The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [80]
She’d dressed up for him, in a way. Red skirt, frilly, low-cut blouse, and big hoop earrings; and she’d let her hair, unruly at the best of times, go completely wild. Going for the Gypsy look, to make him laugh. It worked: When he’d opened the door and seen her, he’d guffawed.
“You know what? I thought you’d be older,” he confided, devouring a cream-filled cookie in one bite. “Not as old as me, but getting up there.”
“How come?”
“The way you talk. You sound wise.”
“That’s just the accent.”
“Also, I thought you’d be sorta fat, frankly.”
“Fat!”
“Not sure why. And not fat, exactly. You know what zaftig means?”
Molly glanced down at her medium-sized chest. “But instead—”
“You’re gorgeous! Also, I never thought for two seconds you’d have red hair and be Irish.”
“Well, I never thought you’d look like Cary Grant, so there you go.”
He made scoffing sounds and hid half his face behind his napkin, but she could see his cheeks turn pink. He was delighted. “Oliver’s the good-looking one in the family. Speaking of, don’t ever tell him we did this, he’d have a cow.”
“Why would I ever tell Oliver anything?” She hadn’t even told Charlie about Oliver’s phone call, afraid it might embarrass him. Or get Oliver in trouble for going behind Charlie’s back. Not that she cared.
“I know, I’m just saying. This here is private. Just us.”
“Of course.”
“Okay, then. Shall we get this show on the road?” He got up and went into the living room. “This a good place?” He indicated the coffee table. “You on one side, me on the other, ball in the middle. Holy Christ, is that it?”
She’d brought it in the same bowling bag Aunt Kit had shipped it to her in, and she liked to imagine her aunt schlepping the bag to bridge and mah-jongg parties or, better yet, bowling alleys, then whipping the ball out to amaze her friends. “It’s pretty, isn’t it? Like a giant glass paperweight.”
“Giant glass paperweight,” Charlie agreed, taking his seat, pushing up his sleeves. “So how much practice have you had on this thing?”
“Um, some. Not that much. Charlie?”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing, let’s get started.”
Which would be kinder to him, to pretend she was psychic or confess that she wasn’t? She could never decide, so she just kept going along. Like a doctor, hoping to do no harm.
“Okay, now.” She cleared her throat. “As I said, we have to be partners in this. I need your mental power and energy at least as much as mine, or probably nothing will happen. It helps if we hold hands.” They reached across the table and clasped hands; his were dry and cool and scratchy. “Close your eyes. Concentrate.”
“What am I concentrating on?”
“Dottie. Right? You said you—”
“Right, right. I want to contact her.” He shut his eyes tight and screwed up his face.
Molly followed suit, then realized she had nothing to concentrate on. “A picture, Charlie, I need a photo or something.”
“Gotcha.” He disappeared, and came back with a goldframed photograph, eight by ten, of himself and Dottie about twenty years ago, posing on the gangplank of an ocean liner. “On our way to Europe. Isn’t she a beaut?”
She assumed he meant his wife, not the ship, and agreed. “Both of you, so handsome. And she looks like she adores you.” Dottie was tiny, birdlike, with pixie-cut hair tinted strawberry blonde. They were holding hands, and she had her cheek on Charlie’s arm, grinning up at him with a kind of mischievous trust. Molly envied them.
She and Charlie went back to holding hands and concentrating. She thought of all he’d told her about Dottie, how funny she was—not always intentionally—and how sweet. Her aversion to cats; her lifelong hypochondria. How much she loved music. The time she missed the brake and drove their brand-new Chevy through the back of the garage. The way she could put people at ease. How, on her deathbed,