Page 127 of Just One Look

A Sexy Girl

He’d thoughtit would be strange. It wasn’t. Shedidstay at the hospital all weekend, and when she got to his place Monday night at six-thirty, pulling her suitcase behind her, and started out with a greeting for an ecstatic Webster and barely a kiss for him, he took one look at her pale face, the slowness of her movements, and the wariness that was all but pouring off her, and served her up a lamb curry without comment. After which she climbed into bed and slept for eleven hours.

On Tuesday, she didn’t get home until eight, and he made snapper with lemon butter, green beans, and baby spinach, after which she fell asleep on the couch ten minutes into a movie. On Wednesday, she came home at seven, and they walked Webster, who was learning some manners at last. Lukahadspent his days walking fast, and Webster was down for it. Nobody was going to be entering him in the sheepdog trials anytime soon on the basis of his startling obedience, but he wasn’t actually knocking over pedestrians anymore.

He fed Elizabeth pumpkin, sage, and goat cheese pasta that night, along with salmon fillets just off the boat. She said, scraping her plate to get the last bite of pasta like a woman who was never going to be ordering a salad and calling it dinner, “I need to start providing meals. You’ve done it every night.”

“Because I’m home at the moment,” he said. “And you’re not.”

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I’m taking you out. If I’m home in time, of course. If not, I’ll order pizza and pretend I made it. And probably fall asleep on the couch again.” Which she didn’t, that night. She fell asleep in his bed instead, in the time it took him to take a quick shower.

On Thursday, they took another walk, but this time, on the way back up the hill, she stopped at a shop window displaying the kind of shoes that men appreciated and women lusted over.

“I need to buy something new for our dinner with Dr. Larsen on Saturday,” she said. “Unless I just wear the gray dress.”

He thought about what to say here, and decided on, “Do you want to wear the gray dress?” You didn’t actually tell a woman that you didn’t like the way she dressed. You encouraged, right? Encouragement was just good coaching. He’d try that.

“No,” she said. “I want to feel a little …”

“Pretty,” he said. “Or call it what you are. Beautiful.”

“Luka,” she said. “I am not beautiful.”

“You don’t see yourself,” he said.

Silence for a minute, and then she said, “I do want to go dress shopping. I have four days off starting Saturday. I could go then.”

“Oh,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“What? That I have days off? I didn’t think of it, I guess.”

“When you live together,” he said, “I’m fairly sure you’re meant to share those things. I think you have a calendar stuck up on the fridge. Grocery list as well. Not too tidy, all that rubbish on the fridge, but that seems to be the idea.”

“Mm,” she said. “Maybe a bulletin board instead. What’s worse, though, is that when you have a baby, you’re apparently required to put pictures all over your fridge. At un-matching angles. With cute un-matching magnets. Basically an OCD nightmare. Do you have any cute magnets?”

“No,” he said. “Not even any un-cute magnets.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Me neither. We could put up pictures of Webster instead, I guess. What do you think of those?” She pointed to a pair of low black heels. She also took his arm, which was nice.

The bird wasn’t eating out of his hand yet, but she was closer.

“I think you’ve already got a pair like that,” he said. “How about those?” He pointed to a shoe with a pointed toe and delicate heel in champagne-colored leather that had a bit of a gleam to it, with a wide asymmetrical elastic strap curving over the instep. “That’s feminine,” he told her. “That’s pretty. Heel’s not too high for you to walk, but it’s that thin kind a man loves.”

“I won’t look a little silly in them?” she asked. “They’re pretty overt, aren’t they? Like, ‘Hi, I’m a sexy girl!’”

He had to laugh. “You’re forgetting something. Youarea sexy girl. Come on. Let’s go in and have you try them on.”

She hung back. “I don’t have a dress yet, though. Shouldn’t I buy the dress first, and then get the shoes to match?”

It wasn’t just a process question, he could tell. It was stalling. Almost reluctance. Why?

“No,” he said. “We match the dress to the shoes. Or match the idea of the dress. Sexy. Pretty. Feminine.”

“Neurosurgeon having dinner with her colleague,” she reminded him.

“Glam couple having dinner out with friends,” he countered.

“Oh, right,” she said. “That All Black thing. I keep hearing about it at work. You’re a big deal.”