Magic Hour, Susan Isaacs [life changing books txt] 📗

me around, show me off to the crew.” I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. She acknowledged: “Even if you were dying to believe him, you couldn’t.

For a sophisticated man, he could be such an ass.”

The day’s heat was finally rising off the land. The first night breeze blew through the window. The shade flapped, and Bonnie shivered. “Let me get you a sweatshirt or something.”

“No, thanks. I’m fine.”

Okay, I would have liked to see her in my old SUNY Albany sweatshirt. I would have liked to take her hands between my hands and rub them. The fact was, I liked having Bonnie in my house. Despite the insane circumstances, despite the occasional angry sparks that flared up between us, it was so comfortable. So much about her pleased me, from her not making cholesterol remarks when I handed her the TV dinner to her courage to her wonderful, glossy MAGIC HOUR / 299

hair. But the great thing was, I realized, that in spite of the pleasure of her company, I had recovered from my obsession with her.

Maybe by allowing myself to remember what had gone on between us, I had broken her hold over me. Here I was, able to sit in a box of a room, inches away from her, question her, behave like a real cop. Her power was gone. I could relax, not fantasize about kissing her. Or about licking her lips, putting my tongue in her mouth. I was past that hump of desire. Hey, I thought, about time.

In that instant of self-congratulation, I glanced away from her mouth. If the shade hadn’t been pulled down, I might have looked out the window, leaned back and watched the moon on the rise. But since there was no night sky to admire, no stars, I looked elsewhere and noticed the tautness of the nylon shorts stretched between her legs.

If we’d been characters in some porno cartoon, the God of Passion would, at that moment, have hurled down a bolt of lightning; it would have slashed across the sky, forked into two jagged spears and, at the exact same moment, zapped each of us, right in the pubes.

Just as my breathing deepened, Bonnie reached behind her, took the pillow and placed it in her lap. It was one of those unconscious gestures of self-defense. But without realizing it, she began fondling the edge of the pillow, rubbing the protruding corner with her thumb. Oh, God, I thought, she could be doing that to me. I got more and more excited.

I could almost feel the soft pressure of her thumb.

I tried to picture Lynne, use her as a magic charm against what was happening: auburn hair, I said to myself, and big brown eyes, peaches-and-cream complexion. The waist, the gorgeous long legs. But I

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couldn’t get the parts to add up to anything. I couldn’t break Bonnie’s spell.

But she could. Either she suddenly realized what she was doing or she simply sensed the change of climate in the room, because she tucked the pillow behind her again. “What else would you like to know?” she asked, all perky, cheerleadery, like she was going for the Miss Teenage Ogden title.

“Why did you lie to me?”

“You mean, when you first came to my house?”

“I came in, asked a simple question: When was the last time you saw Sy? You said you weren’t sure, but you thought a few days before, at the set. I asked when you’d seen him before that, and you were kind of vague, but you thought it was about a week before, when he gave you the fifty-cent tour of his house. You said you hadn’t spent much time with him.”

“For someone who can’t remember, you have a great memory.”

If I looked at her, I’d see her crotch, or her breasts, or the hollow of her collarbone where the neck of her stretched-out T-shirt drooped. So I looked right past her and concentrated on the weave of the crappy wood headboard. “I asked if Sy had visited you at your house. Again, vague, but then you said maybe he had dropped by. Real casual. Just two old pals working on a movie script together. So what I want to know is, did you construct an alibi before I showed up? Or were you winging it?”

“Aren’t you going to give me one of your warnings? You know: ‘If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll bust your head open.’”

“No. It’s ‘I’ll bust your fucking head open.’ Now, can we get on with it?”

“What’s wrong?”

Just because I was making major eye contact with a MAGIC HOUR / 301

headboard, she thought something was wrong? “Nothing’s wrong. I asked you a question. I’m waiting for an answer.”

“I had an alibi, but I was winging it too.” She took a deep breath. “After Sy called, I drove over. He showed me the house, and—big surprise—we ended up in bed.”

“Yeah, big surprise.” I could picture him, his arm around her, leading her from room to beautiful room, the ‘This could be yours again’ unspoken. I could see his hand on her ass, guiding her into the guest room, closing the door. “When did you start screwing and when did you finish?”

She snapped: “Why don’t you just come right out and ask me exactly what we did and how it was?”

“Why don’t you shut your mouth? Understand something: you’re here to work. I didn’t bring you over for the pleasure of your company or to get off on hearing about your sex life.” Thwarted desire is great for the disposition. “Now, from when to when?”

“From about one until two-thirty. Do you want to know if it was good for me?”

“I’m sure it’s always good for you, sweetheart. Otherwise you wouldn’t do it so often.”

Well, I’d said it to hurt her. And it worked. Nothing like a deep, wounding insult to snap a woman out of enticing you, put her on the verge of tears. Works like magic. “It wasn’t