Dagger Key and Other Stories

  “He’s playing the Crucible next weekend.”

  “Is that an invitation?”

  “Sure. If you’ll come.”

  “I have to see how things develop at the office. Is a tentative yes okay?”

  “Way better than a firm no,” I said.

  We ordered from the grille and, after we had eaten, Andrea called her office and told them she was taking the rest of the day. We switched from martinis to red wine, and we talked, we laughed, we got silly, we got drunk. The sounds of the bar folded around us and I started to remember how it felt to be in love with her. We wobbled out of McGuigan’s around four o’clock. The sun was lowering behind the Bittersmiths, but shed a rich golden light; it was still warm enough for people to be sitting in sweaters and shirts on park benches under the orange leaves.

  Andrea lived around the corner from the bar, so I walked her home. She was weaving a little and kept bumping into me. “You better take a cab home,” she said, and I said, “I’m not the one who’s walking funny,” which earned me a punch in the arm. When we came to her door, she turned to me, gripping her briefcase with both hands and said, “I’ll see you next weekend, maybe.”

  “That’d be great.”

  She hovered there a second longer and then she kissed me. Flung her arms about my neck, clocking me with the briefcase, and gave me a one-hundred percent all-Andrea kiss that, if I were a cartoon character, would have rolled my socks up and down and levitated my hat. She buried her face in my neck and said, “Sorry. I’m sorry.” I was going to say, For what?, but she pulled away in a hurry, appearing panicked, and fled up the stairs.

  I nearly hit a parked car on the drive home, not because I was drunk, but because thinking about the kiss and her reaction afterward impaired my concentration. What was she sorry about? The kiss? Flirting? The divorce? I couldn’t work it out, and I couldn’t work out, either, what I was feeling. Lust, certainly. Having her body pressed against mine had fully engaged my senses. But there was more. Considerably more. I decided it stood a chance of becoming a mental health issue and did my best to put it from mind.

  Kiwanda was busy in the office. She had the computers networking and was going through prehistoric paper files on the floor. I asked what was up and she told me she had devised a more efficient filing system. She had never been much of an innovator, so this unnerved me, but I let it pass and asked if she’d had any problems with my boy Stanky.

  “Not so you’d notice,” she said tersely.

  From this, I deduced that there had been a problem, but I let that pass as well and went upstairs to the apartment. Walls papered with flyers and band photographs; a grouping of newish, ultra-functional Swedish furniture—I realized I had liked the apartment better when Andrea did the decorating, this despite the fact that interior design had been one of our bones of contention. The walls, in particular, annoyed me. I was being stared at by young men with shaved heads and flowing locks in arrogant poses, stupid with tattoos, by five or six bands that had tried to stiff me, by a few hundred bad-to-indifferent memories and a dozen good ones. Maybe a dozen. I sat on a leather and chrome couch (it was a showy piece, but uncomfortable) and watched the early news. George Bush, Iraq, the price of gasoline…fuck! Restless, I went down to the basement.

  Stanky was watching the Comedy Channel. Mad TV. Another of his passions. He was slumped on the couch, remote in hand, and had a Coke and a cigarette working, an ice pack clamped to his cheek. I had the idea the ice pack was for my benefit, so I didn’t ask about it, but knew it must be connected to Kiwanda’s attitude. He barely acknowledged my presence, just sat there and pouted. I took a chair and watched with him. At last he said, “I need a rhythm guitar player.”

  “I’m not going to hire another musician this late in the game.”

  He set down the ice pack. His cheek was red, but that might have been from the ice pack itself…although I thought I detected a slight puffiness. “I seriously need him,” he said.

  “Don’t push me on this.”

  “It’s important, man! For this one song, anyway.”

  “What song?”

  “A new one.”

  I waited and then said, “That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

  “It needs a rhythm guitar.”

  This tubby little madman recumbent on my couch was making demands—it felt good to reject him, but he persisted.

  “It’s just one song, man,” he said in full-on wheedle. “Please! It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Come on! You’ll like this one, I promise.”

  I told him I’d see what I could do, had a talk with him about Jerry, and the atmosphere lightened. He sat up straight, chortling at Mad TV, now and then saying, “Decent!,” his ultimate accolade. The skits were funny and I laughed, too.

  “I did my horoscope today,” he said as the show went to commercial.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “You’re a Cancer.”