It was bad enough with men, who slammed things around and didn’t communicate. Women cried and screamed and were touchy about everything, especially when their hormones were a little wide and to the right. She could not imagine two lovers having PMS at the same time. Domestic violence would be inevitable, possibly escalating to homicide, especially if both were cops with guns.
After a light, solitary dinner of leftover spicy chicken pizza. West sat in her recliner chair in front of the TV, watching the Atlanta Braves clobber the Florida Marlins. Niles was in her lap because it was his wish. His owner was at ease in police sweats, drinking a Miller Genuine Draft in the bottle, and reading Brazil’s article about herself because it really wasn’t right to be so hard on the guy without taking a good look at what he had done. She laughed out loud again, paper rattling as she turned a page. Where the hell did he get all this stuff?
She was so caught up, she had forgotten to pet Niles for fourteen minutes, eleven seconds, and counting. He wasn’t asleep, but merely pretending, biding his time to see how long this might go on that he might add to her list of infractions. When she ran out of indulgences, there was that porcelain figurine on top of the bookcase. If she thought Niles couldn’t jump up there, she had another think coming.
Niles could trace his lineage back to Egypt, to pharaohs and pyramids, his skills ancient and largely untested. Someone hit a home run and West didn’t notice as she laughed again and reached for the phone.
Brazil didn’t hear it ring at first because he was in front of his computer, typing, possessed by whatever he was writing as Annie Lennox sang loudly from the boom box. His mother was in the kitchen, fixing herself a peanut-butter sandwich on Sunbeam white bread. She slurped another mouthful of cheap vodka from a plastic glass as the phone rang from the wall. She swayed, grabbing for the counter to steady herself, and got a drawer handle as two blue phones on the wall rang and rang.
Silverware crashed to the floor, and Brazil jumped up from his chair as his mother managed to grab at her double-vision of the phone and bump it out of its cradle. It banged against the wall, dangling from a snarled cord. She lunged for it again, almost falling.
“What?” she slurred into the receiver.
“I was trying to reach Andy Brazil,” West said over the line, after an uncertain pause.
“In his room going.” Mrs. Brazil made drunken typing motions.
“You know. Usual! Thinks he’ll amount to Hemingway, something.”
Mrs. Brazil did not notice her son in the doorway, stricken as she talked on in fractured, bleary words that could not possibly make sense to anyone. It was a house rule that she did not answer the phone. Either her son got it or the answering machine did. He watched in despair, helpless as she humiliated him yet again in life.
“Ginia West,” Mrs. Brazil repeated as she finally noticed two of her sons coming toward her. He took the phone out of her hand.
West’s intention had been merely to confess to Brazil that his story was rather wonderful and she appreciated it, and didn’t deserve it.
She had not expected this impaired woman to answer, and now West knew it all. She didn’t tell Brazil a thing other than that she was on her way. This was an order. West had dealt with all types in her years of police work, and was undaunted by Mrs. Brazil, no matter how vile, how hateful and hostile the woman was when her son and West put her in bed and made her drink a lot of water. Mrs. Brazil passed out about five minutes after West helped her into the bathroom to pee.
West and Brazil went for a walk in darkness broken by an occasional lighted window from old southern homes along Main Street. Rain was gentle like mist. He had nothing to say as they drew closer to the Davidson campus, which was quiet this time of year, even when various camps were in session. A security guard in his Cushman watched the couple pass, pleased that Andy Brazil might finally have a girlfriend.