EVERYONE LOOKED UP WHEN I walked into the room, but I suppose they would do that under any circumstances. Perhaps they kept looking a little longer than usual.
There was an empty chair at a table with Marty, Reza, and Franklin.
"You get her safely ensconced?" Marty asked.
I nodded. "She'll be out of that place as soon as they let her walk. The three women she's sharing the room with are straight out of Hamlet."
"Macbeth," Reza corrected me, "if you mean crones. Or are they sweet young lunatics about to commit suicide?"
"Crones. She seems okay. The ride up from Guadalajara wasn't bad, just long." The sullen waiter in the artfully stained T-shirt slouched over. "Coffee," I said, then caught Reza's look of mock horror. "And a pitcher of Rioja." It was getting on toward the end of the month again. The guy started to ask for my ration card, then recognized me and slumped away.
"Hope you re-enlist," Reza said. He took my number and punched in the price of the whole pitcher.
"When Portobello freezes over."
"Did they say when she'd be released?" Marty asked.
"No. Neurologist sees her in the morning. She'll call me."
"Better have her call Hayes, too. I told him everything was going to be all right, but he's nervous."
"He's nervous."
"He's known her longer than you have," Franklin said quietly. So had he and Marty.
"So did you see any Guadalajara?" Reza asked. "Fleshpots?"
"No. Just wandered around a little. Didn't get into the old city or out to T-town, what do they call it?"
"Tlaquepaque," Reza said. "I spent an eventful week there one day."
"How long have you and Blaze been together?" Franklin asked. "If you don't mind my asking."
"Together" probably wasn't the word he was searching for. "We've been close for three years. Friends a couple of years before that."
"Blaze was his adviser," Marty said.
"Doctoral?"
"Post-doc," I said.
"That's right," Franklin said with a small smile. "You came from Harvard." Only an Eli could say that with a trace of pity, Julian mused.
"Now you're supposed to ask me whether my intentions are honorable. The answer is we have no intentions. Not until I get out of service."
"And how long is that?"
"Unless the war ends, about five years."
"Blaze will be fifty."
"Fifty-two, actually. I'll be thirty-seven. Maybe that bothers you more than it does us."
"No," he said. "It might bother Marty."
Marty gave him a hard look. "What have you been drinking?"
"The usual." Franklin displayed the bottom of his empty teacup. "How long has it been?"
"I only want the best for both of you," Marty said to me. "You know that."
"Eight years, nine?"
"Good God, Franklin. Were you a terrier in a former life?" Marty shook his head as if to clear it. "That was over long before Julian joined the department"
The waiter sidled over with the wine and three glasses. Sensing tension, he poured as slowly as was practical. We all watched him in silence. "So," Reza said, "how 'bout them Oilers?"
THE NEUROLOGIST WHO CAME to see Amelia the next morning was too young to have an advanced degree in anything. He had a goatee and bad skin. For half an hour, he asked her the same simple questions over and over.
"When and where were you born?"
"August 12, 1996. Sturbridge, Massachusetts."
"What was your mother's name?"
"Jane O'Banian Harding."
"Where did you go to grade school?"
"Nathan Hale Elementary, Roxbury."
He paused. "Last time you said Breezewood. In Sturbridge."
She took a deep breath and let it out. "We moved to Roxbury in '04. Maybe '05."
"Ah. And high school?"
"Still O'Bryant. John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics and Science."
"That's in Sturbridge?"
"No, Roxbury! I went to middle school in Roxbury, too. You haven't – "
"What was your mother's maiden name?"
"O'Banian."