She looked over at the large institutional clock on the wall just above all the medieval reference books. She smiled up at me and nodded. "I know a great place just down the street. Not the Amadeus-I eat there everyday."
An hour later, after a solitary tour of the Salem Public Library, we walked down Liberty Street to the Mai Thai, which turned out to be an excellent restaurant even though it was so dark and dusty I was afraid to order any meat dish off the menu.
She'd taken her hair down before we'd left the library. I wanted my face and my hands in her hair. She was leaning toward me, her long hair falling over her left shoulder. Laura Scott hadn't shown me a single shy, withdrawn bone. She was open, responding to me with laughter and jokes, making me feel like I had to be the most fascinating guy in the known universe. She'd just turned twenty-eight in March, she said. She was single, lived in a condo right on the river, played tennis and racquetball, and loved to horseback ride. Her favorite stable was just five miles out of town.
She was at ease with me. I didn't want that to stop.
For myself, I made up a wonderful academic life, replete with stories that friends and siblings had told me of their college experiences over the years. She was down to the last few bites of her chicken satay when I knew the party was over. I was here for a reason, not to flirt and start a relationship with this fascinating woman. I said easily, watching her as closely as a snake watches a mongoose, "I have relatives down in Edgerton, a little town on the coast of Oregon, just an hour from here."
She kept chewing her chicken, but I saw the change in her, instantly. Shit, I thought. Her eyes, to this point rather vague and soft, were sharp, attentive behind her glasses. But she didn't say anything.
"My cousin-Rob Morrison-is a cop. He says everyone calls the town The Edge. He's got a little house very close to the cliffs. You look out the window and think you're on a boat. If you keep staring at the water, pretty soon it feels like you're really on a boat rocking back and forth. Have you ever heard of the place? Do you know anyone from there?"
Would she lie?
"Yes," she said, "I have, and yes, I do."
I nearly fell out of the booth I was so surprised she'd admit it, to me, a perfect stranger. Well, maybe that was why she'd admitted it-I was a perfect stranger. There was no reason to distrust me.
I said, "Do you know my cousin?"
"Rob Morrison? No, I don't believe I've ever met him."
"You wouldn't forget him if you had-he's a triathlete,
a hunk."
She sighed deeply, her hands over her breast, and rolled her eyes. No one in the known universe could ever believe her to be nondescript. She sparkled. "No, sorry. I know the Bartletts-Jilly and Paul Bartlett."
"Small world," I said, wondering if my voice was shaking. "I know them as well." I took a bite of coconut soup and said, "You're a bit younger than Jilly, so you didn't go to school together. How did you two meet?"
"We met about five months ago when she was here in Salem, at the library. We got to talking. She was looking for articles on infertility. I asked her about using the Internet, offered to show her how to go about it in the library, but she said that computers were beyond her. I saw her once or twice a week ever since then, sometimes here and sometimes in Edgerton. I met Paul about three months ago for the first time."
I sat back against the dark red vinyl of the booth. I picked up my fork and fiddled with it. Jilly told Laura that she didn't know anything about computers? Why had she told Laura that lie? Jilly was a whiz at computers, always had been. And what was this about infertility? Finally, I said, "So Jilly was your friend."
"Yes."
"You weren't Paul Bartlett's mistress?"
She cocked her head to one side, sending her beautiful hair spilling over her left shoulder nearly to her plate. "What is this, Mr. MacDougal? Did Jilly send you here? What's going on?"
"Ms. Scott, I lied to you. I'm not a professor at Willamette University. I don't know a thing about Latvian drug wars. I came into the library specifically to meet you. My name is Ford MacDougal; I didn't lie about that. I'm Jilly's brother. She's in the Tallshon Community Hospital, in a coma."
She dropped her thick-bowled white spoon into her soup. She turned perfectly white. I thought she was going to pass out. I was halfway out of the booth when I managed to stop myself. She was fine. I was the one who was the mess.
"I'm sorry I lied to you but I'd do it again no matter what I felt about you." If my boss heard me say that, he'd have laughed his head off.