David Wiltse - Bone Deep

"So you think he didn't know the orchard was there?"

"I don't see how he would." Tee paused, nodding. "Unless he'd been there."

LOBSTER WAS a peculiar dish to prepare for first-time dinner guests, Becker thought. Served still in the shell with attendant bowls of clarified butter for dipping, there was no way to eat it without creating a mess. Bits of shell flew across the table as the diners cracked claws and dug at recalcitrant bits with metal picks. A snowy-white longhaired cat roamed between their legs beneath the table, waiting for scraps and purring loudly. Tovah, Karen, and Kom wore disposable bibs with the logo of the local seafood store on the front-appropriately enough, a lobster rampant, claws stretched upward and brandishing knife and fork as if to chow down on the platter of clams in front of it. Becker had declined a bib and had come to regret it as the unavoidable hash of flying shards and dripping butter took its toll on his shirt. Kom, allergy or no, was eating with relish, sucking the legs, tearing the torso apart to rummage for the last tiny bits of succulent meat.

"Isn't she a great cook?" Kom demanded, his eyes beaming with pride.

"This is really delicious," said Karen. "I love lobster."

"I just boiled them," said Tovah. She sounded bored. "This one says he's allergic, but everyone else always loves lobster."

"It's her favorite party dish," said Kom, apparently barboring no ill will at being served an allergen. "It's amazing she can look that good and cook great, too, isn't it?"

"It really is delicious," Karen said again.

"Terrific," Becker said, trying to stop a drop of butter from falling from his chin. He smiled at Tovah while wiping his face, hoping the smile would convey a degree of enthusiasm that he knew was lacking in his voice. She had chosen a purple look this evening and her lips and eyes and fingernails were painted the color of a plum. Becker found the nails particularly interesting. They were of a length, shape, and perfection of molding that made it difficult to imagine the woman using her hands for any purpose at all-except perhaps dropping a lobster into boiling water. How much time and money did it require to cultivate nails like that? he wondered. How frequently must she have a manicurist labor over them? How many layers of lacquer were required to give them the look of burnished damson? How much idleness? When she held the lobster in her hands, her fingernails against its carapace made it look as if one crustacean were molesting another. She lowered the nails occasionally to scratch the cat, which would take the massage for a second or two before licking her fingers free of butter.

She wore even more jewelry than the time he had seen her on the tennis court and he thought again that she had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide her natural beauty with the artifice of cosmetics and accessory.

She kept her eyes on Becker, even though most of her conversation was with Karen. They talked of domestic issues, avoiding Karen's work, while Kom chatted with Becker, but every time Becker looked away from Kom, or his food, he saw Tovah's eyes flicker toward him with a sort of curious disinterest, like someone in a restaurant viewing the behavior of a foreigner at another table, then shift away again when observed. He did not know what to read into her looks. It was not flirtation, nothing intense. At one point he caught Karen's eye, trying to decipher Tovah's messages there. Karen looked at him with a tinge of hostility, he thought.

After dinner, Kom escorted Karen on a tour of the house and Becker was left alone with his hostess. She stared at him openly, her plum-colored talons touching the stern of her wineglass, spinning it slowly. Becker realized he had not said anything to her all night except the niceties.

The silence between them lengthened and she continued to study him with the same flat, expressionless gaze.

"Lovely dinner," Becker said at last, stunned by his own inadequacy at small talk. She did not respond. "Really good. I like lobster." The wineglass spun slowly. Becker dabbed at his face again, searching for the object of her scrutiny. "Stanley tells me you were a model," Becker said, and when she once more did not respond: "What was that like?"

"Hard," she said, her tone as flat as her gaze.

"I'll bet… I'll bet it was… People don't think of it that way.

Modeling. But I can see it would be hard." Becker cursed himself for babbling. Her eyes gave him no relief. He looked at his hands, which were moving restlessly on the tablecloth, listening for signs of Kom and Karen's return.

When he turned to face Tovah, she startled him with a question: "Am I ugly?"

She had the bones, the facial planes of a classic beauty, with just a hint of Asia about the eyes that lent a trace of exoticism to her face, but it was all covered and masked by too much makeup. As before, Becker thought the rouge and color had been applied angrily, with an attempt to change her face rather than enhance it.

"No," he said.

"My husband thinks so," she said. Her voice was without emotion.

"No he doesn't. He talks all the time about how beautiful you are."

"Talks." She shrugged as if the topic no longer interested her. "Karen is lovely."

"Yes," Becker agreed. "She is. She's lovely."

"Does that help?"

"Pardon me?"

"Does that help, having her lovely?… Does being lovely make you love her more? Better? Longer?"

Becker chuckled nervously, feeling very much out of his depth. It was not the sort of conversation he had expected to have with Kom's wife.

"It doesn't hurt," he said. "But I don't love her because she's attractive. That's why I was attracted to her in the first place, I suppose. Her being pretty. She's still pretty, prettier even, I think, but that's because I love her. But I love her for different reasons."

"But you love her. Never mind, you'd say yes to me no matter what you felt."

"I probably would," Becker agreed. "But fortunately, I can say it honestly. I do love her."

Tovah shrugged again as if bored to be discussing the obvious. "Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't anyone?"

"I'm sure there are those who don't, human nature being as perverse as it is." She looked away from him, draining her wineglass. "Perverse," she said, amused by his understatement. "You are really very beautiful,"

Becker said, smiling. "You might not feel that way, but you are."

She leveled her gaze at him again. "I don't like charming men, I don't trust them." Becker laughed. "You're safe with me then."

"I know," she said. Kom and Karen returned, Kom looking as pleased and bouncy as a puppy.

"I've asked Stanley to help us out with the cut marks on the bones in the Johnny Appleseed case," Karen said her expression betraying nothing.

"Happy to help," Kom enthused. "I'm at your service, John. You just let me know when and where."

"Now you're joining the FBI?" Tovah asked. I'll m just helping out."

"Last year he was talking about being a volunteer fireman," Tovah said, in the patronizing tone normally used with children. "This one is always looking for something else to do."

Kom smiled sheepishly and shrugged. "I get enthusiastic about things," he said. He turned to Becker and held his hands palms upward, displaying his befuddled innocence. "I have a lot of energy."

"Never marry a doctor," Tovah said to Karen, as if she were in imminent danger of doing so. "Don't believe what they tell you about them, they make the worst husbands. They're never around, they've been so coddled by their mothers and everyone else all their lives they're spoiled rotten, they think if they get through medical school, that will pass for a life, people will think they're people and they can stop trying."

"Tovah…" Kom said gently.

"And they're so bored. I've never known a doctor who wasn't bored out of his mind. They all want to be something else. They want to write books and they want to discuss their pension plans; what they don't want to do is what they're doing, which is assembly line work, looking at the same ailments all day long, as many as they can cram into office hours, all year long, the rest of their lives. Unless they can figure a way out, get to make a movie or join the FBI or some crazy thing."