Jan Burke - Dear Irene

“There’s a nasty kind of rumor going around,” Kevin began, then paused, turning to Frank.

“Tell us!” A cooperative crowd. They’d heard him before. Frank looked a little uneasy.

Kevin looked back to the crowd. “It’s said that the men in the Las Piernas Police Department have lost their courage!”

“No!” This chorus from the cop contingent, all of them grinning as they looked at Frank.

“‘Courage among our policemen?’ they say, ‘Why, it’s easier to find a politician who wants to make a good Act of Contrition.’”

“No!” the chorus supplied.

“Yes, that’s what’s being said. I’m told the police so lack courage, they’ve become as useless as a snake’s glovemaker!”

“No!” Again the chorus, but through laughter.

“Nearly as useless as reporters,” Kevin said, causing an outbreak of shouts and laughter.

“Impossible,” more than one voice called.

“I’m here to tell you that the rumor is false – absolutely false – and I can prove it,” Kevin said. He pointed to Frank. “This man, Frank Harriman – Detective Frank Harriman – is employed by our very own Las Piernas Police Department. And I’m telling you, he has more courage than any man among you. He’s the bravest, most stouthearted, brass-balled sonofabitch I know! Do you know what he’s done?”

Eager silence.

“He’s asked Irene Kelly to marry him!”

There was a great deal of shouting and cheering at that point.

“Fools rush in!” remarked one of my coworkers.

A series of more picturesque comments followed.

Kevin motioned the crowd to silence by simply lifting his pint of stout.

“Here’s to Frank Harriman, who’s had the courage to take our treasure from us! May he and Irene Kelly share a long and happy life together!”

Finally able to drink, the crowd was especially lively in joining this part of the toast.

After accepting the congratulations of a number of the patrons, we settled down into a couple of chairs at Kevin’s table. It felt so comfortable, this pub and all its memories. It was where O’Connor had most often held court. On Friday and Saturday nights, when they had live music, he would sit and watch the dancers. I thought of nights when Kevin, O’Connor, and I would argue and laugh and generally carry on until closing. Somehow all those memories brought back an old sense of myself. An Irene who was less afraid. I was free of more than a fiberglass cast.

I ordered a Tom and Jerry to warm my bones. As the waiter brought it, I looked up to see Frank quietly regarding me. We smiled and lifted our glasses to one another.

“So when will this wedding take place?” Kevin asked, watching us.

“She refuses to set a date,” Frank told him.

“What? Irene! The man has proposed. What more do you need?”

I just shook my head.

“What makes you hesitate?” he persisted.

“I just need time to heal, Kevin.”

Frank reached over and took my hand. “She can take as long as she likes, Kevin. She said ‘yes’ and she knows she’s not getting out of it.”

Kevin gentled his tone, needing no further explanation of my meaning. “Well, Irene, here’s to healing quickly. Don’t begrudge your company to those of us who would salve your wounds.”

“I don’t. Being here, I feel better already.”

We talked for a long time, reminiscing about Kevin’s days with the paper, where he worked before starting his PR firm. Taking an off chance, I asked, “Kevin, can you remember any work I did for you that might tie into the college or the zoo or Greek mythology?”

“You’re speaking of the case of the history professor?”

“Yes.”

“Wouldn’t you remember writing a publicity campaign for the college or the zoo?” Frank asked.

“I know I didn’t do anything on the zoo or the college directly. But Kevin knows the clients better than I do.”

“If the connection is through us, it’s very subtle,”

Kevin said. “You don’t have any particular client in mind?”

I shrugged. “No. I don’t even remember half of them, to tell the truth.”

“Let’s see. Greek mythology is a complete dead end, I’m afraid. The only person I’ve known who could quote the Greeks was O’Connor. You know how he was. He also quoted the works of Shakespeare, Eleanor Roosevelt, Yeats, Marx – Groucho, that is – the Bible, the Tao, and anyone and anything else that happened to interest him. No, it must be something else. Perhaps one of the people you dealt with is a big donor to the Alumni Foundation or to the Zoological Society… Hmmm.” He thought for a while longer then said, “I’ll go through the computer files on your work for us. If I see any names that look like they might have some connection, I’ll let you know.”

FRANK AND I ended up taking a cab home. Inside the house we were greeted by Cody, the old reprobate, who bit my newly uncovered ankle. I yelped as he ran off in a gray streak.

“Cody’s waited more than six weeks to have a chance to do that,” Frank said, grinning in a way that made me forgot all about my ankle.

I reached around him. “God, it feels good to hold you with both arms.”

He kissed me, slow and easy; a kiss that had more hello than good night in it. He took me to bed, where I got a chance to try out some of the things I had been waiting more than six weeks to do.

I HAD MY HEAD INSIDE the Liberty Bell and someone was striking it repeatedly with a large mallet. I groaned and woke up to hear Frank’s simultaneous groan. The phone was ringing. I fumbled for that instrument of torture and looked at the clock and scowled. Seven o’clock. Who the hell was calling us at this ungodly hour?

“Irene?” the voice on the other end asked from a distance. I flipped the receiver around so that I was no longer holding it upside down.

“Barbara,” I said to my sister, “the next time you call me this early on a Saturday, I will attach you to a twenty-foot bungee cord and push you from a nineteen-foot overpass.”

Frank groaned again and put his pillow over his eyes.

“You’re hungover!” she scolded loudly. I moved the receiver a good six inches from my ear while she prattled incessantly about how ashamed my mother would have been had she lived to see me behaving like this. (I am convinced that Barbara, given a choice between dropping a neutron bomb and invoking my mother’s memory, would still find the latter a more potent weapon.)

Frank groaned louder and rolled onto his stomach. I reached down and unplugged the phone, wondering as I fell back to sleep how long it would take Barbara to realize all her bitching was failing to do more than sear some phone lines.

Sometime around noon, as I lay watching him, Frank pulled the pillow off his head. “I don’t know how you do that without suffocating,” I said.

He managed a smile. “I’m going to tell your sister that we are moving to the Himalayas and can’t be reached by phone.”

“Sooner or later she’ll see my byline in the Express and know she can start calling again.”

“You’ll have to make up a pen name.” The smile broadened to a grin. “How about-”

“Never mind. I can tell from the look on your face that it doesn’t belong in a family newspaper.”

“What did Barbara want?”

“I don’t know. I unplugged her.”

He laughed and pulled me close. “Let’s stay in bed all day.”

“Are you kidding? I just got my cast off. I want to get some exercise.”

“Who said you won’t be getting exercise?”

There was a loud banging at the front door. I heard my name being screeched by a fishwife. The bedroom is at the back of the house, but we could hear her “I know you’re in there!” quite plainly.