Laura Lippman - Charm City

"Saturday night?"

"I'm free."

And having said that, she had to make it true.

Tess found a lot of reasons not to go home that afternoon. She puttered around Tyner's office, then went to Durban's, where she set out to run five miles on the treadmill, then found herself doing seven. Finally, there was no place else to go.

When she arrived at the apartment, Crow was puttering on the terrace, almost ridiculous in his perfection: the postmodern boyfriend, potting pansies and singing softly to man's best friend. Esskay was under his elbow, nosing through the mulch and topsoil and demanding attention even as he worked. It was staying light longer now and the purple dusk picked up the new violet strands in his hair. He looks like a little boy playing with mud pies , Tess thought, or Martha Stewart as a punk rocker. I'm surprised you can't order him from the Smith amp; Hawken catalog . The truth was, he looked like what he was, what he had always been-a kind, considerate man-child. The kind of guy she had longed for when she was in college. He was only seven years too late.

"It's too early, even for pansies," she said, a little too harshly. "It snowed this morning, remember? We'll probably have two or three more freezes into April."

"I'm going to bring them in and keep them next to the French doors. They'll get good light there. I was thinking, this would be a great spot to grow tomatoes this summer, with all the sun. I also want to put in a little herb garden. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme." He sang the last. "And basil, so we can have linguine alla cecca all summer long. That's pasta with chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, olive oil, and cayenne pepper. It's the best thing you'll ever eat."

Tess grunted noncommittally. She didn't want to plan her summer menus in March. She didn't want to plan anything with Crow right now. Lost in his dreams of Early Girls and Beefmasters, he sprinkled a handful of mulch across the topsoil, then patted it tenderly in place. Everything he touched, he touched with this indiscriminate love and care. For a moment, Tess tried to frame an objection to him on this basis, but not even she could be that contrary. Crow loved her, he was good to her, he was a good person. The sad fact was, none of those things obligated her to love him back.

"Do you know the significance of April?" he asked.

"Opening Day? The cruelest month? The Mary Sue Easter egg jingle on the radio twenty-four hours a day, driving one slowly insane?"

"Our six-month anniversary comes in April. April twenty-third. Know where I'd like to go to celebrate?"

"Lourdes?"

He was too happily absorbed in his plans to really hear her. "The community health clinic for HIV tests. Then, when we get our results, we could make a commitment to one another." He put down his shovel and came over to hug her, smelling of dirt and mulch. "Nothing official. It would be just a way of formalizing what we're already doing."

"I want to say yes," Tess muttered into his collarbone. "I want to want to say yes."

Crow pulled away from her. "What are you saying, Tess?"

"It's what I'm not saying, Crow. I'm not saying yes. I'm not saying I'm ready for a committed relationship. Sometimes I think we jumped into this a little too quickly. So much was going on last fall. So much is going on now. And when you talk about summer and tomatoes and linguine and AIDS tests-Crow, I'm going to be thirty this summer."

"What does your age have to do with anything?"

"Everything-when you throw in your age as well."

"As time goes by, the difference in our ages will seem smaller and smaller."

"Maybe. But I have a feeling it's going to get larger before it gets smaller."

Crow gave her a long, puzzled look, then went into the apartment. She heard drawers opening, the sound of plastic CD boxes smacking together as he sorted through their commingled music. Heavy footsteps on the stairs, three trips in all, as he carried things to his car. Esskay watched anxiously from the French doors, confused as always by anything remotely out of the ordinary. Crow gave the dog a long, lingering pat as he came back out on the terrace. His expression was as troubled and perplexed as the greyhound's.

"I'll probably end up giving Kitty my notice. I was planning to, anyway, things are heating up with the band."

"That's okay. She's used to people coming and going."

"And you? Are you used to it, Tess?"

She had no answer for that.

"I loved you." Not a question, not an attempt to change her mind, just a statement of the facts. Again, Tess had no reply, other than "I know"-and that would be too cruel.

"You're a good person," she said at last. "You're one of the nicest people I've ever known."

"There are steamed vegetables for Esskay's dinner." And he was gone.

It was dark now, and getting cold on the terrace, just as Tess had prophesied. She dragged the heavy planters of pansies into the apartment, found Esskay's length of chain-Crow still hadn't gotten around to buying her a proper leash, there , that was something he had screwed up-and took her out, largely for something to do. They walked to the pier at the foot of Broadway, so Tess could watch the water and Esskay could lunge at pigeons and seagulls.

She thought she would feel exhilarated-break-ups were usually enormously liberating if one initiated them. And if the other person broke things off, well, that was usually good for taking off a quick ten pounds. Tonight, she still had her appetite, but was she happy, was she free? As Feeney's friend Auden had said, the question was absurd. She was depressed, hungry, and strangely sad.

Esskay rested her head on Tess's knee, gazing into her eyes in the soulful way that meant "Pet me," unless there was food handy, in which case it translated to "Feed me." Tess scratched beneath her chin and along her nose, picking a few flecks of mulch from the dog's long snout. The slightly acrid, tangy smell made her think longingly of the daffodils and tulips that would soon appear throughout the city. And her mother's flower beds, with their red, white, and blue flowers in perfect rectangles along the house. She smiled at the image of Uncle Spike, showing up with her mother's winter mulch, ten whole bags of it, just as spring was beginning. Judith didn't use that much mulch in a decade. What had Spike been thinking?

What had she been thinking? No, the problem was, she hadn't been thinking at all. Neither had her mother, nor her father. The reason for Spike's beating had been with them all along.

Tess was too anxious to take the time necessary to wrestle Esskay up three flights of stairs and settle her down with water, supper, and a post-walk treat. Friday was grocery shopping night in the Monaghan household, a time-consuming ritual in which Judith and Patrick worked the aisles at the Giant side by side, picking fights over virtually every item. Creamed corn, pro or con? Was there really a difference between name brand toilet paper and the generic store brand ? But now it was almost eight, which meant Tess had less than an hour until they returned. It would be better to find whatever Spike had hidden, take it, and leave, allowing her parents to remain in blissful ignorance.

She parked on the street and walked up the driveway, Esskay trotting happily alongside her, just pleased to be in on this adventure. The garage was padlocked, but the side entrance, where her mother kept her potting bench and gardening tools, was always open.

Inside, the naked sixty-watt bulb wasn't a match for anything past dusk, and the corners of the shed were lost in gray shadows that made every shape sinister and suspect. Ten plastic garbage bags sat in the back like huge toad-stools, fat and poisonous. She opened one, sniffing. The fragrance was sharper than whatever Crow had been using, but this was definitely mulch. Now what?