Blue Smoke

she’s got this little mole, right here.” He tapped above his lip. “She comes from a big family. They run an Italian place in my neighborhood. She grew up there. Hey, maybe your brother knows her. Isn’t your brother a cop?”
    “He is, these past twenty-three years. Has he arrested her?”
    He laughed. “Doubtful. She’s a cop. Baltimore city. Arson unit.”
    “So’s my brother.”
    “Get out. I thought he was . . . I don’t know what I thought. They must know each other. What’s his name again? I’ll ask her.”

    “It’s O’Donnell. Michael O’Donnell.”
    Now he set down the lemonade, pulled off his safety goggles. “Okay, Twilight Zone music. He’s her partner. She’s Catarina Hale.”
    “Catarina Hale.” Mrs. Malloy folded her arms. “Catarina Hale. The same one I tried to fix you up with years ago?”
    “You did not. Did you?”
    “My brother says he has a pretty new partner—and I say, is she single? And he says yes, and I say, I’ve got a nice boy, the boy who does work around the house for me. I tell him he has to ask her if she wants to go out with a nice boy. But she’s seeing someone else. Turns out not to be such a nice boy, but Mick won’t bring it up to her again. So.”
    “Wow. It’s this weird circle with us, me and Reena. I mean we circled around each other for years, never quite connecting. Have you ever met her?”
    “Once, when she came to a party at Mick’s. Very pretty, good manners.”
    “I’m going to dinner tomorrow. Her parents’ house. Family dinner.”
    “You take flowers.”
    “Flowers?”
    “You take her mother some nice flowers, but not in a box.” She shook her finger as she gave Bo instructions. “It’s too formal. Nice colorful flowers you can hand her when you go in the door.”
    “Okay.”
    “You’re a good boy,” she pronounced, then left him to work so she could go inside, call her brother and get more inside scoop on this Catarina Hale.
    F lowers, he could handle flowers. They had them at the grocery store, and he needed to pick up a few things anyway. He stopped by the store near Mrs. Malloy’s house, wheeled a cart in. Milk, he was always running out of milk. Cereal. Why didn’t they stock the cereal near the milk? Didn’t that make sense?
    Maybe he should pick up a couple of steaks, have Reena over and grill them. With that in mind, he picked up a few more things, working his way over to the florist.

    He stood, thumbs in pockets, studying the selections in the refrigerated displays.
    Mrs. M. had said cheerful. The big yellow ones—he thought they were lilies—looked cheerful. But didn’t lilies say funeral? Nothing cheery about that.
    “Harder than I thought,” he muttered out loud, then glanced over, slightly embarrassed, when a man stepped up beside him.
    “In the doghouse, too?”
    “Sorry?”
    The man gave Bo a long-suffering smile, then frowned at the flowers. “Thought maybe you were in the doghouse. That’s where I lived last night. Gotta get the wife some flowers, buy my way out.”
    “Oh. No, dinner at my girlfriend’s parents’ tomorrow. I think it’s roses for a doghouse pass.”
    “Shit. Guess so.” He stepped to the counter and the clerk on duty. “Looks like I need a dozen of those roses. Red ones, I guess. Women,” he said to Bo and scratched his head under his gimme cap.
    “Tell me about it. I think I’m going for those.” Bo glanced at the clerk. “Those different-colored things with the big heads?”
    “Gerbera daisies,” he was told.
    “Daisies are cheerful, right?”
    The clerk smiled at him as she took out the roses. “I think so.”
    “Cool. A big mess of those daisies then, when you’re done. Just mix them up.”
    “Bet wives cost more than mothers,” the man said mournfully.
    Bo looked back at the daisies. Was he being cheap? He was going for pretty and cheerful, not cheap. Why was it so complicated? He waited until the roses were wrapped.
    “See ya.”
    “Yeah.” Bo gave the man an absent nod. “Good luck,” he added, then fell on the mercy of the clerk. “Look, it’s a family dinner thing—my girlfriend’s family. Are the daisies the thing? Is a dozen enough? Help me.”
    She moved to the cold box again. “They’re perfect. Major points for casual, happy flowers.”

    “Good. Fine. Thanks. I’m exhausted.”
Easy as pie, keeping an eye. Change of pace to follow the boy next door, check him out up close. Asshole working on Saturday.
    Could’ve stuck him