Chase: Roman

go in town for dinner or for music, and he listened. He had been too much of a recluse to offer anything on the subject, but even if he had socialized a great deal, he would not have had much to add to what she had to say; she knew all the good places. He supposed she had a dozen suitors willing to pay her way anywhere she wished to go; she was exquisitely sensuous.
        Dinner was delicious: baked potato, tossed salad, zucchini and the beef fondue that crackled and hissed as a background to their conversation. For dessert, there was crčme de menthe pie, cherry liqueur to dawdle over.
        ‘Shall we adjourn to the living room?’ she asked.
        He said, ‘What about the dishes?’
        ‘Let them sit,’ she said.
        ‘I'll help, and we'll get them done twice as fast.’
        She stood up and put her napkin on the table. She said, ‘You're the first man I've ever had to dinner who's offered to wash dishes.’
        ‘I thought maybe I could dry,’ he said.
        She laughed. ‘Still, you're unique.’
        ‘Shall we get at them, then?’
        ‘No,’ she said. ‘For one thing, I don't think guests should have to bother with that. For another, I'm not in the mood myself. I'd like to have a few more drinks and listen to music and watch the light-boxes while we talk.’
        ‘Good enough,’ Chase said. ‘But later, the dishes.’
        There were twelve light-boxes, each an eighteen-inch square, full of shifting patterns of red, blue, yellow, orange, white and green light. With no other lights burning, they cast strange images on the walls and ceilings and on the two of them as they sat together on the couch with their legs propped on the coffee table. Glenda's legs were covered with blue splashes, white squiggles, now a burst of red dots and concentric, wavery circles of yellow.
        ‘You're not at all like I thought you'd be,’ she said, terminating a lull in the conversation.
        ‘How did you think I'd be?’ he asked, not quite understanding what she meant.
        ‘Oh, very gung-ho, very stern and conservative and cold, you know.’
        ‘Is that the way I seemed when I came to your office?’
        ‘No,’ she said. ‘I was surprised then. That's what I mean. Right from the start, you didn't act like a war hero, no swelled head, just very polite and a little bit shy.’
        He could not manage to contain his surprise. ‘You knew me from the very start?’
        ‘Well, your picture had been on the front page twice that week.’ She sipped her drink, put it down on the end table beside the sofa.
        ‘But you never said anything.’
        ‘I'm sure you're sick to death of being congratulated.’
        ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Even more sick than that.’
        She said, ‘When I came back from the storage room and saw you were gone, I thought you were angry about not being waited on when you should have been.’
        ‘That wasn't it at all,’ he said. ‘I remembered another appointment that had slipped my mind, and I was already late.’ Now, for the first time all evening, he remembered what he had come here for tonight: to question her about the people who had used the morgue Tuesday, about Judge. But he could not think of any reasonable way to broach the subject. Besides, he didn't want to. All he wanted was to go on like this, sitting side by side, drinking, talking, the music behind them and the lights ahead.
        ‘Were you really looking for parts of your family history?’
        ‘What else?’ he asked.
        ‘It just seemed out of character then,’ she said. ‘And twice as out of character now that I know you better.’
        ‘Maybe I'm more complex than you suspect,’ he said.
        ‘I'm sure of it,’ she said.
        They watched the lights some more and said very little. There was actually no need to talk, for there was that easiness between them that allows no embarrassment at silence. She mixed them each another drink, and when she sat down again, she was closer to him than before.
        Much later, after more conversation, more music, other silences and one more drink, she said, ‘You are very much the gentleman, aren't you?’
        ‘Me?’
        ‘Yes.’
        ‘I wouldn't have thought so.’
        The way you asked for a date on the telephone - and then offering to help with the dishes. Besides, if you weren't a gentleman, you would have made a pass at me by now.’
        ‘Should I