Invasion of Privacy

me, she held the bud to her nose. “John, it’s beautiful.”
    “Mrs. Feeney said be sure to give the stem a fresh cut. With a knife, not scissors, so the ‘pores’ stay open for absorbing water.”
    Nancy raised her chin. “Mrs. Feeney.”
    “The woman who runs the florist—”
    “I know who she is. It’s just that you’ve never...” Nancy shook her head, then closed her eyes, taking another breath over the rose.
    “You okay?” I said.
    “Yes. I’m making a memory.” She looked up at me. “The blossom hasn’t opened yet.”
    “That’s why I asked for this one. I thought we could kind of watch it open together.”
    “I’d like that, John Francis Cuddy.” She paused. “I’d also like just some cuddling again tonight.”
    “Probably be too full after the soup for anything more strenuous, anyway.”
    A smile without showing her teeth. “Maybe an old movie on the VCR too?”
    “From your extensive collection, or do I call the video store?”
    “We can talk about it over dinner.” Nancy rotated the rose in her hand like a wineglass. “One more thing, John?”
    “Name it.”
    “Can we have a normal day tomorrow?”
    “Normal?”
    “I’ll have to go into the office on Sunday to prep some more for this trial, make up the time I lost Thursday at the doctor’s. But tomorrow, no work, no talk of tests. Just a nice, simple Saturday, okay?”
    I thought about it. On the one hand, Olga Evorova was missing, which made me want to do something positive toward finding her. On the other hand, I didn’t have any more cards to play in that direction, and another get-together with the hitters from Milwaukee didn’t seem wise until I had something tangible to prove I wasn’t hiding Andrew Dees from them. And there were my memories of Beth just after we’d found out she was sick, and how much time with her then had meant to both of us.
    “John?” Nancy was looking at me, her eyebrows forming a worry line.
    Cupping my palms, I rested one on each of her shoulders. “A normal Saturday sounds great to me, kid.”

    In the morning, we ate muffins and drank hot chocolate at a little hole-in-the-wall near Anthony’s Pier Four that used to cater exclusively to the men who worked the sea, a Fisherman’s Prayer still nailed above a roster of those who could no longer say it for themselves. After that, Nancy and I hopped a bus to Back Bay and the Institute of Contemporary Art , taking in the Elvis and Marilyn exhibit, goofing on the crucified Las Vegas lounge suit and gold-painted shrines but lingering over some of the affecting portraits and candid photos. We had a pub lunch at Charley’s on Newbury Street, then spent the afternoon walking hand-in-hand along the river, all the way to the Larz Anderson Bridge and up into Harvard Square, shopping the shops without buying the buys.
    Dinner was at Grendel’s Den, a large restaurant of surprisingly intimate little tables and superb food priced for grad students and assistant professors. Across the alley is the House of Blues. Passing the tourists clucking over T-shirts on the first floor, Nancy and I climbed to the second level. The cathedral ceiling has skylights, each a silhouette of a seminal blues artist with names and places of birth underneath. Rick Russell’s band played wonderful riffs, from guitar to brass, and while it wasn’t exactly dance music, we found ourselves doing a modest bump, hip against hip, here and there.
    By eleven-thirty, I was hailing a cab that delivered us back to Southie twenty minutes later. Inside her apartment, Nancy gave Renfield a midnight snack.
    Then she turned to me. “That ought to keep him diverted.” Winking, Nancy took my hand and led me into the bedroom. “Only thing is, I want to leave my bra on while we make love.”
    “Nance—”
    “Please. We can talk about it afterwards, but not before, okay?”
    “Okay.”

    I lay on my back, spent.
    Nancy leaned over me in the near-dark, her lips just brushing the right side of my nose. “Sailor, you sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
    The past half-hour had been intense, each of us moving with the other for reasons selfish and sharing. Nancy had spoken first.
    I lifted my right arm, and she cuddled frontways against my side. Using my right hand, I stroked her gently along the spine, up and down below the bra strap.
    “That feels so good.”
    “Nance?”
    “Yes?”
    “I thought you said last night that until we heard from the doctor, you wanted to