Jazz Funeral

life, maybe. I can’t explain it. I thought he was going to be mesmerizing, but he hardly has any personality at all.”
    “Oh, come on.”
    “Well, not that you can get at.”
    “Hold it here. Baby, this is Nick Anglime we’re talking about. That’s the closest we’ve got to Elvis himself in terms of star power. Are you telling me that you, Detective Margaret Langdon, are so sophisticated you just weren’t impressed one little bit?”
    “Impressed!” She started to giggle. “Omigod. Impressed!” She laughed till tears ran down her face and had to be wiped by the more alert Steve. Other diners stared, and the waitress brought a glass of water. Steve merely waited.
    “Impressed!” she said, when the power of speech returned.
    “Skip. You’re more tired than I thought. You want to go home?”
    She still couldn’t stop laughing. But finally the thing spent itself, and she drank her water. “Was I impressed?” she said. “I nearly wet my pants. This is Nick Anglime we’re talking about. He doesn’t have to have a personality. Listen, I stammered, I fished for words, I couldn’t meet his eyes. Are you kidding? Impressed! I’ll tell you about impressed. It was all I could do not to roll around on the floor and beg to kiss his ring or something.”
    “Well, I’m glad he wasn’t mesmerizing or anything.”
    “Okay, okay. Maybe he was just a tiny bit mesmerizing. I mean, aside from the fact that he’s an extremely good-looking dude, there’s something else. It’s that he’s withdrawn. By not giving you the slightest notion who he is, he makes you want to know. The more withdrawn he seems, the more fascinating it is in a weird kind of way.”
    “You’re sick.”
    “Well, think about it. He’s the nearest thing to God in the pop culture pantheon. So you go in all ready to sit at the feet of greatness, and you don’t get greatness.”
    “And that just makes you want it all the more. I guess I can see it.” He was staring down at the bill, probably figuring the tip.
    Shyly, she stroked his first two fingers. “You want dessert? Bread pudding?”
    “Are you kidding? I just ate the equivalent of three meals. Anyway, we’d have to go to the Palace Cafe for that. You’re way too tired.”
    “No, I’m not. I want to walk through the Quarter.”
    “What for?”
    “I want to look at street bands.”
    “Look at? Doesn’t one usually listen to them?”
    “I want to check out runaway teenage singers.”
    “Melody!”
    She tried not to look smug. “Sure. Where would you go if you were sixteen and knew a tune or two?”
    He looked at her with respect. “That’s brilliant.”
    “My weird ear thought of it.”
    He looked jazzed. “Let’s do it. But no bread pudding. Beignets.”
    They walked to Royal, and over to Jackson Square on the way to Cafe du Monde, but didn’t see a sign of a teenage singer. Over their beignets, Steve said, “I’m going to go to Cookie’s tonight—give you a little time to recover.”
    “What?” She’d heard it, but she didn’t want to believe it.
    “I thought I’d go to—”
    “I meant … why?”
    He touched her hair. “Look at you. You’re beyond bushed.”
    He’s seen me with a concussion. Could I look worse than that? I must be a hag.
    Desperate to register a protest, yet not knowing what to do, she said nothing. It had been such a perfect evening, how could this be happening? He was the one who needed time alone, that was obvious. It was a first in their relationship—he always wanted to be with her, never slept at Cookie’s, even when he was officially staying there. It was a first, and it was probably the beginning of the end. He’d had enough of her already, couldn’t take her in large doses, and the irony was, she was falling more deeply in love every second.
    But of course she knew that it wasn’t irony at all—or at least not irony in microcosm. It was the greater irony of the tolerance difference between the sexes. She’d heard about it, read about it, endured endless complaining about it from women friends.
    But I never thought it could happen to me. I was so cautious. I let him take the lead in everything. I didn’t dare let myself feel anything until I was sure about how he felt. I did everything right, dammit!
    Alone at home, feeling like a deflated balloon, she called Jimmy Dee.
    “And where,” he said, arriving joint in hand, “is that terrifying bear of a man. You did call me for protection?”
    “I thought you