Jazz Funeral

so goddamn judgmental, Nick Anglime?”
    “Honey, could we start over? I don’t remember calling you a bitch.”
    “You said all I ever do is think about myself. Well, I’ll tell you something—I protected you. I said I was with someone else.”
    “Baby, I don’t mean to nitpick, but doesn’t that leave me without an alibi?”
    “You! You live here with an entourage of ten people. You don’t need me.” She’d flown off the handle when she heard Langdon had seen Nick. She’d given her Johnny Murphy’s name to hide the affair, but now it was obvious the cops knew anyway. So if they knew she’d lied about Johnny, and Nick didn’t alibi her, where did that leave her?
    “Sweetheart, I’m real sorry I made you mad. What can I do for you right now?”
    “Placate, placate, placate. All you know how to do is placate.”
    “You haven’t known me long enough to know what I know how to do.” For the first time his voice held anger, a sulky anger, the kind that simmered and bubbled. Ti-Belle’s heart speeded up; she realized she was frightened. The last thing she wanted was to turn him against her.
    But she had to get her point across. “Look, Nick. I just don’t see why you didn’t tell her I was with you. What could be simpler?”
    “Well, I didn’t know what you’d told her, for one thing.”
    “You could have at least set it up, just in case. ‘I was with a friend,’ something like that. Now, if you have to say it was me, it’ll sound like you made it up.”
    “I didn’t think of that, okay? The woman made me nervous.”
    “Made you nervous? You, Nick Anglime? Are you crazy? That cop was slobbering like a teenager—you could have told her you were with her and she’d have believed you.”
    “Look, how am I supposed to alibi you when I can’t? Am I supposed to perjure myself for you? Is that the next step?” Now he was the furious one. But why? Ti-Belle couldn’t figure it out. She was the one with the beef.
    “Nick, what are you getting so upset about? One minute you’re a perfect little lamb and the next you’re acting like a crazy man.”
    “You want me to lie for you—is that it? Is that what you’re mad about—that I didn’t lie?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I’m talking about the fact that you left for an hour and a half in the middle of what was supposed to be a daring weekday rendezvous—which was your idea in the first place. Frankly, I’m starting to wonder if I was set up.”
    “Set up! How dare you!”
    “Well, what the hell else am I supposed to think?”
    He was deserting her. She felt her chest start to heave. “You don’t trust me.”
    “Why don’t you just tell me, then—where the hell did you go Wednesday?”
    “I went to get a dress to wear to Ham’s damn party—isn’t that what I told you I did?”
    “Yes, ma’am, you did tell me that. But then when you didn’t come back with any packages, I got to thinkin’ maybe you had another lover on the side.”
    “Shit!” Ti-Belle pulled a book out of the nearest bookshelf and threw it at him, the first book that came to hand—she didn’t care if it was a first edition Moby Dick.
    It caught him in the chest and he clutched it to his body like a baby. “Don’t ever throw my things! Don’t do that ever again!”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Like hell I am.
    “This was the dress I bought, okay? I didn’t think you’d be interested in my damn dress. I didn’t want you to think I’m one of those women who just shops, shops, shops all the time. So I left it in the car, is that okay?”
    “It just seems pretty weird that you’d leave in the middle of things like that.”
    “Damn you! I take three days off, turn my life upside down to be with you, and I just have this one thing to do from my real life?”
    “Okay. Okay, Ti-Belle.” He was backing away.
    She wondered if she was coming on too strong. But probably not, she thought. The men she attracted weren’t afraid of a strong woman. She liked that about them—about Nick. Her anger was losing steam. “Okay what?” she said.
    “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I did the wrong thing and I’m sorry.”
    She felt the muscles in her chest start to loosen. Her anger was ebbing as swiftly as it had gathered. She smiled at him, happy they were making up. “Really?”
    “Really.”
    “I’m sorry I got mad.”
    “You’ve been under pressure.”
    She nodded, felt a flash of misery at the mention of Ham, and quickly turned her