Mean Woman Blues

that was what, in the end, had brought them close.
    When you’re the son and the granddaughter, respectively, of the most famous, maybe the most dangerous killer on the planet, you’d better be close. Especially since Lovelace’s mother was hopeless, and Isaac’s was not only never around, but also pretty much a broken woman from all the years she’d spent with his father.
    Neither of them called themselves “Jacomine” any more. They had chosen “James” together, so they could still have a family name in common yet avoid embarrassing questions.
    Lovelace’s father, who was Isaac’s brother, Daniel, was about to be sentenced for crimes he’d committed with his infamous father, and that was why Lovelace was here. Exams prevented her coming for the actual sentencing, but she had wanted to come down and see him this weekend instead, as some kind of gesture Isaac didn’t understand. Motivated by guilt, maybe. From everything he read, most people felt guilty for not loving their parents enough, not doing enough for them, just not being the cookie-cutter kids their parents had ordered and, truth to tell, Isaac felt somewhat that way toward his mother. He certainly didn’t toward his father.
    The way he did feel toward his father didn’t bear thinking about, though maybe one day he’d have to sit down and go over it with a shrink, the way most people seemed to. But maybe not, because he painted. That took a lot of the edge off.
    Lovelace was going to be fine, he thought. It was the first time they’d seen each other since Thanksgiving, and she was much stronger, much happier. She was like Isaac: Her work kept her going.
    On Saturday, they’d gone to see Daniel and then to a movie, slowly getting reacquainted, and today they’d talked. He made her brunch, first one of his justly famous vegetarian omelettes with a side of home fries, and then they went for a walk along the lakefront.
    Some things they’d already caught up on at Thanksgiving. Things like life among the talking classes. (Isaac had once lived under a vow of silence.) Things like her new environment— she’d transferred from Northwestern to Cornell to attend the hotel school. Today, they’d kind of filled in the details.
    Lovelace wasn’t having her nightmares anymore, but she was still on Prozac. Isaac was on it too, and it was working (though his complaint was much different). He was living close to a normal life these days, having gotten tired of being an outsider artist and gone back to UNO for a fine arts degree. That way, he figured, he’d get respect and he could teach. And he had this girlfriend, Terri.
    “What’s your favorite thing about her?” Lovelace had asked, which made him think about it. What
was
his favorite thing about her?
    At first it was just that she was nice to him. She had been the one to make the advances: to strike up a conversation, to ask him to coffee, finally to ask to see him again. “I figure she must like me,” he said.
    Lovelace laughed. “I’d say that’s a fair assumption. But why not Uncle dear? You’re a pretty handsome dude.”
    “I’m not exactly the type you’d pick out of a crowd.”
    She pretended to assess him. “Little short maybe.” And that was good for another laugh, as she was about five-ten.
    He never thought of himself as handsome, and anyway the whole subject of sexual attraction embarrassed him, especially talking to his niece. Hastily, he soldiered on. “Well, we got to know each other, and, really, what I like about her is, I admire her.”
    “Well, of course, silly.” Lovelace was wriggling around on the sofa like some twelve-year-old sex kitten. She was visibly enjoying his discomfort.
    “I mean I like her values.” When you’ve been raised in hell, values get important.
    “How so?”
    “She’s a hard, hard worker. Nothing’s easy for her, and she works her butt off to keep her life together.”
    “A cute butt, I bet. What does she do that’s so hard?”
    “She’s also an art student— an undergraduate.”
    “Aha. A younger woman.”
    He was about to say, “I like younger women,” meaning it as a compliment to Lovelace, but he was afraid it would come off as flirtatious. He let the comment go. “She goes to school and does clerical work for somebody two days a week, and in addition to that she has her own business, Aunt Terri’s Rent-a-Wife.”
    Lovelace laughed out loud. “She’s not full service, I hope!”
    “Hell, no. She comes from a good