“They do,” she said sadly, and pushed a chunk of straight auburn hair behind one ear.
It was at that moment that Father Joe Mike had a sort of revelation: Bonnie X should leave Los Angeles, or at the very least she should move to the Valley, to a place where no one knew her older sister, because when not juxtaposed to that sister, Bonnie was a perfectly attractive girl. Put the two of them together and Bonnie was a Shetland pony standing next to a racehorse, but he realized now that without knowing Beverly the word “pony” never would have come to mind. Over Bonnie’s shoulder he could see that Beverly Keating was dancing in the driveway with a police officer who was not her husband, and that the police officer was looking like a very lucky man.
“Come on,” Bonnie said, her voice somewhere between pleading and whining. “I think we’re the only two people here who aren’t married.”
“If what you’re looking for is availability, I don’t fit the bill.”
“I just want to dance,” she said, and put her free hand on his knee, the one that wasn’t already occupied by a cup.
Because Father Joe Mike had just been chastising himself about placing the propriety of appearances over true kindness, he felt himself waver. Would he have given two seconds’ thought to appearances if it had been his hostess asking for a dance? If Beverly Keating were crouching in front of him now instead of her sister, her wide-set blue eyes this close to his own, her dress slipping up so that the color of her underwear was made known to him—he stopped, giving his head an imperceptible shake. Not a good thought. He tried to take himself back to the loaves and the fishes, and when that proved impossible he held up his index finger. “One,” he said.
Bonnie X smiled at him with such radiant gratitude that Father Joe Mike wondered if he had ever made another living soul happy before this moment. They put down their cups and endeavored to pull one another up, though it was tricky. Before they were fully standing they were in each other’s arms. From that point it wasn’t very far to Bonnie clasping her hands behind Joe Mike’s neck and hanging there like the stole he wore to hear confessions. He rested an awkward hand on either side of her waist, the narrow place where her ribs curved down to meet his thumbs. If anyone at the party was looking at them he was not aware of it. In fact, he was overcome by the sensation of invisibility, hidden from the world by the mysterious cloud of lavender that rose up from the hair of Beverly Keating’s sister.
In truth, Bonnie had already managed one dance before enlisting Father Joe Mike, though in the end it wound up being not even half a dance. She had pulled the hardworking Dick Spencer away from the oranges for a minute, telling him he should take a break, that union rules applied to men who juiced oranges. Dick Spencer wore thick horn-rimmed glasses that made him look smart, lots smarter than Fix’s partner Lomer, who refused to give her the time of day despite the fact that she had twice leaned up against him, laughing. (Dick Spencer was smart. He was also so myopic that the couple of times his glasses had gotten knocked off while wrestling with a suspect he had been as good as blind. The thought of fighting a man who may well have a gun or a knife he couldn’t see was enough to make him sign up for night school, then law school, then ace the bar exam.) Bonnie took Spencer’s sticky hand and led him out to the back patio. Right away they were making a wide circle, bumping into other people. With her arms around his back she could feel how thin he was under his shirt, thin in a nice way, a thin that could wrap around a girl twice. The other deputy DA, Cousins, was better-looking, sort of gorgeous really, but he was stuck on himself, she could tell. Dick Spencer was a sweetheart in her arms.
That was about as far as her thoughts had progressed when she’d felt a strong hand gripping her upper arm. She’d been trying very hard to concentrate on Dick Spencer’s eyes behind his glasses and the effort was making her dizzy, or something was making her dizzy. She was holding on to him tight. She hadn’t seen the woman approaching. If she’d seen her, Bonnie might have had time to dodge, or at least come up with something clever to say. The woman was talking loud and fast, and Bonnie was careful to lean away from her. Just like that Dick Spencer and his wife were leaving the party.
“Going?” Fix said as they sailed past him in the living room.
“Keep an eye on your family,” Mary Spencer said.
Fix was on the couch, his older girl Caroline stretched out across his lap, sound asleep. He mistakenly thought Mary was complimenting him on watching his daughter. Maybe he had been half asleep himself. He patted Caroline lightly on the small of her back and she didn’t move.
“Give Cousins a hand,” Dick said over his shoulder, and then they were gone without his jacket or tie, without a goodbye to Beverly.
Albert Cousins hadn’t been invited to the party. He’d passed Dick Spencer in the hallway of the courthouse on Friday talking to a cop, some cop Cousins didn’t know but who maybe looked familiar the way cops do. “See you Sunday,” the cop had said, and when he walked away, Cousins asked Spencer, “What’s Sunday?” Dick Spencer explained that Fix Keating had a new kid, and that there was going to be a christening party.
“First kid?” Cousins had asked, watching Keating retreat down the hall in his blues.
“Second.”
“They do all that for second kids?”
“Catholics,” Spencer said and shrugged. “They can’t get enough of it.”