The Saving Graces (6 page)

"I always knew."
"Even when you were little?"
"I never remember not knowing it." He hesitated, started to fiddle with the paper place mat, a child's map of D.C.'s major tourist attractions. "Believe me, no one wanted to make me feel as if I were on trial. My parents were terrific. Anything like that, I did it to myself. Because. . ." He held his empty cup up and scrutinized the manufacturer's name on the bottom.
I know better than to prompt someone I'm interviewing, But I said, "Because you didn't want them to be sorry. For choosing you." - "That's it." The surprise and the gratitude in his face were too good-they made me dizzy. I grabbed his coffee cup and mine, got up, and went to the counter for refills. Now all I could think was, We have to stop having these moments. - - But when I came back and sat down, and stirred and sipped and acted normal, I noticed he was looking at me in a new way. You know how you can tell when you've done or said something, inadvertently or not, that makes the other person go to the next level, so to speak, some alternate way of seeing you? And sometimes that's good, and sometimes you wish you'd been more circumspect? I couldn't decide which it was in this case, but one thing was clear: Mick didn't just interest me anymore. I interested him.
I picked up my pencil. He resumed. - "About four years ago, after giving it a lot of thought, I made up my mind to try to find out who my birth mother was. By then I'd been practicing law for seven years. Not very happily. Miserably," he said with a laugh, glancing up. "1 was married, my son was almost two. Sally-that's my wife-she'd quit her job after Jay was born so she could be a full-time mother:' "What was her job?" I sounded businesslike, as if the story would crumble without that vital tidbit.
"She was a paralegal. That's how we met." Paralegal, I wrote. "And did you find your mother?" "Eventually. I should tell you something about myself first. I've always painted or sketched or sculpted or built constructions, collages-I've always made things. Even as a kid." - - "You've always been an artist." "Well, but I didn't call it that. It would never have occurred to me. We didn't have any artists in my family, not even remotely. A second cousin who dabbles in photography-that's it. Except for him, nothing." It hit me. "Your mother. You found her-and? Who was she? What was-she?" He smiled; he liked my excitement. "Yeah, I found her. When she gave me up, she was a second-year student at the Art Institute in Chicago." "My God. Mick, oh, wow, that's amazing." "I thought you'd like that. It makes a good story for you, doesn't it?" "Are you kidding?" My CPA-turned-bluegrass fiddler, my UPS man-turned-pentecostal preacher-they were in danger of looking anemic in comparison. "This is terrific, this could be the whole story. So do you see her now? What does she do, is she still-" "I've never met her." "Oh. No?"
"I wrote her a letter, and I know she got it, but she didn't write back. So I had to let it go. I never tried to see her."
He has a way of compressing his lips in a tight half-smile when he says things that pain him. It discourages sympathy. I took the hint and didn't offer any. But I hurt forhim. - "The point is," he said after a moment, "finding that out about my mother was like"-he touched his finger- tips to his temple, then flung his hand out-"an explosion. When the smoke cleared, everything fell into place-I knew what I was supposed to do. For the first time, I really understood myself." "Wow." I felt a definite spark of envy. "Like figuring out you're gay and coming out of the closet or something." "Exactly. Not that it happened overnight. Don't misunderstand-it took about a year for the smoke to clear." "Well, that was the lawyer part, I guess. You know, being cautious." "Partly." He didn't elaborate on that, and I started thinking how I might phrase a question about his wife, how all this had sat with her. But then-I didn't. In the same situation, I'd have asked it of somebody else. But my motives were impure. I couldn't quite bring myself to ask it of Mick.
Instead I asked him about the early days, and if it had been scary resigning from his job. He said it was terrifying; his paycheck went from-he caught himself. "It dropped about ninety-eight percent," he said, watching me write that down. "I've been a full-time painter for three years now, and I've sold two paintings, both to friends. I may never make any money." But I don't think he believed that, because he said it without any anxiety, and he didn't strike me as the kind of man who could indulge himself without guilt indefinitely.
- A kindred spirit.
He'd opened the door, though, and I had a responsibility to walk through it. "Your wife-urn-" "Sally." - - "Sally." I wrote it down. "So she's okay with all this, she's-"
"She's been great. She's been great." He nodded and nodded, and I scribbled, S. been great. I looked at him expectantly. It's amazing how much you can get out of someone by saying nothing, just waiting. Mick rubbed his cheek in a raspy circle-he needed a shave-and finally said, "Jay's in day care-well, you know that, you know Lee Patterson -because Sally's had to go back to work. She's an administrative assistant at the Labor Department."
"Uh-huh." "She had to do it. Otherwise we'd've starved. And we've moved to Columbia Heights."
"From?" "Q Street, Dupont Circle. Near the Park."
"Uh-huh." "We're fixing up an old row house." "Been there." "Really?"
"Well, no, I mean, I just bought one. An old town house. Somebody else fixed it up." "Uh-huh." He smiled, but I think he was mimicking me. "Well, that's a little different:' "I guess." The change of address suggested he'd come down in the world, and his manner said he minded. What wasn't clear was if he minded for himself or for Sally, and I couldn't think of a way to ask. Not that it was any of my business. - - - I glanced over my notes. "So tell me, what would you call the kind of art you're doing now?"
He put his chin on his knee, frowning. "What would you call it?" I gave a nervous laugh, but he wasn't being hostile or aggressive. He sounded curious.
"Listen, Mick, I have to tell you, I don't know the first thing about art. Honestly, I'm a complete dunce, so if you want this article to sound good and be true, you should talk to me straight. In fact, you should talk down to me. Pretend I'm your kid." He laughed. God, I liked making him laugh. I liked it too much. "Failing that, just talk very, very slowly." So he did. At length. The gist of it was that he hadn't found his own style yet, or even his true subject, but he was working in a formalist, figural mode because he needed the practice and because abstraction was a dead end for him. He thought postmodernism wasn't a real epoch, just the last gasp of modernism before the next phase started. He wouldn't presume to say what that would be like, but when I pressed, he said he thought it might involve a revival of formal excellence, which contemporary art was incapable of and had therefore cynically dismissed.
I asked him who he admired, and he said Rembrandt, Fantin-Latour, Arshile Gorky, Alice Neel, Eric Fischl. Who did he hate? He said he would tell me, but only off the record, and then he rattled off about five names, all men, none I'd ever heard of. He saw himself moving more and more toward portraiture, he said; in fact, lately he'd noticed a recurring character in his paintings and sketches, a young man, maybe an adolescent, whom he was calling "Joe" and who he thought was probably himself. Color was his strength, drawing his weakness; he took two different drawing classes, four nights a week, and he was beginning to see a little progress. He wished he had the time and money to go for a master of fine arts somewhere, because he was at a point where his lack of formal training was becoming more and more of a handicap.
I got most of it down, but the longer he talked, the more distracted I got. He was so beautifully intense. Art was his passion, obviously, it bordered on his obsession, and I am such a sucker for men who really love their work. I find their single-mindedness incredibly sexy and desirable. And the best part is, they don't depend on me to make sense out of their lives.
I ran out of questions. I glanced at my watch.
"Let's eat something, I'm starting to shake." Mick held out his hand; sure enough, his fingers were trembling. "I never drink coffee like this," he admitted and got up to go to the men's room.
We ordered cheeseburgers, french fries, and milkshakes, the kind of food we both swore we never ate, but I noticed we polished it all off without any trouble. While we ate, he asked me questions. At first I didn't even notice; it seemed like the usual give-and-take, just normal conversation. But when he said, "Is newspaper work what you've always wanted to do? Or-if you suddenly found out you had a different birth mother, who would you like her to be?"-I realized he was turning the tables and interviewing me.
Okay, I was flattered. In my experience, the majority of people don't care that much about other people's inner lives. They're nice, they're polite, they ask how you're doing-and as soon as you start telling them they click off. Their eyes glaze, they go into wait mode, and what they're waiting for is you to run down or take a breath, so they can jump in and tell you how much more interesting their lives are than yours. This isn't cynicism. I'm telling you, it happens all the time.
The exception, of course, is men who are trying to sleep with you. The better they are at it, the harder they listen; the more they want you, the more entranced they become by your every random utterance. What's funny is that this tried-and-true method really works, at least on me. As one who has, as they say, been around the block a few times, I ought to know better, but I don't. It gets me every time.
So it was with considerably mixed feelings that I stared back into Mick Draco's intelligent brown eyes, currently focused on me with much interest and expectancy, and contemplated his acute question. Are you trying to seduce me? I asked him via mental telepathy. God, I hope so.
No, I don't, I'd hate that. - "Mary McCarthy." His eyebrows shot up. "The writer?" "Yeah, or Iris Murdoch. Katherine Anne Porter. No, not really-I was trying to think of who'd be the right age to give birth to me about forty years ago. Thirty-nine." Shit, I told him my age. And he was younger! Only one year, but still.
"Oh, so you'd like to write fiction?" Now that was the really disconcerting thing, not that I'd told him my age but that I'd told him my secret dream. Not that secret-the Graces know, although Rudy's the only one who knows how much I want it; and my mother knows; a couple of ex-boyfriends know, because I was stupid enough to blurt it out to them. But it's supposed to be a secret. Why? Because I hate to fail in public. And because the journalist-who-yearns-to-write-the-great-American-novel is such a foolish, humiliating cliché, I don't care to be associated with it.
But I was speaking to a man who had given up lawyering for painting. If anyone would understand the dream, it ought to be Mick. So I didn't back down or try to wriggle out with a joke, I looked straight at him and said, "Yes, I would. Someday. It's what I want to do most. But I'm, you know. Afraid." "Yeah," he said, as if nothing could be more natural. "Because it's terrifying." "It is, it's terrifying." Just thinking about it was scaringme.
"So what are you going to do?" "Hm? Well, I've written some short stories that stink, nobody wants them." Defenses creeping back; arms halfway into full metal jacket. "And I'm playing around with something longer, but it's no good. Really. I'm not being modest:' "Has anybody read it?" "Are you kidding?" I laughed, ha ha. "Luckily, I've got a very highly developed sense of shame, it keeps me out of all sorts of trouble." Mick smiled and looked away.
I went cold, realizing he was a little embarrassed. For me. Because what I'd said was so transparent.
"I wonder," he said slowly, "which is more personal, a painting or a poem. I wonder which one is more revealing." - "That's easy. A poem." "How come?" "Because it's easier to hide behind a painting." "Is it? Why?" I grinned, trying to win him back with candor. "Because I don't understand paintings." - "I don't understand poems." I laughed, but he didn't. "Okay," I said testily, "I get your point." "What point?" "You're braver than I am. You're a hero, I'm a chicken. Look, I'm not arguing with you, you're right. No contest." "That's not what I meant. Wait a second, that's not what I'm saying, I'm-" "Okay, my mistake. Forget it, it doesn't matter anyway. I don't even know what we're talking about." His sigh sounded exasperated. "I'm quite sure I'm not braver than you are, Emma." "Well, but you don't know me." "True, but I can tell you're not a chicken." "How?" Oh, how embarrassing, how childish, how immature, how pathetic, how needy. "Hm? How can you tell?" - - He never got to answer. The ear-splitting siren of a police car, then an ambulance, then another police car made it impossible to talk. Mick smiled and shrugged, and turned around to watch them roar by in the bleary, grease-smeared window. "Oh, no. My God, it's ten to three." I saw the clock over the front door. "So-?" He started rooting around in his pockets, hunting for his wallet. He looked stunned. "I've got to pick up Jay. I'm sorry, I had no idea it was this late, I've got ten minutes to get to Judiciary Square. But I can make it. But how did this happen? So-did we finish?" "Yeah, I guess." I couldn't think; my mind had blanked. "I'll get this," I said, shoving dollar bills back at him.
"It's on the paper. I've got an expense account." "Oh. Okay. Look, I'm sorry I have to go, but I have to." "Sure. Go. Take the subway, it's only one stop." "No, I think I'll just run." He stood over me, frowning and smiling, smoothing his hair back, harried, uncertain. "Well, so. If you need to ask me any more questions, you know how to get in touch with me, I guess." "Right. And here's my card, you can call me if, you know, you think of anything else." "It should be a great article." - "Thanks for a terrific interview." "I really enjoyed it. Obviously." He made a sheepish gesture back at the clock.
"Yeah, me, too." "Well. Good luck to you." "Thanks. I'll be looking for your stuff in Art World from now on."

   I finally had to stop smiling. Mick's face changed from hectic courtesy to awareness. For the space of about three seconds, we were both naked. I started to say something, but then I couldn't. He couldn't either. It was over, it was ending. Hello, good-bye. If we shook hands- - But no-he just said my name and bowed his head, and I saw-his lips press together in that grimacing smile he makes when things aren't good. And then he walked out of my life without touching me.
Which was just as well. Close call. I might not have let go.
I took the bus home. I've got a car, but I like to take the bus or the subway around the city, it gives me time to think. If I'm in a good mood, I like to look at my fellow passengers and speculate on their lives, measure them on the narrow, unforgiving scale of Emma's Criteria for Normalcy. If I'm in a bad mood, I like to sink deeper and deeper into it while I stare lifelessly out the window of the No. 42 or the Red Line Metro, converting every building, every pedestrian, every telephone pole into a metaphor for corruption, decay, and urban ennui. It cheers me up.
But today I was beyond bad moods or good moods. I was flummoxed. I couldn't understand myself. I'm my best friend, I trust me, I keep a constant conversation going with myself-audible, if I'm alone-and it's important to me that I know myself. Vital. Otherwise, chaos.
Why was I devastated? Oh, please. Even the word devastated offends me, it's so melodramatic. I drank coffee all afternoon with a man, and we talked. It was a good conversation, and there had been bursts of honesty that thrilled me, little explosions of candor that don't occur that often between me and other people, except for Rudy, and hardly ever between me and the men I've been seeing for, oh, the last five years or so. Especially sober.
He had let me record the interview, I could play it back, and I bet I'd scratch my head and think, What's the big deal? On the surface, not that much happened. Why was I in such disarray? And pain. I felt like an accident -had happened to me, but I was hurt in a place I couldn't put my finger on. All over, Sense of proportion needed here. I saw something I wanted and I can't have it, that's all. They call it loss, and the standard reaction is grief. So I'm normal. And how long can it last? Not long-I'm Emma DeWitt, not Emma Bovary.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, my house was as dark as nighttime. I went around turning on lamps, turning up the heat, wondering if I should get a cat. Or a bird, one that would make a lot of noise when I came home. I made a cup of tea-more caffeine, that's the ticket-and leafed through my boring mail. Then I watched the rain glide down the kitchen window in long, slow, monotonous trails.
The phone rang, and my heart flipped right into my throat.
"Hello?" "Sondra?" "Who?" "Oh. Sor-" Click.
Same to you.
Well, that was a revealing little incident. I felt weak in the knees. Elbows on the counter, I held my head in my hands and wallowed in misery for one full minute.
Mick wasn't going to call me. In my heart, I didn't even want him to. And I wasn't going to dream up some specious, last-minute interview question and call him. Both of us were better than that.
There's some comfort in finality, even if it's grim. I hate ambiguity, give me all or nothing. I can take nothing as long as it really is nothing, undiluted by hope or yes, but maybe if.
I would take a bath, I decided. I'm a shower person, but there's something healing about submersion in scalding water when you've got the blues. A bath, or a bowl- of hot oatmeal with lots of butter-those are the two best depression remedies I know. Well, no, but they're the two wholesomest. And I'd take the phone in the tub with me and call Rudy. Curtis wouldn't be home yet, she'd be able to talk.
Upstairs in my study, the answering machine was blinking a message.
"Hi, Em, it's Lee, it's Monday, it's approximately two-forty-seven in the afternoon. I'm calling to see if you can come to dinner on Friday." Great! A diversion. And I hadn't seen Henry, who cracks me up, in ages.
"Are you still seeing that Brad, the engineering consultant guy?" Unfortunately, yes. "Well, anyway, bring him if you want to, or anybody else, whoever you'd like. Or come alone if you'd rather, it doesn't matter. Although the table won't be balanced." Gotcha. "So, I really hope you can make it and it's not too short notice." Lee has a wonderfully flattering misconception of my social life. "Very informal, just pot luck, come in anything." Meaning I'd show up in leggings and a sweater, and she'd wear a two-hundred-dollar hostess gown. Do they still call them that, "hostess gowns"?
"I think the only other couple I'm asking is the Dracos. I ran into Sally yesterday, and then I remembered you already know Mick, so I thought it might be fun if we all got together. You'll like Sally, Em, she's smart. And nice, I'm really having fun getting to know her." Oh Jesus Christ God Almighty.
"Well, okay, call me when you get a chance, I'll be home all evening. Or tomorrow-leave a message if you're out all night gallivanting. Ha ha. B'bye." As I say, I hate ambiguity. It makes dealing with simultaneous joy and wretchedness a special challenge. I headed back downstairs because it was time for the big guns. A bowl of oatmeal in a scalding hot bath.
I'd have enjoyed my dinner party more if Emma and Mick Draco, Sally's husband, had gotten along better. I- think it's rude to bring your personal animosities to a social function; it discomfits everybody. Not that they had a fight-far from it; they didn't even speak. They barely looked at each other, and I for one think that's discourteous. To each other, certainly, but even more, to the hostess. Me. Clearly their interview last Monday didn't go. well, but that's not my fault.
I smoothed things over as best I could, and a less perceptive observer probably wouldn't even have noticed anything amiss, Henry didn't, as he told me afterward when we discussed it. But that's a man for you. Women are the discerning ones when it comes to the dynamics of interpersonal relationships.
After dinner, I served dessert (apple mousse with drizzled calvados sauce) in the living room. "How long have you two been married?" Sally asked sociably, sipping coffee.
"Four years," I said. "And you and Mick?" "Six. Six?" She looked at her husband, who nodded. "Gosh, it doesn't-seem that long. How did you meet? I love to hear stories about how happy couples first got together, don't you?" She's such a friendly woman, and I appreciated her effort to keep the conversation fresh and interesting-like me, she must've noticed the strain between Mick and Emma.
I started to answer, but Henry spoke first. "Well, I was driving home from work one day, and I got a call on the car phone from my mom. She was stuck on a job in Alexandria and wanted me to take her last call-." "Oh, your mother's a-?" "She's a plumber, like me. I'm the son in Patterson and Son." "Oh, really? I didn't realize that." "Yeah, so she asked me to take her last job for her, some-lady in Maryland with a stopped-up toilet." Sally laughed. "How romantic! I'm assuming this was Lee." - Henry nodded. "I drove over to Chevy Chase and knocked on the door-this door-and that was that. One look, and I was gone." "Aww," Emma said. "What were you wearing, Lee?" "Oh, golly, I don't remember." - "I do." Henry grinned, slanting me a lazy-eyed look that brought back some memories. "A little checked suit, with a vest and a black bowtie. Masculine, you know, which made me want to laugh, 'cause she sure wasn't masculine. And she had on real high heels, red ones, but still she only came up to my chin. She was cute as a basket o' kittens." Now, I've never owned a pair of red high heels in my life. Burgundy, yes, and a pair of medium-heeled cranberry patent leather pumps, but no red. I don't mention that when Henry recounts this story, however; the memory is so clear to him, and evidently so satisfying, I would never want to correct it.
I, on the other hand, remember perfectly what he wore that first day: his blue uniform and his tool belt. With scuffed work boots. And he had that gorgeous southern accent, and even though his eyes - said he wanted to eat me up, still he was so polite and painstakingly gentle and careful of me in every way, even then, when all we were talking about was toilets. I'm the one who was "gone." "After I finished the repair, she gave me a cup of tea and a cookie-" "A scone." I had to correct that.
"A scone, and we sat at the kitchen table and talked for an hour and a half." - "What about?" Sally looked fascinated.
Henry and I glanced at each other and shrugged. "I couldn't tell you," he said, "but by the time I left, she'd hired me to tear out all her old water pipes and put in new copper." "And after that, all new heating ducts." "And then whole-house air-conditioning." "Then we had to get married," I joked, "because I was broke." . - Sally got up to pour everybody more coffee. "What about you, Emma? How did you and Brad meet?" She smiled invitingly,-trying to disarm Emma, who squirmed and scowled and pretended she wasn't uncomfortable.
"Oh, you know," she mumbled, "the usual. A bar." "Uh-oh," Sally said humorously, "this sounds interesting." "Not really." Brad, beside Emma on the sofa, put his hand on her thigh. She looked very pretty tonight, I thought, with proper makeup on for a change and her hair in a French braid. She'd dressed up, too-I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen Emma in a skirt. She must like Brad; she doesn't usually go to so much trouble for her dates. Brad said, "Well, I thought it was pretty interesting. She played hard to get, I had to use all my masculine charm:' "You just had to keep buying drinks." "She's kidding," I assured Sally-Emma's humor can be a little difficult until you know her. And even then.
"I was with a couple of guys from the office, and Emma was with a girlfriend-" "Who?" I interrupted, curious. I'd never heard this story.
"You don't know her," Emma told me, "a woman from the paper. You know, it really isn't all that-" "This was at Shannon's on L Street, a weeknight, a Wednesday night," Brad went on, "that time between happy hour and dinner, when you can't decide whether to go home or stay and make a night of it." He's an engineer, and always very precise. Except for being goodlooking, he's not really Emma's type, I wouldn't have said. Too normal.
"My table was next to hers. I'd been staring at her all night, of course, and when she got up to go to the ladies' room, I stood up too. I said-well, you tell it." "No, you," Emma said quickly. She looked completely blank.
"Okay-I said, 'Can I tell you a joke?' and she said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because you've got a great laugh and I want to hear it again." "Oh, that's a wonderful line," Sally said. "Isn't that a good line?" she asked her husband, and he said yes, great.
"So then it took another hour to talk her into having dinner with me-right, Em?-and by then we were both feeling no pain, so-" "See?" Emma interrupted, crossing her leg to move his hand. "This isn't interesting at all." "-so then it only took two more hours to talk her into letting me take her home. And then we-" "Story over," Emma snapped. "We lived happily ever after." "Okay, okay," Brad said, laughing, "fade to black. I'm getting that the rest of this is censored." Sally laughed knowingly. "And how long have you been together?" Emma shrugged.
Brad said, "Four, going on five months now. That's right, because it was the night after the Fourth of July, and the subway was still littered with trash. Remember, Em?" "Right," she said, shaking her head no.
I looked at Emma more closely, to see if she was really blushing. Yes-she ducked her head, but saw her cheeks flush. Well, how interesting. She doesn't make it a habit, as far as I know, to pick up men in bars and take them home with her-but at the same time, she's not the kind of woman who would care that much if anybody thought she did; she'd say, "Screw you," and go on about her business. But here she was, turning red from embarrassment because apparently she and Brad had slept with each other on their first date. Very interesting. It had to be because of Sally, who's so fresh and wholesome. Emma must be worried about offending her.
"Well," Sally said, sliding her arm through Mick's, "we met when he rescued me. My shining knight. He foiled a mugger who was trying to rip my handbag off my shoulder in McPherson Square." "Wow, that's exciting," I said. Mick leaned over to pet Lettice, who was dozing with her chin on his shoe; I couldn't see his face. He and Sally make a very attractive couple, and such a sharp contrast to each other-he tall and dark and quiet, she fair, petite, and animated. They really look as if they were made for each other.
"Wait, it gets better," she said, sitting forward. "He wouldn't stay and let me thank him, he said he was late, had to run-he just made sure I was okay and then he left. Well, I was bereft! I thought he was so good-looking in his three-piece suit. He even wore suspenders! I'm mad for a man in suspenders." I laughed. "I've never thought about it." "Really? Emma, don't you love a man in suspenders?" "Sometimes. I guess." "And vests - I love it when they take off their suit coats, and all they have on is a vest and their crisp shirtsleeves. So sexy:' Sally wriggled her eyebrows at Mick, who ran a finger over his lips, half smiling.
"I'll - have to remember this," Brad said, nudging Emma. "Remind me to take my coat off more often." She sent him one of her famous quelling looks, but he just laughed.
"So then-this was on a Thursday-on Friday, guess who I ran into at the office Christmas party. Yes!" "No, really?" I marveled. "Mick?" "It turned out we worked in the same building on Vermont Avenue. Can you believe it? For the same law firm." "We'd never met before," Mick cleared his throat to say, "because she was new, plus I'd been out of the office a lot on travel." "Still, quite a coincidence," Brad said.
"I thought it was a miracle," Sally said, leaning back against Mick's shoulder. "Definitely a sign that we were fated to be together. Kismet!" "Very romantic," I said.
"Yeah, Romeo and Juliet." Emma stood up. We stared at her; she looked a little surprised to find herself on her feet. "I'm sorry, I have to go. I forgot, I have to work tomorrow." "On Saturday?" Brad looked amazed.
"What can I say. It's a seven-day newspaper." So then everybody decided they had to go, and the evening ended much too early. While I held her coat for her, Emma apologized under her breath. "I'm sorry, Lee, I've broken up your nice party." "Well, I wish you'd told me." "I know, I just forgot, I was having too good a time. Really sorry, and it was great, everything was perfect, as usual. You're the best hostess." I whispered, my back to the others, who were busy putting their coats on and talking, "I'm sorry you didn't like him:' "Who?" "Mick," I mouthed.