Page 28 of Hero

He set the food bags on the counter to be sure she would smell them and then see them when she came out. He walked deeper into the house to the doorway of his bedroom and saw her clothes laid out on his bed. He stopped there. In a moment he heard the hairdryer stop and she cameto the door of the bathroom wrapped in a beach towel tucked under her arms and retreated back in. She called out, “Is that you?”

He started back up the short hall. “Yes.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

She stuck her head out. “Sorry. I didn’t think you’d be back so soon.”

He smiled. That had been masterful. She seemed convincingly unconcerned that he had been gone and pretended not to have noticed it had been over three hours. “It’s fine. Make yourself comfortable.”

“I left my clothes in your room.”

“Do you want me to bring them to you?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll go in there. Okay?”

“Be my guest.” He sat on the couch at the far end of the living room and watched her come out, her hair longer and straighter than he remembered it, then go into his bedroom and shut the door.

About ten minutes later she came out to the living room. “What’s that smell?”

“Dinner.”

“Ooh,” she said. “That was so sweet, Joe. I didn’t really feel like going out. I went for a swim in your pool, and it got me all relaxed and tired.”

“Really? You had a bathing suit with you?”

“You didn’t look in my purse while I was out of the room?”

“I didn’t look in your purse at any time.”

“There wasn’t one,” she said. “I went skinny-dipping. You said your landlord was away, and I saw you leave, so I knew I was alone.” She pushed back a tress of her hair. “It was so nice.” She watched him to see if her words, the clothes he’d seen on his bed, and the carefully choreographed glimpse of her wrapped in his towel had produced the desired effect. After a few seconds she was sure it had. Men, even sophisticatedmen, were so easy that she was sure part of his mind was thinking about her right now, forming images that were making him wish that he had been here.

She knew that any interest he might have had in her had probably been crowded out of his mind by the wish to write about her, but keeping up the fake flirtation allowed her to stay here and maintain control of the situation without telling him anything that she might not want published. It was as though they were both in a play about two people who weren’t them, but were a bit like them.

She looked at the big bags on the kitchen counter with the Chinese ideograms. “Mister Fong,” she said. “That’s a great place. No wonder it smells so good. Should I put it in the refrigerator for later?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s already after six, which is early for dinner, but we never had lunch. And refrigerating it can kind of thicken the sauce and diminish the flavors.” He thought about the tease she had been perpetrating and added, “Besides, we may want to turn in early anyway.”

She kept her expression unreadable. “I’m hungry. I’ll sign on to any excuse.”

They carried the food bags to the table and went back for serving spoons and plates. Without asking her he opened a bottle of Malbec and filled two wine glasses.

She didn’t react, simply opened white cartons and spooned food out onto their plates. “I love Mister Fong,” she said. “I actually heard that there are rich families from Taipei who plan their flights to be sure they can eat there before they fly home.”

“I’ll bet that’s at his original restaurant in Monterey Park. It’s supposed to be less Americanized.”

She squinted. “I don’t know. This is pretty darned good.”

“I’m glad I guessed right,” he said. He took a sip of wine and went back to eating. He was trying to remind her that her glass was there when she wanted it.

After a minute she did the same. She had in that time decided the wine was useful. She could let it relax her even more and nod off before he began to get too friendly. She could stay the night, extend her period of invisibility for eight or ten more hours, and not have to deal with the hopes her teasing might have aroused.

After dinner she insisted on clearing the table, storing the large stock of extra food in plastic containers and refrigerating them, recycling the packaging, and washing the dishes, to which she added his breakfast dishes.

They both sipped their wine as this was going on, and she noticed that he had half-filled her glass, but replaced the cork and didn’t pour again. She decided that he had learned from experience that this was the amount that a 130-pound woman with a full stomach would take to be pleasantly relaxed, but not impaired. She had an unpleasant thought and scrutinized his face. No, he wasn’t somebody who would ever put something in a woman’s drink. The thought had only come because everything in her life seemed to have been ruined and obliterated in two days, and being drugged would be the next shock in the worsening series.

She followed him to the couch and sat close while he used the remote control to turn on the big television set that dominated the wall. He set it to the Channel 9 local news, which was the one that showed an eight o’clock report. He said, “I write about current issues, and I like to get an early hint of what’s up every night, in case something happens that makes one of my analyses stupid.”

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