Read Cobalt for Free Online Page B

tinkling of silverware from the other side of Kiley Court. He glanced at the other two houses in the compound, but all was quiet, and as much as he could make out, no one was stirring. All three flats had attended the Garden of Evil party, and early rising was not expected of anyone. He checked the wall clock above the refrigerator. It was a quarter past nine and Clarisse still had not returned.
    He drained his mug and without leaving his chair reached over to the range for the coffee pot and refilled his cup. A crunching of gravel drew his eyes to the courtyard fence. In a moment the ivy on the trellis was shaken and the unlocked gate was jarred violently to the accompaniment of several loud curses before it rasped open. Clarisse stood framed in dappled sunlight through the coffee tree. Her gown was creased and her makeup had been hastily removed. The silver pins fastened her hair into a ponytail to one side of her neck. She walked across the flagstones in her thin soiled slippers.
    Valentine sighed with relief. He rose quickly, filled another mug and set it across the table from him. From the refrigerator he took a walnut coffee ring, retrieved cloth napkins from a cupboard shelf and returned to the table. Clarisse came inside. The screen door slammed against her back and she winced. She kicked off her slippers, pulled the pins from her hair, and performed a little pantomime of plunging them into her heart and plummeting dead into the chair.
    They were silent for a minute.
    Then Valentine said, “Well, who gets to tell about his night first?”
    â€œWhatever happened to you,” she replied, in a hoarse voice and without opening her eyes, “mine was worse. So you go first.”
    â€œWell,” said Valentine, “when Mr. O’Sullivan and I left you we came directly back here. I was dead. But I thought: we’ll have sex, and then we’ll go to sleep, and if I’m real lucky, when I wake up he’ll be gone.”
    Clarisse snorted. “Why didn’t you just go on and wish for knighthood, undying fame, and the winning lottery number for the next two years?”
    â€œHe wanted to talk. He wanted to talk about relationships in general, and ours in particular.”
    â€œWhat relationship?”
    â€œYou may well ask that question.”
    â€œYou should have shoved something in his mouth.”
    â€œI did,” said Valentine. “But he took it out again. He told me he knew that story I had told him about my lover getting killed in a bank holdup wasn’t true, and he didn’t see why we couldn’t give it a try.”
    â€œWhat did you do?” said Clarisse, and still with her eyes closed, groped successfully for the coffee cup.
    â€œI said: we either have sex, or we go to sleep, or we say good-bye. He said: I’m not sleepy, and I can’t have sex with you until we resolve some of these problems in our relationship.”
    â€œProblems? Your first date, and you’ve got relationship problems?”
    â€œFinally I just gave up, and told him it probably wasn’t a good idea for him to stay—that I didn’t think it would work out.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t have had any fun in bed anyway.” Clarisse at last opened her eyes.
    â€œHe blanched when he saw what I had in the bedside drawer.”
    â€œHe should have looked under the bed,” said Clarisse and poked at the coffee cake with a knife. “So after that he left?”
    â€œNo,” sighed Valentine. “He couldn’t believe I was actually asking him to leave. He wanted to talk it all out. I said: ‘Go away. Don’t come back. Don’t call. Cancel your reservation. Move to Canada.’ But it didn’t get through to him until I actually pushed him out into the courtyard and latched the door. And I hate having to be like that. I’m just glad he’s not living here anymore.”
    â€œHe was sweet,” said Clarisse mildly. “But I