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before continuing. "You
expect me to believe that?" She smiled slyly. "You hung out with
Alexander the Great and ate mushrooms?"
    Clay helped himself to another mushroom, this time showing
some manners and bringing it to his plate where he broke it in half with his
fork. He shrugged.
    "Everybody has to eat."
    The expression on Eve’s face said she wasn’t certain whether
or not to believe him. Clay was having some fun with her, but in truth he had known the Macedonian legend. Many of his memories were lost to him, shifting in
his mind like a deck of cards, with far too many missing or obscured. But
others were intact and crystalline in clarity. He had been many things in his
eternity of life — warrior and monster, hero and assassin. Clay could
alter his flesh, could become anyone or anything he wished. In the year 331
A.D. he had used that ability to help Alexander defeat the Persians. Those had
been simpler times, violent times, and often it disturbed him how much he
missed them.
    "Why is that so hard to believe?" he asked,
staring at his twin reflections in the lenses of her dark sunglasses. "Don’t
tell me you’ve forgotten your past."
    Eve was a bit younger, give or take a millennium, and had
lived a life equally fascinating, but he knew she had also experienced a fair
amount of pain and anguish.
    A waiter came over to refill their water glasses and inform
them that their lunch would be brought out shortly, before excusing himself
with a slight bow and a genial smile. Eve removed a packet of sugar from a
container on the table and began to play with it.
    "I remember quite a bit, actually. Some things I’ve let
go of, but other things . . ." Her voice trailed off, and a look of
heartbreaking sadness flickered across her face.
    Clay wished he had never brought it up, never caused her to
examine the memories she wished she could abandon. But as quickly as it had
appeared, the telling look was gone and Eve managed to summon a smile as she
changed the subject.
    "So, tell me something else about him," Eve said,
taking a sip of water. "Something we couldn’t pull from a history book. Or
is his love of stuffed mushrooms the only thing worth knowing about the man who
once conquered the entire civilized world?"
    Clay set down his fork and pulled the white napkin up from
his lap to wipe his mouth. "He was a pretty good dancer," he said
with a straight face. "Man, could that guy cut a rug."
    Eve burst out laughing, almost spilling her water. An ice
cube had escaped over the rim of the glass and dropped onto the tabletop. She
plucked it up with her gloved fingers and tossed it at him. "Asshole,"
she said, a lingering smile on her face.
    He could probably have counted on one hand the number of
times he’d seen this woman look genuinely happy. It’s nice to see her smile ,
he thought, brushing the cube from his lap to the ground.
    "You don’t believe me," he said, doing his best to
stifle his amusement. "Fine, be that way. I’ll just keep my candid
recollections of history to myself, though I think you might have been very
interested in Genghis Khan’s phallus-shaped vegetable collection."
    When Eve glared at him, Clay couldn’t hold it back any
longer and burst out laughing himself. The life he led did not often give him
the opportunity for laughter, and he held on to the moment with both hands,
truly enjoying himself.
    Eve grinned. "Think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?"
she said.
    He nodded, wiping the tears from his eyes.
    "We’ll see how funny you think it is when I stick you
for this bill."
    Clay had regained most of his composure by the time their
food arrived. Two waiters brought their entrees: his the linguine with clam
sauce, and Eve’s a Caesar salad. They were silent through their meal, and he
could see by the way her brow furrowed, that she was thinking hard about
something. This happened too often when they were together, but for once they
were in a situation that allowed him to inquire about it.
    "Penny