Malcolm said. We were drinking iced coffee at a café on Esplanade, watching the traffic ooze through the heat haze. “She’s living near here.” Rita. My God, Rita. She came at me from the past, from that first winter in Vermont, her thin woolen coat blowing open over a short cotton skirt, bare legs, picking her way across a snowbank in her high-heeled, open-toed shoes. She won’t last a year here, I thought then, and I was right. “Is she alone?” I asked. “Oh, I think so. She’s changed a lot. I didn’t recognize her.” “In what way?” “She’s gained a lot of weight. She looks pasty, not healthy.” This surprised me. Rita had been thin, willowy, long limbs, big hands, boyish hips. “What’s she doing?” “It’s hard to tell. She was pretty vague. She wanted me to believe she was involved in some top-secret mission for the Pueblo Indians.” “Wow,” I said. The waiter appeared with our check, which I snatched away from Malcolm. “Thanks,” he said. “My pleasure.”
