Page 22 (1/2)

"No," he said, "and I’ you"

She fluffed her hair "Well, I just touched it up last week, so it shouldn’t show, but if you look closely maybe you can see the roots"

She leaned toward hiray showing at the roots? He couldn’t really tell, it was hard to put the ie, but what he did notice was the shtened up, and her face looked a little flushed All that coffee, he thought She said, "You want to keep froht? I have some ideas Let me think about it, and toht"

"Do you want any more coffee? Because I’ve already had more than I should"

"I feel the same way"

"I’ll show you to your room," she said "It’s a nice room I think you’ll like it"

24

In thehe showered in the upstairs bathroom, then put on the same clothes and went downstairs She had breakfast on the table, grapefruit halves and French toast with syrup, and after a second cup of coffee she got her Ford Taurus out of the garage and gave him a ride to where he’d parked the Sentra There was a ticket on it, as she’d said there ht be, but ould they do if it went unpaid? Send a summons to a broken-down farm in eastern Tennessee?

He followed her back hoe as instructed, while she left the Taurus in the driveway "You’re going to stay here for a while," she’d told hi little kids tobossy that was just too bad "I didn’t object when you saved rief when I return the favor, you hear?"

"Yes, ma’am"

"That’s better," she said "It sounds funny, though ‘Yes, rave;re That better?"

"Nohen did you turn into an Orleanean?"

"Huh?"

"Calling rave;re"

"That’s your name, isn’t it? It’s not? It’s what your father calls you"

"It’s what everybody calls everybody," she said "In New Orleans It’s French for dear You order a po’boy for lunch, the old girl who brings it is apt to call you chère"

"The waitress in the place I go in New York calls everybody hon"

"Same idea," she said

But she didn’t say what her name was Nor did he ask

He sat at the round kitchen table in one of the oak captain’s chairs while she played barber His shirt was off and she’d draped a bed-sheet over his shoulders She earing faded jeans and a man’s white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and she looked a little like Rosie the Riveter in a patriotic World War II poster, only her rivet gun was the electric clippers froone to the same barber for almost fifteen years The man’s name was Andy and he owned his own three-chair barbershop, and once a year he flew back to São Paulo to visit his relatives That was all Keller knew about hi with the fact that he was a heavy user of breath mints, and he didn’t suppose Andy knew very much about him, either, because his monthly visits were relatively silent affairs, and Keller almost always fell asleep in the chair and didn’t wake up until Andy cleared his throat and tapped the arm of the chair

He didn’t expect to doze off now, but the next thing he knew she was telling him he could open his eyes He did, and she steered hi and hard at his reflection in the azed back at him was his face, thathe’d ever seen in a y and noas short, but not crew-cut short It was just long enough to lie flat, and she’d shaped it in what had once been called an Ivy League style, or a Princeton Add a tweed sport coat and a knit tie and a pipe and he ht look almost professorial

But she hadn’t just cut his hair, he realized His forehead was higher, and his hairline indented at the temples She’d used the clippers to create the illusion of a decade’s worth of ood ten years to his appearance in the process He tried different expressions, s, and the effect was interesting It seeerous, less like a overnor and more like the trusted assistant rote his speeches

He went back to the kitchen, where she was running a vacuum cleaner She switched it off when she saw him and he told her he felt like Rip Van Winkle "When I woke up," he said, "I was ten years older I looked like somebody’s lovable old uncle"

"I wasn’t sure you’d like it I have some ideas about the color, too, but what I’d like to do is wait a day or two so both of us can get used to it the way it is now, and then it’ll be easier to figure out what else to do"

"Thathere, is that what you were going to say? Last night you talked about how tired you were of running"

"That’s true"

"Don’t you think ot a good chance? Your car’s parked off the street No one can see it, but it’s there whenever you need it You can have the roo as you want No one else has any use for it and you’re not getting in anybody’s way up there It’s no trouble at all cooking for one extra person, and if you start to feel guilty about i I’ll let you take me out for dinner every once in a while I bet I know a restaurant or two you et new ID," he said "A driver’s license, even a passport It’s trickier than it used to be, they’ve tightened up security in the past few years, but you can still do it It takes tiot," she said, "besides time?"