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"What," I coaxed

He tilted his head and the look in his eyes was one I knew "If I were OK… if I’d been whole, would you have thought about having a relationship with irl type?"

"You want the truth?"

"Only if it’s flattering"

I laughed "The truth is if I’d run into you before the accident, I’d have been inti So I gotta say no If you were ’whole,’ as you put it, I probably wouldn’t have known you at all You’re really not my type, you know?"

"What is your type?"

"I haven’t figured that out yet"

He looked at -

"Would you just say what’s on your mind?" I said

"How can you turn it around and ood that I’m deformed?"

"Oh God, you’re not deformed Now, quit that! I’ll talk to you later"

He s back then so I could make the turn-around and head out the far side of the driveway

I drove back to et a run in, though I wondered at the wisdom of it Bobby and I had spent the better part of the day drinking beer and bourbon and bad Chablis, gnawing barbecued spareribs and sourdough bread tough enough to tug your dentures out I was really ht the self-discipline would serveclothes and did threethe case organized It felt like iffy stuff" and I wasn’t quite sure where to start I thought I better check with Dr Fraker in the Pathology Department at St Terry’s first, maybe pop in and see Kitty at the sah the tedious business of checking back through local news prior to the accident just to see as going on at the tiht on Bobbys claim that someone had tried to lass of wine I was feeling restless and I wondered if Bobby hadn’t set so soood company, nice to have so I wasn’t sure how to categorize our relationship My affection for him wasn’t ood friend and I felt for hiood friend He was fun, and being with hi that a relationship of any kind seelass of wine at the bar and then I sat in the back booth and surveyed the place For a Tuesday night, there was a lively crohich is to say, two guys arguing nasally at the bar, and an old couple fro plate of pancakes layered with ha up around her head in a halo of nicotine and hair spray She’s in her sixties, Hungarian and bossy, a creature of muumuus and dyed auburn tresses, which she wears parted down the center and plastered into place with sprays that have sat on the grocery-store shelves since the beehive hairdo bu nose, a short upper lip, eyes that she pencils into narrow, suspicious-looking slits She’s short, top-heavy, and opinionated Also she pouts, which in a woe is ludicrous, but effective Half the time, I don’t like her much, but she never ceases to fascinate