windstorm.
“Hey, Tree.”
“How are you, Ray?”
Sam said, “How’s the detective business, Tree?”
“Busy, busy,” Tree said with a smile.
Neither man smiled back. Ray Dayton said, “Freddie’s inside, Tree.”
“Thanks.”
“You should drop around to Kiwanis, Tree.” Sam Mercer spoke slowly, as though addressing someone with learning disabilities. “We could use a detective. Might be good for your business.”
“Thanks Sam, I appreciate that.”
He could feel their eyes on him as he headed toward Dayton’s: the guy’s an idiot .
Tree stepped into the supermarket’s air conditioned coolness. Freddie appeared in a blur of summer linen hurrying along aisle one (pretzels, chips, beer). Tree tried to imagine her with a pretzel or a beer and couldn’t do it. She was on her Blackberry.
“Yes, but Terry any way you look at it, our shrink is too high. We’ve got to do better. I want a meeting with him. How about tomorrow? Ten o’clock. See you then, Terry.”
She got off her phone and her smile brightened. “There you are.”
She kissed him quickly on the mouth, a wifely peck, acceptable in public. Tree liked the way she did it. He liked everything about Fredericka Stayner, known to everyone as Freddie—the way she walked, the sweep of her honey-colored hair, the deep green of her eyes, her elegance, the effortless intelligence. Every time he thought of her, it made him smile. After ten years of marriage, he was still smiling.
“The Mercedes isn’t going to be ready until tomorrow.”
“Then it looks like I’m going to have to drive you home.”
“I hate driving in that car,” she said. “I wish you’d let me buy a new one.”
“It’s my pride and joy,” Tree said. “The only thing I have in this world.”
“You have me,” Freddie said.
“Better even than the Beetle,” he said, taking her hand.
“I don’t rattle, and I’m not constantly blaring old rock and roll tunes.”
“I don’t listen to old rock all the time,” Tree maintained.
“Yes, you do. The next thing you’ll try to make me watch The Guns of Navarone again.”
“What a lovely way to spend an evening,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and squeezed his hand.
Freddie was Tree’s fourth wife. He could hardly believe it. Four wives? Impossible. Movie stars married four times. Rock musicians. Not Tree Callister. Years ago, a callow young Chicago reporter, he had interviewed Henry Fonda. As afternoon shadows lengthened across Fonda’s still youthfully iconic face, the face of Tom Joad in autumn, the actor expressed anguish over his four marriages. He was ashamed of the divorces. Tree wondered how it was possible to deal with all the emotional and financial complications that many breakups must have entailed.
Now he knew.
He married the first time in his early twenties. What the hell had he been thinking, marrying that young? He wanted the hard-drinking Hemingwayesque newspaper reporter, not a happily married family man. His first wife, Judy, young, dutiful, naïve, desiring all the traditional trappings of marriage, including a husband who came home at night. They produced two children, Raymond and Christopher, before everything fell apart—the bad husband exiting the bad marriage, leaving behind crying children and an angry wife.
Rex Baxter had introduced him to his second wife, Kelly Fleming, a Chicago newscaster who lit up any room she entered. Tree was mesmerized. He remained mesmerized; Kelly less so. A recipe for disaster that ended after three years. Then came Patricia Laine, the entertainment editor at the Sun-Times . She threw him out a little over a year after they married and went off with the editor of the paper, an upgrade.
After Patricia, he was more or less single for the next five years, except for the live-in law student twenty years his junior. The less said about that, the better.
His marriages, he decided, were rites of passage, necessary journeys on the way to destiny in the form
“Hey, Tree.”
“How are you, Ray?”
Sam said, “How’s the detective business, Tree?”
“Busy, busy,” Tree said with a smile.
Neither man smiled back. Ray Dayton said, “Freddie’s inside, Tree.”
“Thanks.”
“You should drop around to Kiwanis, Tree.” Sam Mercer spoke slowly, as though addressing someone with learning disabilities. “We could use a detective. Might be good for your business.”
“Thanks Sam, I appreciate that.”
He could feel their eyes on him as he headed toward Dayton’s: the guy’s an idiot .
Tree stepped into the supermarket’s air conditioned coolness. Freddie appeared in a blur of summer linen hurrying along aisle one (pretzels, chips, beer). Tree tried to imagine her with a pretzel or a beer and couldn’t do it. She was on her Blackberry.
“Yes, but Terry any way you look at it, our shrink is too high. We’ve got to do better. I want a meeting with him. How about tomorrow? Ten o’clock. See you then, Terry.”
She got off her phone and her smile brightened. “There you are.”
She kissed him quickly on the mouth, a wifely peck, acceptable in public. Tree liked the way she did it. He liked everything about Fredericka Stayner, known to everyone as Freddie—the way she walked, the sweep of her honey-colored hair, the deep green of her eyes, her elegance, the effortless intelligence. Every time he thought of her, it made him smile. After ten years of marriage, he was still smiling.
“The Mercedes isn’t going to be ready until tomorrow.”
“Then it looks like I’m going to have to drive you home.”
“I hate driving in that car,” she said. “I wish you’d let me buy a new one.”
“It’s my pride and joy,” Tree said. “The only thing I have in this world.”
“You have me,” Freddie said.
“Better even than the Beetle,” he said, taking her hand.
“I don’t rattle, and I’m not constantly blaring old rock and roll tunes.”
“I don’t listen to old rock all the time,” Tree maintained.
“Yes, you do. The next thing you’ll try to make me watch The Guns of Navarone again.”
“What a lovely way to spend an evening,” he said.
She rolled her eyes and squeezed his hand.
Freddie was Tree’s fourth wife. He could hardly believe it. Four wives? Impossible. Movie stars married four times. Rock musicians. Not Tree Callister. Years ago, a callow young Chicago reporter, he had interviewed Henry Fonda. As afternoon shadows lengthened across Fonda’s still youthfully iconic face, the face of Tom Joad in autumn, the actor expressed anguish over his four marriages. He was ashamed of the divorces. Tree wondered how it was possible to deal with all the emotional and financial complications that many breakups must have entailed.
Now he knew.
He married the first time in his early twenties. What the hell had he been thinking, marrying that young? He wanted the hard-drinking Hemingwayesque newspaper reporter, not a happily married family man. His first wife, Judy, young, dutiful, naïve, desiring all the traditional trappings of marriage, including a husband who came home at night. They produced two children, Raymond and Christopher, before everything fell apart—the bad husband exiting the bad marriage, leaving behind crying children and an angry wife.
Rex Baxter had introduced him to his second wife, Kelly Fleming, a Chicago newscaster who lit up any room she entered. Tree was mesmerized. He remained mesmerized; Kelly less so. A recipe for disaster that ended after three years. Then came Patricia Laine, the entertainment editor at the Sun-Times . She threw him out a little over a year after they married and went off with the editor of the paper, an upgrade.
After Patricia, he was more or less single for the next five years, except for the live-in law student twenty years his junior. The less said about that, the better.
His marriages, he decided, were rites of passage, necessary journeys on the way to destiny in the form
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