“She’s not leaving yet,” I told him quietly.
“But she will.” He cleared his throat. “It’s like Amber said. She needs a dater, and I’m a couch guy. That’s never gonna change.”
“You don’t know that.” He made a face, doubting this. “You don’t. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But even that’s not long enough to be the person she deserves. I just think it’s probably time to let her get started finding whoever that is.”
It was the most twisted, sad, Morris-esque logic. And yet I understood it completely. Some people—like myself and Theo, say—would let the flame burn as long as possible, squelching it only when it was just about going to go out anyway. But Morris, despite his lack of long-term goals, still had a way of seeing the bigger view.
I could hear Amber coming back down the stairs. Aware he probably didn’t want this public conversation or knowledge, I said, “So when are you going to do it?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down at his hands. “All I’m sure of is that it’s gonna really suck.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “You’re a good guy, Morris.”
“Naw, I’m an asshole,” he replied, pushing himself to his feet. “But at least this time I can say I have a good reason.”
Again, this made me think of Daisy, and her white lie about the dresses. We were willing to do so much for the people we loved, even if it meant hurting ourselves. Maybe that, in the end, was what love—all kinds—was really all about.
Amber came back in, carrying a can of Diet Coke, which she popped as she crossed the threshold. When she saw Morris headed for the door, she said, “Don’t leave on my account.”
“This isn’t your room,” I pointed out.
“Gotta go,” he told her. To me he said, “Talk later?”
“Talk later.”
He left, and a moment later I heard the door fall shut behind him.
“I told him to take his shoes off,” Amber informed me. “Just so you know.”
“And yet, you kept yours on.”
“Mine are clean.”
I rolled my eyes, then picked up my brush and gave my hair a few good strokes. “He’s such a good guy.”
“I don’t know about that,” she replied, scraping the bottom of the popcorn bowl for the last few kernels there. “But he’s a very good Morris.”
I smiled at this, bending down to grab my purse. “Don’t leave that bowl in here.”
“Do I ever?”
This I chose to ignore, instead just waving as I headed out myself.
“Have fun with the dater!”
“Thank you,” I called over my shoulder. I figured I’d catch Morris walking down the driveway, give him a lift to wherever he was headed, or at least partway there. But when I got outside, he was nowhere in sight. I looked both ways, drove an extra loop around the neighborhood. No luck. Weird. Someone who normally moved so slowly, this time, for once, was long gone.
* * *
When I walked into the Washroom at the appointed time, I was surprised to find that Theo wasn’t there. Instead there was just Clyde, alone, perusing a cookbook in the small booth that doubled as his office.
“Where’s Ivy and Theo?” I asked.
“No idea,” he replied. “They left for lunch, never came back.”
“Lunch?” I glanced at my watch. “When was that?”
He flipped a page. I caught a glimpse of a piecrust, the top woven lattice style. “Two thirty or so.”
I sat down opposite him. “Doesn’t sound like Ivy.”
“Nope. Maybe I scared her off for good.”
I watched him turn another page. The pictures of the pies looked amazing. I realized I was starving. “I’d heard just the opposite, actually.”
Now, I had his attention. He shut the book. “Which means what?”
“Just that you’re being really on board with the whole film thing these days,” I said. “Cooperating more, and now there’s talk about a tour . . .”
I let this last part trail off, thinking he’d dispute it. But, like the night we’d stopped to fix his tire, he didn’t. Instead, he sat back. “Nothing’s definite about a tour yet.”
“Yet? So you are doing it?”
“You sound shocked at the very thought,” he observed.
“Because I am,” I said. He raised his eyebrows. “I mean, at the beginning of the summer, you wouldn’t even talk to them. Now you’re thinking of coming out of retirement and taking your show on the road?”
“I’m not a circus clown, Emaline.”
“You’re not an artist anymore, either,” I said. “At least, I didn’t think you were.”
“This wouldn’t be about new work,” he pointed out. “Just a way of giving my older stuff another chance. I mean, an opportunity to do things differently, with the benefit of hindsight? That’s a hard thing to turn down.”
“A do-over,” I said. He nodded. “I get that. In fact, I was kind of hoping for one of my own, earlier. Didn’t happen, though.”
“No?”
I shook my head. “I’m starting to think, though, that some things never get that. The replay, and all. So at some point you have to make peace with it as it is, not keep waiting for a chance to change it.”