Flavian had not yet flushed out his conception of God and it was part of his underlying anxiety, owing to his family’s years ago experiment with a Christian sect that adhered to a severe supreme being who had little hesitation toward dispatching lost souls to the fiery gates of hell, (and fates as worse for those who monkeyed around with long sentences like this one), that God likely had the disposition of a state patrol officer making a highway stop. But he also toyed with the idea, from time to time, that this was not so much the case. There were times he clearly sensed that God had a sense of humor. And this was one of those times.
Chellis really was fond of the Clos Du Bois Pinot Noir and Flavian had gotten almost a whole bottle into the flask he stowed to dinner with her at the Feather & Spoke. And most of what was in the flask had wound up in Chellis. She was pleasantly smashed. Still, because Chellis was so very proud of how in control of herself she could be, she didn’t even miss a step on the way back out to the car. But when Flavian started to drive away, the rental car’s automatic navigator sprung to life again, appealing to Flavian in the Don Knotts voice, to turn around and go back the other way. That just sent her into the giggles and that’s the way she was all the way back to Moscow.
Now it was a quarter after 10 the next morning, a Sunday, and poor Chellis was nursing a Noir hangover at the kitchen table, drinking a pot of Earl Grey tea, eating ladyfingers with huckleberry jam, and going on and on about what a mistake it was to think that she could share an apartment with Gardner and Flavian, without the boys ganging up on her.
“I can understand Gardner,” she complained. “He’s always been such a pisser. But you Flavian? You?”
“Oh shucks Thelmalou,” Flavian said, in his best Don Knott’s voice. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you.”
“Okay!” Gardner exclaimed in mock rage. “That is the last time I’m going to let the two of you go out together. No. More.”
It was between the “no” and the “more” that the doorbell rang. And because Chellis was out of the question, and because Gardner was actually teetering back in his oak chair holding the newspaper with both hands, Flavian went to the door, still smiling, and laughing.
He swung it open, still a smile on his face, and there he recognized his cowboy hat before he recognized the girl who was wearing it.
Astrid.
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