“You think so?”
“It’s not really my business, Bob, but you gave the explanation yourself. That the two of you were bound together by this millstone, that neither one could accept that the other could somehow cut themselves free.”
Bob kept thinking. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had similar thoughts himself, but it was the first time he’d ever heard them spoken aloud.
“You who spend so much time talking to people who’ve lost something they loved,” said Bob. “Tell me something, are we all insane?”
Mike Lunde stood up straight and pulled off his gloves. “Oh, but it’s not just people who’ve lost something they love.”
“It isn’t?”
“Take a look around,” said Mike as he lifted off his apron. “Insanity is the norm.”
Bob nodded. “Amen to that.”
“I’m done here for today. Where do you live?”
“Phillips.”
“I can drive you.”
—
Bob had protested, but Mike pointed out that Phillips was just down the street, and that anyway it was more or less on his route. His car was a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon, 1995 model, with the characteristic imitation wood paneling on the sides.
“Iknowit’s ugly,” Mike said. “But at least not as ugly as the ’85 model.”
“The one that looks like they chopped off the rear end of the car and welded on a crate?”
“That’s the one!”
They talked a little more about cars and where Mike lived, in Chanhassen, a comfortable suburb on the southwest side of town where folks trimmed their lawns and pushed thermometers into the ground in fall so they’d know when the temperature fell below forty-four and the grass wouldn’t grow anymore. And about Prince, the musician who had died a few months earlier.
“You ever meet him?” asked Bob as Mike drove through the nighttime stillness of the streets.
“You didn’t see much of him, he ran on a different clock from most people in Chanhassen. And Paisley Park, where he lived and worked, looked like a factory right there next to the freeway, you didn’t exactly stop by to say hi. I went to a couple of the free neighborhood concerts he gave there, but the only time I talked to him was actually at a Vikings game.”
“Youspoketo Prince?”
“We were both guests of a satisfied customer of mine with a private box at the stadium. Prince was polite, but he didn’t say much. I think he was a shy man. But he said he kept pigeons, and he had a cat.”
“What was he like?”
“I don’t know, Bob.”
“But did he seem…happy?”
Mike considered this. “He seemed lonely. You a fan?”
Bob nodded. “Alice and I kissed the first time to ‘Purple Rain.’ ”
Mike hesitated. “Not that it’s any of my business, Bob…”
“Come on.”
He smiled that half smile again. “If you really could get Alice back, are you so sure that’s what you want?”
“What are you talking about? It’s all I ever think about.”
