The cooking show went to a commercial. Varga muted it.
“Rook.”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s just chowder.”
“It’s damn good clam soup.”
I didn’t answer that. He glanced at the muted TV and back at me.
“My mother called this morning,” he said. “She wanted to fly in. I told her not to. I told her the team has people and said I was fine.”
“Are you fine?”
“I’m bored,” he said. “I’m so bored, Rook, you don’t understand. Three days since they let me out of the hospital. The pills knock me out for sixteen hours, and then I wake up, and it’s eleven in the morning and I’ve already watched everything. Yesterday, I watched a documentary about a guy who builds canoes. I have opinions about canoes now.”
“That sounds educational.”
He sighed. “I called my agent yesterday just to hear a human voice, and he thought I was dying. He started talking about my contract like I wasn’t going to need it anymore.”
“You’re not dying.”
“I know I’m not dying. He thought I was.”
The commercial ended. Varga un-muted the TV. The cooking show came back. Another contestant cried over a pan of caramel that had seized. Varga watched her with what looked like genuine sympathy.
“I’m sorry about your knee,” I said.
“It’s not the knee. It’s the ligament.”
“I’m sorry about your ligament.”
“Six weeks minimum. Probably eight. Maybe the season.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Cross told me. I asked him.”
He turned his head to look at me. The painkillers were doing something to his eyes that made them move slower than usual. He held the look longer than he would have held it otherwise.
“You asked Cross about my ligament?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to know.”
He didn’t say anything and turned back to the TV. The contestant with the caramel had recovered. She was straining something through a sieve. Varga watched her hands.
“You want more chowder?” I said.
“Yeah, I’d like more soup.”
