Teo and I had only been seeing each other for a couple of months, which meant that Paul had known the whole time, or close to it.
“Who else knows?” I asked.
“Joe Stearns, Chuck Wilkinson, Jim, and anyone who’s been following Manca.”
Suddenly, it dawned on me. “Does that include Angela Bornemann?”
“What makes you think she’s involved?”
I thought of that hot June night in the garden with Teo and how the old man had saidBuonaseranot to a woman who had been walking toward him at a good clip—for Teo and I would have heard her coming—but to a woman who probably had been leaning against the garden wall, waiting for us to finish. “She’s turned up in some unlikely places,” I said.
“I believe that,” said Mary Lou with a roll of her eyes.
“Is she Naval Intelligence or CIA?”
“Like I would tell you.” As an afterthought, she added, “If I knew, which I don’t.”
I shrugged.
“Whatever she is, I think we can agree that she’s not really here to teach a bunch of navy wives how to haggle.”
“Right,” I said, and because I figured Mary Lou was never going to be this loose-lipped again, I asked about Daniel Bornemann and Janine Greer. “Were they together?”
She gave me a pitying look. “Of course they were.”
“I didn’t know. I mean, I heard stuff. But I wasn’t sure.”
“The heart wants what it wants.”
“So Janine just followed Bill back to the States, and that was it? No more Daniel?”
“Something like that.”
I let out a low groan. “Why are we all such disasters?”
“Look,” said Mary Lou, trying to reassure me, “no one’s made a big deal out of the stuff with you and Manca. And for what it’s worth, Paul’s been a real gentleman about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jim offered to send you home, switch Paul’s assignment to unaccompanied, no dependents. But Paul insisted you be allowed to stay.”
“He did?”
Mary Lou nodded. “He said he knew you two had some stuff to work out, but he wanted to try.”
“Really?”
“That’s what Jim told me. I figured that meant Paul was going to go home and lay all his cards on the table. That you’d end things with Manca or not, but there’d be some sort of resolution.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Apparently not.”
“Paul never said a word.”
“You think he was hoping the relationship would just run its course?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said, but I had my own theory, which I couldn’t share.
