I answer slowly. “It’s…mutual. Or mutual-ish. I think.”
Francis’s graying eyebrows raise in pointed question.
“We’ve become, uh, physically involved,” I admit. “But she’ll only be in town until Harold and Inés get back, so we agreed to keep it a casual thing. Friends with benefits, I guess.”
“And yet…” Francis prompts.
I scratch at my chin and find it thickly coated with stubble. I must’ve forgotten to shave this morning, my routine thrown off by the naked woman bent over my couch, digging around in search of her missing pair of panties. “I can’t really figure out if that’s what we’re doing or not. She says it’s nothing serious, but it feels real serious. But maybe it’s just that I don’t have the experience to know what’s what. My only frame of reference for this stuff is what it was like with Nicole, and obviously that was so different.”
“Different how?” he asks.
“Well, I knew Nic for ages, and I practically just met Annie.” Saying this aloud makes me realize just how much has happened in my life in such a short span of time—Nicole’s phone call, taking the goose to research it, meeting Annie, losing the goose, kissing Annie, touching Annie, tasting Annie…Oh right, Francis and I were having a conversation. “And, probably because we started as friends and intended to be together forever, things between Nicole and me always felt really…settled, I guess. But with Annie they’re…well, they’reunsettled, in a way that makes me feel…”Fully alive.“Pushed out of my comfort zone,” I say instead. “But in a good way. It’s really…I think it’s good.”
Francis is quiet for a moment, looking at me with a glint in his bright blue eyes. Finally he says, “Did I ever tell you about my mother’s famous ginger cookies?”
I frown at the non sequitur and shake my head.
“Ah,” he says, and pinches his thumb and index finger together. “Perfectly balanced sweetness and zing. A texture somewhere between chewy and pillowy, with a slight crispiness at the edges. She won first place with them at the Mississippi State Fair three years in a row.”
I have no idea what this has to do with what we were discussing. Maybe Francis’s mind isn’t as sharp as I thought. “Um, they sound great.”
“They wereincredible. When she passed in 2005, one of the things that hit me hardest was that I’d never get to eat those cookies again. So I decided to try to re-create them, to make them myself as a way to keep her memory alive.” Francis lets out a small huff of laughter. “But I couldn’t get them right for the life of me. I made so many batches of ginger cookies, but none of them were quite the same as the ones I remembered swiping straight off the baking sheet as a boy.” He shifts in his chair, crossing his long, spindly legs. “I don’t know if you recall, but about a year before we lost Graham, we visited with some of my extended family back in Mississippi.”
I nod. “Yeah, I remember.”
“We stayed with my mother’s sister, and before we left, I said, ‘Aunt Elisabeth, do you happen to know my mama’s recipe for ginger cookies? Because I have been having the darndest time trying to figure out how to make them.’ And you know what she said to me?”
“What did she say?”
“She laughed and said, ‘Oh, Frankie, she never followed arecipe. Little of this, little of that. She always just made it up as she went along.’ ”
“Oh. Um, okay.”
He leans on the arm of his chair, closer to me. “You see, Dodger, the reason I couldn’t replicate my mother’s cookies is because each time I attempted it, I was comparing it to every past batch, every previous iteration, rolled into one elusive memory I was holding up as the gold standard. There was never going to be a way to find what I was looking for because it never actually existed. They tasted right becauseshe’dmade them, and I was never going to be able to capture that, as much as it broke my heart.”
“That’s a very touching story, Fran, but—”
“What I’m trying to say,” he says, talking forcefully over me, “is that, in the pursuit of that elusive ginger cookie, every batch that didn’t come out exactly how I remembered felt like failure, no matter how delicious they were. You’ve got to remember to assess each cookie on its own merits, Callahan.”
I am only vaguely following along with this metaphor. “What if my problem is that I’m not sure if I know how a cookie is supposed to taste because my cookie-eating experience is somewhat limited?”
“Does it matter if it tastes how it’ssupposedto as long as it’s something you want to eat?”
“I…guess not?” This is all going to take a lot more thinking through than what I’m capable of with Francis staring at me expectantly. “Thanks. For that. I’ll…consider what you’ve said.”
“Good man.” He pats my knee affectionately. “Now, tell me what else is new.”
I hesitate for a moment, then realize that with Harold andInés away, Francis is the only person who would be available to bail me and Annie out of jail if the need arises. “What do you know about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918?” I ask.
Before Francis can respond, my phone buzzes with a text from Annie:Finally heard back from Beau. Meeting at Lucky Duck diner at 4pm.
TWENTY-NINE
Callahan
Beau turns outto be easy to spot inside the diner. Except for a group of six elderly women enjoying an early dinner, the place is mostly empty. That and the fact that he’s wearing a beanie with his name embroidered onto the cuff.
“Cal and Annie, I presume?” he asks as we approach, and holds out his hand.
