Via Dolorosa(59)

“Was it? I thought it was a Cadillac. Joseph?”

Joseph only shrugged.

“Bus,” Ben maintained.

“Anyway,” Hansen continued, “ever since her death, if he’s been drinking too much, Joseph will seek out a wooden Indian figurehead and attempt to woo her. It’s quite a sad display. When we first met Joseph, Ben and I, he was in the basement of a bar, propped up against a life-sized carving of an Indian squaw, hell-bent on buying her a margarita. When we approached him, he was in the middle of asking her age.”

“Leslie suggested he cut her open and count her rings,” Ben said.

Both Emma and Isabella laughed. Joseph—Pygmalion—laughed, too, although it was quite apparent that he had only comprehended a slim portion of what had been said. He seemed dangerously on the verge of total fadeout.

“That’s some story,” said Emma. To Joseph, she said, “Does it still hurt that she’s dead?”

“Oh, I doubt she feels a thing,” Joseph responded.

The zydeco band concluded their up-tempo number and the dancers cheered. Someone shouted a request—it was impossible to decipher what it was—and the band counted the beats and struck up the song.

“I’d really like to toast you, Nick,” Hansen went on, turning away from the women and looking as though he desired to administer a swift and brotherly clap to Nick’s forearm. The man would not relent.

“It isn’t necessary.”

“You’ve risked your life for the welfare of this country,” Hansen said. “Of course it’s necessary.”

“We don’t have to toast anything at all,” he told Hansen. “There’s nothing wrong with just drinking the stuff.”

“He’s trying to be amiable, friend,” Ben, who had not spoken directly to Nick thus far except for the comment about his arm, suddenly piped up.

“Ben,” Hansen said quickly.

“Drink-drink-drink,” Isabella said. “A toast to sea turtles!”

“Sea turtles!” Joseph crooned, and was the only member of the party to inhale his drink.

His eyes on Hansen, Nick swallowed half his scotch. It was room temperature, which made it less smooth going down. But when it settled in his stomach, he felt the familiar blossom of warmth comfort him, resign him.

Hansen held out a hand to Emma. “Dance?”

“Oh,” she said, and there was a slight hesitance following the way she automatically brought her hand up to meet his. She did not lay it fully in his palm but, rather, kept her fingers hovering over his, afraid of the electrical current that ran through him. “Well, I don’t really see why—”

Reaching across the table, Nick took her hand. To Hansen, he said, “I’m sorry, I promised my wife the first dance.”

“Wonderful,” Hansen said, falsely grinning.

Nick ushered Emma to the crowded dance floor. The other dancers were moving wildly, as the music was upbeat and with heavy percussion, but he held her close and up against him. One hand at the small of her back. His other hand seemed out of place. Awkwardly, he held it away from his body, uncertain where to put it or what to do with it, until Emma muttered, “Here,” and placed it against her hip. She moved with him.

“I did promise you,” he said as they danced. He knew it only sounded like an excuse for the jealousy he had exhibited back at the table.

“Let’s just dance.”

“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

She did not answer.

“Emma?”

“I don’t know, Nick. None of this is what I wanted.”

They danced.

“I’m a clumsy dancer,” he said.

“You’re fine.”

“Would you prefer to dance with him?”

“Now why would you say that?”

“I don’t know. It seemed like you wanted to dance with him. You seemed to find him entertaining.”

“I find circus clowns entertaining, too. That doesn’t mean I want to dance with them.”

“Because I can take you back to the table, if you like,” he said.

Surprisingly, she laughed. “Goddamn you, Nick.”

They did not wait for the music to end before going back to the table. Hansen had slid closer to Isabella while Joseph had crept up and bookended her on the opposite side. Isabella looked bored. “We were just talking about the war,” she said as Nick and Emma approached.

The comment seemed to disturb Emma. “What is it with the damn war? Why does everyone feel the need to talk about the damn war?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Isabella and I were just discussing Spain’s role in the war and in dealing with these terrorists,” Hansen said. There was a showman’s apology to his tone. He was quite the politician. “I was commending her country for pulling out of the whole affair.”

“I have nothing to do with my country,” Isabella said coldly.

“The whole thing is barbaric,” Ben said. He tapped a finger on the rim of his glass. “Spain did the noble thing, pulling their troops.”

“Spain pulled their troops because a group of extremists blew up a train,” Nick said. For whatever reason, his eyes were on Isabella when he said this.