A Catskill Eagle

CHAPTER 55

IT WAS EVENING AND THE SNOW HAD STOPPED. The bread was cooling on a rack in the kitchen and my fire continued to warm the apartment. Susan and I lay naked in bed together drinking Domaine Chandon Blanc de Noirs from narrow fluted glasses and holding hands.

“How did you know I’d have champagne handy?” I said.

“You would be prepared,” she said.

The bedroom door was open to the living room. I held the champagne glass away from me and looked at the pink amber tone of it in the diffuse light of the fire.

“Hawk sent us a case of this stuff,” I said. “It’s good, isn’t it.”

“Lovely,” Susan said. “You have some new scars.”

“I’ll say.”

“New physical scars,” Susan said. “Here.” She traced the healed bullet wounds in my chest.

“A young woman shot me,” I said, “last year.”

“And you never told me?”

“No need,” I said.

“Was it bad?”

“Yes,” I said. “Almost killed me.”

Susan put her head against my shoulder. Her glass was empty. I reached the champagne bottle from the floor beside the bed and poured more. It had to be done carefully and a little at a time to keep it from bubbling over. Susan watched.

“It’s like us,” she said.

“The champagne?”

“You have to pour it so carefully. It’s like our lovemaking. Careful, gentle, delicate, being careful not to spill over.”

I nodded. “It’s sort of like the first time.”

“It is the first time,” Susan said. “These two people, the people we are now, have never made love before.”

“But will again,” I said.

Susan smiled. “Practice makes perfect,” she said.

We drank.

“Or nearly perfect,” I said.

“Hell,” Susan said, “we’re that now.”