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Da
Da
“Lupita, the pictures are on my kitchen countertop-where you evidently left them,” he would tell her.
“The dark-haired beauty in the pink tank top-the one with the wonderful smile and the gorgeous skin? My precious niece, actually, Mr. Writer.”
“Lupita, she looks like a teenager,” Da
“No, she’s older-a little,” Lupita would tell him.
Once Lupita had told him: “Just don’t marry another writer. All you’ll do is depress each other.”
“I’m not going to marry anybody-not ever,” he told her.
“Why don’t you stab yourself in the heart instead?” she asked him. “Soon you’ll be consorting with prostitutes! I know you talk to the dog-I’ve heard you!” she told him.
If Lupita was calling him in Pointe au Baril, she was vexed about something, Da
“I don’t know about that unfortunate dog, but I think you like to be stranded, Mr. Writer,” Lupita said. Clearly the weather wasn’t on her mind; that wasn’t why she’d called.
Sometimes, Lupita became convinced that people were watching the house on Cluny Drive; occasionally, they were. Shy fans, a few every year-mildly obsessed readers, just hoping to get a look at the author. Or lowlifes from the media, maybe-hoping to see what? (Another double shooting, perhaps.)
Some sleazy Canadian magazine had published a map of where Toronto’s celebrities lived; Da
Some half-wit in the media had actually written about Lupita: “The reclusive writer’s live-in girlfriend appears to be a stout, Hispanic-looking person-an older woman with an extremely protective disposition.” Lupita hadn’t been amused; both the stout and the older grievously troubled her. (As for Lupita’s disposition, she was more protective than ever.)
“There’s someone looking for you, Señor Writer,” Lupita now told him on his cell phone. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a stalker-not yet-but she is determined to find you, I can tell you that.”
“How determined?” Da
“I wouldn’t let her in!” Lupita exclaimed. “And I didn’t tell her where you were, of course.”
“Of course,” Da
“She wouldn’t say-she’s very haughty. She looks right through you-if looks could kill, as they say!-and she boldly hinted that she knew where you were. She was fishing for more information, I think, but I wouldn’t take the bait,” Lupita said, proudly.
“Boldly hinted how?” Da
“She was u
“As if she knew you were lying?” Da
“Yes!” Lupita cried. “Maybe she’s a witch!”
But every Da
“What did this woman look like, Lupita?” Da
“She was really scary-looking!” Lupita declared. “Big shoulders-like a man! She was hulking!”
“Hulking,” Da
“She looked like she lived in a gym,” Lupita explained. “You wouldn’t want to mess with her, believe me.”
The word bodybuilder was on the writer’s lips, but he didn’t say it. Lupita’s combined impressions suddenly caused Da
“Did she have any tattoos?” Da
“Mr. Writer, it’s February!” Lupita cried. “I made her stay outside, in the cold. She looked like an Arctic explorer!”
“Could you see what color her hair was?” Da
“She was wearing a parka-with a hood!” Lupita declared. “I couldn’t even see what color her eyebrows were!”
“But she was big,” Da
“She would tower over you!” Lupita exclaimed. “She’s a giantess!”
There was no point in asking if Lupita had noticed a parachute somewhere. Da
“Younger,” Lupita answered, with conviction. “Not much younger, but definitely younger than you are.”
“Oh,” the writer said; he knew that his disappointment was audible. It made Da
“Well, whoever she is,” Da
“She’ll show up there one day, or she’ll be back here-I just know it,” Lupita warned him. “Do you believe in witches, Mr. Writer?”
“Do you believe in angels?” Da
“This woman was too dangerous-looking to be an angel,” Lupita told him.
“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” Da
“You would be safer meeting a bear, Señor Writer,” Lupita told him.
As soon as their phone conversation ended, Da