She must have felt the cool, crisp air sweeping in. She looked up at the man standing there holding the door for her, his head tilted to one side and a loopy smile wobbling about on his pleasantly discomfited face.
He expected that she wouldn’t recognize him. He would simply smile at her without saying a word, as he held the door so that she could pass him by and disappear into the darkening world.
Lucinda looked up into his face, did a double take, and then burst out laughing.
“What?” he said. He could feel his embarrassingly responsive complexion beginning a slow burn. He had said nothing, and already she was laughing at him.
Without a word, she reached into her satchel and pulled out the familiar book, with its laminated foil jacket. It was a jolt of intimacy to see his progeny emerging from out of her bag.
“I’m not very good with faces, but I’d be willing to bet good money that you’re the author of this book. Wait a minute.” She opened the back flap and held the picture side by side against the original, the soft cuff of her winter coat slightly caressing his blazing cheek. “Yes. Don’t deny it. You penned this tome. You’re Cass Seltzer!”
“You’re reading it.”
“Not really. I’ve simply incorporated it into my weight-lifting regimen.”
“That’s why I added all those extra arguments for God’s existence. The publisher was supposed to mention its physical-training possibilities on the back cover.”
“I find it makes a rather good stepladder, too. Easily transported from room to room. Had you intended that as well?”
“As a stepladder to enlightenment!”
Lucinda laughed, throwing back her head. She had a brave and sweeping peregrine of a laugh. And just like that it was back, reconstituted, the sense of blessed ease they had shared inside that dappled afternoon. Cass felt the way her whispering breath had warmed his ear.
“Aren’t you going to ask me whether I like your book? Or are all other opinions beside the point now that the New York Times has found it ‘invariably engaging and provocative,’ and The New York Review of Books has described you as ‘the William James for the twenty-first century’?”
He couldn’t believe it. She had actually memorized the choice bits from his reviews that were used in the ads for the book. Not even his mother had memorized the quotes.
“I’m afraid to ask you what you think of it. I’m afraid you’re going to fang me.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. The fanger of my fangee is my friend.”
