Free Valley of Bones by Michael Gruber

Lorna.
    “Oh, for God’s sake! That’s what friends are for, you nut! All I mean is it just breaks my heart. I want you to be happy ! Regular. Walking in green fields full of flowers with a nice guy.”
    “Like in a toilet paper commercial.”
    “Exactly. And every fourth commercial the couple is black, except you can tell the dude is, like, a little queer? Seriously, hon, you got to change your way of living.”
    “And if that ain’t enough, I’m gonna change the way I strut my stuff.”
    “Oh, right, be a smart-ass about it. But the songs don’t lie, honey. Uh-uh. They don’t lie.”
    “You’re bound and determined to reshape my life into domestic bliss, aren’t you? Guided by the eternal wisdom of old popular song lyrics?”
    “And my highly honed social worker skills. Let me ask you something: you ever thought about a cop?”
    “When I got my stereo ripped off, sure.”
    “Moron. I mean to date one.”
    “You’re still confusing me with you, dear,” Lorna says uncomfortably. “It’s not my kind of thing.”
    “Because…?”
    “Because. Let me think. Look, you know I love Leon, but I need…how can I say this without sounding like an arrogant shithead…?”
    “Oh, go on, go on! If I was going to dump you for being an arrogant shithead, I would’ve done it years ago.”
    “Thank you. I want someone I can talk to. I don’t respond well to ‘how about those Marlins’ as a conversational gambit. I want someone who reads books.”
    “Leon reads books.”
    “I mean books . Come on, Sher, I don’t want to get into a fight. You’re happy, God bless you, but I need something different. Let it go.”
    “Got to be an intellectual, huh?”
    “I think so.”
    “Just like Daddy.”
    Lorna mimes looking around, as if searching for a public notice. “Excuse me, I thought this was a psychotherapy-free area. Waiter!”
    Sheryl ignores this and studies her friend appraisingly. “Mm, I just had an interesting thought.”
    “What? And I don’t like that look on your face.”
    “My thought was you ought to meet Jimmy Paz.”
    “And why is that? He’s an intellectual?”
    “He reads books is what I hear. Leon says most people in the department think he’s the smartest guy who ever worked there.”
    “And he’s probably got three semesters at Miami-Dade Junior College too.”
    “Now you are being an arrogant shithead.”
    Sheryl is now giving her the stare she usually reserves for one of her children gone seriously over the line or a junkie trying to hustle her. Lorna feels herself blushing again. “All right. That was low.”
    “I forgive you, or I will forgive you if you show up at our place the Saturday from next. We’re throwing a retirement party for Amos Greely. You’ve met him.”
    “The mentor.”
    “Uh-huh. Anyway, Paz will be there. We’ll have white folks too. We ain’t prejudice or nothin.”
    “He’s a Cuban, right?” There is some eye-rolling action here.
    “An Afro-Cuban.”
    “So not another male chauvinist piggie?”
    Sheryl laughs long and loud, drawing looks from some of the neighboring tables.
    “Darlin, they’re all male chauvinist piggies, and your skinny whiteboy intellectuals are the worst kind because they’ll never admit it. And Paz cooks too.”
    “He cooks?”
    “Yeah, he’s a chef in his off hours. His mom owns Guantanamera.”
    “Very impressive,” says Lorna, who is actually impressed. She has eaten at that restaurant, widely considered to be the finest Cuban place in Miami, the best of a tough league. “Let’s see, reads books, cooks for his mother, unmarried at what…? Thirty-five?”
    “About there.”
    “Gay.”
    Another laugh from Sheryl, even louder than before. She has to dab at her eyes with her napkin. “Oh, no, sugar. You don’t have to worry about that. Not Jimmy Paz. The book on him is he likes smart girls. Smart white girls. I am going to get cast out of the sisterhood for setting this up, but I’ll have to learn to live with