Free Kissing the Beehive by Jonathan Carroll Page A

things back and forth from Connecticut on the many trips I knew I would be making to my old hometown. Frannie said I didn't have to pay rent so long as I dedicated the book to him. I didn't know if he was serious but I'd promised the next one to
    Cass.
    From the way he lived, it seemed my old pal could use all the money he could find. His house was beautifully furnished. I knew enough about furniture from my second wife to recognize that some of the pieces he owned were very expensive. He also drove an Infiniti and had a closet full of clothes that reminded me of the Great Gatsby's shirt collection. When I asked how he afforded these things, he laughed and said he'd once been married to a rich woman. I didn't know how far that explanation would fly but it wasn't my place to probe. Despite the fact he was chief of police and had apparently turned his life around since I'd known him, I had a lingering suspicion that somewhere behind Mr. Solid Citizen, old rogue McCabe was up to some kind of mischief that allowed him to live way beyond his means.

    Book tours can be irritating and exhausting. Too many cities in too few Page 31

    days, "interviews" with people who haven't read the book but need you to fill up a few desultory minutes on their TV or radio shows, meals alone in dreary restaurants . . . When I'd first done them, I thought tours romantic and exciting; now they were only part of the job. Worse, I found I lived in a kind of empty-headed limbo for days after they were finished. This time I resented the fact I couldn't get to work on Pauline's book until this was out of the way.
    Trying to find some way to cheer up the inevitable, I hit on the idea of asking Veronica to come along. I was hesitant at first because two weeks on the road with anyone could end in disaster.
    But by the time I did ask, we had been having such a nice time together that I was willing to try.
    So was she, and the way she accepted the invitation gave me hope. Her face lit up, but she said,
    "What a nice idea. Are you sure we won't drive each other crazy?"
    "No, I'm not sure."
    "Me neither, but I'd like to try."
    Because of earlier commitments, she couldn't go to Boston or Washington, but would catch up in Chicago and we'd go west together.
    The trip began dreadfully. In Boston, the tail end of a hurricane was visiting the city. As a result, about twenty sodden people showed up at the bookstore for my signing. The next morning while the weather continued to eat
    Bean Town, I dutifully showed up on time for an interview with an
    "alternative" newspaper. The woman asking the questions arrived half an hour late and immediately started launching verbal assaults at any person who'd ever been on a bestseller list.
    Things between us went quickly from coldly polite to open warfare. When she smugly asked if I ever read "serious"
    writers, I suggested she should stop reading Georges Bataille awhile and go get laid instead.
    Then I got up and left.
    Because of the weather, the plane to Washington was delayed two hours so I sat in airport hell wondering once again why there is nothing to do in airports. Why hasn't some enterprising genius yet realized all us bored ticket holders would adore, flock to, pay hard cash for . . . any diversions that lasted longer than a cruise through the magazine racks or dull necktie store?
    In contrast to Boston, Washington was going through an ugly heat wave that melted your brain into raclette cheese. Who wants to leave the great god air-conditioning to go listen to some thriller writer read from a book they've already read?
    When it was over, I ate sushi across the street from my hotel and stared at a couple nearby.
    Watching them was like seeing a terrific film in a foreign language with subtitles: No matter how much you enjoy it, you know it would be even better if you understood what was really being said. Looking at the passion and electricity between them, I knew I wasn't in love with Veronica, although it was still a