Free Blowing Smoke by Barbara Block Page A

else to touch him. Do you know what that’s like, watching someone you love slowly dying?”
    Her speech, which was designed to elicit sympathy, left me cold. Maybe it was the practiced quality it had to it, or maybe it was because it made me start thinking about Murphy. I wanted to say to Rose, but at least you had time to get ready, time to prepare. Your whole world wasn’t taken away from you in the snap of a finger. I’d gone out to get some food and come back to find Murphy dead in the car in the garage from a heart attack brought on by a cocaine overdose. Which way was better? Did it really matter?
    â€œThat’s when I began raising orchids,” Rose went on, interrupting my thoughts. I tried to focus on what she was saying. “They’re like my children. You see that one? The one on the end of the table.” She pointed at a small white bloom.
    I nodded.
    â€œIt cost me fifty thousand dollars. I bought my first orchid for thirty dollars. I read everything I could get my hands on. And Sanford encouraged me. He insisted I add on the greenhouse. For a long time they were my only consolation.”
    â€œBut now you have something else.”
    â€œYes, I do,” she parried without missing a beat. “And what’s so wrong with that? With wanting to enjoy myself while I still can?”
    â€œNothing,” I replied hastily, even though the question had been rhetorical.
    â€œExactly. Not that my children share that attitude.” She shook her head and watched as Sheba jumped off her lap and began stalking the ants on the floor. “Maybe I shouldn’t expect them to.” She sighed and began twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “They were furious when they found out what I was going to do. Louis was the worst. The way he carried on...” Rose Taylor’s voice fell again. She raised her chin. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think children are more trouble than they’re worth, but then I’m glad I had them. I feel sorry for any woman who misses the experience of motherhood.”
    I didn’t say anything.
    She brightened. “Now, let’s have that drink I invited you for, shall we?” And with that she pressed a buzzer by her seat. Two minutes later, the Mexican maid appeared with a tray containing a martini glass, a silver cocktail shaker that came straight out of the twenties, and a glass filled with a manhattan for me.
    â€œI’m glad people have revived the cocktail hour,” Rose Taylor said as I moved the chair I’d sat down in closer to the table. “Not that I’ve ever given it up. Sanford and I indulged every evening at five-thirty. Toward the end, he was sipping his martini through a straw while I held the glass. Would you mind pouring, dear?” she asked, nodding toward the shaker. “Since my stroke my hands tend to shake a bit. So tedious growing old, but I do what I can to amuse myself.”
    I managed to restrain myself from pointing out the obvious. “Was it a bad one?” I asked instead, remembering my grandmother’s.
    â€œBad enough.” Rose Taylor grimaced at the memory. “I lost partial use of my right side. It took months of physical therapy to get back to where I am. Now I have to take a blood thinner and have these stupid blood tests. So boring, but Geoffrey has been marvelous through it all. I don’t know what I’d have done without his encouragement.”
    I had a feeling his encouragement didn’t come cheap. I made a noncommittal noise as I remembered his comment in my store about wanting an MGB. He’d sounded pretty certain that he’d get it. And he probably would, too, if the loafers he was wearing were any indication of the way things were.
    Made of Italian leather, they cost five hundred dollars a pair if they cost a penny. No wonder Louis was pissed. Here he was working his ass off at the post office while his mother showered what he