The Man Who Wasn't All There by David Handler (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

waist-length golden hair was brushed out. Her cheeks were aglow. She’d never looked lovelier.

She set the tray down on her dresser and threw open the drapes over the French doors to reveal the autumn sun rising over Whalebone Cove. Lulu hobbled in and climbed back on to the bed, her tail thumping.

I sat up, drank my juice, then took a grateful gulp of the hot cappuccino.

‘Ready for your English muffin, darling?’

‘Not just yet,’ I said, gazing at her.

‘You look rather pleased with yourself this morning,’ she observed, sipping her cappuccino.

‘My headache is gone.’

‘Is that all?’

‘My dizziness is gone.’

‘Is that all?’

‘I also had the most wonderful dream in the night.’

She set the plate of English muffins on the bed and climbed back in, kissing me lightly on the mouth. ‘That, sir, was no dream.’

‘Have I told you recently how much I adore you?’

‘No, you haven’t. Not since November the third, 1982. We were in a Checker cab riding home from Elaine’s. There was a light rain falling. Our driver, Louie, had lived in Canarsie his entire life.’

‘You’re making all of this up.’

‘Am not. I have a photographic memory when it comes to historic moments.’

‘In fairness to me, we weren’t speaking to each other for several years after that.’

She waved me off. ‘Incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial.’

‘Well, I do. Adore you, that is.’

‘Good.’

‘Good? That’s all you have to say?’

‘Why, were you expecting something more – such as “I adore you, too, darling”?’

‘Well, kind of.’

‘Sorry, you’ll have to wait until November of 2004.’

‘Suits me.’ I bit into an English muffin. ‘I can wait.’

‘Oh, I see. Playing the lone rider of Santa Fe now, are we?’

‘Nope, the romantic. You’ve just acknowledged aloud, in front of a four-footed witness, that we’ll still be together in eleven years.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Good gravy. I did, didn’t I?’

‘Possibly you need more coffee.’

‘And you need to shower and dress. Eng.’

‘Eng?’

‘You have an appointment to see her this morning at eight thirty, remember?’

It was a mild morning. Low forties, no frost. Supposed to top off in the mid-fifties by the afternoon. I carefully removed the bandage from my head and – with the aid of Merilee’s adjustable dressing table mirrors – inspected my staples, raw flesh and partially shaved skull. I looked like a character in one of those cheesy old mad scientist movies about brain transplants that I used to love watching when I was a kid. Actually I still love watching them.

After I’d showered, washing and drying my head wound carefully, I put on a fresh bandage. Then I stropped grandfather’s razor, shaved and powdered my neck with Floris No. 89 talc powder. I stayed in character in a T-shirt, torn jeans, my Chippewas and leather flight jacket.

After her shower, Merilee dressed a tad more elegantly in a white silk blouse, burgundy cashmere cardigan and pleated gray flannel trousers.

By the time we left for the hospital the Hardy Boys had arrived and Gas was up on a ladder with a paint can and brush putting a coat of primer on the glazing compound.

‘Morning!’ he called to me. ‘How are you feeling today?’

‘Much better, thanks. In fact, I’m sure I’ll feel well enough to apply the top coat tomorrow if you guys have another job to get to.’

‘No, sir,’ Tony said firmly. ‘When we start a job, we finish it. Besides, I’m under strict orders from Miss Nash to keep you away from ladders.’

‘Far, far way,’ she chimed in.

I still hadn’t been medically cleared to drive so Merilee got behind the wheel of the Jag while I rode shotgun. Lulu hobbled slowly across the gravel on her bandaged paws, settled in my lap and off we went.

‘I’ll take her to the vet when we get back to have her paws checked,’ Merilee said. ‘You’ll probably be needing a nap.’

‘Don’t think so. I feel tip top today.’

‘Nonetheless, I don’t want you to overdo it.’

‘Yes, Mommy.’

She stuck her tongue out at me. My real Mommy never did that.

As we zipped by Mr MacGowan’s farmhouse, twisting our way past fieldstone walls, meadows, gnarly apple tree orchards and an array of country houses, large and small, my eyes searched for Annabeth McKenna’s antique yellow saltbox on the right. Merilee made it easy for me when she slowed up and pulled into her circular driveway. Annabeth hadn’t been kidding. I’d driven by it a million times. I’d just never noticed it before because of all of the overgrown privet, forsythia and mountain laurel that shielded it from the road. She also hadn’t been kidding about its state of decrepitude. It needed a new roof, a paint job and its wooden foundation sills looked crumbly with dry rot. No one appeared to be home. Her Volvo was gone. Merilee jumped out and left Annabeth’s Tupperware soup containers on the front porch with a thank-you note inside. Then she got back in and off we sped.

‘Did you know her husband?’

‘Not really,’ Merilee said, downshifting as she negotiated a steep downhill curve. ‘I saw him jogging a few times. He’d wave, I’d wave.’

‘Annabeth told me he was a classics scholar. They met when they were Yale undergrads.’ On Merilee’s silence I added, ‘I still can’t figure her out.’

‘What’s to figure out?’

‘Why she agreed to treat Austin.’

‘I can think of exactly one million reasons.’

‘So you really think she just did it for the money?’

‘And the sense of security. She has three teenaged kids to put through college and zero chance of finding another husband.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because Annabeth isn’t who men your age are looking for.’

‘Who are we …?’

‘Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Kathy Ireland, Linda Evangelista … Need I go on?’

‘You need not. And we’re not all like that. Take this reporter, for instance. I have zero interest in spending my time with a twenty-something swimsuit model who thinks that a pimple is a global crisis. I’d much rather be with you.’

‘Even though I’m over forty?’

‘Even though you’re over forty. Want to know why?’

‘I’m all ears, handsome.’

‘Because talent is sexy. Having ideas and opinions is sexy. Having life experience