Cassie moved to indicate Patrick’s caftan but abruptly curbed the gesture.
“I’ll consider a solo show.”
“A solo show,” she repeated.
“Yes. A one-man show.”
“But not a play.”
“No. I don’t see the point in standing around while other people say their lines when I could have all the lines for myself.” Patrick grinned like a hyena.
“You want to have all the lines for yourself.”
“Exactly. I think we’re starting to feel a connection.”
“Would you be willing to write this one-man show? A lot of solo performance is written by the artist.”
“Vanessa Redgrave did Joan Didion.”
“You want to do Joan Didion?”
“I want to do Vanessa Redgrave. I want to do a one-man show where I play Vanessa Redgrave playing Joan Didion. Other than that, I really think we’re done here.”
Cassie sighed. Now it was clear. “You’re not taking me seriously.”
“Oh, was I supposed to?”
Cassie screwed the cap on her bottle of water and picked up her sunglasses from the counter. “It’s okay. I’m used to men not taking me seriously.”
Patrick slid down from the counter. “Oh, don’t do that. Don’t you lump me in with the patriarchy—I’m wearing a dress, for Christ’s sake. But you show up at my house without so much as a phone call. I don’t know you. I don’t know what you want.”
“It’s okay if you don’t take me seriously, because I take myself seriously enough for both of us. You might think this is a joke, but I know more about you than you think I do and I drove two hours to have this meeting with you. Has Neal ever done that? I highly doubt he has. I know you were unhappy on television. I know your first love was the theater. I know you’re not serious about doing a solo show, because your favorite part of acting is reacting, and that’s where you truly shine.” Cassie took a deep breath. “I know when you left LA, you didn’t go far, because you’re not done with your career. You’re testing me. That’s fine. I will take your test and I will pass it. And I’ll go, but this conversation isn’t over.”
“Tammy Tetons,” Patrick said as a smile spread across his lips. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Cassie asked hopefully.
“Okay.” Patrick repeated, realizing he didn’t totally hate her. That seemed . . . new. Another crash from the other room. “Don’t make me come in there!” He turned to Cassie. “Actually, do you have a job right now? Something out of state that would take me far away from here?”
She struggled for an offer that might do.
“I’m kidding. I have to go. We’ll need to continue this some other time.”
Cassie opened the calendar app on her iPhone. “Okay, so when would be a better time?”
Patrick raised his arms, making him resemble a kite. “I’m going to need you to figure that out.”
“Come back to work, Patrick. Come back to Neal. It’s time.” She scanned his eyes for any sign this was sinking in. “Promise me you’ll at least think about it.”
“I’ll think about it.” But the truth was, at the moment he had bigger things to think about. Like where to buy bicycle helmets.
NINE
If Maisie and Grant were going to insist on keeping the temperature at anything less than one hundred and one, they were going to have to consider a new descriptive word for the hot tub. Patrick didn’t force the issue—boiling children while they were entrusted to him seemed unwise. And it was summer, after all; even though the sun had dipped behind the mountains, it was still hovering around ninety degrees （his blood had thinned over the past few years, but it doesn’t mean theirs had）。 Still, it had become a routine. Each evening after lupper they had a post-meal swim and a soak and partook in one of their favorite activities, watching the outdoor solar lights pop on as dusk settled over the yard.
“There’s one!” Grant yelled. He splashed the twist right out of his uncle’s vodka on the rocks as he raised his arm from the water.
“Easy. Easy.”
“It’s one of the colored ones!”
“Score,” Patrick said with just enough interest to keep Grant from throwing a fit. But the colored ones were fun, situated under the citrus trees （tangelo and Mexican lime mostly, a lemon and two pink grapefruit） that lined the back of the property and made interesting shapes and shadows along the white concrete wall that separated his property from JED’s.