Then I went to a girlfriend’s in Atlanta.

Bil y found me and brought me back.

Again, I waited.

Then I went to a hotel in Dal as.

Bil y found me and brought me back.

This plan took a long time and this was unusual for me. I wasn’t the most patient of people and I felt, acutely, that my life was ebbing away day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year. I had to see it through though, and I’m kind of stubborn so I kept at it.

It was the last time to leave Bil y, a two-part end of the plan. I was going to go to the last place he thought I thought he wouldn’t look, knowing (like al the others, when I’d left breadcrumbs) he’d eventual y look. Then, after he brought me back, I’d go there again, having set up the plan beforehand and getting help (I hoped) while I was at it.

Though things got kind of f**ked up, mainly because Bil y’s stink had settled on me, just like I’d feared.

See, it was then that I went to Denver.

I went to Uncle Tex

And, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, I looked at it both ways; fortunately, because I’d remember it with bittersweet clarity for the rest of my life and unfortunately, because it would never last) it was then that I met Hank and my plan got total y f**ked.

* * * * *

Now I’m sitting on a stinking bathroom floor in a sleazy motel, cuffed to a sink and, if I can help it, Hank Nightingale wil be a memory. He deserves better than me.

I just hope I can figure out a way to make Hank agree.

Chapter Two

Whisky

This is how it began.

* * * * *

A few months ago Uncle Tex wrote to me about some folks he met, one of whom gave him his first job since Vietnam. He’d had it rough, readjusting when he got back from ‘Nam. He spent some time doing time and was living meagerly off a smal inheritance (including a house) he got from a childless uncle who’d taken a liking to him, supplementing the inheritance by cat sitting. If you could believe it (I couldn’t when I read it), Uncle Tex was now making espresso drinks at a used bookstore and coffee house cal ed Fortnum’s. My Uncle Tex had been incarcerated for hunting down and then nearly beating a drug dealer to death. Now, several decades later, he was making fancy schmancy coffee.

How weird was that?

He seemed to like it and his letters were fil ed with stories about al the people that worked there and the regulars who came in, especial y the lady who owned it, India Savage (but, according to Uncle Tex, folks cal ed her Indy).

In his letters, I could tel that Uncle Tex liked everyone, especial y Indy (and, lately, another girl named Jet). He said Indy had “spunk” and Uncle Tex liked spunk. He also liked mettle, which he told me Jet had, even though (he said) she didn’t know it. Lastly, he liked sass which he said another girl he worked with, Al y, had (apparently, in abundance). In his letters, I could also tel that this Indy person had kind of adopted Uncle Tex and that it was changing him, for the good.

So, I worked Denver into my plan, thinking maybe this Indy had performed some magic and Uncle Tex wouldn’t close the door in my face (like he did with my Grams when she tried to visit al those times, and with my Mom, when she and my aunts went with Grams al those times).

Therefore, I decided to add a second agenda item to my plan, getting Uncle Tex back to the family: kil ing two birds with one stone.

* * * * *

It was a Sunday in early October when I arrived. I saw, for the first time, Denver’s big, blue skies that went on forever and the Front Range spreading across the west making the words “purple mountain majesties” a reality to me. Even with the sun, there was a nip in the air. I arrived early in the morning, got a hotel room (with cash, I didn’t want Bil y to find me just yet), showered and did myself up. It was, to my thinking, a special occasion, meeting Uncle Tex for the first time and furthermore, I loved clothes (wel , I loved designer clothes). Mom said I wore my designer threads like armor. Dad said if they were armor, they weren’t working because they acted more like a magnet.

Anyhoo.

I wore my hair to just above my shoulders and got it cut at a place that cost a fortune so that it was al soft waves and little flippies at the ends. I did up my face and put on a charcoal gray wool, to-the-knee skirt that fit like a second skin, cupped my ass, straight at the front and flicked out in kick-pleats at the backs of my knees. I wore this with a black, figure-skimming, wool turtleneck sweater and a pair of gorgeous, spike-heeled black boots that cost so much money that I feared Bil y was going to have a seizure when he saw the price on the side of the box. At my ears, I put in a pair of diamond studs that Bil y bought me, likely with dirty money but they were diamonds and he didn’t often help with the rent, so I kept them. On my wrist, I put on my silver Raymond Weil watch with its mother-of-pearl face and finished the ensemble with my black, Lalique glass ring.

I couldn’t afford al this, not with taking care of Bil y and me. To feed my passion for labels, I saved and trol ed for al my treasures, careful y hoarding money or trawling nearly new shops (not to mention, I was addicted to online auction sites) for other people’s glamorous cast-offs. I did it as a hobby. I did it because I loved nice things and lately, I did it to remind myself of the life I’d left behind when I let myself fal in love with Bil y. This also served as a reminder of why I had to find a way to get rid of him.

I spritzed with Boucheron, threw my little Fendi bag over my shoulder (bought for a third of its retail price, never used, from a soon-to-be divorcee at her pre-divorce yard sale), programmed the address in the sat nav and headed to Uncle Tex’s house.

He wasn’t home.

I was surprised, it was Sunday and, for years, Uncle Tex had never left his block. Now he had a job but I didn’t reckon he was to the point of gal ivanting around Denver.

Though, in his latest letters, it sounded like he was doing a fair amount of gal ivanting.

I waited for a while and he didn’t come home. So, I went to a phone booth, looked up Fortnum’s bookstore and programmed the address in my sat nav.

I found a parking spot on Broadway and walked up to the door, which opened at the corner of Bayaud and Broadway.

It looked like a cool store, hip but not in a trendy way, in the way that only long-standing, cool-ass establishments could be hip, that is to say, natural y.

Then, I walked into the store.

And I loved it immediately. It smel ed musty from what looked like acres of disorganized books shelved, from what I could see, wil y-nil y at the back of the store.

I loved to read, loved books, libraries and bookstores and this, I could tel right away, was one of the best.