MORNING SERIAL

“But they’ve come to stay with him and have been up at the house for months, so far as I can tell.”

“I’ve never seen him with anyone in the club.”

“I don’t think they get out much.” I waved to the passing waitress and gestured for two more of the same. “But you know what teenage girls are like,” I said.

“So, they’re his granddaughters or something?”

“I don’t know what they are. Grand-nieces or something, maybe? I’m surprised they haven’t hit the town, but they seem quite content up there at the house sitting by the pool.” There was a long thoughtful pause from Lou. “I’m just saying, I don’t quite think Illie fits in with your theory of Russians in Cyprus.”

“There are always exceptions,” she said, and waved a sarcastic finger at me. “Shall we drink these and then go for a swim?” she said.

“I don’t have any swimming gear with me,” I said.

She laughed. “Neither do I,” she said.

We actually had two more drinks. The sun was crisp and the rays were absolute, and, as Lou warned, the hangover cures worked so well that by the time we were ready for a swim we instead moved on to non-virgin cocktails. Lou talked about her upbringing, although always in sweeping terms, never anecdotes about school or her parents, but rather in surprisingly circumspect and philosophical abstractions. “Parents are supposed to firm you up, and they can do this by either pressing at you constantly with their hands, or letting it all hang out and seeing how the wind blows. And mine were more of the second type.” “I hate to sound like a dropout philosopher, waiting tables in Napa and acting like I have it all figured out, but school is designed to provide corporations with employees, and that’s all. If you want to not waste your life you have to reject school and everything it has to offer.