We spoke another fifteen minutes, and when I felt I would learn no more I excused myself, telling Ellie to come over for a barbecue the next time she was up in Tahoe.
It was early evening when I got home. The phone was ringing as I let myself inside. Street would be done with her conference by now and was possibly calling as she headed back home from Oakland. I hurried to the phone, but when I picked it up there was only a dial tone. I dialed Street’s cell phone but got routed to her voice mail. I left a message, then headed for the kitchen, wishing once again that she were with me so I could cook her dinner.
I couldn’t articulate well the nature of how I was attracted to her. But it wasn’t anything like other relationships I’d had. Where other women had given me plaid flannel shirts or concert tickets for a present, Street would take me on a hike up a mountain summit and read a Yeats poem or one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Where other women spent time shopping and socializing, Street spent her time alone, reading books and studying bugs. While I didn’t love bugs myself, I found her devotion to such tiny creatures very alluring.
The phone started again. I was bent over, head in the fridge, hands full of green and red and yellow peppers. I got to the phone after the second ring, but again there was only a dial tone when I picked it up. I thought of trying Street again, but realized she would be on the highway and driving through a dead spot between cell towers. I went out on the deck and lit a fresh pile of charcoal. A hundred stories below, Lake Tahoe lay gray and flat like a plate of fresh forged iron. The sunset reflected on it like the fires from a dying blast furnace.
I scrubbed a potato and put it in the microwave to jump-start the slow cooking of high altitude, then took a New York Strip steak out of the fridge. The microwave beeped. I wrapped the potato in foil and transferred it to the charcoal. To mix up a marinade I squeezed a clove of garlic into a pan, diced some green onions, poured in some soy sauce and a touch of Napa Valley Cabernet.
Twenty minutes later I put the steak on the grill. Spot lifted his nose in the air and flexed his nostrils.
“Don’t drool,” I said. “It’s not polite.”
He went back to chewing his rawhide, dejection on his face.
When I sat down and tasted my steak, it was all I could do not to call Jackson Bullman, my venture capitalist friend, and offer to start a restaurant chain with his money. But I couldn’t have called because the phone started ringing again. I jumped up and answered it.
“Mr. McKenna?” It was Jennifer Salazar. She’d said only my name, yet I could hear the terror in her voice.
“Yes, Jennifer. What is wrong?”
“I think someone is trying to kill me! Someone is in our house! He broke in! I grabbed my cell phone and hid in the closet of the study! Then I heard someone go into the room next door. I ran out.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m in the library. Hurry!”
“Did you call nine-one-one?”
“I tried, but my phone keeps cutting out. He broke in last night, too! I got through to the police last night. I explained about it on the machine at your office. But you didn’t call. Can you come to my house? Can you come right now?” Her voice was sobs and mumbled words. She sounded like she was choking.
“I’m on my way. Where am I going?”
“South of Zephyr Cove. Around the curve. On the lake side is a drive with two stone columns and yellow Tiffany lights on them. It’s a wrought iron gate. I’ll push the button to open it. Hurry, Mr. McKenna! Please hurry!”
SIX