Rapture

Jeff nodded. There she was, precocious as hell, but still only an eighteen-year-old kid, a newcomer to a glamorous new world. This is an adventure for her, he reminded himself. A secret meeting with an older man, a friend of her mother's, drinks in a luxurious hotel room with a penthouse view of Boston. All this-and MTV! It meant nothing to Jeff but he had to remember that it amounted to a pretty bold departure from routine for Bonnie.

He crossed the room, sat in one of the armchairs by the window, and lit a cigarette. Bonnie hadn't settled yet but she was drifting his way, swinging her body lightly to the music. He looked her over carefully now. She was a good inch taller than her mother, and the boots she wore increased her height. The black jeans were tight, but the silver-gray sweater was loose, with sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She also wore a Liberty scarf around her neck and a cluster of cheap bracelets on one wrist. Georgianne would never put on such a mix of things, he thought.

The music didn't interest him at all. He used to like rock, but what he heard these days made him think of processed cheese. The videos were just fancy wrapping, dream sequences, and dark-side fantasies. A cover for bad music. On the TV screen now, shots of Duran Duran performing were intercut with shots of a young woman exciting her nipples with an ice cube. Jeff almost laughed.

"So you really came all this way just to see some people about a little computer part."

"That's business," he said, shrugging.

"Mm-hmm. But I know what you really want to do."

"What's that?"

"You want to talk about my mother."

"How is she?" he asked tonelessly.

"Pretty good."

Bonnie smiled devilishly, as if they were playing some kind of game. She took the other armchair and stretched her legs out on the coffee table. It didn't seem like the sort of gesture she would make naturally, but perhaps the whiskey was getting to her already. Jeff studied the scarred soles of her boots for a few seconds.

"I haven't talked to her in a while," he said. it must be ... oh, ... a couple of months now, I guess."

"You used to call her all the time."

It was a simple statement, but one that Jeff knew demanded a response. Bonnie waited.

"Well, not all the time," he said. "But I did a better job of keeping in touch than I have lately, yes. I was very worried about her, suddenly alone there. You know. It must have been a rough time."

"Yeah." Bonnie looked out the window, fixed on something in the distance for a moment, and then turned back to Jeff. "Is that all?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were just calling her all that time because you were worried about her?"

"Sure. Why?"

"I don't know." Eyes out the window again. "I had the impression there might be more to it."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"What did your mother say?"

"Not much. She would just tell me that you called, back during the time when you were calling her regularly."

"And what has she said about me lately?" Jeff felt tense now, but he had to remain cautious. Bonnie had started this, and he wanted to get something out of it.

"Nothing," Bonnie replied. "She hasn't mentioned you in some time. Why did you stop calling her?"

Jeff ignored this by crossing the room to pour a little more Scotch into his glass. It was deeply upsetting to hear that Georgianne had not spoken of him at all since February. I'm nothing to her, he thought bitterly. I'm an object. A thing. When it turns up now and then you call it friend and act nice to it until it goes away again. A couple of drops of whiskey splashed on his thumb.

"Know what I think?" Bonnie asked.

"What?"

"The same thing I thought when I first met you last year. That you have a thing for my mother."

"A thing." Jeff laughed at the word, then shook his head dismissively. "No, Bonnie, you-"

"Don't you?" she interrupted coolly.

"Bonnie, listen." He returned to the armchair. "Your mother means a great deal to me. We're old friends, we went through school together. Of course I care about her, very much. Very much."

Bonnie nodded her head patiently, as if she were waiting for him to put his official version of things on record before they proceeded with the truth of the matter.

"Well, that's about all there is to it," he concluded weakly. It was too early to tell how far he could trust the girl, and he thought it was time to change the subject. "Has she made any decision about the house?"

"It's on the market now."

"Really," he said, absorbing the news. So things were definitely moving along. He was glad to hear it, but at the same time he felt a new sense of urgency. "What's she going to do?"

"She's coming here around the end of June to look for an apartment. That's a good time to look, because thousands of students have gone home for the summer and there are a lot of places available to choose from."

"Right."