Chapter 6

Having gotten to bed so late that it was early, I slept late. I'd given myself about six hours on the alarm clock, knowing I'd hate getting up but also knowing that I'd hate it more if I slept right through the day. I needed to talk to Cecelia, and I wasn't going to wake her up in the middle of the night and make her conform to my sleepless hours.

So the clock became very annoying at 10 in the morning, and I got out of bed and walked over to the dresser to kill it. I began putting the clock away from the bed when I was young, because if I didn't I'd turn it off literally without waking up, and that could be bad for my wages. I wanted to take this one and put it through a car crusher, but restrained myself.

After splashing some water on my face I felt a little more human, and went out into the living room in just a pair of jeans and a vanilla Coke t-shirt Darlia had given me the first time Coca-Cola had put that beverage out. I found Cecelia in the kitchen, which is one of the places I can usually find her – if she's not working out or reading or sewing, she's cooking. She turned when I entered her peripheral vision, took a look at me, and opened the refrigerator. Without a word she pulled out a bottle of vanilla Coke out and handed it to me.

I twisted off the cap and took a healthy slug. We buy it, for nearly a buck fifty per bottle, at a gas station on Central and Western Skies, that being the only place in town where I can reliably find it. It's expensive, but to me it's worth it – in my opinion it's the best thing the company ever did, after Coke itself.

When I lowered the bottle Cecelia said, "Do you feel up to interaction with the human race now?" She's learned not to tell me good morning, especially when I'm short on sleep. To me that phrase is an oxymoron, though getting as much sleep as I need – which she taught me to do and which I usually do these days – helps a lot.

"Depends on what kind of interaction. If you want to put a hit on someone, I'm just in the mood to pick up the contract."

"Don't tempt me," she said with a grin. "I have my own cantankerous spells, and I might give you a name and then regret it the moment you went out the door."

I grunted. Cecelia's happy no matter when she wakes up, no matter how much sleep she's had or not had, and no matter what time it is. As far as I'm concerned that shows a defect in her character – at least, that's how I feel on six hours of sleep and fresh out of bed.

"I know you're irritable, my love," she said, "and not in the mood for much talk or for breakfast. I have, however, prepared biscuits and gravy, and I believe you could consider it an early lunch."

"Sausage gravy?" I asked.

"Is there any other kind?"

I managed a sort of smile. We come from very different places – I grew up in the Mojave Desert, and she's the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper – but we agree wholeheartedly on the matter of biscuits and sausage gravy. "I don't guess there is. You feed the sausage to the dog?"

"No, to Darlia." She wasn't about to let me get any points with the dog crack, not that it was all that funny. Even when I'm not grouchy my best jokes are only mediocre.

I took another slug of Coke. When I looked at Cecelia she was leaning against the counter, her arms folded across her chest. She was wearing a white shirt she'd made, about three sizes too large for her, with a button down collar and no ornamentation at all. It reminded me of her favorite shirt at the time we met, a shirt which was long since used up rags. She had on a black skirt with some sort of Indian-looking zigzag design on it in gold thread, and I knew that if the skirt didn't reach the floor it wouldn't miss by more than two or three inches. Her hair was pulled back into its standard ponytail, and her face, as always clear of makeup, was smooth and dark and narrow – and absolutely beautiful.

"Hatchet-faced my left ear," I said.

She raised her eyebrows at that. "As I recall, Darvin, you're the one who employed that term to describe me when we met."

"Yeah, but I'm smarter now. Your features may be as sharp as the business end of an ax, but they're beautiful too. An ax ain't it, I guess – you're as sharp as the edge of a samurai sword, I suppose, one of those things that can kill you or sit in a museum of art equally well."

She shrugged her shoulders. "You are making less sense than usual. Sit down at the table and I'll give you your food. Would you like another bottle?"

"Yeah, please." I went and sat down in my usual place, to the right of the head of the table, which is Cecelia's spot. She brought me a plate of biscuits, already broken open, and set the gravy boat down on a trivet Darlia had gotten her for her birthday a couple of years back. While I ladled gravy over the biscuits, she went back into the kitchen, and brought another bottle of vanilla Coke. The first one was half gone, and I took another large swig out of it.

"You have few appetites, Darvin – you lust after remarkably little. But those appetites you possess are all healthy. I know of no one else who can consume so much Coke in such a short time."