On a Night Like This by Ellen Sussman Page B

beautiful,” he says.
    She’s crying.
    “You don’t see me,” she tells him.
    Luke finally slept, sometime toward dawn, and when Sweetpea nosed him out of bed a couple of hours later, he was ready to find Emily.
    “Mrs. Healy?” Luke asked into the phone when a woman answered his call. He was standing in the kitchen, drinking coffee, staring at the ski ticket on the counter in front of him.
    “Yes?” Her voice was small, unsure.
    “I’m calling from Flowers on Fillmore. I’ve got a bouquet here for you and wanted to make sure someone would be home for delivery.”
    “Flowers? Oh. I’ll be home till noon,” she said.
    “See you before noon,” Luke said, and hung up.
    He headed to the nearest flower shop, bought an impressive bundle of roses, wrapped it in a white ribbon, drove his truck to Pacific Heights.
    Mrs. Healy lived in a modern stone-and-glass box of a house, the kind Luke hated, with a wall of windows on the top floor offering views out toward the bay. Luke rang the bell at the gate, and she buzzed him in.
    He headed up the path to the door and rang yet another bell. She kept him waiting.
    She opened the door and reached for the flowers without looking at him. The help. She turned the bouquet in her hands, looking for a card.
    “Hey, where’s the card?” she asked.
    He looked at her. She was his age, early forties, dressed in running clothes with a bandanna wrapped around her forehead. The cuckolded wife? Perhaps. Emily was taller, blonder, finer-boned. Lovelier.
    “No card,” Luke said.
    “Well, who are they from?” the woman asked impatiently.
    “I don’t know,” Luke said. “Up to them to let you know. I just deliver ’em.”
    “You mean, they sent these with no card? I don’t get it. You must have a record or something. Someone paid for the damn things.”
    “Cash,” Luke said. “No record.”
    “A woman, right?” she said. Finally. Annoyed.
    “Yeah,” Luke said cautiously. “A woman.”
    “Did you see her?” she asked.
    “I might have.”
    “Tall? Blond hair? Drop-dead gorgeous?”
    “You might say.”
    “Fuck her,” Mrs. Healy said. She dropped the roses to the ground and slammed the door in Luke’s face.
    Luke left the flowers on the doorstep and headed to his truck, feeling oddly elated, as if knowing lessened the pain of what he knew.
    “Sweetpea,” Luke said, climbing into the truck, “you’ve got a job to do, pal. Let’s go visit Blair.”
    He had called the hospital and had been given the news that Blair was released that morning. He hadn’t tried her at home, knew that she wouldn’t talk to him, that his sweet dog would have to do the talking.
    He drove to the Haight, pulled up in front of the driveway leading to the cottage. A man sat in a lounge chair on the unkempt lawn of the purple Victorian in front of the cottage. He was smoking a joint, reading the newspaper.
    Luke ignored the guy, started up the path past him, toward Blair’s cottage. On the other hand, Sweetpea, unfaithful Sweetpea, went sniffing.
    “Nice dog,” the guy called out, petting her.
    “Thanks,” Luke said. “Come on, girl.”
    “You a friend of Blair’s?”
    “You the guardian at the gate?”
    “You might say that.”
    Luke stood on the path, eyeing the guy, who stroked Sweetpea and toked on his joint.
    “Sweetpea! Let’s go!” Luke called, more insistent.
    “Blair’s resting,” the guy said.
    “I’ll let her tell me that,” Luke said.
    “But you’ll have to wake her up so she can say fuck off. That wouldn’t be very nice, would it?”
    “Maybe she only says fuck off to you,” Luke offered.
    “Who the hell are you?” the guy said, though he didn’t seem to care.
    “A friend. Come on, Sweetpea. Let’s go.”
    “My name’s Casey. I’m the landlord.”
    “Right.”
    Luke hesitated a moment, then started toward the cottage again, deciding to leave Sweetpea with her new best friend. But Casey called out, “The lady is resting.”
    “So you said,”