pomme frite into her mouth. âFrom what youâve told me about her, anyway.â
Brian was thinking the same thing, having already felt certain echoes of Barbary Lane. âI invited her,â he said with a shrug. He liked Wrenâs face in this light, the way her own glow fused with the roomâs. âShe said to join her for dessert.â
âSheâs not that mobile, huh.â
âYeah, but mostly I think she wanted to receive you at home.â
âAh.â
âSort of a tradition for newcomers.â
âNow youâre making me nervous.â
He reached across the table to squeeze her small, well-manicured hand. His own hand was piebald with spots, most of them too freeform to be written off as freckles. Liver spots, his dad had called them, back when Brian was still in law school and the old man was feeling his age. Liver spots . There had to be a better term, something that invoked a life robustly lived. Steak spots? Burger spots?
âDonât worry about Mrs. Madrigal,â he told Wren. âSheâll get you, I promise.â
âI feel like Iâm meeting your mother,â she said.
In a way, of course, she was. Not the mother who had died of cancer when he was barely thirtyâthe Irish housewife from Harrisburg who collected spoons from every stateâbut the mother who had surreptitiously given him a home in a new city when he was too strung out on women to notice. Anna had been his stealth mother.
Wren fussed with the low neckline of her blue velvet dress. âYou sure this outfitâs not too much?â
âAre you kidding? Itâs right on the nose. She was raised in a Nevada whorehouse.â
Wren raised an eyebrow, but it was comically intended and more in curiosity than indignation. âAnd why have you never told me that?â
He shrugged. âThought I had.â The truth was, he thought heâd told her everything. He wanted to tell her everything. His new aim in life was to tell her everything. âShe ran away when she was young,â he explained. âSixteen.â
âWhy?â
Sort of an odd question, he thought. âIf you were a boy who felt like a girl, would you want to grow up in that environment?â
She pondered the issue for a moment. âSeems as good as any. Depends on the whorehouse, I guess.â
Her cavalier tone made him smile.
âSeriously, women as a rule are kinder than men. Sorry, babe, but you know itâs true. A kid like that would do much better in a whorehouse than . . . you know, a military academy.â She picked up another frite . âDid she have family there?â
Brian sawed on a corner of his filet mignon. âHer mother was the madam.â
Wren absorbed that for a moment. âDid she love her?â
âDid who love whom?â
âEither one. Mother or daughter. Son, whatever.â
âNot for a long time. Maybe. Who the hell knows? They didnât reunite until the seventies. Mona bumped into her on a bus to Reno and got a job answering phones at the Blue Moon. When she figured out their lineage, she brought the old lady back to Barbary Lane. Sorta forced the issue. It wouldnât have happened ifââ
âWait! Bumped into the mother? The madam?â
âYeah, the mother, the madam.â He knew this was bound to take a while, so he popped a morsel of steak into his mouth and chewed it.
âAnd Mona was Annaâs daughter? The one who married the English lord and . . . passed away in England?â
âYep.â
âSo she bumped into her own grandmother on the bus to Reno?â
âRight.â
âAnd reunited her with Anna, who used to be . . . Monaâs father.â
â Exactemente .â
Wren tilted her head and widened her tigress eyes. âJesus Christ, you people are complicated.â She reached out with the corner of her napkin and, delicately, did minor repairs