The Devil's Interval by Linda Peterson Read Free Book Online Page B

and sex, by the way. It’s everything. I love the way they talk and think and dress and smell. I’m sure some shrink would say it all goes back to my mother.”
    â€œOkay, tell me about your mother.”
    â€œIt was just my mom and me when I was growing up; my dad disappeared when I was a baby. I was fascinated by my mother. She could do anything. She’s the one who first taught me about cars. She could cook and she built stuff, whatever we needed when I was a kid, a go-cart for me, a kitchen table. She taught me to play poker and how to dance. I was the only guy at the senior prom who could cha-cha, mambo, and fox-trot. And she loved to read, anything and everything. In fact, she named me Travis after a character in mysteries she used to read.”
    â€œTravis McGee,” I said. “John D. McDonald’s character in all those mysteries with colors in the title. The Deep Blue something or other.”
    â€œThat’s the guy,” said Travis. “Plus, I think she thought my name was a little trailer-trashy, seemed like the perfect way to thumb her nose at the snooty New England family she ran away from when she married my dad.” He sighed. “I think she’s still thumbing her nose. My mother’s taste in men…” He caught himself short. “Anyway, I grew up thinking all women were remarkable—and the only real pleasure in life I’d ever had was being close to a woman. It’s not…” he stopped.
    â€œNot what?”
    â€œIt’s not like I’ve been out looking for a woman just like my mother. It’s just that I was always happy in her company. And I kind of took something in through my pores. Something women want.”
    Suddenly the oddest thought drifted into my head, that I hoped my boys would describe me that way when they grew up.
    â€œGood thing no one’s a Freudian in this room,” I said, deliberately putting some distance in my voice. “I’ll bite, what do women want?”
    â€œThey need someone to listen, to pay attention.”
    â€œTo memorize a favorite poem?”
    â€œYeah, that was a cheap trick,” said Travis. “But, let me ask you something: Does your husband know how you feel about Marvell?”
    â€œTravis,” snapped Isabella.
    â€œNo comment,” I said, “he knows plenty.” Inwardly I squirmed, remembering how and when I felt most disloyal to Michael. It wasn’t the sex with Quentin. It was afterward, when I’d lie on his bed, both of us still catching our breath after making love, and he’d put on a scratchy 78, and we’d listen to Richard Burton reading John Donne on love. “But O alas, so long, so far/Our bodies why do we forbear?/They are ours, though they are not we/ We are the intelligences, they the sphere.”
    â€œTell me about Mrs. Plummer,” I said, wanting to shift the center of the conversation back to Travis, away from me.
    â€œWhat do you want to know?”
    â€œYou met her because you were driving for her husband?”
    â€œRight. And sometimes I drove the two of them, and sometimes I just drove Grace.”
    â€œAnd you became involved?”
    Travis shrugged. “She liked books, and I do, too. Even more than books, themselves, she liked words. When she heard a new word, she’d say it aloud as if it had some magic power or something. She loved to go to the movies, and Frederick, Mr. Plummer, was too busy. Plus, he wouldn’t turn his cell phone off long enough to sit through a whole movie. So we started going to movies together.”
    â€œAnd one thing led to another?”
    The door swung open.
    â€œFive minutes, folks,” said the officer.
    Travis and I looked at each other. I could see him calculating, looking for the Hail Mary pass. “Hey,” he said, “do me one favor. Go talk to my mother before you decide if you’re going to help or not. Ivory Gifford, she’s got a