Chapter 24

I was up and moving about 7:00 as usual. She wasn't, and when I walked by her door there were ladylike snores to be heard. Despite her admonition I pretty much tiptoed around upstairs, but I didn't worry about it near so much when I got down. I made just my usual amount of coffee, I'd do a fresh pot for her when she got up.

My ordinary routine was to do my warm-up shortly after breakfast, but that was out of the question; even half-voice would be loud enough to wake her, I was sure. So Asmedogh and I sat down again on the couch for a chat.

His take on yesterday was interesting. He was aware, of course, of my interest in Camilla, and told me he thought that to some extent it was reciprocal. Well, that wasn't a total surprise, I knew her deciding to spend a week with me had to be more than just mentoring me as a singer—and hell, she'd said as much at our brunch, hadn't she? But he took it a good deal further, telling me he thought the two of us complemented each other well.

"This is, I think, an early stage of human mating ritual?" he asked. That one struck me as taking it pretty far, and I hemmed and hawed a little, but told him it was the way such things did tend to get started.

"It is very useful to observe how this is accomplished by you who cannot share thoughts," he said. "Even in matters such as this there is a sense of distrust, of uncertainty. You probe at each other, you advance a little and then withdraw again, you cannot be fully open."

"Well, I suppose so," I said, a bit nonplused.

"It goes far to clarify your nature, you humans," he went on. "If you are so hesitant and suspicious of each other even when it comes to the matter of mating, it is easier to know why this carries over and is yet stronger in other, less close relations. It becomes more clear why you are so ready to fight, to war, with each other over what are often trivial differences, even only misunderstandings."

"I hadn't thought of it quite like that," I said slowly. "I guess you're about right."

"Each of you is isolated, each wholly alone," he said. "I wonder if it could be that we might help you to bridge that gap between you?"

I saw what he meant, all right; put an Asmedogh in the mix with two humans or even a group of humans, you'd get a much higher level of communication and understanding. But he wasn't getting it quite right in human terms.

"I wouldn't suggest trying that as an opening gambit, a starting point," I said. "One of the big things about us humans, way up there on the list of what we value, is privacy. We like to keep within ourselves and choose the aspects of ourselves that we share, and to share only those things. I don't think you'd win friends by violating that."

"But you are easy sharing with me as we do between us," he said.

"Yes, but it's different," I explained. "You're not human, and I don't feel that you ... well, judge me. If you were, say, Camilla or Sam or some other person, even a person I thought of as a friend—in fact, especially a person I thought of as a friend—I think I'd be a lot less comfortable."

I could feel him mulling that one over. We might have continued the discussion, but just then there were noises upstairs to indicate that Camilla was out of bed. Asmedogh's remarks to me were of course silent, but I still spoke aloud when I talked to him, and it probably wouldn't be my best idea to be found having one-sided philosophical debates with my cat. Besides, I wanted to get her coffee going.

The shower ran briefly, but she came down in a terrycloth bathrobe with her hair wrapped in a towel and no make-up. She looked good enough to eat. She walked over to me, gave me a casual kiss good morning, and gratefully took the mug of coffee I had in my hand, drinking a small sip immediately. "Just as I like it," she said.

"I watched you last night," I told her.

"Mmm. A quick learner about more than music. You said you have bagels?"

"Frozen." I got one out. "Takes two shots in the toaster but comes out fine. Sit down, I'll play waiter. Butter or cream cheese?"

"Butter, and a little jam if you have it." I fetched both and set them out. Meantime she'd poked around my cabinets enough to find a small glass. "Orange juice?" she asked.

"Top shelf of the icebox," I said, poking the toaster back down for the bagels' second go-round.

"The what?" she asked.

"Icebox. Refrigerator."

"Oh."

Apparently she'd held the thought until we were both sitting at the table, me just to keep her company, because she waited until then to ask me. "Why do you call it an icebox?"

I laughed. "Well, that's what they used to be, a long time ago—an insulated box you kept cold with blocks of ice that were delivered two or three times a week. Before they had electric ones and renamed them."

"You're not old enough to remember that, for heaven's sake."

"No," I admitted. "But my grandparents were, and I spent several summers with them. They called it an icebox, and I guess I picked it up from them. But you're pretty picky about words for an Alabama girl who calls a powder room the 'loo.'"

It was her turn to laugh. "I got that in England when I was over to sing Covent Garden"—London's opera house. "It seemed so much more delicate than saying 'potty' or 'john' or, even worse, 'crapper.'"

Now that one I could go along with.

We continued to talk idly as she ate. She was as delightful in the morning as she'd been the previous day; I know some people tend to awaken grumpy and only warm up slowly—my ex Miriam had been one of those—but clearly she wasn't among them.

Eventually she was done, delicately licking her fingers to catch a couple of stray bits of jam that had stuck to them. She took the last drink of her coffee and set the mug down. "Well, time for me to get dressed," she said as she started to rise.

"Stay like that if you prefer," I said. "Although I have to admit it might be a little ... distracting." Her robe had gradually started to gap a bit as she ate, not to the point of indecency but enough to reveal that if she had anything on beneath it at all, it was very little.

She looked down. "Oh, for heaven's sake, they're just boobies," she said. "Here, take a good look instead of just peeping at the edges," she went on, and opened her robe fully and actually flashed me! I noted bemusedly that, first, she wasn't indeed wearing anything under the robe, and, second, she was that rarity, a natural blond. My jaw was still hanging open as she turned and headed upstairs.

"Give you something to think about while I'm dressing, dear," she called back gaily.

It did for sure. Thoughts that I definitely didn't want to share with Asmedogh. The lascivious ideas that had half-formed in my mind when she'd first suggested coming out here revived and redoubled. But I remained uncertain. Was she really coming on to me? Or was she just an uninhibited tease?

No wonder Asmedogh was so puzzled at the perverse human desire to maintain mental privacy. If only I could know what was going on in her head...