They got into his car. Arrived. Seated themselves at the pinewood table just like the previous time, sipped coffee from large emblazoned mugs with colorful Gauguin imitations on them.
“What happened the other day, at your mom’s house, Chelsea?” Mac was probing. “You didn’t recognize me, and your mom says you sleepwalk. She told me I must bring you home when I find you.”
“Mom, oh Mom…The poor girl.” She drawled her vowels and rolled her eyes. “She must get herself a lover.”
There it was again…The way she said the word “lover.” It sounded like Ashley. Ashley’s pronunciation, the same phlegmatic view of the world. A tone that was alien to the netball-playing, cell phone-buying, boom box thumping Chelsea generation.
Ashley’s wave of the hands, her way of changing face expressions, it was a
