“I’m going to make a deal with you,” Manfred said. “I’ll do my best to always tell you the truth.” He had no idea why he’d said that, but he knew instantly it had been the right thing to tell her.

“That’s an interesting deal, Manfred Bernardo. Okay. I’ll do my best to do the same.” And Creek opened her door and walked swiftly into the store.

When the door swung shut, Manfred went home, but it took him an hour to settle back to work.

26

Manfred had had a civilized idea while he shopped in Davy, one he was sure his grandmother and his mother would approve. Late the next morning, he walked down to the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon with a bottle of wine. Chuy was in the salon part of the store. He was painting a design on some acrylic nails, which were on the fingertips of Olivia Charity, back from wherever she’d been on her trip.

After Manfred greeted both of them, he asked Olivia, “Can I look?”

“Of course,” she said, and he bent over to see the design. Her fingernail pattern was dark blue and light blue chevrons.

“Really pretty,” he said. And it was, but he realized he didn’t know Olivia very well at all. He would never, in a million years, have believed this was her choice.

“Joe, Manfred is here!” Chuy called, and Joe emerged from behind a chest of drawers.

“Hey, man,” Joe said. “How you doing?”

Manfred presented the wine to Joe, since Chuy was occupied. “Thanks for a great evening,” he said. “Even if we did get in a fight afterward, the food gave us the strength to withstand the attack.”

“Thanks, and have a seat,” Joe invited. “I was just taking the old drawer pulls off the drawers and looking at the restoration hardware I could get to replace them. Nothing that can’t be put off. I’d rather talk than work, any day.”

Manfred hadn’t planned on staying, but he found he welcomed the prospect of talking to other people in a different room. He sat down in the extra plastic rolling chair on the client side of the manicure table. Joe pulled up a folding chair that had been positioned looking out the window.

“That was quite a shock, to hear that you guys had been jumped,” Chuy said, taking Olivia’s left hand in his own. “I’m sorry we didn’t hear you yell. Creek tells me she came to your defense. That Creek, she’s a firecracker, huh?”

“We were glad to see her coming,” Manfred admitted. “She can swing a bat, no doubt of that. I’m no street fighter. No big surprise there.” He looked down at his thin body. “Maybe I need some bulk,” he concluded.