She stopped by the car, appraised it with a whistle. “This is gorgeous. I wish it were warm enough to put the roof down.”

“Me, too.”

She ran her hands along the door before she opened it and got in, gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Where’s Miss Gennaro?” She reached across and ran her fingers along the wood-finish steering wheel.

“She decided to stay in the sun a few more days.”

“See? I told you. You wasted a free plane ticket.”

We shot across to the expressway on-ramp, cut into the lane for Route 1 with several blaring horns going off behind us.

“I like the way you drive, Patrick. Very Bostonian.”

“That’s me,” I said. “Beantown to the core.”

“My God,” she said. “Just listen to this engine! It sounds like a leopard’s purr.”

“That’s why I bought it. I’m a sucker for leopard purrs.”

She gave me a deep, throaty laugh. “I bet.” She crossed her legs, leaned back in the seat. She wore a navy-blue cowl-neck cashmere over painted-on blue jeans and brown soft leather loafers. Her perfume smelled like jasmine. Her hair smelled like crisp apples.

“So,” I said, “you been having fun since you’ve been back?”

“Fun?” She shook her head. “I’ve been holed up in that apartment since I landed. I was too afraid to stick my head out until you came.” She pulled a pack of Dunhills from her purse. “Mind if I smoke?”

“No. I like the smell.”

“An ex-smoker?” She pushed the dashboard lighter in.

“I prefer the term recovering nicotine addict.”

We pulled through the Charlestown Tunnel and rode up toward the lights of the Tobin Bridge.

“I think indulging addictions has been given a bad rap,” she said.

“Is that so?”

She lit her cigarette and sucked back on the tobacco with an audible hiss. “Absolutely. Everyone dies. Am I right?”

“As far as I know.”

“So why not embrace the things that’ll kill you anyway? Why single out certain things—heroin, alcohol, sex, nicotine, bungee jumping, whatever your predilection—for demonization when we hypocritically embrace cities which spew toxins and smog, eat rich food, hell, live in the late twentieth century in the most industrialized country on the planet?”

“You got a point.”

“If I die from this,” she held up the cigarette, “at least it was my choice. No excuses. And I had a hand—I had control—in my own demise. Beats getting hit by a truck while jogging to a vegetarians’ seminar.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “Never heard it put quite that way before.”