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Page 31.

Luckily, the city had jazz and noise and speed to wipe away tears and sadness. Famished, Tory and David had burgers at a little restaurant, then walked along the Mall. They studied fossils and airplanes and colorful gems at the Smithsonian. They walked and talked and laughed and fed ducks and clowned around.

When the sun glittered low among rusty colored leaves, and shadows grew long, she slipped her arm through his. They walked along an endless park, under streetlights, under the watchful gaze of dozens of hungry-eyed young soldiers.

“I've made a decision, David.”

“What's that?”

“Maxie told me a lot about you. I thought, when she introduced me to you, that you seemed so sweet and handsome, I might just let go a little.”

“She pushes people, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.” Her arm rested loosely in his. “I didn't need much prodding when I laid eyes on you.”

“I wasn't sure what it was about you. I wasn't sure you even noticed me, but I was determined to get to know you.”

“I could tell.” She gave his arm a gentle yank. “That's what a woman likes to see. Some desire in a man. Fire.”

“I've got plenty of that.

“So here's the thing.”

“Yes, Tory?”

“I want to be fair to both of us. So do I let you fall in love with me and then tell you, or do I tell you now and you bug out if you want? It just occurred to me, as we were having fun, that maybe it's best to level up front.”

“It usually is.”

“I can't have children, David.” She did not shed any tears as she told him. She was not weepy. Probably had wept herself out. “I seemed to be a perfectly normal, fertile young woman when I got married. Then I was pregnant and diagnosed with cancer at the same time. I lost the baby and all my plumbing, at the same time. It was either that or die. My husband said he could deal with it, but he couldn't. His way of dealing with things was not to be honest, but to run around with other women. I was going to divorce him, but he dumped me for some female singer from Tulsa.”

“Wow, that's quite a story.” David felt a whirlwind of emotions as he thought about it all.

“Then I thought I was falling in love with an Air Force guy right after the divorce became final, and he panicked and ran when he found out. Men do want to have children and pass their genes along. So—I don't expect you to decide anything soon, now you know the story. And, frankly, I'm a bit gunshy. I don't want to be dumped again.”

David thought for a few minutes. She waited, casually still linking arms. “Honey.”

“Yes?” she said.

“You know those commercials about stray dogs and cats?”

“Yes?”

“The animal control people strongly suggest not buying from a breeder. They say there are millions of beautiful, unwanted puppies and kittens at pounds everywhere.”

She squealed with laughter. “You would adopt at a pound?”

“I don't know yet how I feel. I'm just saying there are other options. Do you know how hard it is to meet a wonderful person?”

“Oh, it is hard indeed.” She pulled on his arm.

He stopped and held her close. She stared into his eyes with a look of utter honesty and vulnerability, now that she had told him everything. “Honey,” he said, “it's very early with us. Neither can promise the other anything. I can promise you this. I'm not a jackass who would run away from the love of my life, should you turn out to be that, over such a stupid reason. My question is—are you cancer free?”

“My reproductive organs are gone. Yes.”

“That's all I care about. That you are okay.”

She put her arms around him and hugged him harder than she'd ever hugged him before. “Thanks,” she whispered in his ear. “Thank you.” After a minute, she chewed gently on his earlobe and her breathing sounded aroused. “Maxie says you would be good to me.”

“Oh yes.”

“I would do everything to make you happy, if it turned out we were, you know, Dick and Jane. True love.”

“I believe you would, and I would do everything to treat you good and take care of you and be there for you. Treat you special, if it turned out that we were meant for each other.”

She nibbled on his earlobe some more. “That's what a girl wants to hear.”

“You are getting my ear very aroused.”

“My mouth is falling in love with your ear.”

“That is a good start.”

Tired but happy, they walked along city sidewalks toward his car. Just then, he felt a vibration in the sidewalk. She frowned and mouthed: “What’s that?”

The vibration became stronger, with a growing roar of noise. David and Tory and other pedestrians froze at the spectacle of a long column of huge, dark vehicles speeding down the street. They were a battalion or more of combat support vehicles, headed by several humvees, followed by a mobile command post, a communications truck, and an endless stream of flatbed trucks carrying massive shapes whose passage made the streets shake in rhythm with their continuous loud rattling and rolling sounds. Pennants fluttered on antennas as the dark convoy streaked past.

“What are those, tanks?” Tory said, as her body soaked in the vibrations. “Artillery!”

David felt troubled as he glimpsed the hulking objects atop the flatbeds. They were partially covered by canvas, but she could see their ugly sides painted in blue and tan camouflage colors. The primary gun barrels protruding from the canvas covers were longer than those on any main battle tank he’d seen, and thicker. His combat arms background came in handy, but his knowledge gave him no joy. “Strange. Those aren’t tanks. They are—” He had to think back. “They are SPH-2010s. Long Toms. They are 200-millimeter self-propelled howitzers. They’re big mobile guns. You drive them someplace and then you besiege your enemy, kind of. Like if he’s inside a mountain, those guns will reduce the mountain to rubble. If he owns an airstrip, up to so many miles away, he’ll soon have just a big hole full of water.”

Tory laughed, looking a little scared. “Siege guns? They need siege guns, here in Washington, to protect a hotel?”

David shook his head, made a sour face. “I dunno. Not my area of expertise. If you pointed one of those at a building, it would be like dropping a 500 pound bomb. One round could probably take out a good chunk of a city block.”

The procession was gone in two minutes—dark as the night from which it had come, and into which it went. The ground stopped shaking, the air smelled sweeter, and people resumed their light-hearted chatter in the shadows on the streets.

“I guess the bigwigs are taking no chances,” David said. Somewhere inside of him, a nagging question mark would not go away. Then she diverted his attention. She pulled her arm away and pointed. “Look, a deli. I’m getting tired and hungry. I’ll buy dinner.”

“I’ll go for that,” he said as they walked toward the lights and the food aromas. She seemed suddenly shy and awkward and he couldn’t think of anything to say. The deli was an afterthought in a food wholesaler’s rambling brick warehouse. It was a drafty barn but they found a cozy wood-paneled corner with three shaky little tables. A hooded gas pylon glowing and sputtering in the corner levitated a sphere of warmth. The deli itself was a busy place, fun to watch. Noise echoed into the high ceilings. Delivery people came and went with cheese wheels, beer barrels, baskets of fresh bread, even flowers. The steady line was five or six customers deep, and the counter staff in white coats and red hats were a blur of motion.

Afterward, outside, she slipped her arm through his. “This has been a remarkable day, Mr. Gordon.”

“I think so too, Miss Breen.” They sauntered from street light to streetlight bumping hips and feeling alive. “If we weren’t in this crazy situation,” he said, “and if we had this sidewalk and these lights and that good Camembert back there, we could probably—” He stopped, turned, and looked into her face. He felt her body against his, as he embraced her. As in a slow dance, maybe to regain some psychic balance, she embraced him. He cupped her shoulder blades, remembering that evening on the rug. She closed her eyes and tilted her face back as he kissed her. Their lips met in a mutual groan of pleasure. Her fingertips played in the gulley of his spine and sent electric tingles through his frame.

On the way to the car, she slipped her arm back through his, and pressed against him. “How long do these constitutional conventions last?” she murmured.

“Well,” he murmured back, “The last one in 1787 went all summer.”

“Oh good. Then we’ll have time for more of this nice Camembert.”