“‘Fruit of My Loins’ is the name of my next record, as it so happens.”
Incredulity made her eyes snap open again.
“Kidding,” he said shortly, probably lest she actually fire the blue daggers she could feel glinting in her eyes into his heart. “Funny, I remember you had a pretty good sense of humor. Which was part of what made you so hot.”
“Iwouldhave laughed, except, you know, my daughter’s life is no laughing matter to me.” She landed just a little harder on “my” in that sentence than necessary. Given that she’d already made her point. “Why don’t you just call her Annelise.”
Another little silence.
“Okay. Sorry. It’s just I don’t know how to talk to you about this. But I want to. What do you need to hear from me so that you’re convinced I’m sincere?”
He sounded quite reasonable. Not angry, not defensive.
He sounded perfectly normal, in fact. Although she knew this could not ever be entirely true.
“I don’t know. I’m having a hard time with this. It’s just... I mean, Jasper... you have a petjaguar.”
“But Annelise likes cats. She told me.”
“And don’t you have a python?”
“Used to.” But he sounded somewhat wistful. Which made her wonder whether the python had made a break for it, and whether one of his neighbors was destined to find it emerging from their plumbing or cuddling them in their bed in the dead of night.
“I could get a koala, instead, if she likes animals. It’s safer.” He paused and tipped his head back as if remembering something. “Well, marginally.”
“You can’t just go to the store and buy a freaking koala!”
He looked at her with something like tender pity for the Muggle she was. He could probably get his hands on anything—and anyone—he wanted.
“Listen to me, Jasper. Annelise is not something new to add to your menagerie, or some item your PR people can use to keep your name in the news, or something that you try on like... like...Kabbalah, to see if it fixes your life. No.”
“I was never into Kabbalah. You’re thinking of Madonna. I did have a guru living with me for a while. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.”
“Oh. Right. Silly mistake.”
“He slept with my girlfriend. Had to kick him out.”
She closed her eyes again. “Jesus, Jasper.”
“Jesus Jasper is the name of mynextnext record.”
That almost made her laugh.
Although the hysteria might be doing that, too.
His life was both kind of magnificent and sad. He was the Parthenon, a glorious wreck.
“I’m not a bad person. Sometimes I’m even boring.”
“Do you mean boring, or bored?” she said tersely.
He went silent.
“You’renot boring,” he concluded finally. He didn’t sound altogether pleased about this.
“True,” she agreed tautly. “When it comes to my daughter, I’m not boring the way a Tasmanian devil isn’t boring.”
“You really are beautiful, though.”