"A day like this, a handsome man like you ought to be smiling."
"I wasn't?"
"Not really, no. More like frowning. More like the whole world's on your shoulders."
"Sorry," he stammered, trying to rearrange his expression. "Better?"
"Much," the woman said. "You watch. It'll help. Have a nice day."
After she disappeared into the crowd, Hardy stood for a long moment, unable to move. Catching his reflection in the store window next to him, he saw that the smile he'd dredged up had already faded completely away. Stepping all the way out of the foot traffic into the archway entrance to an ancient storefront, on an impulse he pulled his cell phone off his belt and punched in a number. "Hey," he said.
"Hey yourself. This is a surprise. Is everything all right?"
"Fine. Everything's fine. I just wondered what you were doing?"
"When?"
"Like, now."
His wife's laugh tinkled through the phone. "Like now I'm about to get in my car and go eat a salad someplace. Why?"
"Because I thought for a change of pace maybe you'd like to have some lunch with your husband."
Hardy waited out the short pause.
Then, "I would love to have some lunch with my husband. I think that's a great idea."
"You're not too busy?"
"I've got two hours and change. Where were you thinking?"
THEY DECIDED on Tommy's Joynt, Hardy by cab and Frannie by car, since it was about midway between Frannie's office on Arguello and Hardy's downtown. Fifteen minutes after the phone call, they sat down in one of the booths, Hardy with a bowl of buffalo stew and a beer and Frannie with a French dip and Diet Coke.
"You don't come to Tommy's Joynt and eat a salad," she said, biting into one of the place's homemade pickles. "I mean, it's legal and all, but it would be wrong."
"It's not that I don't agree with you," Hardy said. "But if you really wanted a salad, we could have-"
"Hey!" She put a hand over his. "We're here," she said. "This is the perfect spot right now. There couldn't be a better one."
Hardy looked around and nodded. "No." He sighed. "You said it. It's perfect."
Frannie cocked her head. "Dismas, are you all right?"
"You're the second person who's asked me that in the last half hour, so apparently not."
"The second one. Who else?"
He told her about the lady at the corner of Mission.
"You mean out of everybody walking down the street, she just stopped you and told you to smile?"
"Right. But first she asked me if I was okay. That I looked like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Then after she left, I realized that that was pretty much the way I felt. I don't know why. I wasn't consciously down or anything. It's an absolutely glorious day…" He put down his fork, looked across at her. "Anyway, it hit me pretty good upside the head, almost like a message from on high."
"Saying what?"
"One thing, saying I ought to call you."
"I'm glad you did."
"Me too." He picked up his fork again, put it in the stew, stirred a minute. "I never thought I'd say this, but I think I'm having some trouble with this empty nest thing."
She put her sandwich down and again covered his hand with hers. "Yeah."
"And then I've been pretty pissed off at you for not being home when I get there, so I arrange not to be home when you are. Maybe I don't even consciously know I'm doing that, but I think that's what's been going on. It's wearing me down."
"I know. It's wearing me down too." She brought a napkin up to her eye and dabbed at it. "I don't really miss them so much, you know. I mean, I don't want them living with us anymore, God knows. We did enough of that. I just don't seem to know what to do with myself, so I fill up all my time with work, and then when I come home and you're not there either…"
Hardy finally got some of the great stew into his mouth, followed it with some Anchor Steam. "I'm thinking maybe we ought to reinstigate Date Night. Make it sacred again."
"I think that's a great idea. Maybe even go wild and have two a week."
"I would if you would."
"Deal."
She put her hand out over the table and Hardy shook it.
AN HOUR LATER, Hardy ascended the steps into the wide, marbled, circular foyer that marked the reception area of the law firm of Freeman, Farrell, Hardy & Roake, of which he was the managing partner. He marched up to the waist-high mahogany bullpen that demarked the territory of Phyllis, the firm's receptionist, and, obeying the finger she held up, waited while she placed a call to one of the other offices.
When she finished her business, she turned to him with her usual expectant petulance. "I told an Inspector Bracco that you would be here at one o'clock," she said. "Which is when you told me that you would be here."
"I know, Phyllis. I'm sorry. Something came up."
"And your cell phone broke?"
"You know, now that you mention it"-Hardy held his jacket down over the holster for his phone-"I've been looking all over for the damn thing. Have you seen it? Maybe I left it in my office somewhere. Or the car. I bet I left it charging in the car."
