Chapter 19: Home Cooking
Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 12. Chapter 13. Chapter 14. Chapter 15. Chapter 16. Chapter 17. Chapter 18.

     Just after dinner, Liz and I gathered our things and said goodbye to Robin and Roger. It probably would’ve been more polite of us to wait and say goodbye face to face, but Liz was antsy, and the door to Robin’s bedroom was closed, anyway. A pair of pink, lacy panties dangled from the doorknob. Someone was making fruit salad.
     “Goodbye,” we said.
     “THUMP THUMP,” they said.
     “Thanks again,” we said.
     “THUMP THUMP TH-THUMP THUMP, THUMP THUMP.”
     Before we left, Liz did something peculiar. She picked up an empty bottle of Boone’s Farm wine, strawberry, and set it upright on a small plastic end table by the plaid pullout sofa on which we’d slept. In the bottle’s open mouth she forced a large white candle and lit.
     “What was that all about?” I asked her as we lugged our belongings down the steps.
     “White is for purity,” she told me.
     “Oh,” I said. “Nice gesture.”
     She looked at me and smiled wistfully. “Yes,” she said. “And it burns so very nicely, doesn’t it?”