The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (Bernie Rhodenbarr) by Lawrence Block Page A

cats, because Jim’s got a dog now.”
    “The Dandie Dinmont.”
    “Who happens to be show quality, though Jim’s not crazy enough to go through all that rigmarole.”
    “That’s all there was to it?”
    “Uh-huh, and that’s kind of my point, Bern. They had a nice church wedding and lived together as wife and wife, and when it was time to split the blanket they didn’t need to call their lawyers. But if a lesbian wedding has legal standing, when the marriage turns belly-up, you have to get a divorce.”
    “A lesbian divorce.”
    “Well, sure. A lesbian divorce used to be a simple matter of shouting and screaming and crying and figuring out who keeps the rent-stabilized apartment.”
    “You’d still have that, wouldn’t you?”
    “Plus a little added something. It’s not hard to understand why the Association of Matrimonial Lawyers was one of gay marriage’s strongest supporters, is it?”
    “All that new business,” I said. “Think of the custody fights.”
    “Maybe it’s not fair to make you do all the drinking,” she said, and filled her glass. “Not only is it gonna be more complicated to split up, but it gives couples something brand new to fight about, when one wants to get married and the other doesn’t. Which just amounts to deciding whether to split up before or after the marriage ceremony.”
    “I never thought of any of this.” And the thoughts kept right on coming. “You know what? The next time we see The Gay Divorcée , it’ll be a remake with a whole new slant to it.”

    Once we’d each reached a particular peat-flavored plateau, the drinking lost its urgency and became a sort of background music for our conversation. The two of us found no end of things to talk about, and I’m sure the exchanges I don’t remember were every bit as interesting as the ones I do.
    “I can see why a person might want to get married,” I said, when that topic popped up again. “You’ve met someone and you’re in love, and you want a life together, with maybe a kid or two. And maybe that would involve a house in the suburbs—”
    “Ugh.”
    “—but maybe not, because if I was going to raise a kid I’d rather bring him up right here in New York. Right in my own neighborhood, so we’d be within walking distance of the American Museum of Natural History.”
    “That’s important, huh?”
    “People go on about how they want to leave the city so their kid’ll know what a cow looks like. So they move way to hell and gone, and the poor little bastard never gets to see a dinosaur.”
    “I never looked at it that way. Bern, if they want all that, why do they have to get married?”
    “They don’t,” I allowed, “but at the same time I can see why they might want to. But isn’t that a step you decide to take after you’ve met the person and fallen in love? Janine had it the other way around.”
    “Janine of Romania.”
    “She had this picture in her mind—the house, the two kids, and her with a ring on her finger. That’s what she wanted, so she was out hunting for the man to stand next to her in the picture.”
    “And put a ring on her finger, and two buns in her oven.”
    “It seems backwards to me,” I said, “but maybe not. If you go ahead and fall in love first, suppose he turns out to be Mr. Not Quite Right?”
    “You’ve got your heart set on cows, and he’s holding out for dinosaurs.”
    “Whatever. It’s something to think about.”

    And, a little later:
    “Bern, what’s funny is the Romanian girl missed the point completely.”
    “I don’t really think she’s Romanian.”
    “I don’t care if she’s Etruscan, Bern. She looked at your clothes and your bookstore and your apartment, and everything screamed low rent.”
    “Well, of course my apartment rent is low. The place is rent-controlled. I’d be an idiot to move.”
    “Right.”
    “And market rent on the store is as low as it gets, because I don’t have to pay any. Otherwise it would be