off again, toward the ceiling. “The impression I got, my take on it, some people had a windfall and wanted to invest for the future.” Her eyes came back to me. “Or do you mean … Why did they pick Zack?”
I nodded.
“I don’t know.”
It was eleven-thirty when Abby returned from a trip to the bathroom and said, “Why did he call you from a bar? If he wanted to drink at nine in the morning, why didn’t he just show up at your door with a six-pack?”
I had no answer for that.
“Do you have a pool?”
“Not even a Jacuzzi.”
“I’m not used to feeling so sticky. I feel like I’ve got tiny grains of sand all over my face and my arms and my legs. I even smell fishy.”
“It’s dried salt. Ocean humidity. The wind picked up around sunset. Put mist in the air.” Rum talk: I added, “There’s a shower in the yard. Go for it.”
She didn’t flinch. “Soap, shampoo, towel? Already out there?”
“The first two, yes. There’s a low-watt light on a motion detector.”
“Bring me a towel in three minutes, okay?” She began to unbutton her blouse as she walked toward the side porch. “And a fresh tall one of what we’ve been having.”
Abby faced away and dropped her blouse and bra on the porcelain table. The bra had put red marks just under her shoulder blades. I saw what would happen next. I wished that time would slow, that her next moves would take hours. I wanted to memorize every curve and follicle and tuck. I wanted it to be wide-screen, with high-volume Surround-Sound so I could hear the elastic separate from skin, hear whispers as inner thighs softly rubbed. I wanted to know the moisture, inhale the air that had touched her. Instead, I watched through a fog of alcohol, the unfocused, harsh rush of adrenaline. Her shorts and panties hit the porch deck. I felt a wrenching in my lap. My heartbeat became a compression hammer in my chest. She straightened, stepped away from the shorts, dropped her bracelet on the table, and went out the door. I sat as if paralyzed. In the eighty-degree heat of the evening, I shivered.
Pulling a fresh towel from the bathroom shelf, I suddenly realized that, all evening, I’d neglected to check my machine for messages. There were two. The tape rewound, then kicked in: “Teresa Barga, here. It’s twenty after six and it’s too hot to go running, so I’m going to go back to the office to catch up on work, and then I’m going out for a drink. I was looking for company. If you get this message, call me at the city. Otherwise, some other time soon, okay?” The second message was a dud. I got to hear someone exhale and hang up.
I mixed two new drinks, then sat under the ceiling fan I’d installed on the porch. Moth wings flapped against the screens. Somewhere in the neighborhood a television played at high volume.
Jay Leno. Two or three mopeds ran the stop sign at Fleming and Frances. Tree frogs croaked in the dark as my close friend’s ex-lover splashed in my open-air shower. Her story had thrown a wrench at my image of Cahill. I’d rehashed the day’s events enough times to finally, mercifully, draw a blank. It hadn’t broken my heart to stand in my own house and gawk at a naked woman, especially since it had been four months since I had parted ways with my lover of three years.
The sound of the shower diminished. Abby cried out in a long exhalation. I surmised that a palmetto bug had invaded her space; I doubted that anything as serious as a scorpion had attacked. She moaned again. Concerned, I opened the screen door and almost fell into the yard. Another gasp. For the sake of propriety—or some other reason, in near drunkenness—I hesitated to barge in. Another shuddering moan. As I hurried toward the shower door, the rush of water sounded even more muffled. I saw only one foot on the teak grate flooring. The other must have been on the shower stall’s narrow seat. As I reached for the door a blissful wail filled the yard.
She had reached a
I nodded.
“I don’t know.”
It was eleven-thirty when Abby returned from a trip to the bathroom and said, “Why did he call you from a bar? If he wanted to drink at nine in the morning, why didn’t he just show up at your door with a six-pack?”
I had no answer for that.
“Do you have a pool?”
“Not even a Jacuzzi.”
“I’m not used to feeling so sticky. I feel like I’ve got tiny grains of sand all over my face and my arms and my legs. I even smell fishy.”
“It’s dried salt. Ocean humidity. The wind picked up around sunset. Put mist in the air.” Rum talk: I added, “There’s a shower in the yard. Go for it.”
She didn’t flinch. “Soap, shampoo, towel? Already out there?”
“The first two, yes. There’s a low-watt light on a motion detector.”
“Bring me a towel in three minutes, okay?” She began to unbutton her blouse as she walked toward the side porch. “And a fresh tall one of what we’ve been having.”
Abby faced away and dropped her blouse and bra on the porcelain table. The bra had put red marks just under her shoulder blades. I saw what would happen next. I wished that time would slow, that her next moves would take hours. I wanted to memorize every curve and follicle and tuck. I wanted it to be wide-screen, with high-volume Surround-Sound so I could hear the elastic separate from skin, hear whispers as inner thighs softly rubbed. I wanted to know the moisture, inhale the air that had touched her. Instead, I watched through a fog of alcohol, the unfocused, harsh rush of adrenaline. Her shorts and panties hit the porch deck. I felt a wrenching in my lap. My heartbeat became a compression hammer in my chest. She straightened, stepped away from the shorts, dropped her bracelet on the table, and went out the door. I sat as if paralyzed. In the eighty-degree heat of the evening, I shivered.
Pulling a fresh towel from the bathroom shelf, I suddenly realized that, all evening, I’d neglected to check my machine for messages. There were two. The tape rewound, then kicked in: “Teresa Barga, here. It’s twenty after six and it’s too hot to go running, so I’m going to go back to the office to catch up on work, and then I’m going out for a drink. I was looking for company. If you get this message, call me at the city. Otherwise, some other time soon, okay?” The second message was a dud. I got to hear someone exhale and hang up.
I mixed two new drinks, then sat under the ceiling fan I’d installed on the porch. Moth wings flapped against the screens. Somewhere in the neighborhood a television played at high volume.
Jay Leno. Two or three mopeds ran the stop sign at Fleming and Frances. Tree frogs croaked in the dark as my close friend’s ex-lover splashed in my open-air shower. Her story had thrown a wrench at my image of Cahill. I’d rehashed the day’s events enough times to finally, mercifully, draw a blank. It hadn’t broken my heart to stand in my own house and gawk at a naked woman, especially since it had been four months since I had parted ways with my lover of three years.
The sound of the shower diminished. Abby cried out in a long exhalation. I surmised that a palmetto bug had invaded her space; I doubted that anything as serious as a scorpion had attacked. She moaned again. Concerned, I opened the screen door and almost fell into the yard. Another gasp. For the sake of propriety—or some other reason, in near drunkenness—I hesitated to barge in. Another shuddering moan. As I hurried toward the shower door, the rush of water sounded even more muffled. I saw only one foot on the teak grate flooring. The other must have been on the shower stall’s narrow seat. As I reached for the door a blissful wail filled the yard.
She had reached a
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