textfiles/sex/EROTICA/D/deepblue.txt

                         Deep Blue

     I was in the big mall on the edge of town when I first saw
the girl.  I needed some dandruff shampoo and disposable razors,
and while it would have been easier to go to the supermarket
nearer the apartment, there's something about the atmosphere of a
huge, three-level shopping mall that I can't seem to stay away
from.  Maybe I'm drawn to the diversity of the place:  it isn't
just one store, so I have to step out a little to find what I
want; the stores have a certain similarity, too, all fake plastic
wood and chrome.  It's comforting that I know what to expect;
it's sort of like a home away from home, and there's also a wider
variety of people in a mall, and they're all there for different
reasons.  In a supermarket, people are wandering around with
filling their carts with food.  And most of them are in a hurry
to leave so that their frozen French-cut green beans won't thaw
out.
     So I like this mall.  It's  a huge chrome and brick building
that reminds me vaguely of pictures I saw once of a major
government installation where they make hydrogen bombs.  The mall
is in three levels, with catwalks over the center atrium that
connect the two sides, and staircases and elevators and
escalators spaced periodically along the way.  A hundred and
twenty stores, everything but a supermarket, though there's one
of those at a far corner of the parking lot.
     It was a Friday afternoon in springtime, and the place was
crowded with teenagers and their parents, though the two seemed
polarized, with adults banding together as if their reasons for
being in the mall were more serious, somehow more commercial than
the reason the kids were there.  As I worked my way through the
maze of wide hallways to the big Superdrug, I wondered how many
of the people were actually buying and how many were just
looking.  The kids were doing their kid thing mostly, cruising
singles and groups rebounding off each other, all of them dressed
as if this were the cultural event of a season.
     At the drugstore the clerk in the front was playing with a
pricing gun, trying to get stickers on hundreds of packs of
cigarettes piled in racks behind the counter, so her back was to
me:  I wanted to ask her where to find the shampoo, but she had
to turn around and ring up a steam iron for an old woman, so I
didn't bother her.
     The store is laid out in rows that run at an angle to the
front, and I worked my way up and down the aisles, stopping to
look at the coffee makers and grinders.  The pharmacist in the
back of the store behind his window was busy doing something
while a young couple dressed in matching jogging suits were
having a discussion in front of a display of condoms at the
counter.  The pharmacist was listening to them as they stood
there; I could tell from the way his back and shoulders moved,
and the way his head turned slightly back and forth as he tried
to get his ear positioned to catch the nuances of their speech.
     Near the back of the store there's another exit and a
checkout counter about twenty feet from the shelves with the
health and personal hygeine products, only the doors were closed
and a cardboard sign on one read "Check Out at Front."  I was
looking at the different dandruff preparations, trying to decide
if there was really anything different in them, reading the lists
of ingredients and trying to determine whether the popular brands
had more of the active ingredients than the cheaper ones.  Most
of them seemed to have coal tar in some form.  I found one that
had a "Sale" sticker, and a small rack of discount flyers from
the store down at the end of the row that advertised the brand
two-for-one.  I got two bottles of the large size and headed down
to the razors and shaving cream.
     There was a girl just across an open area from me in the
makeup section.  She was kneeled down in front of a display of
bath powders, holding a box up to her face and sniffing at it.  I
stood there watching her out of the corner of my eye and
rummaging through the cellophane packs of disposable razors.  She
stood up and moved across to the big wall display of lipsticks.
     I got a package of razors and went around the end of the row
of shelves to the other side where I could face toward the back
wall and the liptsticks, and I watched her instead of looking at
the bath soaps in front of me.  She was dressed in black tights
and a loose tunic top that came down just below her hips.  The
top was black with silver threads running through the material.
It was some shiny stuff that looked like silk.  She was medium
height, maybe five-seven, and slender, with short blonde hair cut
in a pageboy style.  As I watched her she looked over her
shoulder at me, then at the young couple at the pharmacy counter,
where they had the pharmacist telling them something, and then
she looked quickly back at me.  I thought she smiled just a
little before she opened the small bag hanging from her left
shoulder and dropped something inside.  I was certain that I'd
seen the flash of a plastic blister pack as she released it.  She
looked at a couple of other colors on the chart and headed to the
front checkout.  She had to pass by me to get there, and I
hesitated, then got a three-pack of deodorant soap and followed
her.
     The young couple were ahead of me, and I stood and listened
to the girl ask the clerk for a package of cigarettes; she handed
a pack of gum across the counter to be rung up, and I watched her
hand go into her bag and bring out a five, watched her get her
change and leave.  The two people in front of me paid for a
magazine and a box of condoms.  I paid for my things and smiled
at the clerk while she watched me write a check for nine dollars
and sixty-two cents.
     I left and retraced myself back towards where I'd entered
the mall, through Jamieson's, one of the key stores with outside
access, looking at the people.  The cast of characters was the
same, only different.  At center court a clown was beginning an
act for a group of children, shaping bright balloons into animal
shapes.  The kids were laughing and pointing while their parents
stood around watching storefronts and each other.  I slowed down
for a minute and watched the clown, and just as I started to move
again, there was a tug at the sleeve of my windbreaker.  I turned
halfway, a bit too fast, and she was there beside me, the girl
from the drugstore.
     "Wow, you're jumpy.  I'm the criminal," she said.
     "Sorry.  I thought you were mugging me or something."
     "Well, I just wanted to stop and thank you for not busting
me in the store.  You could have."
     "I'm not into conflict," I said.  "And I figure you'll get
caught eventually anyway."  She was about seventeen, maybe
eighteen, with a light tan that didn't quite cover the freckles
on the bridge of her nose.  She just looked at me.
     "Well, I guess I'll worry about it when it happens.  Anyway,
thanks."
     "Don't mention it."
     "I'm Jennifer," she said, and held out her hand.  Her nails
were short and polished a bright red.  I shifted the bag of stuff
to my left hand and took hers.  It was cool and dry, though
somehow I had expected it to be damp and warm and nervous.
     "Bill Griner.  Nice to meet you."
     I started to go, but she held my hand.  "Hey, are you
leaving?"
     "No.  Yes.  I was going to my car."  She still had my hand,
and she noticed it and let it go.
     "I was wondering if you could give me a ride.  I hitched a
ride here with a friend, but she took off an hour or so ago."
The children were laughing in the background, but I didn't look
to see why.  "I don't live far," she said.
     "Yeah, I'll drive the getaway car."
     "That's funny.  I live out in Westwood Hills."
     "Right on my way," I said.
     We walked out through Jamieson's, and the girl stopped a
couple of times to look at things--costume jewelry and a sale
table of sandals.  At the car she said, "A ragtop.  Cool."  I let
her in and she settled into the seat and started playing with the
controls on the stereo.
     "So where do you live, exactly?" I asked her once we were
out on Headrick Street, the main artery into the suburbs.
     "Parkwood Lane.  It's only two blocks off Westwood.  You
take a left off Headrick and then the second left.  It's the
third house on the left."
     Her house was in one of the nicest subdivisions in town,
where the houses are mostly new and run to a lot of nice brick
and nouveau-Southern columns like something out of Gone With the
Wind.  Mostly people from the high-tech industries in the area
and from the big university live there.  The subdivision has a
park with a lake and tame geese and ducks and a playground for
kids.  At her house I pulled up to the curb in front and she got
out and leaned back in.  "Maybe I'll see you around somewhere
again, Griner," she said.
     "Yeah, I'll keep an eye out for you the next time I'm in the
mall."  I wanted to get away from her, as if I were guilty by
association.
     "I spend a lot of time there.  We can do some window
shopping."
     "You really don't take it seriously, do you?" I asked. I
mean, do you do this often?"
     "You sound like my father.  No, I don't.  I mean
shoplifting.  I just wanted to see if I could do it, you know?"
     "I understand, I guess."  I didn't tell her, I'd done it.
Every kid has at one time or another.
     "Well, I guess I'd better get inside," she said.  She looked
up at the sky, then back at the folded top of the car.  "You'd
better put that up.  It's going to rain."
     "Thanks for pointing that out."  I got out to put the top up
just as a few drops of rain started to come down.  A BMW drove
past and turned into the driveway of the house.
     "My parents are back.  I'll see you later," she said.
     "Never can tell," I said, and drove off as she was running
up the walk to the front door.
     My apartment isn't far from Westwood, and when I got there
the rain was light but steady.  The weather was starting to cool
off a little, and I had to drive with the defroster on.  In the
apartment I checked the answering machine; the only message was
from one of the secretaries in the office where I work, a
reminder of a meeting on Monday.  I put the soap and razors and
one of the bottles of shampoo in a cabinet in the bathroom and
the other bottle on the rack in the shower.  In the kitchen I
poured some tea from the jug I always keep in the refrigerator
and went into the living room and turned on the television.
There was nothing on, and I didn't want to go rent a movie, so I
found a novel I'd been trying to get to and leaned back in a
chair.  I'd been reading for maybe ten minutes when my ex-wife
called.
     "Where's the check?" was all she said.
     "I sent it three weeks ago; you'll get another one in a week
or so."  When we'd gotten divorced, the judge must have felt
sorry for Leigh and awarded her a hundred dollars a month in
alimony.  She'd had a hangover and looked like hell in the
judge's office.
     "Well, I don't.  I mean, I haven't."  She was drinking
again; her voice was pitched lower than usual and her
pronunciation wasn't as sharp as usual.  The drinking was
probably the reason we'd broken up, or at least that's the reason
I've been giving myself since it happened.  She filed for the
divorce, but I'd probably have done it if she hadn't.  "Christ,
it's only a hundred dollars," she said.
     "Leigh.  I sent the check.  You've forgotten again, that's
all."
     "You bastard.  You're trying to put this off on me again.
You're going to say I'm drinking too much.  You're going to say
I'm blacking out and losing my mind.  You're a prick, Griner, a
real prick."  She wasn't hysterical, but if she kept drinking, by
Sunday night she'd be calling every half-hour with some sort of
complaint.
     "I'm hanging up now, Leigh.  I'll send you some photocopies
of the cancelled check."  I hung up, and she was saying
something, but I was past the point of caring.  She was broke and
needed to buy booze.  I went into the spare bedroom I use for an
office and rummaged in the check file and found it.  I'd written
it exactly three weeks before.  The statement had come in a
couple of days earlier, but I hadn't yet taken the time to
reconcile the account.  I'd get to it in a day or two.  Back in
the living room I turned off the answering machine and turned off
the phone ringer.  If she was that drunk so early in the weekend,
Sunday was going to be rough.
     I read for a couple of hours and stopped to cook dinner.
There wasn't much in the cabinets other than canned soup, so I
called the pizza/movie place and ordered a small pepperoni and
one of the top ten video hits of the week.
     "What would you like to see, sir?" the girl had said on the
phone.
     "Whatever's in top place."  When I hung up the phone I went
back to my chair and waited with the novel, the story of a
disillusioned young man who goes on a Huckleberry Finn journey
through the punk-rock culture of Los Angeles and San Francisco,
only to find that he really just wants to go to college like his
parents wanted.  But he gets sidetracked when he finds love with
a porno actress and has to make a decision whether to stay with
her and share her with the actors she works with or give her up,
along with his new-found independence.  I thought it was sort of
overbearing as a story, but I figured I'd finish it anyway.
     I'd been reading for about a half an hour when a young guy
with magenta hair sticking out from under a blue baseball cap
showed up at the door.  I wrote him a check and added a fifty-
cent tip.  "Hey, thanks.  I can go to college," he said.
     "Art imitates life after all," I said.  The boy looked at me
funny and said something I couldn't quite hear, but it sounded
like "Fuck you."  I closed the door and put the movie on and
started on the pizza.  The movie was one of those about a one-man
army going after a drug cartel in Central America.  Halfway
through I stopped it and sat there eating pizza out of the box in
my lap and holding the novel in one hand.  When the pizza was
gone, I sat and listened to the rain outside.  At ten o'clock I
thought about turning on the news, but didn't.  Instead I just
went to bed and turned on the radio alarm on the nightstand to
the classics station.  I fell asleep, and when I woke up it was
light outside and the clock read a little after six.  I'd been
having a dream and lay there trying to remember it, but all I
could come up with was something about going fishing with my
grandfather.  It's funny, because my grandfather died when I was
fifteen, and I don't remember even being alone with him, much
less ever going fishing with him. In fact, I doubt that he ever
went fishing in his life.
                          * * * * *
     I was sitting by the pool later in the day, reading a
newspaper and watching a teenage boy and girl from the apartment
complex swimming laps under a clear sky.  I was noticing that
whenever they got out and the water calmed that I could see the
reflection of a single white cloud in the water, but mostly I
just watched the kids swim.  The girl was fourteen or fifteen and
wearing a bathing cap and a t-back racing suit, while the boy was
a year or two older, muscular and wearing a tight Spandex suit
that rode low on his waist and high on his hips.  Their swimsuits
were both a bright red; the color contrasted starkly to the blue
of the water and the bright white of the cement walk beside the
pool.  Their strokes were precise, and they paced themselves
side-by-side, their movements as fluid as the water and as well
timed as if this were a ballet which they had rehearsed often.  I
tried to concentrate on the paper, but I was fascinated by them,
the way their tanned bodies moved together and how they made
their turns at the ends of the pool like trained dolphins.  They
looked enough alike to be brother and sister, but when they
stopped to climb out of the water, the boy took a towel from one
of the chaise lounges and began drying the girl's back, then he
kissed her on the neck.  The girl took off her cap, and her
blonde hair fell down over his face, and he stayed there kissing
her; the towel fell, and the boy's hand searched out her breast.
I folded the paper and got up and went back to the apartment.
     I was wondering how the girl could all that hair under the
tight bathing cap.  Inside I took off my shirt and trousers and
went to the bedroom and fell asleep.  When I woke up it was full
dark.
                           * * * * *
     On Sunday I spent the morning with the paper and coffee,
then went to lunch at a delicatessan in the shopping mall.
Walking through the nearly empty building, I tried to notice if
the place had changed in one weekend, but the only difference was
the lack of people.  At the deli the after-church crowd were just
beginning to trickle in, still dressed in their Sunday clothes,
the children uncomfortable in suits and starchy dresses, and the
teenagers seeming out of place and disoriented.
     I ate at a booth in the back, had a turkey bagel and iced
tea, with a small plastic bowl of cole slaw on the side.
     A man carrying a Bible stopped me at the checkout stand.  I
was waiting in line behind a stout woman in a designer dress and
mink stole; her credit card wouldn't actuate the automatic
authorization machine.  "I'll have to call it in," said the young
girl behind the counter, and she picked up a phone from beneath
the counter and started dialing.  "I'll be with you in a minute,"
she said to me.
     "This is embarassing," said the woman.  "I almost never
carry cash."
     "Happens all the time," said the girl, who reached down and
rapped the cutoff on the phone twice before she started
redialing.
     "I'm Harlan Stovers," the man said to me.  He offered his
free right hand.
     I tried to act offended by the intrusion, but the attempt
failed, even though I think I managed a decent hesitation before
shaking hands.  "Bill Griner," I said.  "Do I know you?"
     "Seems we've met somewhere, but I don't know for sure."
Stovers looked like a linebacker I'd gone to college with, an
average student who had graduated and gone on to four or five
mediocre years with a professional team before being permanently
sidelined by a shoulder injury.  I was trying to remember the
football player's name, but Stovers was still talking.  "Our
church, Liberty Baptist, you know it?"
     "I think I've driven by once or twice," I said.  Stovers
still had me by the hand, and I pulled away gently.
     "Yeah, nice new building down on Northside Drive.  Just paid
out nearly a million for the new education building--"
     "I'm sorry," I said, "but you were saying something about
the church?"
     "Yes, I get carried away about that new sanctuary.  Anyway,
we've got this program, 'The Adult Samaritans,' and we've each of
us dedicated ourselves to inviting ten strangers to services."
     "I'm sorry, I'm a Unitarian," I told him.  The girl at the
register had given up on the phone and was writing on the woman's
credit card receipt.
     "One of those off-breeds, huh?" said Stovers.  "Well, we got
us a fine church fellowship over at Liberty, and we'd like you to
come by some Sunday."  He reached into his coat pocket and
brought out an envelope and handed it to me.
     "That's really nice, but I always work on Sundays."  I
reached into my trouser pocket for my billfold.  "I'm just off
for lunch now, you see."
     "Shame to have to work on the Lord's day."  Stovers had the
envelope held out like an offering plate.  "You take this and
come see us just any old time."  A woman came up and stood beside
Stovers.  "See, this is my wife, Janie.  Janie, this is Mr.
Gemmer.  Mr. Gemmer, Janie."  Janie smiled, but she seemed as
uncomfortable as I was.
     "I'm very nice to meet both of you, but I've really got to
be going."  I put a ten-dollar bill on the counter and the girl
took it and looked at me.
     "I need your check, sir," she said.  I reached into my coat
pocket and felt for the check, then saw it on the carpeted floor
at Stovers' feet.  Stovers reached down and retrieved it and
handed it to me, and I put it in the girl's outstretched hand.
"Thank you, sir," she said, and began punching buttons on the
register.
     Stovers reached out and took my hand and placed the envelope
in the palm and pressed the fingers closed, crumpling the paper.
"You need to come see us," Stovers said.
     The girl was holding out my change, and when she counted it
back I shoved it into my trouser pocket without looking.  I
handed the envelope back to Stovers, who stared at the envelope
as if it were somehow dirty.  "I don't think so," I said, and
turned to walk away.
     "But we need to fill the new sanctuary," I heard behind me.
     At the apartment I checked the answering machine, but found
that it was still turned off from the day before.  I poured a
glass of tea and went into the living room, took off my shoes and
stretched out on the couch.  I heard the answering machine click
on, and my own voice amplified:  "This is Bill Griner.  I'm not
in right now, but please leave a message after the beep, and I'll
get back to you."  The tape started spinning, then a beep, then
Leigh's voice.  "You shitheel, Griner.  Please send my fucking
check.  I know you're there.  Why are you treating me this way?"
The machine clicked once more and then the tape was spinning
again, and I made a mental note to get an unlisted number. I
didn't remember that this one was already unlisted, or that as
soon as Leigh wanted to get in touch with me she'd call my
mother, who always wished that we'd get back together.  "Young
people have to work out their problems," Mom had said every time
I'd talked to her during the divorce.  I fell asleep with the tea
glass in my hand resting on my chest.
     When the doorbell rang, I jumped, and the water left in the
glass spilled over onto my shirt where it was tucked into the
waistband of my trousers.  "Shit."  I stood and pulled the shirt
out over my waistband.  "I'll be right there," I said to the
door.  The bell rang again as I went into the kitchen for a paper
towel, and I opened the door still wiping at the wet spot.
     "Looks like I caught you at a bad time.  I can come back."
     The girl was dressed in denim shorts with little cuffs
tacked up with chrome studs shaped like stars, and she wore a
tube top of a stretchy fabric dyed to look like denim, with a
man's white shirt over it tied loosely at her navel.  She carried
an oversized denim bag on a shoulder strap.  "The girl from the
mall," I said, trying to remember her name.  Her hair was mostly
concealed under a red bandana handkerchief that tied at the back
of her neck.  She had on oversized mirrored sunglasses that
reflected me back on myself as silvery twins.
     "Jennifer," she said.  "Can I come in?  It's hot as hell out
here."
     "Sure," I said, and stepped out of the way to let her in.
"I was on the couch when the bell rang."
     "Did I wake you?"
     "I spilled my water."
     "I see."  She stood in front of the door, looking around the
room.  "Nice place you have here."  She reached up and pulled the
sunglasses off and hung them by an earpiece from her tube top.
The earpiece made the material press out from the front as if she
were wearing some secret piece of jewelry between her breasts.
"Mind if I sit down?" she said.
     "Sure, help yourself.  Let me go change my shirt; I'll be
right back."
     She sat in the recliner and pulled the handle to raise the
footrest.  "Comfortable," she said.
     In the bedroom I pulled off the damp shirt and threw it onto
the bed.  In a drawer I found a t-shirt my wife had bought, one
with a gray cartoon hippo inside a red circle with a slash across
it, like a "No Smoking" sign.  I went into the bathroom adjoining
the bedroom and dampened a comb and ran it through my hair.  I
paused for a moment to look at the crown of my head for signs of
balding.  My mother had told me that baldness runs in the family,
though my memories of my father are of a man with a full, thick
head of reddish brown hair.  I wondered sometimes if he was
Irish.
     When I got back to the living room, the girl was down on her
knees going through the cassette tapes in their plastic storage
cases arranged on the bottom of the wooden stereo rack.  "You've
got some old stuff here," she said when she saw me looking.
     "Good stuff, though," I said.  "Want to hear something in
particular?"
     "No, just seeing what you have."  She stood up and  walked
back to the lounger.  "I thought I'd drop by and see how you
live," she said.  She sat back in the chair and returned it to
the reclined position.
     I sat on the sofa and leaned into the corner of the armrest,
facing her.  "How did you know where I lived?"
     "I looked you up in the phone book and you're unlisted.  But
you're in the business directory, so I called your office.  There
was somebody there who told me."
     "They gave you my address?"  The girl's legs were tanned and
muscular, but the tan wasn't the dark tan I've come to expect
from so many young women; hers was more of a patina, just a light
browning of the skin that prevented her skin from looking too
pale.  "They're not supposed to give out home addresses," I said.
I began to wonder who could have been working at the office on a
Saturday.
     "I'm very convincing.  I told them you left a credit card in
the restaurant where I work and that the only time I could return
it was after I got off."  She giggled; the freckles on her nose
seemed to move individually instead of with the rest of her face.
     "Ingenious," I told her.  "So to what do I owe this visit?"
     She smiled.  "You know how the Chinese say when you save
someone's life you have to take responsibility for them forever?"
She pulled the sunglasses from the tube top and put them on, then
let them slide down her nose until she was looking over the top
of the frame.  "Here I am," she said.
     I looked away from her, toward the kitchen, then back at
her.  "I'm too young to be your father, and too old to be your
boyfriend.  So what gives?"
     "I've been sitting around the house all week.  I wanted to
get out."  She stretched her arms out and touched her knees and
yawned.  "Got anything to drink?"
     I stood up.  "You can have a beer if you're legal.
Otherwise it's Pepsi or iced tea.  Are you?"
     "Soon, but Pepsi's good."
     I got a glass and ice and poured, then let the foam settle,
then poured until the glass was full.  I set the glass on a
folded paper towel and took the drink in to her.
     "Thanks," she said.  "It's not good for the complexion, but
it's cold."
     "So you've gone to the trouble of finding me.  What about
you?"
     "Like life history, stuff like that?"
     "That's a start.  I mean, you're here."
     "I'm Jennifer Weathers, and my father's a real estate
tycoon.  I live at 281 Parkwood Lane, but you knew that already.
My mother joins clubs and we don't have a pool.  What else?"
     "What do you do, other than hang out in shopping centers?"
     "I was in school, but I don't think I'm going back in the
fall.  Maybe I'll go someplace else."
     "You go to the university?"  I had finally gotten fully
awake, and I had this fleeting thought that I might ask this girl
to go to dinner with me.  I thought that she might enjoy an
Italian place I'd been meaning to try; it's in a renovated
warehouse in the oldest section of downtown.  I'd helped them
design their menus and the agency had given them a break on their
advertising to help them get established and to try to keep them
as customers.  The owner had told all of the employees of the
agency that they were welcome to ten percent discounts as long as
he stayed in business.  I'd been wanting to try the place, but I
didn't for fear it would look like taking advantage.
     "No, Westwood High School.  I got a little ahead taking
summer courses, and I can graduate in December if I go back."
     "Why don't you, if it's only one semester?"
     "Graduating in winter?  No way.  I'd only have three weeks
before I had to start college.  This way I've got three months
before September."
     The girl finished her drink and set the glass down on the
carpeted floor, the paper towel underneath it.  "So.  Would you
like another?"  I said, and pointed to the glass.
     "No."  She leaned forward and used the lever to raise the
chair upright.  "Look, if I'm bothering you I can go.  But you
seemed like a pretty good sort of guy, and I was just so bored
this week, and--"
     "Don't worry about it.  I've been needing some company.  It
was a rough week all around."  I leaned forward, elbows on my
knees.  "Can I give you the guided tour?  It isn't much."
     "No thanks.  I had a friend who used to live here.  All the
two-bedrooms are alike."  She stood up and stepped over to me.
"You're too pale.  Let's go out to your pool."
     "I've been out there today already.  It's not my favorite
place."
     "Come on.  It's nice out there.  You can watch me swim."
     "You brought a suit?"
     She held up her bag.  "Always prepared.  Where can I
change?"
     "Bathroom down the hall," I said.
                           * * * * *
     I waited at the pool for her.  I'd poured myself a plastic
cup of beer from one of the bottles in the refrigerator and
brought a small cooler outside with three more bottles.  The pool
was empty of swimmers, and the water was clear and blue.  I
adjusted my sunglasses and leaned back on the chaise and looked
up at the sky.  The polarizing lenses made the blue water seem
deeper, and I imagined for an instant that I could see the oval
shape of the pool reflected in the sky.  "Mind if I join you?" I
heard, and my vision was obscured by the silhouette of the girl
standing over me.
     "Pull up a chair."  I closed my eyes and heard the scraping
of metal against concrete.  I sat up and pulled the sunglasses
onto the top of my head.  The girl was bent over laying one of my
bath towels on the chair at my left; my eyes were at the level of
her hips.  Her bikini was white, and the bottom small, so that
her hips swelled out under the thin strings that held it on.  I
leaned back and she turned and sat, then stretched out next to
me.
     "The sun feels good," she said.
     I turned to look at her.  The top of her swimsuit was tight
over small breasts, and I could see the ghost of whiter skin
above the cloth.  "Yeah.  I come out here and watch people swim
sometimes."
     "Don't you swim?"
     "No.  I learned when I was a kid, but I was never any good
at it."
     "I took lessons at the Y when I was six.  You know, the
summer camp thing?"  She pulled her sunglasses down from where
they were propped up on her forehead and closed her eyes.  "You
got another beer, there, Griner?"
     "You're not legal, remember?"
     "You worried about corrupting me?"  She sat up and swung her
legs off the chair and took off her sunglasses and hung them from
the top of her bikini.  Then she smiled at me.  I got a bottle
from the cooler and twisted off the top for her.  When I gave her
the bottle she took it and pressed it to her cheek.  When she
pulled it away to take a small sip, the bottle had left a film of
moisture on her skin.  She lowered the bottle and held it in her
lap.  She licked her lips.  "That's good.  German?"
     "Dutch.  I get a discount from the distributor."
     "I like that dark German beer that my father gets.  It
tastes strong, like coffee, almost."
     "Sometimes I get English ale, but I don't drink much.  I end
up giving it away most of the time."
     She laughed and sat back, then leaned forward and pulled the
back of the lounge upright and took another sip.  "My father's
the beer drinker--he lives on the stuff.  It's a wonder he
doesn't weigh five hundred pounds."
     "My ex-wife drinks, but she's skinny as a rail.  I don't
think she eats."
     "She's got a problem?"
     "You might say that.  I keep my phone turned off most of the
time to get her off my back."
     "I tried to call you and got the machine.  I thought you
never came home."
     "You should have left a message."
     "I hate those things," she said.  "I never know what to say,
like I should rehearse or something."
     The girl and boy from earlier came outside and stretched out
on chairs across the pool from us.  The girl's hair was tied up
in back, and she'd changed into a black bikini.  They pulled
their chairs close together and lay back with their eyes closed,
and the girl's hand reached across to him and rested on his
thigh.
     "How old do you think she is?" Jennifer asked.
     "Fifteen, maybe."
     "She's pretty."
     "I noticed."
     "He's kind of cute, too."
     "I hadn't noticed that," I said.
     "That's understandable."
     I'd changed into cutoffs and still had on my "No Hippos" t-
shirt.  Jennifer reached over and touched the thin white scar on
my left thigh; her finger traced it through the thin hair on my
upper leg to where the scar disappeared under the ragged cloth of
my shorts.  "What happened there?" she asked.
     "Bicycle accident when I was a kid.  I landed on some
garbage on the curb and a piece of a tin can cut me."
     "I've got a scar.  Appendicitis, see?"  Her finger touched
and traced the slight indentation above her bikini.  The scar was
tanned and straight, and I wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't
shown me.  I also saw the fine hairs below her navel.  I was
imagining that if the wind were blowing, I could see them swaying
like golden summer wheat in a field.
     "I had to get nearly twenty stitches," I said.  "The doctor
said it looked like a scalpel did it," I told her.
     Jennifer finished her beer and set it down on the concrete,
then reached over and touched my thigh again.  "I don't want to
get too much sun.  Let's go inside, okay?"  She stood and pulled
the towel across her shoulders like a shawl, then leaned down and
picked up the empty bottle.
     "So what do you want to do?" I asked.
     "Listen to music, watch t.v.  It's only six."
     "Nice watch."  I reached down and touched the small jewelled
watch on her left wrist.
     "A present from Daddy.  He likes to buy me things."
     "You sound like you resent it."  We were at the door and I
opened it for her.  She entered and I locked the door behind us.
     "He's only had a good business since I was eight or so.
Ever since then he's tried to smother me."  She pulled off the
towel and folded it over one shoulder.  "I really love him."
     "Have a seat and I'll find some music.  Any requests?"
     "Whatever you like, I'm not picky."
     I went to the cabinet and took out a cassette of Beethoven's
"Ninth Symphony" and put it into the player, then adjusted the
volume when the first movement began.  When I turned around,
Jennifer was still standing by the recliner.  "Have a seat,
Griner."  She motioned to the chair, and I walked past her and
sat down.  "My mother likes Beethoven," she said, and dropped the
towel to the floor.
     She started to move around the room to the music, and when
she turned away from me and turned off the lights, she seemed to
glow from the sunlight coming through the off-white curtains over
my picture window.  I couldn't move; I sat there, tense, unable
to take my eyes off the girl, but when she turned her back to me
and reached back to untie her top, I rose halfway in the chair,
but she turned holding the top over her breasts with her arm and
brought the forefinger of her other hand to her lips and said,
"Shhhh."  She dropped her arm and the white fabric fell to the
floor beside the brown towel on the blue carpeting; she stepped
closer and untied one side of the bottom of the suit, and then
the other, and the bottom fell.  It looked like a white moth
against a clear sky.  She came over to me and knelt next to the
chair and pushed down on the lever that makes the chair recline,
and then my feet were up, and she stood and leaned over them and
began working on the zipper of my cutoffs.  I leaned forward when
they were off and pulled her to me.  She was on top of me then,
and all I wanted to do was kiss her over her heart.  "Let's go to
the bedroom, Griner," she said.
                            * * * * *
     "I guess I'd better go, Griner."  The clock radio in the
bedroom was tuned to a classics station, and the red numerals
read 10:15.  "I need to get home and get some sleep so I can go
with Mom to the university in the morning."
     "Does she work there?"  She lay on top of me with her head
under my chin.
     "No.  I'm going to register for the fall, and she's going
with me.  We'll do lunch and she'll want to go shopping for new
school clothes."
     "You're good at shopping, but does she need to go with you
to register?"  I considered getting up, but I didn't want her to
think I wanted her to leave.
     "I'm not legal, remember?  Some kind of papers she has to
sign about why I'm not finishing high school."
     I stroked her neck behind the ear, and she moved against me.
"So how old are you, anyway?"
     "What do you think?" she said, and I imagined her grinning
in the dark.  "I'll be seventeen in September."
     "Now I've done it all," I said.  "So I suppose now you'll
scream rape and get pregnant."
     She sat up and straddled my stomach, and I looked up at her
in the darkness.  "Don't be silly.  I'm not a kid."
     "Why did you do this?  I just want to know," I said.
     "I liked you the other day.  Isn't that a good enough
reason?  You were nice to me, and I don't meet many guys my age
who know how to be nice."
     "That's it, then, I was nice."  I wondered what kind of
dream I was having, that I'd awaken alone in the darkness.
     "Griner, you aren't the only person in the world who gets
lonely."
     "You have friends.  Your parents."
     "Maybe I don't understand it either, but I just wanted to be
with you, all right?"
     "Do you want to come back?  I mean, is this a one-time
thing, or do you want to be here again?"
     "Do you want me to?  Do you, Griner?"
     I touched her face, then ran my hands down to her shoulders
and down her arms to where her hands rested on the bed.  "Yes.  I
don't want you to leave, not now, at least.  But if I think about
it too long I'll start rationalizing about how wrong this is."
     "What's wrong?  If you were sixteen or seventeen people
might raise hell, but they'd understand."
     "So you worked this all out in advance?"
     "Yes.  Do you hate me for it?"
     "No.  In fact, I'm flattered, but worried."
     "Don't worry.  Don't ever worry."  She got out of the bed
and left the room.  I followed her and watched her in the
darkness of the living room as she got dressed.  "I'll call you
tomorrow night, okay?" she said at the door, and reached up to
kiss me.  She left, and I sat naked in the living room for a long
time, until the curtains lightened with morning.  I went back to
the bedroom and lay down and thought about how empty the room
felt without her.