Chapter 2

His phone echos through the house. He no longer dreams so he wakes instantly and moves unhurriedly down the hall to the kitchen.

"Hello you," he says.

He looks at the refrigerator. On it is an old yellowing clipping. It reads:

"Deborah Andrews

"Saturday, Sept 14, 1985

"Greenwood -- The funeral of Deborah Andrews, late of Oakland, California was held at Edwards Memorial Funeral Home in Greenwood, Friday, Sept 13, 1985. Followed by cremation and burial in the School St Cemetery as was her wish.

"The organist was Virginia Wagner.

"Ms. Andrews, 55, is survived by a daughter, Susan Montani, of Boulder, Colorado and a son, David Andrews, of Atlanta, Georgia. Neither were able to attend.

"Her mother, Mrs. Stephan Andrews, lived for fifty years at 25 Oak St before being stricken in her home, Friday, September 6, 1985."

She sits naked on the sand. The man is stretched on his back beside her, an arm thrown over his face against the sun. He is asleep, dead to the world. The wind blows in her face, causing her hair to weave about her head. Back in the dunes away from the beach, it's quite hot.

"You just made love again," he says.

"Yes," she admits, then "Why didn't you marry me back when you had the chance?"

"I asked, if you remember," he says, "And you said no."

"You never pressed."

"You said no pretty firmly. You said you didn't want to spend your days in a hick town."

"You could've argued, gotten upset. You just said 'Oh'."

"You said no. I didn't want to make it any worse than it was. Would it have made any difference?"

"I don't know," she says, "I was always so restless. And your family was so crushing. Remember when we went to the cookout at your Uncle Doug's? My God, there were so many of your relations there! And you were so proud. You led me around and around, holding my arm. You introduced me to aunts and uncles and cousins and you had five brothers and sisters and a mother and father as well. And three grandparents. There was a great great Aunt if I remember right with skin like white parchment. Afterwards whenever I'd walk uptown, I'd be sure to be greeted by some complete stranger coming out of like Jones' Market who'd press me to come over with you for dinner. They'd turn out to be some damned second cousin twice removed on your mother's side."

"We never went though. We always roamed by ourselves."

"I still felt like I was being crushed flat."

"We didn't have to stay in Greenwood. I'd've gone with you. I'd've gone anywhere with you."

"Yeah right. You never left that town once your whole life."

"That is not true. We drove all over. We went over to Cedar Point, up to Cleveland. We saw the Indians twice."

"And after I left?"

"Well, not so much."

"You just mowed lawns and did yard work and when your Dad retired you took over the business. You never went more that 5 miles from Greenwood center. You never dated another woman."

He looks silently at the refrigerator door.

"I remember I asked you what you did for amusement, you remember, at like our 20th class reunion. You said you'd joined the local chorus, had been singing with them for 10 years."

"It was fun," he says, "I liked to sing. So did you. You sat across from me in the altos all through high school."

"I'd often notice you were staring at me and not singing."

"You had such a fine clear voice."

"That's what you were interested in, not."

"It was, I can still hear it."

She laughs suddenly, "That group still in existence? We could join up."

He sighs sadly, "You're not around enough, you'd miss most of the rehearsals and probably the performance, and when you're not here, I just can't get up the energy to leave the house."

The man next to her says something indistinct. "Bye," she says and closes the cell. She gets on her hands and knees, straddles him and looks down into his face. She moves his arm so she can see his eyes. "Hi," she says, "You'll like get sunburned so I've got to be like your canopy." She pushes at her hair so it falls on either side of him. She bends and kisses him hungrily.

He looks up at her. He is in her shade. Through her hair he can see the blinding white sand and the sharp brilliant green of salt grasses and beach roses and scrubby bayberry bushes. They have wandered back into the dunes, past the signs warning them to keep out so as not to disturb the piping plovers. If he looks down his chest, between her thighs he can see through a dip in the dune the blue of the ocean where it meets the horizon. Her breasts as they dangle before him are soft creamy white, their nipples dark.

He feels her fingers on his cock, "Sand," she murmurs, "That won't be so nice for you."

She drops down on him quickly. The light is suddenly blinding, the colors around him become supersaturated and pale. He feels her lips about him, her tongue licking him. He looks down and sees her lick her fingers, then she reaches for her bag, takes a condom and pulls it down over him. He is again in her shade. She shifts on him, he feels her fingers placing him, then he is in. She is so tight. She shifts her legs so they rest on his, thigh to thigh, knee fitting just over his knee, he feels her toes sharp against his ankle. Sand rubs abrasively between them as she squirms on him, her eyes, below his, are tight shut. She lays her forehead on his chin and twists her bottom about. He runs a sandy hand over her thighs and up, he feels her muscles working. He wishes he could reach around and touch and caress where they join, but his fingers are all sand. He lifts his hand to her lips and pushes his fingers into her mouth, he feels her tongue hot against them. "Yum, salt" she murmurs. He sends his now hopefully sandless fingers back down, hovering so as not to touch her skin. He feels his hard cock through its plastic, he feels where she is stretched about him, he rubs her clit. She gasps and drops her knees to either side of him and begins to bob up and down hard. When she cries out, it is like the sound of a bird, some bird of prey, quickly lost in the sun, the sand, the grass and the wind.

She collapses on him, gasping. He can't wait. He rolls her, oblivious of sand, and crouches over her. He begins pumping. She lies still, spread beneath him, unmoving. His feet clinch and his climax is sharp and again it hurts. As he lies panting on her, he trys to remember when he's come so many times in a 12 hour period. Probably never.

"Shall we walk back?" she asks, "I'm getting hungry again."

As they stroll back, the spent waves foaming about her ankles, occasionally as high as her knees, he cannot imagine any connection between her youth and beauty and himself.

The next day, the day after the park experience, he'd made sure to go to the supermarket with his friend from accounting. He hadn't seen her at all and'd eaten his lunch sitting with his fellows around the conference room table unable to listen to their chat, unable to think of anything but her. Going to the restroom after lunch, he'd seen her coming up the hall with several other young women, in high spirits, laughing at something or other. They'd all said hello and she'd smiled at him.

The day after that he'd seen Mark Raposa, the manager of the in-house sales team, and a handsome, aggressive thirty-something to boot, standing at the front desk, grinning and talking to her. Going to his car at lunch he'd seen the pair of them climbing into Mark's Cadillac Escallade.

He'd felt a sharp pain in his chest such as he'd not felt since right after college when he'd first met his wife, well the woman who would become his wife, and'd learned she was living with some guy, some guy who'd seemed in every way his superior. Like then, he felt that if he only had a gun, he'd start shooting.

As he watched the red SUV roll away past the building, its reflection gliding along the office windows, he'd felt a deep pang of nostalgia for that moment long ago. When he'd first seen his wife, at a party thrown by a co-worker, she'd been drinking a margarita and his eye'd met hers and the future'd seemed wide open.

He turned and went back into the building and sat hungry in his office.

An hour later, when he felt'd the need to get a breath of fresh air, he saw she was back at her desk.

At 4:30, as he passed the front desk on one of his several trips to the restroom, he saw the pair, Mark and Deb, pushing through the glass doors into the hall. Deb saw him staring and her eyes met his and she shrugged. He went to a window facing the parking lot and watched as they walked to the guy's SUV. They weren't holding hands, but they were close to each other and walking in step. Mark was leaning to her and talking animatedly.

He was tense at dinner, snapping when his wife'd suggested that he might want to mow some of the lawn before it got dark. Then in the fifth inning of the Red Sox/Indians game, a boring rout, the camera'd panned the crowd. There she sat, a beer in one hand, a baseball cap on her full hair, Mark sitting right next to her, his arm around her shoulder. If she was paying attention to the game, he wasn't. The camera lingered, as if glad to have found such an attractive couple. In fact, it returned to them in the middle of the sixth. Neither was watching the game, they were talking cheerfully. One of the announcer'd had said, 'They've got something better to talk about than this dog of a game'. He'd felt torn up inside.

That next Monday, driving to work, he'd told himself he'd been a reckless idiot to let himself get as wound up by her as he had. That she was young and wild and could have no real interest in him and that any interest he had in her could be nothing more than masturbation, pleasurable, but solitary. That he had a wife and a family with whom he was going through the motions. That his life would run its course to an essentially satisfactory end. That all his hopes and expectations were now centered on his daughters, on their test scores, on their choices of colleges, on their successes and not his own. That he was a fool to feel lonely, trapped, and lost.

At 11 that morning he got an email from her, all subject, no body, "Lettuce at 12 o'clock?"

He'd stared at it. He imagined ignoring it, simply deleting it. It would remain in the company's email archives, possibly glanced at by auditors or lawyers who might wonder if it was code for some kind of insider trading, until they checked out the people involved and realized how outside the loop they were. He would go about his business, perform his family obligations, would remain outwardly blameless.

He'd emailed back "Sure." He'd felt a surge of excitement, his cock'd stirred, he'd felt liberated and scared.

When his friend'd stuck his head in the door and said he was thinking of going to D'Angelos for a sub, he'd replied, "No, I think I'll just go to the caf. here in the building. I've got work to do."

"You drive," she said as they came out of the supermarket. She wore a striped sundress, thin red and green stripes on light white summer material. It had thin straps over her shoulders. The skin of her shoulders and arms shown in the sun. She wore sandals, just slightly higher in the heel than the toe. From the way her breasts moved he wondered if she was wearing a bra.

He looked stupidly around the parking lot, unable to remember where his car was.

"It's over there." she pointed at one of the little neglected kiosks for shopping carts. "I saw you park as I drove up." She took his arm and all but pushed him, like one of the workers rounding up scattered carts.

"The park?" he'd asked as he started the car, glancing over at her as she'd leaned back.

"Those mom's'd show no mercy and I think someplace more comfortable is in order. I'll give directions."

Her hand reached over, rested on his thigh, then slid to his zipper.

"Listen," he said, almost croaking. He was going to tell her to stop, but then felt her fingers about his cock and couldn't get the words out. With his peripheral vision he could see the motion of her white hand. She got him out straight, the darkened head of his cock just touching the steering wheel, it slid against it as he turned the car onto the exit drive, heading toward the light on the highway.

"Right at the light," she said and she tipped his cock hard over so it lay against his right thigh. When he had the car on the road, she straightened him up, her fingers fiddling idly.

"Right again at this little street," she said tipping his cock so it pointed toward herself, she stretched over and kissed it and gave it a little lick, removing the pearl of fluid that had gathered on its tip.

"Where are we going?" he managed, barely able to recognize his voice.

"Oh, we'll know when we arrive," she said. After passing a slow children sign she bent him away from her, aiming him at his door. "Hey! Left turn here!"

He'd braked hard and turned onto a winding subdivision street.

"Pay attention!" she'd ordered.

When she'd next tipped his cock towards herself, he'd obediently turned the car onto another little street. His breathing came hard, he felt amazed that he could keep the car on the asphalt, only vaguely aware of the large houses and grassy yards they were passing.

She tipped him to the left then to the right. He felt lost, aware solely of her fingers caressing him.

"Hey," he exclaimed, "We passed here a minute ago!" He only knew this because of a large dumpster planted beside the house. Men were on the house's roof, the noise of nail-guns was muted by the car's closed windows.

"Yup, I'm just having so much fun. But OK."

She pressed his cock hard against his belly. "Are you a slow learner or what! That means slow down! This means speed up!" and she pulled him forward till the angle hurt. She laughed when he lurched the car forward, tromping on the accelerator. She pressed his cock back again against his shirt and belt and he let the car slow to a crawl.

She peered at the houses. They were all deserted, everyone at work, school or day care. She saw one with a plethora of bikes and plastic bats and hoops and things in its yard. He turned with her guide up its driveway. He felt so very nervous.

She got out and walked around back of the house. When she saw he wasn't following, just sitting in the car, she called, "Hey come on!"

"This is your brother or sister's house?" he asked catching up to her. She had the backdoor open and was standing watching him.

"Did you bring our lunches? Go back and get them!"

Inside, holding both their plastic supermarket bags, he found himself in a family room. Everything was neat, there were two large boxes filled with toys, a couch, a fireplace, a large flat screen TV with a Playstation.

"Deb!" he called.

"In here." He found her in the kitchen. She'd set two places at the kitchen table. Poured two beers.

"Sit," she said, taking the plastic bags, setting the heaping salad at one place, the turkey sub at the other. When she saw he wasn't moving, she said, "Your fly's still unzipped by the way. Come on. Eat."

She sat on his right, digging into the salad with her right hand. Her left in his lap.

The kitchen looked like the one in his house. This despite the fact that each detail was different, the refrigerator was a side by side, the stove electric, the counter granite, yet if his family were swapped into this house, like harddrives switched from one computer to another, they'd live exactly the same life, hardly noticing the change. The sense was so strong that he half expected his wife or daughters to troop in through the doors.

He shifted uncomfortably and looked at the girl. "I saw you at the game Friday night."

"You were there? Why didn't you come over?"

"On TV. They showed you and Mark."

"Really! Cool!"

"Twice."

"I have a friend back in Ohio, that's where I grew up, he watches all the games. Wonder if he saw me."

Then she said, "You know, those tickets cost like $145 a piece? When I was a kid, my boyfriend took me to the Indians, for like a $1.50 a head and you got better seats too."

When he was silent, she said, "Look, that Mark seemed like a nice guy and he offered to take me to the game. I am such a sports fan. The Indians too! They're like my team. However, he was such a jerk afterwards. I guess if I'd just spent $145 plus 2 beers at $6.50 each and a $5 hotdog on a girl I might expect something too. He wanted me to go back to his apartment and when I said no he got ugly and insistent and I had to take a cab back to the office to get my car. I really didn't have much of an evening and I've got to see the guy every day now in the office."

He looked at her. "And the Indians lost," he said.

"And the Indians lost. They always do. They are such losers."

"What do you see in me?" he asked, "I'm not handsome, never was, and my job is boring."

Her eyes met his, holding them, "Ask me that again in a little bit, when I'll have a more informed opinion."

She stood up, took his arm and said, "Come on, we'll clean up later."

She led him from the kitchen into a hall. There was a neat living room to one side, a dining room to the other, and the stairs leading up. At the top of the stairs there was another hall. She led him down it and into a large sunny bedroom. There was a large bed, an easy chair, two wooden dressers, one with a mirror, there was an open door to a large bathroom. One bedroom wall seemed all glass with a sliding door that led onto a balcony. There was a view of a huge flat expanse of grass in which other houses seemed to have been planted at random. On either bedside table there were lamps and alarm clocks. Opposite the bed on the wall was a flat screen TV. Between the pillows lay the remote. The girl, bent and pulled the covers back.

She turned to him. She pulled the straps of her dress over her shoulders and let it fall. She wore no underwear. "Took it off in the office ladies room." she said.