I went back to my truck, lugging boulder after boulder into the back yard and setting them where they all belonged. Within an hour and a half, I was completely drenched in sweat.
The infinity pool loomed before me like a fantasy.
I thought about it as I crouched down and drank water out of the garden-hose spigot. It was pathetic. I’d always remember to bring beer to the job (when I was in the mood for it) but never remembered to bring drinking water.
The sweat peeled off me. My head was soaked. The sun getting hot, and the air became more humid. I took my shoes off and stuck my feet into the pool.
Behind me, I heard the back door open. “Great,” I thought, “I’m about to get in trouble for having my fucking feet in the swimming pool.” I turned my head, round two with the old blonde housekeeper.
I was surprised by what I saw. A girl in a string bikini walked barefoot across the deck. Pale. Long, brilliant blonde hair and heart-shaped sunglasses. Her breasts pointed up, indicating the rumored location of heaven. Mouth parted ever so slightly. Towel with neon tetra on it tucked under her arm, but she wasn’t coming into this swimming pool. She walked past in a flash, down the wooden steps towards the private beach.
I stood up and watched her leave.
The ocean. She was going down into the surf. Of course she was.
I unloaded the rest of the boulders, cutting my hands — little droplets of blood, dirt, scratches from the pine trees as I passed and they tried to wrap me up. The smell of Juniper and salt water. Birds screamed in branches without rhythm. It took about another hour and a half, but then, when I was done with the work, I shut my truck off and made my way down the steps to the private beach.
The girl was lying on her stomach, reading a book, kicking her feet lazily. She was spread out on the towel, sometimes drumming the white sand with her palms. The sun was too strong this early in the season. She was burning but didn’t know it yet. The top of her bikini was gone, lying at her side. There were no tan lines yet anyway. It was too early — just late spring. As I got closer, I could see her bikini bottom was covered in small cherries. I studied her ass as if it was a cypher that would unravel every code in the universe, making the great mystery of life nothing more complex than a Sunday morning comic strip. I was only close enough for a second, however, as I fought across the sand toward the surf, which broke violently as if it was a challenge looking to swallow me up too. She didn’t look up from the book.
In front of the girl, halfway towards the waterline, was a pit that had been freshly dug into the sand. It was full of fresh dry wood: a bonfire for later.
I went down, waded out into the cold surf in my camouflage shorts and just floated out there — watching her from just inside the foam spray of the breakers, as she watched me.
She never came down the sand. I never bothered her. We didn’t talk. We just looked at each other, like two animals in separate but adjoining cages at a vacant zoo — feeding time somewhere long off.
The water was rough, cold, violent — the aftermath of the storm that’d sent Denise up into the attic to hide. But the water felt good. I bobbed up and down, looking at the rows of houses. The ridges of their roofs. For such a hot day, it was surprising that none of the rich people from those houses were in the water. I swam out farther.
The sun reflected and cooked all who were uninitiated.
When I looked at the girl, she was sitting up, staring out at me in the water. Her breasts fully exposed. I bobbed there, treading water, watching. She just kept staring out at me. It was surreal. Something wasn’t quite right with her. I could tell right then.
A wave came and smacked me on the back. It knocked me under. Never turn your back on the ocean. When I came back to the surface, the girl was putting her top back on. She’d gathered her book, her beach towel, all of it. She went back up the steps, into the shade and security of the house.
White Bird
Lagoon house was empty. I took a shower and sat on the couch. The sun was setting over the marsh. A big white bird, a Florida bird, the kind that shouldn’t be here, was walking through the mud. I whistled at it out the window, and it looked over at me but just kept walking away, vanishing into the maze of the reeds.
The evening had no direction. I picked up the phone and looked at the numbers, considering a few I could dial, but ultimately dialed no-one. I closed my eyes, almost nodding out. But I was hungry. And I didn’t want to be alone, in an empty house, trashed, demolition looming, and refusing to clean.
“To the boardwalk,” I decided. Muscle memory. Fail-safe. Going through the motions. Pizza. A slow walk to see who’s walking around. Someone’s always around.
I grabbed my keys, but when I looked for my wallet, I couldn’t find it. A quick search revealed it was nowhere in the house. Nowhere in the truck either. But I knew where it was. My wallet was lying on a flagstone next to the boulder wall.
That afternoon, when I’d gone down into the ocean, after that girl, I’d had it in my back pocket. I’d left my wallet on the stone to dry out and forgotten it.
“Guess I’ll be going back,” I said to no-one. “Right now.”
Bonfire
Big moonlight. I parked beside the mailbox on the street and walked silently up the crushed seashell driveway, through the gardens loopy with whistling night birds sipping from fountains bathed in lunar light — darting from flower to higher perch as I passed.
The night was warm but windy. Like the spirits of the dead were out in the ether. Branches and small animals moved all around. An electric, doomed charge was in the nectar-heavy air. The world that I knew had been overtaken by honey suckle and shadow.
The estate’s windows were black, but when I got around to the back deck, I saw a flicker of light coming up over the dunes. The dune grass and cattails waved in the breeze kicking in from the endless ocean. A bonfire was going on down there. Just like I figured. It was that kind of night.
I found my wallet and my shirt next to the wall, right where I left them. Down on the beach, I heard laughter and voices.
I stood on the edge of the steps, looking down at the bonfire. The girl from earlier was wrapped in a bright blanket, bands of vivid color. A few young, stuffed-up college guys sat around her in a circle. Three of them; no-one important. Close cut haircuts. Hooded sweatshirts for colleges I’d heard of but couldn’t point to on a physical map. Khaki shorts. Visitors. Tourists. They made uncomfortable small talk.
The girl looked over. My guess was that she could feel me looking at her. It’s funny how that happens.
“Hey, who’s up there?”
I stepped out of the shadows, and then she got a good look at me.
“Oh, you. The swimmer. Come on down here, swimmer.”
I walked over, and sat across from her. The guys got quiet. This was war. She looked up, and the fire reflected in her eyes shone like headlights on a parked car revealed in the trees.
While looking at me, one of the guys — square-jawed, pointy nosed — said, “Excuse me.” I introduced myself. He didn’t say his name. He had the kind of nose I’d love to break. The girl leaned over, held her hand out, shook mine.
“K Neon,” she said. “I was hoping you’d come back.”
The guys remained quiet but with their feathers all puffed up. I kept talking to K, ignoring them. She had an edge to her voice. The guys were messing around with a bottle of wine.
“I can’t believe you don’t have a corkscrew,” one said.