“Yeah,” she said.
“So how long are you here for?”
“Not much longer.”
He nodded.
“You live here all year?” she said.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “This is my place.”
They were in a stucco building at the back of the inn’s property. It faced a tiny stream. There were two doors. As they talked, somebody came in, whistling. You could hear everything through the walls. The person who came in turned on the water and hummed.
“They threw this place in as part of the deal,” he said. “I used to room with another guy, before I got this job. I like living alone.”
“It’s nice,” she said.
“Well,” he said. “I’m not always gonna be a dishwasher. I’ve been workin’ a couple nights a week down at the hardware store. I install doors on the weekends with this other guy. We were thinking about opening our own hardware store.”
“You like this town?” she said.
“It’s okay. Only I don’t know if it can support two hardware stores, you know?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe not.”
“What I am officially is an underachiever,” he said. “My brother’s in Juilliard.”
“What’s that?”
“Music school.”
She had finished her drink. She put the glass on the table.
“Would you like another one?”
“Thanks.”
He got up and took her glass back to the floor in front of the refrigerator.
“I thought maybe you wanted to be a chef,” she said.
“A chef? Nah. I’m just a meat and potatoes man.”
“So what’s your favorite show?” she said.
He poured orange juice and vodka in the glass.
“Could you make this one a little stronger?” she said.
“Sure,” he said. “Sorry.”
He put the bowl and bottle back in the refrigerator, took out another beer and twisted off the top. He went into the bathroom and threw away the cap, then came back and got the glass from the floor.
“I don’t believe you’re really sittin’ here,” he said. He shook his head. He took out another cigarette and lit it.
“Well, that note you wrote me was pretty nice.”
“Yeah,” he said, blushing. “I didn’t think the waitress was really going to give it to you, you know?”
“Well, I didn’t say anything because of the guy I was with.”
“Yeah? What guy were you with?”
“Oh — did you see who was sitting at the table?”
“I looked out the window,” he said.
“The tall guy with the sandy hair.”
“He your friend from Paris?”
“No. That’s another guy.”
He nodded. “You travel around a lot, huh?”
“More than I really want to. It’s nice to just hang out.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I can dig that.”
“I was with my aunt and some of her friends. We were going to the fireworks.”
“I missed them,” he said. “Yeah. I was working.”
There was silence again. The man next door was singing in the shower.
“Maybe we should go in the bathroom and sing along,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said. “He’s noisy. Bill Sinclair. He works maintenance. Cut his thumb off with hedge clippers last year.”
“Oh, gross,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“So where do you hang out?” she said.
“Raindance,” he said. “You been over there?”
“No.”
“It used to be on the main street, but it moved this summer. It’s down past the Episcopal Church. Sort of hard to find, if you don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“So do they have music and everything?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Live bands Friday and Saturday.”
“I’m always listening to music in L.A. It’s been pretty quiet around here.”
“Their bands are pretty good,” he said.
Nicole had almost finished her drink. He was watching her.
“Did you really keep the glass I drank out of?” she said.
“I was just kidding,” he said.
“I guess it’s not like it had a picture of me on it or anything.”
“Right.”
“Well,” she said. “It was nice to stop by.” She put her glass on the table.
“I don’t get it,” he said.
“What don’t you get?”
“How come you came looking for me.”
“I like to meet people when I travel,” she said. “I like to connect, you know?”
He continued to sit in the chair when she stood. She stepped into her shoes. It was always hard to slide her feet into jellies. She thought it would be awkward to have to bend over to pull them on. Finally she did have to bend over to pull the heel of the second one on her foot.
“So give me a call if you’d like to hear some music sometime,” he said, standing.
“Now I don’t get it,” she said.
“Get what?”
“Do you just think it’s weird having me here?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s pretty weird.”
She shook her head.
“I mean, it seems like there’s Stephanie Sykes, and then there’s you. Not that you don’t look like her,” he said, laughing.
“What do you mean, there’s me?”
“It’s like you’re a regular person. I wasn’t sitting here thinking about the person you play on TV.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Just something I was thinking,” he said.
She was looking at him.
“I didn’t mean it as a put-down or anything. Sure; it was a compliment. I guess I never thought about you in real life.”
“Yeah,” she said. “A lot of me goes into my character, but other stuff goes into being me.”
“It was nice getting to know you,” he said. “Do you want another drink or anything?”
“I won’t keep you.”
“No. Really.”
“No. I’m not going to keep you.”
“Well, I got Eddie to take over for me in the kitchen. You might as well keep me. I don’t have any more orange juice, though. Maybe we could go over to Raindance.”
She knew they wouldn’t serve her. Even with eye makeup, she’d never pass.
“No thanks,” she said.
“Okay,” he said. “Let me know if you ever feel like hearing some music.”
“I’ll probably be leaving soon.”
“Oh yeah? Going back to California?”
“Sure. This was just a vacation.”
They were both standing in the room facing each other. He put his beer bottle on the table.
“Your aunt lives in town, huh?”
She nodded.
“Did you tell her you were coming over here?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Just wondering.”
“She just figures I’m hanging out,” Nicole said.
“That’s cool,” he said.
“I don’t see any point in telling her. You know?”
He nodded his head. “You’re sixteen, huh? When are you going to be seventeen?”
“Why do you care about that?”
“Wondered when your birthday was.”
“September,” she said.
“Virgo?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Pisces. Not a bad mix.”
“I never can remember,” she said. She knew that her mother was a Scorpio. Piggy Proctor was a Gemini.
“I’ve got a book,” he said, gesturing toward the refrigerator.
“I guess I sort of believe that stuff,” she said.
“It works out a lot of the time.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” she said.
“Not really,” he said. He looked at her. “You’ve got to have friends to hang out with, right?”
“Uh huh,” she said.
A breeze was blowing through the window at the foot of the bed. She walked to the window and looked out. Stretching to look as far as she could, she saw beside the inn the croquet field that they had walked through coming down the hill to the apartment. No one was there. He came over to where she stood by the window. She sat on the foot of the bed and continued to look out. He was making a move, finally, and she knew it. He must have known she was striking a pose. “Do you ever play croquet?” she said.