“Feel my finger on your cheek — sharp or dull?”
“Sharp.”
“Let’s simultaneously tighten one anterior and its diagonal opposite posterior.”
“Thanks. Now pass me the wrench.”
“Close your eyes, please.”
She doesn’t know if they’re talking to her or someone else. Someone looks directly down at her. “Time to close your eyes.”
She is bolted into a metal halo, which is then bolted into a plastic vest, all of it like the scaffolding around a building, like the Statue of Liberty undergoing renovations. When they are done and sit her upright — she almost faints.
“Perfectly normal,” the doctor says. “Fainting. Dizziness.” He taps her vest — knock, knock.
“What am I made out of?”
“Space-age materials. In the old days we would have wrapped you in a plaster cast. Imagine how comfy that was. I assume you didn’t have your seatbelt on?”
“Do these bites on your head hurt?” one of the residents asks.
“What bites?”
“Let’s clean them, put some antibiotic on, and make sure she’s up to date on tetanus,” the doctor says. “Get some antibiotics on board just be to sure, you never know what was in that water.”
“Where am I?”
“Stonybrook,” the resident says as though that means something.
“Did someone say something about a swan?” she asks.
They don’t answer.
Her grandmother is the first one who comes to see her. Ninety-seven years old, she gets her cleaning lady to drive her over.
“Your parents are in Italy, we haven’t been able to reach them. The doctor says you’re very lucky. You’re neurologically intact.”
“He was drunk.”
“We’ll sue the pants off them — don’t worry.”
“Did anything happen to him?”
“Broke a bone in his foot.”
“I’m assuming he knows the wedding is off.”
“If he doesn’t, someone will tell him.”
“Does that come off for bathing?” her grandmother points at the plastic vest.
“No. It’s all bolted together.”
“Well, that’s what perfume was invented for.”
Her girlfriends come in groups.
“We were fast asleep.”
“We heard the sirens.”
“I thought something exploded.”
“He broke a bone in his foot?” she asks.
“His toe.”
There is silence.
“You made the papers,” someone says.
In the late afternoon, when she’s alone, the innkeeper arrives.
“I saw it happen, I water the flowers at night right before bed. I was outside and saw your car at the light. Your fellow had the strangest expression on his face. The car surged forward, between the trees, it went out over the water and then nose-down into the muck. I saw you fly over the windshield, over the water. And he was standing up, pressed against the steering wheel, one hand in the air like he was riding a bucking bronco, his foot still on the gas, engine gunning, blowing bubbles into the water. I dialed 911. I went looking for you.” He pauses. “I saw you flying through the air but I couldn’t see where you landed.”
A human gyroscope, a twirling top. She landed at her grandmother’s house, a big old beach house on the block leading down to the ocean. She landed back in time, in the house of her youth. She sat on the porch, propped up in a wicker chair. Her grandmother read her stories of adventure and discovery. At night, when she was supposed to be sleeping, her mind wandered, daydreaming. She dreamt of a farmhouse by the water, of a small child hiding behind her skirt, a dog barking.
It was a summer in exile; off the party lists. No one knew which side to be on, there was talk of a lawsuit, “too ugly for summer,” friends told her.
“To hell with them,” her grandmother said. “I never liked any of them, their parents, or their grandparents. You’re a young woman, you have your own life, what do you need to be married for? Enjoy your freedom. I never would have married if I could have gotten out of it.” She leaned forward. “Don’t tell anyone I told you that.”
At ninety-seven her grandmother set her free. At the end of the season her parents came home from Italy. “Pretend it never happened,” her mother said. “Put yourself out there and in no time you’ll meet someone new.”
In the morning, she goes back to the beach, her hair smells of salt, her skin tastes of the sea, the scent of sex is on her, a sweet funk, a mixed drink, her and him and her, rising up, blending.
She goes back down to the beach, proud, walking like she’s got a good little secret. As soon as she sees him, she blushes.
He doesn’t know she is there, he doesn’t know who she is, and what would he think if he knew?
She watches as he squirts white lotion from a tube, filling his hand with it, rubbing the hand over his chest, his belly, up and down his arms, over his neck and face, coating himself. He lubricates himself with lotion and then shimmies up the ladder and settles into the chair — on guard.
If he knew, would he think she was a crook, stealing him without his knowledge, or would he think it was nice to be desired, had from this strange distance?
Another boy, older, walks barefoot down the warm boards of the bathhouse, his feet moving fast and high, as if dancing on hot coals. She stays through the morning. He is not the only one, there are others. It is a constant low-key sex play, an ever-changing tableau.
This year they have new suits, their standard Speedos replaced with baggy red trunks. Beneath their trunks, they are naked, cocksure, tempting, threatening. It is always right there, the bulge, enjoying the rub of the fabric, the shrinking chill of the sea.
She watches how they work, how they sweep the deck of the bathhouse, set up umbrellas, how they respond to authority — taking direction from the man with the clipboard. Before settling on two or three of the strongest, most dominant, she watches how they play with each other. She chooses the one with the smoothest chest, and another with white hair, like feathers fanning out, crawling up his stomach, a fern bleached blond.
They are becoming themselves as she is losing herself.
It’s not like she’s been alone for the whole year — she’s dated. I have a friend. We have a friend. He has a friend. The friend of a friend. He has four children from two marriages, they visit every other Saturday. He’s a devoted father. I know someone else, a little afraid of commitment, good-looking, successful, never married. And then there’s the widower — at least he understands grief.
The man from two marriages wants her to wear a strap-on dildo and whack him with a riding crop. The one afraid of commitment is impotent. Even that she doesn’t mind until he tells her that it is because of her. The widower is sympathetic. He becomes determined to get her pregnant, “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll put a bun in the oven.” He comes before they even begin. “It’s not for lack of trying,” he says.
And then there’s the one who never wants children. “I would never want to subject someone so innocent to the failings of my personality,” he says. And she agrees.
The idea of them causes her gut to tighten.
The heat is gaining, the beach swelling with the ranks of the weekenders. It is Friday afternoon, they hit the sand acting as if they own it.
A whistle blows downwind, the boys grab the float and are into the water. “It’s no game,” the head honcho says as they pull someone out, sputtering.
Two cops in dark blue uniforms walk onto the beach and arrest a man lying on the sand. They take him away in handcuffs and flip-flops, his towel tossed over his shoulder. She overhears an explanation. “Violated an order of protection, stalking his ex-girlfriend. She saw him from the snack bar and dialed 911.”