“Please sit,” he says as she takes the glass. She takes a large sip, almost emptying the glass. He sits on the opposite couch and looks straight ahead through the large window at the ocean.
“Please sit over here,” she says. “You seem so far away.”
Posner moves to the other couch, just as she asks, “Can I rest my feet here?”
He waves his arm to the side in a universal gesture. She raises her hips and both legs spring forward onto the couch. She crosses one leg over the other and he faces ten polished toes. Then she shifts her legs back in parallel. She reallocates her skirt so that he has a clear view of her browned upper thigh. She spreads her legs more than slightly. The invitation is clear.
They talk aimlessly. She sits on the couch, ignoring the view, chatting about her hospital duties, her parents in Vienna, and why she doesn’t want to stay in New York. He becomes edgy. He wants her to leave.
“Do you like my polish?” she asks, sliding her body down and raising one foot, barely inches from his face. The temptation is there, but he abruptly stands before she makes contact.
“I think we should go,” he says.
She rises and follows him slowly to the top of the stairs. He feels her stare, but his eyes are fixated on her painted toes.
“Can I see you again?” she asks.
She smiles, doesn’t wait for an answer, and searches her large straw bag, until she withdraws a card printed with her name and a New York number. Then she offers her hand, a puny gesture, he thinks, but he takes it anyway.
“I’d like to see you again,” she repeats. “Whenever you want. Whatever you want to do.”
Whatever is the only way something could happen, he thinks, but while there is more than a flicker of interest, he isn’t crazy enough to start. He knows that a fuck in the room not twenty feet away from where they stand is where it would end. That’s what whatever means. She was right about guilt, though. He feels it squeezing him like a fog that has crept into the room, filling every available space and daring, even mocking him to try to touch her. He wants to release her hand, but she holds his with even more pressure.
He sees from the quickening in the rise and fall of her chest that her breath comes in shorter increments. The pink dress fabric strains forward and he feels his cock swell. He looks away, out through the window, across the pine-coated dunes, as he’s done only minutes before. Anything to forget the surge that has gripped him. He knows that she only has to brush against his groin and he would be lost, but then she eases the pressure on his hand and the rush begins to ebb.
“I have a boyfriend,” she says. “His name is Henry, but I do like to meet other men.”
Posner wants to hear none of this. Not the fact that there is a boyfriend who must surely suck on her painted toes. He had a second cousin named Henry, a gangling, acne-faced teenager when he last saw him more than forty years ago. The name merges with his memory’s image of his cousin.
“Henry gave me this.” She absently fingers a gold chain necklace from which hangs a small capital letter H. “To remember that both our names start with H.”
“And what does Henry do?” he asks as if he might find some positive trait in the man sufficient to move her down the stairs and farther away from the bedroom.
“He’s a resident in radiology. Also at Mt. Sinai.”
Posner has regained his composure and has a sarcastic urge to say that Henry’s balls were already probably burned away by radiation and that his sexual future was at best iffy, which is probably why she is here, but he says nothing. He feels her fingers slip away from his hand as she turns toward the steps.
“Is Henry Jewish?” he asks, and immediately realizes the banality of his words, yet she quietly says, “Yes, but he’s not very religious.” He hopes that perhaps she now realizes she shouldn’t be here, and that her seduction was misplaced. It’s time to go.
He pats the pocket with his keys, and then his eyes abruptly look down to his jacket. He moves his hands from one pocket to the other, stopping for a moment and then repeating the process.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
His hands stay in motion while his body turns to scan the floor, as if the object of his interest might somehow lie at his feet. He walks back to the couch and lifts the cushions before he comes back.
“Did you lose something?” At first he doesn’t appear to hear, as he scans the floor, the kitchen counter, and the hallway.
“My wallet. Can’t find my wallet. Dammit! I just went to the bank and took out a lot of cash. Goddammit! We’ve got to go. I must have dropped it at the beach or at Citarella’s. Come on. First I’ll drop you at the bus stop.”
“I don’t want to go just yet. Maybe after some more wine. Maybe when you get back.”
Her smile teases him. She stretches here arms behind her head, which accentuates the swell of her breasts. Her mouth opens and her lips seem to ripen. She knows what she’s doing, but he has no interest in such games. Not now. Not anymore.
“I said I want to go now.” His voice rises.
He grabs at her upper arm, but she pulls away.
“Don’t.”
“Sorry. Look I don’t have time for this. I’ll be back soon, but be ready to leave when I get here.”
He moves down the steps and out the door without looking back. He doesn’t see her, but senses she still stands and watches him while he feels a mocking smile, until the closing door swallows the image.
It takes longer than the few minutes he’d hoped. The beach yields nothing, and so he drives to Citarella’s. It’s not under the table he sat at, and he goes inside and asks a cashier. She directs him to the manager who’s on the phone. It’s maddening. There’s nearly five hundred dollars in the wallet, but he can’t rush it.
“Yes, we found the wallet,” the manager says without hesitation after the briefest of inquiries.
As his Lexus enters his own street, a car he doesn’t recognize turns at the far corner. Another few weeks till summer and this street will be full of cars. His watch shows almost forty minutes have passed since he left. Dammit. What if Sara had called while he was out? He parks and leaves the car door open as he jogs up the front steps.
The door opens about three-quarters of the way and then stops. Something blocks further effort. Something heavy, but there’s still enough room for him to easily enter.
She lays there without moving. Her eyes closed. He calls to her, but his voice is no more than an echo. At first he thinks she’s playing some game with him, some final attempt at seduction, a stupid, vain idea, he later realizes, yet she looks so serene, lying there, composed in sensuality with one long leg stretched against a stair riser, as if she had been placed there by an artist, a bowl of fruit in a still life.
But then he sees blood seeping from the back of her head. He calls to her again without response. Then he shouts, as if a higher octave would make a difference. He draws a breath to calm himself and lifts one of her hands. The same one he held minutes before. The warmth is still there. He speaks to her now. Soft words that go unheard, but he continues. Then he reaches a finger toward her neck to check her pulse. He knows how to do this from a course in emergency medicine the firm gave some years ago.
He sits beside her, staring blankly at the entrance door, seeing nothing. He has no comprehension of what has just happened, so he cries. At one point he drops his head to her chest to check for a heart beat—uselessly. How could this have happened? How? How? But he knows. The stupid newly finished floors. Stupid. Stupid. He stands and wipes his face with his fingers. She is dead. Who should he call?