Nina’s thumb went to her mouth. She tore the nail to the nub. He waited for more from her and didn’t get it. Finally she hugged him. “We’ll talk later,” she said. It wasn’t enough, not at all, and she must know it, but she didn’t seem to have the spirit to go any further with it.
Paul left her in the office, where she was already picking up the phone, having stuck him into that compartment in the back of her mind where she put inconvenient, time-consuming things.
Although he wanted to, he didn’t call her all day. She didn’t call him, either. She was busy. She could have given him a quick call, but no, he was last on the list. She didn’t want a man, she wanted an on-demand escort service.
He hit some gold, too, on the computer, but, perversely, he decided to wait for Sunday to report it.
At six, Paul packed it in and went down to the beach for a run. On this cool bright September afternoon, with surf massing like storm clouds and kelp floating in enormous beds just offshore, most of the remaining tourists had found other places to visit. The beach by Thirteenth Avenue was almost deserted. Taking his shoes off, Paul rolled up his pants legs and ran up and back down the mile- long beach, then flopped down to catch his breath and the last shoots of golden sunshine.
A fog wall on the horizon awaited night. The sand felt cold, and he shivered. He said good night to the old yellow lady who was heading off to bed, and watched the half-moon creep above the fog, ready to party with the stars. Clouds flowed in from the east. Fall had arrived in Northern California. It was a time to take stock, a time for new beginnings.
Saturday night, and me and Sam Cooke ain’t got nobody, he thought, depressed. He drove home and showered. Almost out of booze, in the back of the fridge he found a couple of Stella Artois beers, which he downed in five minutes. An unopened bottle of slivovitz his uncle had given him years before called from the freezer. He opened it, downing a couple of shots of Slavic white lightning. Then he turned on ESPN and went over to the phone to call for pizza.
The message light blinked.
She had changed her mind. He still felt angry, though, and wasn’t sure at this point he even wanted to see her.
“Paul?” Another woman’s voice spoke, furry, uncertain. “I just called to say-I’ve been wondering how you’re doing. If you’re free, I’m home tonight. Give me a call. Bye.”
Susan. Rubbing his lips, Paul blinked a few times. He hadn’t seen Susan for ages. He was in love with somebody else, yeah, that was right, had to save himself for the Loved One, had to be lonely for the rest of his life and give up this hot woman who was thinking of him, missing him, and had taken the time to call him and tell him so.
He went out onto the deck and leaned on the railing. A coyote cry sounded in the hills. He couldn’t see the stars through the clouds gathering up there. The neighbor next door, Mr. Mitts, had company tonight and Paul could smell teriyaki. Tight-lipped Mitts with his cat and his knitting had a friend visiting.
Meantime I’m saving myself like a virgin in a medieval romance, he said to himself. He felt unmanned thinking about Nina, and then there was Sergey, who he couldn’t do anything about right now. He would like to break the Russian’s skull. He would like to teach him about justice in America’s wild wild West, if only he could find him.
He went back to the phone and pressed the callback button.
“This is Susan.”
“Hey. Remember me?”
“Do I ever,” Susan said in a voice rich with pleasure.
“It so happens that I am home tonight.”
“What a coincidence. I also am home. Alone.”
“Two such fine citizens should combine forces.”
“That would be-fine.”
“Would you possibly be in the mood to drive over here? I’ve had a couple and I can’t come to you.”
Susan didn’t ask any questions. She was free at the moment; he was free; they didn’t plan things. That was how it had been with them in the brief time they had hung out together. She just said, “How about an hour?”
“Chinese sound good?”
“Sure.”
He had the best local take-out Szechuan waiting on the kitchen table when Susan arrived. She threw her jacket on the couch and took the shot glass of slivovitz he offered. The red tube top over jeans left her shoulders bare and undefended-looking.
“Up yours,” she said, smiling up at him from under the black bangs, and drank it down, then sputtered. “What the heck is that?”
“Something my uncle cooked up,” Paul said. “Hungry?”
“Always.” They sat down at the kitchen table and started talking as if a lot of time and a lot of events hadn’t passed. Susan said, her mouth full of noodles, “I met Nina.”
“Right. In court.”
“The circumstances weren’t conducive to developing a friendly relationship.”
“Do you need to?”
“I guess not. In fact, I didn’t like her one bit.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Too pretty. What’s she doing tonight, by the way?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well. Let me have another shot of that stuff. It’ll break down the hoisin sauce in my stomach so thoroughly I won’t absorb a single calorie.”
Paul laughed. He leaned over the table to give her another one.
“You, too,” she said.
“But that would be excessive.”
“Isn’t that the point?”
“Good point.”
“Drink up, then,” Susan said. “Very good. I like the way you throw your head back when you drink. Don’t ever cut your hair. May I ask you a question?” She took his hand lightly. “Remember the picnic at Point Lobos? I guess it was in August last year. And afterward? At my place?”
“You have red curtains,” Paul said. “When the light comes through them, the bedroom feels like a nightclub. I do remember.”
“We were getting to be good friends,” Susan went on. “I don’t have many friends here. I work odd hours, I don’t have family around, and I don’t go to church. If it wasn’t for e-mail I’d pass a lot of evenings feeling pretty lonely.”
Paul looked at her, really looked, and saw a woman, a sweet woman with a sense of humor, brought up well, straight A’s in med school, her parents’ darling. All alone in America. Her parents hadn’t liked California and had gone home to Japan. Her mother probably wrote her once a week: “Come back.” But Susan was forty-one and liked the U.S. “You’re very pretty,” Paul said. “Very nice. Not like…”
“Not like your idea of a pathologist who cuts up corpses for a living?” Susan said. “It can put people off, if you know what I mean. Just ever so slightly. I suppose if I worked the line at the slaughterhouse I might be less popular.”
“Well, why are you in this town, then?” Paul said. This string of beach towns surrounded by lettuce fields, a hundred thirty miles from San Francisco, not exactly a hotbed of intellectual vigor or cutting edges, although you could probably find them if you searched. “Why do you stay?”
“Fair question. I came for the excellent job after my divorce, but I do wonder if I should stay. Some nights I walk around my place, Paul, and there isn’t a sound. Everything is just where I left it. There’s no disturbance, no action, no life. I won’t be going on much longer like this. So now I get to my question.”
“You want to know why I stopped calling,” Paul said. “Just when we were getting on so well. I’ll tell you. Nina called and I answered, then recently, she moved down here to be with me.”
Susan looked thoughtful. Ignoring the pile of food Paul offered, she poured them both shots. The kitchen, post-Nina, looked as it had looked pre-Nina. Raising her eyebrows, she got up and stood at the doorway to the living room and studied the scene. Paul knew she was searching for the woman who was supposed to live there. She downed her drink, standing at the doorway, and said nothing.
“She moved out,” Paul said.
“Left you flat.”
“No. We still see each other.”
Susan came over to Paul, seeming to slip and tumble softly into his lap. She put her arms around his neck and her lips close to his ear and whispered, “I miss you. Can we listen to some music? Let’s just relax. It’s so great being here.” She took the bottle.
Paul had just bought a digitally remastered recording of Coltrane’s
“Soon. You know, Paul, it feels so good just to have someone to lean against. Just your physicality next to me. I liked being friends with you. That’s why I called.” The heat popped on, and Paul’s living room, with the prized old Tibetan rugs and the beat-up leather chair, the books piled on the dining room table he never used, all seemed to wake up, come alive.
How lonely he had become. He felt an acute sadness, understanding suddenly that he had begun to give up on Nina. God, he was sad. Not confused, not drunk, just damn sad. The sax flowed out of the Bose straight at him, the tone one of longing and desire.
“I’m with her, Susan,” he said, sitting down, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I’m…”
“And here comes my question,” Susan said. Softly, her fingers touched his hair and began to stroke his forehead. The alcohol, the music, and this tender stroking let Paul slump into complete relaxation for the first time in a very long time.
“What I’m wondering is, well, could I stay here tonight? Just as a friend, a lonely friend. Would you do me that favor?”
Paul turned and held her. She smelled like roses and her body steamed with heat. “Don’t talk that way,” he mumbled. “Like I’d be doing you a favor. It’s the opposite, in fact.”
“It’s just that I feel so good right now.”
Turning out the light, he carried her into the bedroom and placed her on the bed, listening to Coltrane playing his joyful and tender sax. She took off her clothes; he could see her in the half-light, sitting up, naked now and slipping under the comforter. Outside the half-open balcony door, foggy wisps drifted on a wind. He pulled his shirt over his head, sat down with his back to her, and let her fingers caress and appreciate him. He lay down, overwhelmed, overtaken, overjoyed. Damn sad.
Then Susan pressed her body to his, and she had her own loveliness, her own ways. He could give her everything she needed and take from her all he needed.
He kissed every inch of her, caressing her body until she moaned, murmuring “please,” and “more,” and when he finally let her have relief, the pleasure was so intense they both cried out. The old bugaboo, loneliness, skulked out the balcony doors to blow away on the wind, while they held each other that whole long, life-changing night.
