Ridge was also the same neighborhood where her parents lived, so she could keep an eye on them. She bought the house using the money the old partner had funneled to her, and this pleased her. She could walk to the subway and always get a seat going into work. Easy, a little shopping on the way home. But her life became quieter and even lonelier. She paid her bills, she planted marigolds and peas and lettuce in the spring, she drank a glass of wine with the news and another before going to bed. The months flew by. She perused the newspaper but forgot what she read, she never remembered her dreams, she bought sensible shoes, she didn't bother to masturbate. Nothing was happening. She considered actually going to church, for the social interaction. How terrible was that?
Certainly she never expected to meet anyone. But one warm Saturday afternoon she opened her door and saw a man in a baseball cap and green T-shirt standing in the yard next door. He was shielding his eyes and inspecting the roof, a short yellow pencil and clipboard in one hand. Meanwhile, she inspected him. 'Hi!' she suddenly called, surprising herself. He turned toward her and slipped his pencil into his breast pocket. They got to talking. His father owned the house, he said, and he was just taking care of it, for now. His old red pickup truck sat in the driveway and she realized she'd seen it there a few times before. His name was Ray Grant, he told her. She liked Ray, liked him in the way women will sometimes like a certain man. He seemed unaware of how his shoulders and arms looked in the T-shirt, the way his jeans hung on his hips. She didn't see a wedding ring. His fingernails were clean. His eyes were the bluest blue, which she always loved, and she saw both confidence and aloofness in him. He wasn't going to tell her anything, or not much, even.
Okay-she threw herself at him! Invited him in for coffee, and she heard his heavy boots behind her as they went up the stairs into her kitchen. Coffee became a late lunch. He wasn't in a hurry, didn't check his watch. Didn't say much, either. She just talked and talked, got herself more excited.
'So your dad owns the place next door?' she repeated, when the conversation paused. 'Maybe I've seen him a few times, come to think of it, but not in a while.'
Ray nodded. 'He's sick, so I came back to be with him.'
'Sick?'
'Very sick.'
'I'm sorry-is he, will he get better, I mean?'
At this Ray cut his eyes to the floor in quiet sorrow. Lifted his baseball cap and put it on again. Full head of hair, she noticed. She could see the pain in him, how he tried to keep it inside. I kinda love this guy, she told herself, what's wrong with me?
'No,' Ray finally said. 'He's not going to get better.'
She just looked into those blues eyes. 'I'm so sorry.'
'It's a rare blood-vessel cancer. Angiosarcoma. They went in looking, thinking it was something in his kidneys. But it was all through him. He's got, I don't know, a few weeks maybe. Hard to judge.'
She'd just met this man. Don't pry, she told herself.
'Came back?' she said anyway. 'I mean you. You came back from where?'
He looked at her in a way that meant he wasn't going to tell her. 'I was away,' he said. 'I've been back about three months.'
'Oh.'
'I've been mostly overseas the last five years or so,' he added. 'Don't need to say much more than that.'
'Even if I'm dying to know?'
'Even then,' he said, but gently.
She played with the edge of the tablecloth, folding it back, smoothing it, folding it again. 'Sounds sort of glamorous.'
'It's in no way glamorous.'
Time to change the topic, she thought, time to stop acting like a schoolgirl. 'What did your dad do before he got sick?'
'He's been retired a long time. Before that, a cop.'
'Are you a cop?'
'Nope.'
But there was something in the way he said this, a pause that meant something. 'You just look after your father's house?'
'Yes.'
'He has just one rental?'
'Six.'
'All kind of like the one next door?'
'He kept buying them, back in the eighties when they were cheap.'
She did the math. The houses probably weren't fancy, but with the staggering rise in real estate prices in New York City, the sick father was a wealthy man by everyday standards.
'Six rentals?'
'Yes.'
'So you're here in the city,' she ventured. 'Are you trying to find gainful employment, are you dating five girls at once, are you reading any good books lately?'
Ray smiled. 'You want those answers?'
'Girl doesn't mind knowing a few things.'
He nodded playfully. Game on. 'Okay, sure. I'm not looking for work. I'm taking care of my father, nothing more than that. I'm not dating five girls at once. I was seeing someone but she told me we were over a few weeks ago-'
'Was your heart totally broken?'
He studied the question. 'It presented an opportunity to think.'
'That sounds like a lot of you know what.'
'It might be. But I try not to be too attached to anybody or anything. I fail but I try.'
'Are you Buddhist?'
'No, but they have interesting ideas.'
She just studied him, this Ray Grant. He was earnest. No spin, no attitude. She liked this.
'And as for the books, yes, I'm reading a couple of good books right now. Does that answer your questions?'
'Yes, thank you.'
He nodded. 'So,' he said matter-of-factly, 'what are we doing here?'
'What are we doing here?' she repeated, knowing exactly what he meant.
Ray looked at her, into her. She saw his intensity, the thing she had sensed the first moment she saw him. Now it was focused on her. She wanted this but it scared her.
'What do you want to do?' he said.
'What-do what?'
He just gazed into her. She couldn't lie to him.
'You seem like you want to do something now,' he went on, more softly. 'I could be wrong, though.'
'Yes,' she whispered, then nodded. 'I do. Yes.'
There was a silence in the kitchen, a silence through which many messages traveled. Outside the afternoon had become cloudy and the kitchen was shadowed. She felt nervy and excited now.
'Go take your clothes off and get in your bed,' Ray told her.
She couldn't even manage a little ironic smile, like who do you think you are? He was being truthful. He knew who he was and he knew who she was-and in her case that was somehow already naked. 'What are you going to do?' she began, breathing a little too quickly. 'I mean, what are you going to do while I'm removing all my clothes and becoming even more vulnerable?'
'I'm going to make a phone call and then I'm going to walk straight into your bedroom and we will get to know each other, is my guess.'
'Then what?'
He smiled. 'Then-what do you think?'
'Are you going to kill me?'
Maybe she was joking, maybe not. Actually she wasn't.
