have fingers like butterfly wings.
‘You know something,’ she said. ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘That’s right, you don’t.’
‘What is it?
‘Sharky.’
‘Sharky what? Or is it what Sharky?’
‘Just Sharky. How about you?’
He reached out and ran his finger down between her eyes, felt the tip of her nose.
‘D-D-Domino.’ My God did I stutter?
‘Domino?’
‘Um hum, just Domino. Like just Sharky.’
He smiled and nodded and took his hand away and she wanted him to leave it there. ‘That’s fair enough,’ he said.
It went on that way. Small talk and jokes. And occasionally they touched, no — brushed, as if by accident. They flirted with subjects, never getting too personal, keeping it light.
‘Did you ever play football?’ she asked. ‘You look like you played football.’
‘I thought about it in college, but I wasn’t good enough.’
‘Where did you go to college?’
‘Georgia.’
‘What did you study?
‘Geology.’
‘Geology?’ she said, surprised.
‘Sure, geology.’
‘Why geology?’
‘I like rocks,’ he said.
‘Okay, so why aren’t you a geologist?’
‘Well, it was like, uh, there wasn’t a lot happening in geology when I finished.’
‘You spent all that time and then just. . . forgot it?’
‘It made my father happy. He took out an insurance policy when I was born, and when I graduated from high school, he handed me the cheque. It was a dream of his, that the kid should go to college. So he deserved it.’
You’re a nice man, Sharky, she thought. Naive, maybe, but what’s wrong with that? ‘That’s a generous thought,’ she said.
‘Look, T like my old man. He was always good to me. It was something I could do back, make him happy. What the hell.’
‘I liked my old man, too,’ she said, without thinking, then wondered whether she should have brought it up.
‘What was he like?’
She could make up a story. She was used to that. Something glamorous, something they wanted to hear. She didn’t.
‘He was a mining engineer. Well, actually he was a roustabout, you know. He loved brawling and whoring and drinking with the boys. Mister Macho, that was old Charlie. The word was invented for him. Itchy Britches, mom called him. We went wherever the action was. I grew up in one temporary town after another. They were always either too muddy or too dusty. Mom still says the saddest thing about losing Dad was that he died so ingloriously. He really would have liked to go out in a blaze of glory like Humphrey Bogart in some old movie. Instead, he died in a miserable little town called Backaway in Utah. He came home one afternoon, got a beer and the paper, sat down in his favourite chair, and died.’
She seemed weighed down by the memory. Sadness crossed her face, very briefly, like shadows on a cloudy day, then it passed.
‘Well,’ Sharky said, ‘I’m sure he would have been proud of you. it looks like you’re doing pretty well.’
She closed the subject quickly.
‘I’m independently wealthy,’ she said, smiling. ‘A rich aunt.’
Sharky laughed and raised his glass.
‘Okay, here’s to rich aunts.’
She sat with her chin in her hand and stared at him again, then shook her head. ‘I just, uh, I don’t believe it. I mean, a geologist working as an elevator man?’
‘I’m not an elevator man. I’m an engineer. An elevator man is an old guy with spots on his uniform who never stops in the right place. You know, he’s always too high or too low.’
She was laughing. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You always have to step up or step down.’
