She carried the fish.
‘You live here?’
‘Yes.’
‘By yourself?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Don’t you get lonely?’
‘No.’
She looked around the room. ‘I didn’t know there was a place here.’
‘Not many people do. You can’t see it from the beach.’
‘Are those your books?’
‘No.’
‘You stole them?’
‘They’re my stepmother’s. She was a teacher.’
‘Was? She’s dead?’
‘Moved away. California.’
Her eyes scanned the shelves. ‘Have you read them?’
‘No.’ He opened the tin and removed a bottle of iodine. ‘This is going to sting.’
He was right. It did. He held her ankle tightly as he dabbed at the wound, carefully removing the sand, dropping the bloodied swabs into a bowl.
‘You have long toes.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘But then you’re tall.’
‘Do you mind not talking about my feet? I don’t think I’ve ever discussed my feet with anyone, and I can’t see that I should start now.’
‘Not another word.’
He placed a sterile pad over the cut and began binding it in place with gauze.
‘I hate them,’ she said.
‘Huh?’
‘My feet. They’re too big.’
‘You think?’
‘How many women you know take a size nine?’
‘Not a whole load.’
‘Exactly.’
‘They don’t look big, maybe because they’re narrow. Any wider and they could look big.’
‘You’re doing it again.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He secured the gauze with a safety pin.
‘Where are your shoes?’
‘At home.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘East Hampton.’
‘I’ll run you back.’
‘Could I possibly have a drink of water? You do have water, don’t you?’
‘Sure.’
He poured a glass from the pitcher on the table and handed it to her.
‘You seemed very intent on catching that fish.’
The fish lay on the table, slick and metallic, its armored rainbow sides speckled with black dots, its fins and tail yellow, almost as if they belonged to another species altogether.
‘It’s a special fish—a weakfish.’
‘Really? It looked like it was putting up quite a fight.’
He smiled politely at her joke.
‘What makes it so special?’ she asked.
