There was some mail accumulated at my apartment on Marlborough Street, but except for a letter from Paul Giacomin, it was of less significance than the stuff at my office.
I read Paul's letter, and unpacked my bag, and changed into some sweats and went out to run along the river. I didn't want to and as I started I felt like there was sand in the gears, but as I kept moving things began to loosen in the vernal warmth along the esplanade. A lot of Frisbee was being played. Some of it with dogs. I had previously observed that dogs who catch Frisbees wear red handkerchiefs instead of dog collars; the accuracy of that observation was once again confirmed. Nothing like investigative training. I ran up to the Mass. Ave. Bridge and across it and down along Memorial Drive and across the old Charles River Dam and back across to Boston. By the time I had run a mile I was loosened up and able to pick up the pace and by the time I got to Leverett Circle I was pounding hard and steady and my shirt was soaking wet. I worked my way through traffic down along the waterfront and went into the Harbor Health Club. I didn't feel like pumping iron, either, but if I didn't rescue what was left after laying off in New York, I would feel even less like it tomorrow. And soon it would be too late.
Henry Cimoli, who ran the place, was taking a young woman through the Nautilus equipment. He had a chart on a clipboard. He wore blue warm-up pants and a white sleeveless T-shirt and white basketball sneakers with padded high tops. There was scar tissue around his eyes and his nose was thickened, and there was a little gray in his short dark hair. But his waist was as narrow and his biceps as thick as when he'd been a featherweight boxer and gone a ten-round draw once with Sandy Saddler.
'Slow,' he said to the woman. 'It's not how much you do, it's how right you do it.'
The woman had on dark blue shiny leotards and pale blue leg warmers and dark blue sneakers with a light blue stripe and a bright blue shiny ribbon tying her hair in a ponytail. She pressed up what appeared to be about forty pounds. I said hello to Henry as I went past. He nodded.
'Now let it back down slow,' he said. 'Slow, Slow.'
I started at one end of the Nautilus setup and did three sets of everything. There weren't many people there in mid-afternoon and I could move from one machine to the next without waiting. I was halfway through when the young lady in the shiny leotard finished working out and headed for the juice bar. Henry stopped to talk.
'Women are good,' he said. 'They'll do what you tell them and they'll do it strict, get more out of it than the guys. Guys want to pile on too much weight and heave it up, case somebody's watching. So they cheat all the time.'
I was doing curls, and it took most of my concentration.
'But women don't know how to try as hard,' Henry said. 'They do the exercise right but they never learn to strain, you know. The guys do it wrong but will bust their ass doing it.'
I finished the fifteenth curl out of the third set. I was breathing hard, getting oxygen in. 'You're not bad,' Henry said.
I nodded, getting more air. 'Everyone says that,' I said.
'Not everybody,' Henry said.
I walked back home and showered and changed and had a beer. The first beer after a big workout makes the workout worthwhile. It was a little after four. I called Susan's number and left a message on her machine proposing dinner and talk. She called me back in twenty minutes.
'I have one more patient,' she said. 'Shall I come there?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I'll chill the wine.'
'Good.'
She hung up. I checked my watch. Time to provision. I had a couple of bottles of champagne. I put one in the refrigerator to chill and went to the market.
By six o'clock I was ready. The champagne chilled in a crystal bucket. The boneless chicken was marinating in the juice of one lemon and one orange with a little ginger. The endive and avocado salad was ready to be tossed with dressing and the cornmeal and onion fritters were formed and ready for the skillet. I had on a new starched pink shirt and freshly ironed jeans, and cordovan loafers gleaming with polish. I smelled of cologne. My teeth were brushed and I was more scrumptious than the Dukes of Hazzard.
I was making the salad dressing out of lemon juice and olive oil and honey and mustard and raspberry vinegar when Susan unlocked my front door and came into the apartment. She was wearing a black skirt and a lemon- yellow blouse with black polka dots and a pearl-gray jacket. Her necklace was crystal and pearl, large beads. She wore clunky black earrings and a big bracelet of black and gray chunks of something. Her stockings were pale gray and had a small random floral pattern. Her shoes were black and white. She had her large black purse and a lavender overnight bag.
I watched her come in and take the key out of the lock and store it back in her purse and close the door behind her. I watched while reality rearranged itself so that she formed its center, and I felt my breath go in and out more clearly, as if the air had turned to oxygen.
'You're like a breath of spring,' I said. 'A whole new thing has happened.'
She put her purse down and her overnight bag, and smiled at me and said, 'Shall I undress right here, or would you like to sip champagne and talk of the Big Apple, first?'
'Undressing is good,' I said.
'Fine,' she said, and began to unbutton her jacket. 'Feel free to whistle `Night Train.''
'Whistling is a little beyond me right now,' I said. 'Maybe I should just undress.'
'Race you,' she said.
Then she was naked, wearing only the ankle chain that she always wore because I'd given it to her when we came back from Idaho last year. And we were hugging one another and then we were on the couch.
'How was New York,' she said very softly, her lips moving against mine.
'Helluva town,' I murmured. 'The Bronx is up and the Battery's down.'
