“But he couldn’t know, could he?”
He turned off the shower and grabbed a towel, already damp and a trifle sandy. “I don’t see how.”
“Only he might guess.” Lissy was no longer smiling. “Where else could we go? Hey, what did we do with my underwear?”
“Your place. Your folks’. Any motel.”
She swung long, golden legs out of bed, still holding the sheet across her lap. Her breasts were nearly perfect hemispheres, except for the tender protrusions of their pink nipples. He decided he had never seen breasts like that. He sat down on the bed beside her. “I love you very much,” he said. “You know that?”
It made her smile again. “Does that mean you’re coming back to bed?”
“If you want me to.”
“I want a swimming lesson. What will people say if I tell them I came here and didn’t go swimming?”
He grinned at her. “That it’s that time of the month.”
“You know what you are? You’re filthy!” She pushed him. “Absolutely filthy! I’m going to bite your ears off.” Tangled in the sheet, they fell off the bed together. “There they are!”
“There what are?”
“My bra and stuff. We must have kicked them under the bed. Where are our bags?”
“Still in the trunk. I never carried them in.”
“Would you get mine? My swimsuit’s in it.”
“Sure,” he said.
“And put on some pants!”
“My suit’s in my bag too.” He found his trousers and got the keys to the Triumph. Outside the sun was higher, the chill of the fall morning nearly gone. He looked for the ship and saw it. Then it winked out like a star.
That evening they made a fire of driftwood and roasted the big, greasy Italian sausages he had brought from town, making giant hot dogs by clamping them in French bread. He had brought red supermarket wine too; they chilled it in the Pacific. “I never ate this much in my life,” Lissy said.
“You haven’t eaten anything yet.”
“I know, but just looking at this sandwich would make me full if I wasn’t so hungry.” She bit off the end. “Cuff tough woof.”
“What?”
“Castrating woman. That’s what you called me this morning, Tim. Now
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“You sound like my mother. Give me some wine. You’re hogging it.”
He handed the bottle over. “It isn’t bad, if you don’t object to a complete lack of character.”
“I sleep with you, don’t I?”
“I have character; it’s just all rotten.”
“You said you wanted to get married.”
“Let’s go. You can finish that thing in the car.”
“You drank half the bottle. You’re too high to drive.”
“Bullshoot.”
Lissy giggled. “You just said ‘bullshoot.’ Now
He stood up. “Come on; let’s go. It’s only five hundred miles to Reno. We can get married there in the morning.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“If you are.”
“Sit down.”
“You were testing me,” he said. “That’s not fair, now is it?”
“You’ve been so worried all day. I wanted to see if it was about me—if you thought you’d made a terrible mistake.”
“We’ve made a mistake,” he said. “I was trying to fix it just now.”
“You think your dad is going to make it rough for you—”
“Us.”
“—for us because it might hurt him in the next election.”
He shook his head. “Not that. All right, maybe partly that. But he means it too. You don’t understand him.”
