I changed into shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and tried to run off the phone call and the twelve hours that had preceded it. Got home just as the sun was setting, showered, and put on my ratty yellow bathrobe and rubber thongs. After dark I went back down to the garden and ran a flashlight over the surface of the water. The fish were inert; even the light didn’t arouse them.
Postcoital bliss? Some of the egg clusters seemed to have dissipated, but several remained, adhering to the pond walls.
After I’d been down there for a quarter of an hour, I heard the phone. News from San Labrador, finally. Hopefully, mother and daughter had started to talk.
I vaulted up the stairs to the landing and made it into the house in time to catch it on the fifth ring.
“Hello.”
“Alex?” Familiar voice. Familiar, though I hadn’t heard it in a long time. This time the images tumbled out like vending-machine candy.
“Hello, Robin.”
“You sound out of breath. Everything okay?”
“Fine. Just made a mad dash up from the garden.”
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No, no. What’s up?”
“Nothing much. Just wanted to say hi.”
I thought her voice lacked buoyancy, but it had been a while since I’d been an expert on anything to do with her. “Hi. How’ve you been doing?”
“Just great. Working on an arch-top for Joni Mitchell. She’s going to use it on her next album.”
“Terrific.”
“Lots of hand-carving. I’m enjoying the challenge. What’ve you been up to?”
“Working.”
“That’s good, Alex.”
Same thing Linda had said. Identical inflections. The Protestant ethic, or something about me?
I said, “How’s Dennis?”
“Gone. Flew the coop.”
“Oh.”
“It’s okay, Alex. It was long-brewing- no great shakes.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not trying to be a tough broad, Alex, say it didn’t affect me at all. It did. In the beginning. Even though it was mutual, there’s always that… empty space. But I’m over it. It wasn’t like- What he and I had was- I mean, it had its merits as well as its problems. But it was different… from you and me.”
“It would have to be.”
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t know if there’ll ever be anything like what we had. That’s not a manipulation, just the way I feel.”
My eyelids began to ache.
I said, “I know.”
“Alex,” she said in a pinched voice, “don’t feel pressured to respond- in any way. God, that sounds so ridiculous. I’m so afraid of going out on a limb here…”
“What is it?”
“I’m feeling really lousy tonight, Alex. I could really use a friend.”
I heard myself saying, “I’m your friend. What’s the problem?”
So much for steely resolve.
“Alex,” she said timidly. “Could it be face-to-face, not just over the phone?”
“Sure.”
She said, “My place or yours?” then laughed too loudly.
I said, “I’ll come to you.”
I drove to Venice as if in a dream. Parked in back of the storefront on Pacific, impervious to the graffiti and the trash smells, the shadows and sounds that filled the alley.
By the time I reached the front door she had it open. Dim lights touched upon the hulls of heavy machinery. Wood-sweetness and lacquer-bite floated forth from the workshop, mixing with her perfume- one I’d never smelled before. It made me feel jealous and antsy and thrilled.
She had on a gray-and-black floor-length kimono, the bottom hems flecked with sawdust. Curves through silk. Slender wrists. Bare feet.
Her auburn curls were lustrous and loose, tumbling around her shoulders. Fresh makeup, age lines I’d never seen. The heart-shaped face I’d woken up to so many mornings. Still beautiful- as familiar as morning. But some region of it new, uncharted. Journeys she’d taken alone. It made me sad.
Her dark eyes burned with shame and longing. She forced herself to look into mine.
Her lip trembled and she shrugged.
I took her in my arms, felt her wrap around me and adhere, a second skin. Found her mouth and her heat, lifted her in my arms, and carried her up to the loft.
The first thing I felt the next morning was confusion- a desolate bafflement, throbbing like a hangover, though we hadn’t drunk. The first thing I heard was a slow rhythmic rasp- a leisurely samba-beat from down below.
Empty bed beside me. Some things never change.
Sitting up, I looked over the loft rail and saw her working. Hand-sanding the rosewood back of a guitar clamped to a padded vise. Hunched at her bench, wearing denim overalls, safety goggles, and a surgical mask, her hair tied up in a curly knot, bittersweet-chocolate curls of wood collecting at her feet.
I watched her for a while, then got dressed and went downstairs. She didn’t hear me, kept working, and I had to step directly in front of her to catch her attention. Even then there was a delay before our eyes met; her focus, narrowed and intense, was aimed on the richly patterned wood.
Finally she stopped, placing the file on the bench top and pulling down the mask. The goggles were filmed with pinkish dust, making her eyes look bloodshot.
“This is it- the one for Joni,” she said, cranking open the vise, lifting the instrument, and rotating it to give me a frontal view. “Your basic carved belly, but instead of maple she wants rosewood for the back and sides with only a minimal arch- should be interesting to hear it.”
I said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning.” She put the guitar back in the vise, kept her glance lowered even after the instrument was secured. Her fingers grazed the file. “Sleep well?”
“Great. How about you?”
“Great, too.”
“Feel like breakfast?”
“Not really,” she said. “There’s plenty in the fridge-
I said, “I’m not hungry either.”
Her fingernails drummed the file. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“Not wanting breakfast.”
“Major felony,” I said. “You’re busted.”
She smiled, looked down at the bench again, then back at me. “You know how it is- the momentum. I woke up early- five-fifteen. Because I really
