Private Eyes

thinking about this.” Caressing the guitar’s convex back and tapping it. “Still trying to figure out exactly how I was going to get into the grain. This is Brazilian, quarter sawn- can you imagine how much I paid for a piece this thick? And how long I had to look to find one this wide? She wants a one-piece back, so I can’t afford to mess it up. Knowing that jams me up- it’s been slow going. But this morning I got into it pretty easily. So I kept going- I guess it just swept me along. What time is it?”

“Seven-ten.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, flexing her fingers. “Can’t believe I’ve been working for almost two hours.” Flexing again.

I said, “Sore?”

“No, I feel great. Been doing these hand exercises to ward off the cramps and it’s really working.”

She touched the file again.

I said, “You’re on a roll, kiddo. Don’t stop now.”

I kissed the top of her head. She took hold of my wrist with one hand, used the other to push the goggles up on her brow. Her eyes really were bloodshot. Poor goggle fit or tears?

“Alex, I-”

I placed a finger over her lips and kissed her left cheek. Remnants of the perfume, now familiar, tickled my nose. Mixed with wood dust and sweat- a cocktail that brought back too many memories.

I freed my wrist. She grabbed it, pressed it to her cheek. Our pulses merged.

“Alex,” she said, looking up at me, blinking hard. “I didn’t set it up to happen this way- please believe me. What I said about friendship was true.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“Somehow I feel there is.”

I said nothing.

“Alex, what’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

She lowered my hand, pulled away, and faced the workbench.

“What about her?” she said. “The teacher.”

The teacher. I’d told her Linda was a school principal.

Demotion in service of the ego.

I said, “She’s in Texas. Indefinitely- sick father.”

“Oh. Sorry to hear that. Anything serious?”

“Heart problems. He’s not doing too well.”

She turned, faced me, blinked hard again. Memories of her own father’s sludged arteries? Or maybe it was the dust.

“Alex,” she said, “I don’t want to- I know I have no right to ask this, but what’s your… understanding with her?”

I moved to the foot of the bench, leaned on it with both hands, and stared up at the corrugations on the steel ceiling.

“There is no understanding,” I said. “We’re friends.”

“Would this hurt her?”

“I don’t imagine it would make her whoop for joy, but I’m not planning on submitting a written report.”

The anger in my voice was strong enough to make her clutch the bench top.

I said, “Listen, I’m sorry. This is just a lot to deal with and I’m feeling… jammed up, myself. Not because of her- maybe that’s part of it. But most of it is us. Being together, all of a sudden. The way it was last night… Shit, how long’s it been? Two years?”

“Twenty-five months,” she said. “But who’s counting.” She put her head on my chest, touched my ear, touched my neck.

“It could have been twenty-five hours,” I said. “Or twenty-five years.”

She inhaled deeply. “We fit,” she said. “I forgot how well.”

She came to me, reached up and held my shoulders. “Alex, what we had- it’s like a tattoo. You’ve got to cut deeply to remove it.”

“I was thinking in terms of fishhooks. Yanking them out.”

She flinched and touched her arm.

I said, “Choose your analogy. Either way it’s major pain.”

We stared at each other, tried to temper the silence with smiles, and failed.

She said, “There could be something again, Alex- why shouldn’t there be?”

Answers flooded my head, a babel of replies, contradictory jabber. Before I could pick a reason, she said, “Let’s at least think about it. What can we lose by thinking about it?”

I said, “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t not think about it. You own too much of me.”

Her eyes got wet. “I’ll take what I can get.”

I said, “Happy carving,” and turned to leave.

She called out my name.

I stopped and looked back. She had her hands on her hips and her face was contorted in that little-girl scrunch that women never seem to outgrow. Prelude to tears- probably carried on the X chromosome. Before the valves opened full-force she yanked down her goggles, picked up her file, turned her back on me, and began to scrape.

I left hearing the same rasp-rasp samba that had greeted me upon waking. Felt no desire to dance.

***

Knowing I had to fill the day with something impersonal or go mad, I drove to the University Biomedical Library to seek out references for my monograph. I found plenty of stuff that looked promising on the computer screen, but little that turned out to be relevant. By the time noon rolled around I’d generated lots of heat, very little light, and knew it was time to buckle down and wrestle with my own data.

Instead I used a pay phone just outside the library to call in for messages. Nothing from San Labrador, six others, no emergencies. I returned all of them. Then I drove into Westwood Village, paid too much for parking, found a coffee shop masquerading as a restaurant, and read the paper while chewing my way through a rubbery hamburger.

By the time I got home I’d managed to push the day along to 3:00 P.M. I checked the pond. A bit more spawn, but the fish still looked subdued. I wondered if they were all right- I’d read somewhere that they could damage themselves in the throes of passion.

The uniforms changed, but the game never did.

I fed them, picked dead leaves out of the garden. Three-twenty. Light housekeeping took up another half hour.

Bereft of excuses, I went into the library, pulled out my manuscript, and began working. It went well. When I finally looked up, I’d been going for almost two hours.

I thought of Robin. You know how it is- the momentum.

The fit…

The impetus of loneliness, propelling us toward each other.

Fishhooks.

Back to work.

The drudgery defense.

I picked up my pen and tried. Kept at it until the words ran out and my chest got tight. It was seven by the time I got up from the desk, and when the phone rang I was grateful.

“Dr. Delaware, this is Joan at your service. I’ve got a call from a Melissa Dickinson. She says it’s an emergency.”

“Put her on, please.”

Click.