The man was settled to one side of the gently flowing waterfall, his head back along the pool’s stone rim, his long, muscular arms stretched out to either side. He seemed to be breathing hard, but nodded in her direction as she swam into the middle of the pool.
“I’m ordering a drink,” Abigail said to him. “What can I get you?”
He smiled and said, “What are you having?” His accent wasn’t American. She thought it was probably English even though there was a little bit of a lilt to it, as if he might be from the Caribbean.
“I can’t decide between some sort of healthy smoothie and a Bloody Mary, so I thought I might order both.”
“I can’t let you drink alone. I’ll have a Greyhound.”
“What’s that?” Abigail asked.
“Vodka and grapefruit juice. Get two of them. That way you’ll have three drinks.”
She got out of the pool and walked, dripping, to the button. About five seconds after she pushed it, Brad entered the pool area; he must have been waiting just outside the door. “Can we get some drinks?” she asked, then gave her order.
The man’s name was Porter, and it turned out he was from Bermuda. After the drinks had arrived, she told him how she was on her honeymoon with Bruce, and he told her how he’d come here with a small group of insurance executives. The rest were sailing on the pond this morning.
“Not your thing?” Abigail asked.
“Actually, I grew up sailing, and didn’t want to see it done poorly by my colleagues. Besides, I’d been to this pool earlier and there was no way I wasn’t coming back before I left.”
“Has it been this quiet the whole time you’ve been here?”
He took a long sip of his Greyhound, some of the salt from the rim clinging to his upper lip.
“When did you get here?” he said. “Last night? There was a big group that left yesterday morning, but, yes, it’s quiet. Definitely quiet.”
Abigail had finished her Bloody Mary, tasted her own Greyhound, and was now halfway through her smoothie. She was a little tipsy and had to pee. But it felt good to be in the pool, making small talk with this stranger, and not obsessing over what she was going to do about the Scottie situation. She was all set to tell Porter that she had to go to the changing room for a moment but that she’d be right back, when the door quietly opened. She felt cool air move through the grotto room and expected to see the waiter coming to see if they needed more drinks. But it was Scottie, dressed in jeans and a hooded jacket. She could tell it was him by the way he purposefully strode along the edge of the pool to where she and Porter were lounging.
“Hi, Abigail,” he said.
“Hey,” Porter said, filling in the unnatural pause. Abigail hadn’t spoken yet. “You must be Bruce. Nice to meet you.”
“I’m not Bruce,” Scottie said.
“What’s your name again?” Abigail quickly asked Scottie, and he glanced at her with almost a hurt look.
“Scott Baumgart,” he said, crouching and shaking Porter’s hand.
“Scott and I met on my bachelorette weekend, and then totally by chance he showed up here,” Abigail said. “Small world.”
“No shit,” Porter said, then stretched his hands out, looking at his fingertips. He said, “I’m pruning up. It’s time for me to take off.”
Abigail didn’t know if he was actually wanting to get out of the pool or if he was sensing the weird tension between her and Scottie.
“Nice meeting you, Porter,” she said, then turned to Scottie and added, “I’d love to talk with you for a few minutes. Can we meet outside the changing room?” There was no way she wanted to be alone with him in the pool area, she in her bathing suit, he looming over her with all his clothes on.
“Sure,” Scottie said, and Abigail followed Porter up the stone steps out of the pool. She walked past Scottie without looking at him and went straight into the changing room.
She took her time showering, then slowly got dressed. There was a pitcher of ice water available—had that been there before?—and she drank two tall glasses. There were actually three exits from the changing room, one that went back out to the pool, the one she’d come in from that led to the tunnel back to the lodge, and another exit, which Abigail assumed led toward the ground-floor entrance. She decided that Scottie would most likely be waiting for her there. Before pushing through the doors, Abigail went through a mental checklist. She tried to remind herself that when she’d met Scottie he’d seemed like a nice person. He was attentive, he told her about his unhappy marriage, how much he loved his dog, how much his own parents loved his wife. He wasn’t necessarily a monster. He was a human being. She needed to try to appeal to this side of him first. Tell him that she was sorry he’d come all this way, but she really
