Black Water
Buffy's cottage, she'd read about the wildlife sanctuary a few
miles away, yes Buffy had gone of course many times when she was a kid and the
family spent summers out here but she had not gone in recent years and maybe
next day if Ray was in the mood they could drive over it was a beautiful place unless they all had hangovers unless
Ray had other plans unless it was just too hot but Kelly was thinking yes she'd
go by herself preferably, she'd make a point of going, borrow someone's car or
maybe if it wasn't too far Buffy's bicycle: a brand-new mountain bike.
    Have
you ever ridden one of these before?—no? Try it.
    Gripping
the handguards , her feet on the pedals, rising,
standing at first, spine arched, buttocks arched, long coppery hair whipping in
the wind, smiling at the childish pleasure of hurtling herself along the beach,
the bicycle's thick ridged tires biting into the crusty sand, what quick speed,
what happiness, little Lizzie flying as Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa
watch, Oh be careful honey! careful ! but she'd laughed flying out of the range of their eyes,
their voices.
    Now,
at Buffy's, in her new swimsuit fitting her slender body like a glove, white
spandex, teasing little pearl buttons, a single strap, the invisible underwire
bra lifting her breasts pushing them together so there was a shadowy cleavage
and she'd seen his eyes drop there unconsciously,
she'd seen his casual gaze take in her ankles her legs her thighs her breasts
her shoulders bare except she'd slipped on a daffodil-yellow crocheted tunic
out of modesty perhaps out of her old shyness regarding her body so unlike
Buffy in her silky black bikini her campy-lewd glitter-green fingernails and
toenails, Buffy with her flawless skin, her funny "faux" ponytail,
brash enough and confident enough to slap her thighs in Ray's presence crying
Cellulite! that's what this is: cellulite! I'm too
fucking young for cellulite God damn it!
    And
they'd all laughed. He'd laughed.
    Buffy St. John who was so beautiful. So confident in her oiled heated skin.
    Since freshman year at Brown Kelly
had had the habit of starving herself to discipline herself to maintain
rigorous control to lighten her menstrual periods and, after G-----, to punish
herself for having loved a man more than the man seemed to have loved her, but
this past year she was determined to be healthy, to be normal, forcing herself to eat regularly and
she'd regained eleven of the twenty pounds she'd lost, she slept without
sleeping pills not requiring even the single glass of red wine she and G----
had made a ritual of before going to bed during those three months G----- had
actually lived with her: not even that.
    So
she'd regained health, normality. She was an American girl you want to look your
best and give your ALL.
    Yet avoiding the house in Gowanda
Heights. Guilty of making her mother worry
about her, guilty of provoking quarrels with her father, those
"political" quarrels that were really about Daddy's authority
unheeded, but relations between them were all right now and Kelly was fine now
discreetly avoiding certain of her old friends the embittered idealists the
angry pro-abortionists and even Mr. Spader after this most recent divorce (his
third) unshaven, potbellied, losing his fiery hair, sixty-year-old babyface the dimpled smile grown dented, sodden, and she'd
been acutely embarrassed that day in the office feeling his eyes on her,
hearing his hoarse breath, there were hairs in his ears and nostrils like Brillo wire poor Carl Spader once a media personality an
eloquent young white associate of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy and
now the dismal storefront office on Brimmer Street
and Citizens' Inquiry with its fluctuating
circulation of 35,000-40,000 where at its peak in 1969 it had had a circulation
of 95,000-100,000 rivaling The New Republic but never get Carl Spader
going on the subject of The New Republic, where in fact he'd worked
for several years after college! never get Carl
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