Harsh Oases Read Online Free PDF Page A

contribute?”
    “Larry,” I called, “show this lady my tab.”
    Larry sidled up behind the bar with his micro in hand. “Miz Nike, just be glad he’s not asking you for a handout. Look at this.” He showed my running total on his screen. “Good thing this boy’s got friends. Of course, his bill’s not growing so fast lately.”
    “I’ve been working,” I said hesitantly, as if I should have been ashamed.
    “Oh, really,” Nikki said. I could see she was itching to leave. “At what?”
    Larry had gone, so I said it aloud. “A novel.”
    She settled her trim rear more firmly on the stool, and I could see a real interest dawning. I felt suddenly guilty, despite having told the truth, as if I were passing myself off as something I wasn’t.
    “It’s about the Hesperides,” I said. Then, more confidently, “I’ve been gathering material, you see.”
    Now I had established that I was like her, only an interloper, a spy from the nation of artists, masquerading among these dilettantes and wastrels.
    “Why, that’s wonderful, Martin,” she said. “I had a feeling when we first met that there was something more that interested you than this existence.” She waved her hand to indicate the teeming noisy room, where coils of smoke writhed like uneasy spirits.
    “Perhaps you’d like to read it someday,” I said shamelessly.
    “Why not now?” she countered.
    “What about your fund-raising?”
    Her smile was wicked beneath her pert nose with its exquisitely flared nostrils. “I hope you don’t think I’m nothing but work, Martin.”
    And then she showed me what she meant
     
    We had a single glorious week before she had to leave. Nikki spent a portion of that time hitting up donors. But mostly we lazed on the beach, cycled around and across the big island, among the eucalyptus and spruce, and made love on Jasmine’s bed, which looked like a mutant Lunar Excursion Module dappled with color.
    Our affair was touched by the tenor of the times. The Wilderness Years (‘86-’96)—with their suspicion, narrow-mindedness, crusades and jihads—were almost over. Kennedy was in office, AIDS had been cured, the economy was booming, people were opening up. Oh, sure, there were troubles and global hotspots. When haven’t there been? Still, in this land, at this hour, tolerance and experimentation flourished, along with a healthy libidinous attitude. Everyone felt young, as if one would never die.…
    I don’t suppose we were circumspect. Nikki had no idea of my exact relationship with Jasmine, although the brawl in the club should have given her some notion. I didn’t enlighten her, in fact let her think Jasmine and I had some sort of open-ended understanding. So we let anyone who wanted draw whatever conclusions they might about the nature of our affair.
    That puts the blame for what happened squarely in my lap, and I don’t repudiate it.
    We spent a lot of time telling each other about ourselves. Nikki detailed her career before the aurorae, all the conceptual projects she had been a part of. I guess her big break was helping Christo wrap the World Trade Towers. Now she was a force in the artworld to be reckoned with in her own right These aurorae were only making her name even more of a household word.
    My past wasn’t so interesting, but I had one funny story to tell.
    “Did you know,” I said as we lay on our stomachs on grassy Sheepshead Bluff, “that you are looking at the last liberal arts graduate of Harvard University?”
    “No I’m not I’m looking at the sea. Much more fascinating.”
    “Look this way then, because I am.”
    She rolled onto her side, propped her head up with one hand. “What do you mean?”
    “You remember that big curriculum shakeup they had in ’Eighty-nine, after they saw their enrollment fall so bad? Well, they eliminated degree programs for all the liberal arts. And I graduated In ’Eighty-eight.”
    “Okay, I buy that much. But the very last?”
    “I missed the