comprehend that I had really and truly won ten thousand pesos. With much the same feeling of incredulity combined with exaltation, I walked behind those lithe legs, behind the rhythmic clench of the pink shorts. Something, ofcourse, would happen. Some clown would bash into the Volks. Or my boat would have sunk at her mooring. Or I would get the blind staggers and fall off the dock.
D Dock was asleep. Even Sid Stark’s big Chris was dark. Sid, in a prolonged evasion of civil actions in Jersey and California, lives aboard the
Pieces of Seven
with crew, tame clowns and sycophants and a busty starlet named Francesca Portoni. He throws parties for odd theatrical-looking types. Late, late parties. But the
Pieces of Seven
was dark tonight.
We walked quiet as thieves. She whispered she would be back in a little while. Amy’s normal sleep is more like a coma. I went aboard my
Ampersand
and became furiously busy trying to make it look less like a hall closet. I grabbed armfuls of clutter and stowed them in random places. I stripped the bunk and remade it with fresh sheets. I turned on the quiet little fan in the forward cabin. The corner light seemed too damn bright. After a few minutes of experimentation, I found that draping it with an orange hand towel made the proper effect. I fingered the day’s stubble and wondered if I should try to get in a quick shave. I wished I had champagne on ice. Cold beer didn’t seem suitable. I decided she wasn’t going to come back. I needed a haircut. I wondered if I ought to put pajamas on. I felt like a bride. She wasn’t going to come back.
Just as I plumped the pillow for the third useless time, I felt the slight shift of the boat as she came aboard. In hurrying to meet her I managed to nearly fracture my thigh on the edge of the table across from the galley.
She came in and looked at me solemnly in the dim, dim light. She wore a hip-length pale blue terry robe, belted so tightly around the slenderness of her high waist that it flared out around the tender circle of her hips. I sensed that the only thing under that robe was Anne, and I knew she had done that deliberately, to make it that much more difficult for her to change her mind. Her eyes were huge.
“Did Amy wake—”
“Don’t talk. Please,” she whispered.
I led her forward to the tiny sleeping cabin. Even in my altered light, the bunk with the top sheet turned neatly down looked far too crass and methodical. So I grabbedher with great clumsiness to keep her from staring at the bunk. Noses and knees got in the way. It was as deft as a first dancing lesson. When I found her mouth, her lips were firm and cool, and I felt her tremble. I continued the nothing-kiss, wondering what the hell to do next, until she pushed me away. With frozen face and desperate bravado, and the haste of panic, she slipped the robe off and threw it aside. She stood for a bold moment, not looking at me. The perfection of her stopped my breath. Ice maiden, with a pearly translucence, so immediate she seemed unreal. Sacrificial. I realized I was feeling humble, and it seemed like a brand new emotion.
She turned the sheet further down and sat on the bunk and, still not looking at me, she lifted her arms and undid the coronet braid. Her breasts lifted with her arms. She sat with knees and ankles primly together. When her hair was undone she combed it with her fingers until it fell long and gleaming to her shoulders. She bent over and slipped her sandals off. Only then did she straighten up and look directly at me. Her mouth was trembling, her eyes uneasy, her face waxy-pale.
A most curious analogy slipped across the surface of my mind. The timid little bull finds itself in the arena and looks forlornly at the men with their pics and banderillas and the sword that kills—and the little bull knows that despite its tremblings this is what all the imitators of Hemingway call the moment of truth and it must comport itself with bravery.
“The light,”