Dream Me(52)

“Naturally.”

“Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

I’d almost forgotten the whole purpose of this walk. But it was such a momentous day for us, I didn’t want to spoil it.

“Nothing. Seems stupid now in retrospect.” It didn’t, but I was grappling for a story which would seem stupid in retrospect.

“Come on, tell me.”

“I was just going to ask you from a guy’s point of view what you thought I should do about Perry.” I couldn’t remember the details of how I started the conversation and hoped LeGrand couldn’t either. Or if he could, I hoped the Perry story would fit in somehow. I apologized to Perry in my head for lying about him so shamelessly.

“Perry? The dude who was your boyfriend in California?”

“Yep. He’s been wanting us to get back together and—”

“So he’s your boyfriend?”

“What? No—”

“But you said you had a boyfriend. Who were you talking about?”

“Well, I meant Perry.”

“Babe, were you just using Perry to keep me at a distance? Did you think I was about to hit on you or something?”

“No!” I tried to sound indignant but I felt like a fool. Lies, lies, and more lies. I hadn’t heard from Perry in weeks. And the last time I did, he never mentioned getting back together. I was being so deceitful, and LeGrand had been so brutally honest. I had to tell him the truth before he left. But not just then.

“I didn’t know he was still in the picture. Thought you guys broke it off a while ago.”

“Let’s not talk about him right now. It seems stupid after what you just shared. Another day, okay?”

“Okay. But then we’ll talk, got it? I want to help you if I can, and it’s not stupid.”

He reached over and put his arm around me and pulled me to his side. We snuggled like that for a minute but it wasn’t easy for me. All of his beautiful male physical presence. I wanted Zat so much.

__________

After a while we walked back down the long pier, taking our time as if neither of us wanted this moment to pass. Bending over the rail we looked down on silver schools of fish swimming around the pilings. Off in the distance, an egret seemed to miraculously walk on water in a place where the sand came up to just inches below its surface.

“Hey Babe, maybe that’s the joke.” LeGrand sounded sad.

“What joke?”

“Remember how you once accused me of thinking about a joke nobody else was in on. And I told you it was just the shape of my mouth?”

“Oh, yeah!” I laughed. “I remember.”

“Maybe that’s the joke. Everyone thinks my life is so fucking great. It’s pretty funny if you think about it.”

“That’s not funny.” I held his face in between my hands and looked right in his eyes. “Your life is fucking great. Or it will be once you own it.”

“Maybe you’re right. I hope you’re right.”

We held hands all the way back until we got to the marina. When he invited me on board The Lucky Lady for a drink, I didn’t have the heart to refuse. And if Clyde was on board, at least he had the decency to stay away. When LeGrand poured himself a shot of straight vodka, I put my hand over his.

“Why are you doing this?”

Without even looking at me, he dumped the contents down the bar sink and poured himself a Dr. Pepper. Neither of us said another word about it.





Eighteen


The next day began like any other, until it took an ominous turn. The Buells came in with their regular doubles partners. After their game, they sat at their favorite table overlooking the courts and ordered lunch and Bloody Marys from the main clubhouse. The lunch went on for a couple hours and the drinks kept coming. Eventually, the waiter, who’d been shuttling back and forth, just left a pitcher of Bloody Marys in our refrigerator. He also left a bottle of Scotch the men had ordered.

At some point, the women left, and the men kept working on the Bloody Marys until the pitcher was empty. Then they started on the Scotch. It was the slow time of the afternoon when the Friends program used to be scheduled, so Bing took a break since no one was around. I felt safe enough, because Kay was back in the storage room taking inventory. I hadn’t been alone with Clyde since the last horrible incident but he’d been behaving—or at least he’d been ignoring me, which was just fine as far as I was concerned.

After a while, I looked outside and noticed Clyde’s friend had left but Clyde was still there sipping his Scotch. It occurred to me he must have a liver the size of a basketball.

From this point forward, I remember everything in slow motion though it probably only took three or four minutes from start to finish. Each time I’d been in the same place with Clyde was like a domino, one leaned against the next one, barely propping up its neighbor, barely avoiding total collapse. In the end all it took was the flick of a finger, or that last sip of Scotch, to bring the whole thing down.

__________

I was folding shirts, the ones we sold. When customers check out our merchandise, they pull shirts from the shelves in order to look at colors and sizes. The next thing you know the area looks like someone’s dirty laundry pile, so part of my job was refolding the shirts and stacking them according to size.