What happened, what happened?
He drew the thick blanket round his shoulders and leaned his head on the wing of his chair. Against the chill in the room, he felt warm and drowsy. For just a minute, he closed his eyes. Just a catnap. His coffee went cold.
*
Young again, the four of them, before the boys, before the nightmare years. The last September before the girls were expecting, right before the nine-month watch began. The summer people had gone away, the rows of cars parked bumper-to-bumper along the seaward lane, the French Canadians with their canvas rolling carts and beach umbrellas took their sandals and sun hats back to Montreal and Quebec. The millionaires returned to work in New York and Boston, making money once again. Gone the college kids on their endless breaks, the hordes of temporary workers at the beach bodegas and lobster shacks. All cleared out. An Indian summer Saturday upon them, bright and clear September, and it was just the four of them at the Wellers’ home, Tim and Holly, Fred and Nell. Still new and fresh to one another, late twenties and free of care.
The red shells and splintered claws were strewn on dirty dishes like bones in a boneyard. Remains of a salad wilted in a wooden bowl. Empty wineglasses stood tall in ranks of red and white, here and there puddled with the dregs, one comrade toppled on its side, the merlot stain spread like blood on the tablecloth. A pinched roach had been extinguished in a saucer of drawn butter. They had started early that afternoon, firing up another couple of joints on the sun-drenched deck, the glorious feast at dusk, and after the food and wine, a cold dip in the ocean under a full moon. And then back for more wine, another smoke, and Fred fell asleep outside on a chaise longue wrapped in a beach towel against the chill. Around midnight, Holly curled up on a settee in the Wellers’ living room till she, too, was lost in deep slumber. The windows were open to the sound of the lapping waves. Another bottle of wine uncorked, another pair of wineglasses in the low light of the dining room. From his chair, Tim watched Nell glide across the floor, her sheer wrap parting along the seam at one tan thigh.
“Happy?” she asked. Her smile anticipated his reply.
“Delirious,” he said. “Stupendous, wonderful.”
“What makes you so wonderful, Mr. Keenan?”
With a grand sweep of his arm, he took in the whole room and the outside world beyond. “Good food, good drink, good company. A splendid end to summer.”
She stood before him, the wine in her tipped glass rolling like a wave. “I thought it might be me, Mr. Keenan, that made you happy tonight.”
Looking up from his chair, he studied her face, realizing at last that she was playing, flirting with him. “Yes, you, too. I’m always happy when you’re around.”
Her wrap came undone, exposing the red and blue of her swimsuit. She laughed. “You’ve been staring at my tits all evening, Mr. Keenan.”
“They are magnificent,” he said and drained his glass. “You are magnificent.”
In an instant her expression changed from smiling to sober, her eyes catching the light from the overhead lamp as she drew near. Close enough to smell the ocean on her skin, she stood above him and leaned forward, trapping him with her hands wrapped around the arms of the chair. He made no escape but sat quite still, his breathing matching hers.
“There was a wicked man,” she said, “who had a wicked thought.” She laid her hand against his bare chest and drew one fingernail down his breastbone. When she kissed him, her mouth tasted of smoke and butter, and he reached his hands beneath the fabric of her cover-up. She turned her wrist and slid her hand under the waistband of his trunks, and with the pad of her thumb she rubbed the tip of his erect penis. His hands wandered to the bottom of her bikini, sliding it quickly to the floor, and she stepped out of it, kissing him deeply. With a practiced shift, she rolled his swimsuit from his lap and straddled him in the chair. It all happened so quickly, punctuated by her faint moans, and he drank her in, the softness of the skin at her nape, the way her hair fell and covered his face.
“But Fred. And Holly—”
With one finger against his lips, she hushed him. “Our little secret,” she said, each word accompanied by the roll of her hips. When they were finished, she kissed him on the forehead, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was dressed, and glancing back once at the spent man in the chair, Nell sauntered away on bare feet and went through the patio doors to check on her husband asleep under the stars. Inside, Tim watched them from behind the transparent doors, bodies by the ocean, trapped in his own dark reflection.