“Wow,” you said. “You two make me and my dad look functional.”
“We live to serve,” I said flatly.
You made an impatient gesture. “Anyway. I do want to show you something. Come on,” you said, and you got out of the truck and walked up to the motel.
“Fine,” I said, to nobody. And I followed you inside.
The lobby was arranged around a pond, a fake palm tree in the middle of it. A huddle of pink lawn flamingos gathered next to the palm tree, metal legs disappearing into the murky water. A mural of a lagoon in Florida surrounded us, lurid sunset turning the walls orange and red.
A young, bored-looking guy wearing glasses sat at the reception desk. You walked over, nodding to him.
“You got it?” he said.
“Yep.” You handed him a Jiffy envelope and he slid it away, out of sight under the desk.
“Cool if we go to the roof?” you said.
“Whenever, man,” said the guy behind the desk.
You nodded toward a door at the back of the lobby and then opened it for me. “Jesus,” I said. “Are you a drug dealer?” I was remembering your saying that you’d made a delivery to Bayview; that this was why you knew about the cross streets.
“Not me. My boss.”
“But …”
“Turns out, that’s why they wanted someone with a driving license. I don’t have to shell shrimp, but I do have to deliver stuff.”
“But if you were caught …”
“I won’t be. And I need the cash. It pays better than the shrimp.”
“You can’t need the money that badly.”
You stopped and looked at me. “No? My scholarship only pays tuition and room and board.”
“Your dad—”
“Lost his job like three years ago.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“So,” I said. “That’s what you wanted to show me? That you were dealing?”
“Actually, no.”
We were climbing the stairs; we’d arrived at the top of the building. We walked down a gloomy corridor, past a flickering green fire-exit sign, and stopped at a door that said, POOL. OPEN 10–4 P.M., MAY TO OCT. NO NUDITY OR DIVING. NO UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN.
You pushed open the door, and we stepped out onto the roof. Pink lounge chairs were lined up next to a surprisingly clean swimming pool, the water clear and blue under the bright sunny sky. We were three stories up; you could see over the buildings on the other side of the street to the boardwalk, and the beach beyond, the sand almost golden next to the dark navy of the ocean. A container ship crawled across the horizon.
“Weirdly beautiful, isn’t it?” you said.
“Yeah.”
The pool was long and oblong. To the right of it was a bar area, a tiki-style thing with a straw roof. I figured they would be big on cocktails with umbrellas in them. Next to this was a small bandstand with mike stands, amps, and instruments sitting there, as if a band had been playing them and had suddenly abandoned them for some urgent reason.
At the edges of the roof were low walls. I could see why there were NO UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN. I could also see, by crouching, that when you were swimming you would barely see the walls—it would be as if you were swimming in the sea, nothing between you and the ocean.
You saw me crouching. “Cool, no?”
“Uh-huh.”
“When you’re in, it’s like an infinity of water.”
“Poetic.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
I walked around the pool. “You come here often?”
“You picking me up?”
I raised my eyebrows. Didn’t answer.
“Sorry. Yeah, I do. To swim.”
“You swim here?”
You tapped your waist. “Always have swim shorts under my pants. I couldn’t be a lifeguard—not enough hours. But I have to swim.”
“Have to?”
“My scholarship.”
I looked at the pool. Then I looked at you. “So swim.”
“Now?”
“Yeah.”
“Really? I don’t have—”
“You just said you always do.”
“Me and my big mouth. I’ll swim if you swim.”
I shrugged. It’s like I was saying, grief takes away your inhibitions. “Okay,” I said. “But you get in first. Then close your eyes.”
You shook your head, but it was kind of a formality; you were taking off your shirt, your shoes. Soon you were standing there in your shorts. I couldn’t help noticing the smooth ridges of your stomach. Then my eyes slid up and I saw something weird—a necklace around your neck, hanging down between your … between your, um, quite impressive pecs—but back to the point, the point being, it was kind of a feminine necklace. A silver chain, with a blue gemstone pendant of some kind. I thought it was odd, because it was totally the kind of thing a woman would wear.
But I didn’t get to think about it for long because you smiled at me, then dived in, knifing into the water with almost no splash, coming up halfway across the pool.
“Hey, no diving,” I said.
“And no nudity,” you said. “So don’t even think about it.”