Adrift in his own thoughts, it took Bert an instant to respond when Sam grabbed his wrist. "Don't look now," he whispered, "but there's a Russian over there."
"Over where?"
Sam pointed with his eyebrows to the nondescript gray house on the other side of the canal, where, in the shade of an awning at a corner of the patio, a slightly built and crescent-faced man was looking at the water and sipping amber liquid.
Bert stroked his dog, said indulgently, "And what makes you think he's Russian?"
Excitedly Sam whispered, "He's drinking tea from a glass. From a glass he's drinking tea."
Bert looked a little closer. "Okay, so it's a warm day and he's having a nice ice tea."
"Ice tea my eye. Where's the ice, Bert?" Sam demanded. "Show me the ice."
It was a little far away to see an ice cube, but it was true there was no telltale shimmer, no prisms in the tea.
"Hot tea he's having," Sam said. "Hot tea from a glass. Now look at his left hand."
Bert peered across the patio, and over the seawall, and beyond the small canal, and saw their neighbor bring his left hand briefly to his lips.
"Sugar cube," said Sam. "He nibbles sugar, he drinks hot tea. Russian thing. My parents did it. Only a Russian drinks his tea like that."
Bert said, "Whaddya know," then scratched his dog to help himself think. Half-aloud, he said, "So now what—?"
"So now we go and say hello," said Sam, and he began the creaky process of rising from his chair.
Bert held him by the wrist. "We should have a plan at least."
But Sam's brain was on fire. He was thinking; he was helping; he was thrilled. He didn't want to lose momentum. "Come on," he said, "we'll just go introduce ourselves as neighbors. Doesn't look natural we make a big deal out of it."
So the two men rose, and walked to the end of their patio and across a narrow swath of coarse brown lawn to the seawall. Perched on the edge, Sam Katz turned toward the slim figure underneath the awning and shouted a hello.
Ivan Cherkassky looked up briefly from his tea, saw two more silly Americans at the rental house. Old men this time. One with clownish tufts of unkempt hair, the other wearing a loud shirt and holding an absurd and useless dog. He felt the dim irritation that goes with utter lack of interest. But rudeness drew attention so he tried not to be rude. He returned the hello, no encouragement attached.
Bert cleared his throat. "Just moved in, thought we'd introduce ourselves. I'm Bert d'Ambrosia. This is Sam Katz."
"Nice to meet you," said Cherkassky blandly. He didn't offer his own name, didn't get up from his chair, didn't move out of the shade.
There was a pause. Water sloshed very softly against the seawall, the late sun threw a round warmth that seemed to come from nowhere. The Russian decided he had held the strangers' eyes long enough to be polite, and he went back to his tea.
Sam Katz, feverish with thought, pawed the ground, groped for some way, any way, to keep the conversation going.
Finally he blurted, "I'm not supposed to say this, but we're gay. Welcome to America."
Ivan Cherkassky said, "Excuse me?"
"You're Russian, I believe," said Sam.
This was enough to pique Cherkassky's paranoia. Who told them? Why did they care? He said nothing but now he held his neighbors' gaze.
"The tea," said Sam, pointing vaguely. "So, are you finding opportunity here in the United States?"
"Opportunity?" Cherkassky said suspiciously, and he started rising from his chair. "No. Seeking peace and quiet only."
"Come by and have a drink sometime," said Bert the Shirt.
"Sometime perhaps," said the old Soviet, moving toward his house. "Now if you'll excuse me..."
He slipped into his kitchen, disappeared at once into its dimness, and the sliding door slid closed behind him.
Bert and Sam stood there a moment in the diffuse and buttery sunshine, then turned back toward their tiled patio.
On the brief walk across the lawn, Bert said, "Guy makes ya feel 'bout as welcome as a turd in a punch bowl."
"We broke the ice," said Sam, tugging on his Einstein hair.
"All ice, that guy is."
"Important thing, we broke the ice."
Suki Sperakis settled back in her claw-foot bathtub and caught herself wondering when, if ever, she and Aaron would make love.
She soaped her arms, sponged water on the tired muscles of her neck. It was time, it seemed to her. There'd been gazes, meals together, conversations that plunged quite suddenly beneath the skin of the safe and the polite. They'd glimpsed intimacy the way people glimpse stars behind swiftly scudding clouds.
Maybe that was the problem, she reflected, as she scrubbed the tiny webbings at the bases of her fingers, where soil had filtered through the gardening gloves. Maybe too much had already happened, and they'd missed their chance at mutual seduction, because seduction was a dance that strangers did. Circumstance had swept them past that phase, they'd missed it like an exit on the highway, and found themselves a long way down the road. They were friends by now, and friends did not seduce. Friends decided, with their eyes wide open. No teasing and no flinching. An honest yielding to the inevitable. It sounded like the easiest thing in the world. Why did it feel like the hardest?