Maggie gave a little shrug and said, "Not really."
"I'm going home for a glass of wine and a long soak in the hot tub. Want to join me?"
She blinked, and pursed her lips, and said, "I don't have a bathing suit here."
Not grinning then was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I summoned up the decades of relative maturity and used their gathered gravity to clamp down every muscle in my face. My cheeks got so tight that my eyes watered and I heard a ringing in my ears. I like to think I kept the grin to a worldly little curl at the corners of my mouth.
Maggie stared at me and finally answered with the tiniest lift of an eyebrow. We left the studio together.
19
Flinty, dry rosés get no respect in this benighted country, though there is no finer accompaniment for, say, cold poached salmon—or for getting naked with a new lover in the middle of a weekday afternoon. So I went into the wine room and grabbed a good Bandol.
Opening it, icing it, my hands felt blockish, awkward. I was nervous—I admit it. I tried to figure out if Maggie was too. It didn't show in her posture or her movements. Unrushed, smooth as ever. With her usual lack of ceremony she opened up the fridge, found some cheese and olives, put them on a tray. Then she asked me if I had an extra robe.
Robes! Why hadn't I thought of that? Terry cloth, shawl collar—very elegant, very Hepburn- Tracy. I ran up to my bedroom and grabbed a couple.
Maggie slipped into the bathroom to put hers on. I tried to feel suave and cool about this; I failed. She was in my house and removing all her clothing. This was an amazing concept. Her breasts would press against the inside of a garment that I myself had worn; her nipples would touch the very same terry cloth loops. Her freed loins would be barely hidden by curtains of cloth that would shift and flutter and separate with every breeze and every motion. Nakedness as close as a loosely tied belt.... Forget about whodunit and what was in the goddamn pouch—this was suspense.
She came out of the bathroom. Small faint freckles ran down her chest and underneath her collar. There was intimacy in the way she'd folded up the sleeves. I could manage nothing better than a tight congested smile. I stepped inside to change.
The panels of my robe would not lie flat. For some reason I thought of that old saw about hiding one's light beneath a bushel basket. Okay, let's not exaggerate—a half bushel would work. I arranged myself as best I could and went back into the kitchen.
Maggie had taken the food and wine and moved out by the pool. I joined her at a little table in the shade. Fronds were lightly rustling and rattling; they were silver from reflections off the water and they sounded like maracas. The air smelled faintly of chlorine, more faintly of iodine wafting off the ocean. We clinked glasses, though didn't toast to anything in particular. Arousal was making it hard for me to talk. We sipped some Bandol and nibbled some olives. After a while I reached across the table and gently seized her collar. I held the bunched cloth as though it were her flesh, and pulled her softly toward me. We kissed.
Her mouth was cool from the wine and salty from the olives.
I asked if I could see a little more of her. She answered with her eyes, and I coaxed apart the panels of her robe; I felt the friction as the nubby cloth slid against her belt. I saw that the faint freckles stopped at the tops of her breasts. The skin between them was very pale but had a russet cast. There was a beautiful rounded chevron at the place where her last rib arched above her midriff. I reached once again for my wine with a hand that was trembling slightly.
That's when the knock came at the door.
It was a loud indignant knock. Maggie pulled away by reflex and snugged her robe around her throat. I gulped some rose and muttered a curse and gnawed my lip. "It'll stop," I said, though in my heart I knew it wouldn't.
And I was right. The knock intensified, became a hammering, took on a rhythm, the whole routine. I sighed and got up from the table. "This won't take long."
I barreled through the house, smoothing my robe as I went. Ozzie Kimmel was peering in my window, crouching down for a better angle, shading his eyes to cancel the glare. I opened the front door and he pivoted to face me.
His tennis bag was at his feet, and he was wearing the same hideous tank top he'd been wearing that morning, but now sweat had turned the ugly orange pink back to a parody of its former red. Rivulets started in his armpits and ran all down his sides. Without a hello, he said,
"What the hell is it with you these days? Last time you just walk out. Today you don't show up—"
"So this means you peek in my windows?"
But Ozzie knew he had the higher ground and didn't give it up. "I hadda play doubles 'cause of you. I hate doubles! Lob, dink. Dink, slice. Fetch, fetch. Then your fuckin' partner misses. I hate it! What's so important you couldn't show up?"