Sexy Beast

  That makes Gertrude seem like an asshole. Was she implying she was reclusive because of her great mind? That’s bullshit.

  There are other telling trinkets: a framed photo here and there—all featuring people I’ve never seen; that entire tablet full of ebooks. But I sneeze three more times and realize I should probably leave the room. If not because of the cat, because I’d like to take a look around, see what I see, and find a bed. I’m all thrown off by what just happened on the beach, and frankly, I’d just like to leave. Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

  I pass through a cavernous kitchen, where pots and pans hang over a spacious, emerald-tiled counter cluttered with bills, sticky notes, and a returned envelope bearing Gertrude’s handwriting: a distinctive, angular script I recognize from photos of some of her early poetry notebooks. It’s stamped in royal blue ink with her name and address, and the stamp features an acorn. I rub my finger over it, wondering what it meant about her. She wasn’t Mrs. Gertrude O’Malley, but Ms.

  She and my mother’s father never married. She got pregnant but decided not to commit to a man she didn't love. At least that’s what my mom told me. She only met her father a handful of times.

  I put the letter back down and sneeze into my hand. Damn cat. I wander into the next room, a dining room with a radio sitting on the table, and a—

  “Aaahh choo!”

  I wipe my mouth and swipe at my eyes and glance around the room. Damnit if there’s not a white cat perched on the arm of one of the chairs.

  Shit. There’s another one under the coffee table, cleaning its hind leg with its tongue.

  So Gertrude was a cat lover. My mom liked cats, too—until we realized how allergic I am.

  A quick peek into the room next to this one reveals a cozy little den with a flat-screen, a small couch, a recliner, and a coffee table that looks like it was made of driftwood. Over the couch hangs a framed poem by Carl Sandburg: Fog.

  I don’t even notice the cat on the floor until I almost trip over him—or her. He/she is beige, like the rug, and so fluffy I sneeze twice just looking at her/him.

  “Damnit.”

  I stumble into the next room, my eyes burning and watering. This was clearly Gertrude’s office. On the desk is perched a brown and black cat; on the floor beside a rocking chair, a black and white one.

  I sneeze three times.

  “Jesus.” I grab a tissue from a box and turn a slow circle, built-in cedar bookshelves packed with hardbacks and several rickety-looking filing cabinets.

  I drop down in the desk chair and hold my hand over my nose, hoping no dander will get in. Which is futile. I know that. I wipe my nose with my hand, then turn my attention to the desk, floored for a moment to be at the famous Gertrude O’Malley’s work space. The first thing I see is a folder marked ‘family.’

  I open it slowly, feeling slightly as if I’m spying, and pull out a thin stack of papers. I can tell from the way the words are arranged on the pages that they’re poems. I shuffle them, and photos fall onto the desk. I’d know the face in those pictures anywhere: my mother's. I shove them behind the poems.

  My heart is beating hard. The few times I’ve gotten a never-before-seen picture of Mom since her death, I feel almost like I’m seeing her again. It’s new data about her, and it’s so thrilling I want to relish the buildup for a minute.

  I glance around the room again, noting details now: a one-handed Ghost Busters clock on one of the bookshelves; an encased baseball with a squiggly signature on the windowsill, in between burgundy curtains; a tube of lipstick on the edge of the desk, right out in front of me. I pull the top off and scrutinize the color: it’s pale, and almost purple. Why would she wear lipstick? What’s the point, if you’re never going to see anyone—except Race? I wonder how often she saw Race. I wonder if she thought he was attractive.

  I groan.

  Then I lean back a little in her office chair and read through the first of the poems. I’m not positive, since poetry is kind of veiled most of the time, but I’m pretty sure the piece compares my mother to a mirage, which makes me angry. My mom was real. Maybe Gertrude chose to relegate her to an almost imaginary figure, but she wasn’t. I set that poem face-down atop a stack of envelopes and try the next one, Farmer’s Wife. In it, Gertrude writes about beans in a pod, shucked open by a farmer’s wife. Thrown into a bowl, incapable of recognizing one another. There’s a sense of melancholy that makes me assume the beans are my mother and Gertrude. Maybe even me.

  Whatever.

  I’m relieved to find the third poem is about sea turtles. I’m sure there’s some more profound point, but I let my imagination stick to just the words, please, and imagine big, dopey turtles laying eggs in sand.

  When I’m finished, I turn the photos over. The first one is of my mother, wearing her undergrad cap and gown at the University of Alabama. My father smiles beside her. I can still smell him: yeast and tomato sauce; fresh cheese. He died in a car wreck, delivering pizza. I was four. My mom got pregnant with me when she was in her sophomore year at Bama, and they got married shortly thereafter.

  I hug the picture to my heart, then start to sit it on my lap. My jeans are still wet, though—actually, all of me is—so I grab one of Gertrude’s dumb poems, put it on my wet jeans, and set the picture on top of it.

  The second picture is my mother as a young child—maybe five. She’s wearing pig-tails and holding a ballerina doll whose plastic toes are pointed. I spend a long time staring at her smile. I never knew her as a five-year-old, have never seen a picture of her this age, but it’s still her smile. I love her smile.

  It doesn’t take long for tears to make my throat sting. I’m not in the mood to cry, so I stand up, sit the photos back on the desk, and wander around the office.

  A closer examination of knickknacks on the bookshelves reveals a clay paperweight with my mother’s initials, a framed photo of me as a baby, a copy of the Journal. In a corner, underneath the leaves of a giant fern, I find a size-eight pair of house shoes. I wonder absently if I could sell them for money.

  I return to the desk and sit down. I read the poem about the turtle again.

  I’m frustrated. Because the thought of leaving here tomorrow makes me depressed. Because I find myself longing for more of Race. Not him; what we did together.

  For the first time, I think of one of the things Carl told me when he left me. I was mad at him, screeching about how it should have been impossible for him not to know he was gay. He looked right into my eyes and he said, “It’s not because you’re female, Red. It’s because you’re boring. You don’t want anything that you can’t have. You’re always…satisfied.”

  And I thought that was funny, because I’m not. At all. My mother used to tell a story about how, as a baby, I skipped baby food and went right to chicken and potatoes. In school if I didn’t make a 95 or better on a test/quiz/report, my day was ruined. I’m never well-exercised enough, smart enough, funny enough. At least in my own mind I’m not. And it’s funny—it struck me as hilariously ridiculously funny that day, with Carl in the apartment—because he didn’t know that about me. I’d never been open enough with him.

  So in the end, maybe it was almost as much my fault as his.

  I walk slowly back through the kitchen, off which I find a tiny, blue-tiled half bath. I use a mini hair-dryer I find there to dry my clothes a bit, then walk back out into the garden. It’s humid. Hot, even at night. I walk to the edge of the yard, where the vibrant grass meets large boulders, piled between the yard and sea.

  I stare down at the swirling sea and think of mermaids. I wish I could just swim away. Tears sting my eyes, because I’ve been ignoring the depth of my desperation for months now. I have no one. Nothing. I wrap my arms around myself, protection from a brisk breeze. A gull caws obnoxiously. I sneeze a few times. I wonder what they think of me—a large intruder.

  I pull off my shoes and venture down some of the rocks, using hands and feet to balance on the steep descent. I start to feel
a little less frenzied. A little less allergic. I make it to the lowest rock, on the farthest end of the boulder pile, and stand there, letting the ocean spray my legs. I stick my foot in, up to my calf, and relish the shock of cold on my bare skin. The tide is high and getting higher. As I watch the gray sky and the waves that crest gently, further out, the sea settles over my feet and calves.

  I crouch down, submerging myself from the waist down. The waves break at my belly. I think: I could be pulled in. I really could.

  Moving slowly, almost robotically, I tug off my jeans. I want to feel the water. It reminds me of college. I was a swimmer.

  I pull my shirt off and toss it on the rocks behind me. I’m going in. Why not? I wait for a break between the waves and lower my whole self into the water. It’s cold, leaving me breathless. I kick a few times, searching for sand, but the water around the rocks is deep. A wave smacks me in the face. I kick out a few strokes, making it past the spot where the waves break. I check for current, finding none. Around my shoulders, waves lap at my neck and chin—but they’re not violent. I go under, emerging wet and cleansed. I turn over on my back and look up at the sky.

  Mom, where are you?

  I drift there on a wave, surprised at how quickly I’ve adjusted to the cold. I’m watching gulls circle, thinking how nice it must be to fly in a group like that, when I feel like I’m drifting. I get in free-style position and swim, but the current holds me in place. No, not in place. I’m being dragged out, slowly but surely. I swim at an angle, don’t panic. I’m a strong swimmer. I’m okay.

  I swim harder, am tugged harder. I fix my eyes on my shirt, crumpled on the lowest rock. The water’s almost reached it.

  I kick and stroke harder, till my muscles burn. The rocks grow smaller. So does Gertrude’s house.

  I’m feeling winded. That’s to be expected. I’m not in swimming shape anymore. I’m calm until I’m not. I’m calm until my muscles give out. When I realize I’m stuck—I’m caught in a rip tide—it’s too late to do anything about it.

  I throw my head back and scream. Then I’m pulled under.

  Chapter Four

  Wolfe

  I followed her to Trudie’s just so I could watch that ass in those wet jeans. When she went inside through the sunroom door, I circled back around, into the trees at the edge of Trudie’s yard, where I’ve got a tree house and a tool kit. The rocky shoreline around the cottage has been featured in several of my paintings. I like to capture the gulls as they swoop down for fish. Last summer, I painted a storm from here. That afternoon, the wet air and occasional sprays of rain made the oils layer less densely, so the clouds looked lighter, more illuminated. This evening, I’m going to see if the moisture in the air has the same effect on Red’s ass; her hips; her sweet, pink pussy. I want her as real as I can make her.

  I climb the stairs that wrap around a big oak tree and duck under a small, tin roof. I pull my kit out from under the wooden bench that wraps around the interior perimeter of the little tree house. I know before I take out my canvas, paints, and tools how I’m going to paint her. Red, spread out on the stones, her legs throw open, one finger rubbing circles on her clit, one finger knuckle-deep in her pussy.

  I pull out my fold-up metal easel and open the large plastic case where I keep canvases. I sit one on the easel and spend fifteen minutes or so readying my oils, using water from a bottle to get the brush the way I like, dabbing on a primer that I mix myself.

  I start out with a coat of pale beige, followed by a few streaks of pink. I layer on some blue and gray and blend until I’m satisfied with the tone of the sunset sky. My hands make quick work of the rocks, the grass, the flowers. This comes more naturally to me than my job in finance ever did. I’m ambidextrous, so when one hand gets tired or cramped, I hand the brush off to the other.

  On a whim, I do something I don’t normally do: I go ahead and etch my signature “W” in the lower left corner. It’s just another way to mark her. When I’m satisfied that it looks like all the other “W”s, I turn my attention back to the landscape.

  One rock is in the forefront, set off to the side, surrounded by small purple flowers. I put Red there, nude, with wild hair, hard nipples, and a sweet, red pussy. I remember driving into it, burying myself there. I remember her hands bound in mine, her body pliant and willing.

  I work a while on the glimmer of her skin: purest porcelain. Her hair: almost the same red as a strawberry. I capture the mounds of her breasts, the softness of her stomach.

  I’m breathless, swinging my legs wide so my cock can spring up. My balls draw up. I reach down and cup them, slide my hand inside my pants like a college kid and stroke up and down my length.

  Red.

  Jesus, what a fuck.

  It’s been a long time since I had this reaction—to anyone. I’ve come twice in the last two hours and here I am, needing it again because I can’t get her out of my mind. I’m breathing heavily, shoulders rising up and down, as I get her legs and cunt just right. I keep my hand on myself but don’t allow myself to come while I work the details out.

  I’m finally relaxing, dragging my palm around my head and heading back down to the base of my shaft, when I hear a scream.

  I know who it is and what’s gone wrong before I’m out of my tree stand. She’s caught up in the current, out beyond the rocks. I just know it.

  I fly through the trees, across the clearing, around the house, and down the rocks. I throw off my shirt and kick off my shoes and don’t take time for my pants, still damp and melded to my legs. I stop on one of the lower rocks and glance in the waves nearby; I immediately sweep the sea beyond.

  After a few seconds holding my breath, I see her head bobbing, far out. Christ, she’s so far out!

  I dive into the waves and come up swimming hard. The current’s strong here, even for me—and I played college water polo. It’s been a long time since I fought the tide and longer since I rescued someone. But if I can’t get my hands on her, she doesn’t stand a chance.

  Red

  I’m dimly aware of him pulling me through the water. My head tipped back, getting splashed with waves. Big biceps. Mmm. There’s an arm around my head. I have a dream that it’s James Wolfe and I’m his dead wife. I dream of Katie and my mom, cheering us on.

  Then I’m on the sand, and someone’s mouth pressed on mine. I’m sprawled out on my side, coughing, coughing, coughing…

  Stars explode behind my eyes, and everything seems washed in white. I’m feeling warmer now—so tired. I could float away… Except…my arm hurts. Both of my arms. They hurt. They hurt because someone is squeezing them.

  “Look at me, Red. Fucking look at me.”

  I try to obey.

  It’s him. It’s…Race.

  I cough again, and get a brief glimpse of his face. Then his hands are scooping under my back, pulling me against his chest. Big hands rub my hair and shoulders. His arm goes around me. His hand presses against the small of my back. For a dizzy minute, I wonder why he thinks he has to support me sitting up. Then I notice I’m shivering—really hard.

  “There’s a…current,” I grit between chattering teeth.

  He looks down at me. “No shit. It’s almost dark. What the hell were you doing out there?”

  “I d-don’t know.” I’m so cold. I feel like I might throw up.

  Before I can think more about the question, he scoops me up with his arm under my knees, carrying me against his chest like an injured lamb. I try to look around, to get a sense of where I am, what time it is, what’s going on. The last thing I remember was trying to keep my mouth above the waves and sucking in a huge mouthful of water.

  I get a glimpse of the choppy, gray ocean and the rocks around us. Then he stands to his full height and turns toward the grassy outcropping just above us, the one I climbed down to get here. The one in Gertrude’s yard. The sky jolts over us, and I can feel him climbing up rocks, toward her house. I press my cheek against his chest and squeeze my eyelids shut as tears be
gin to flow. I feel embarrassed. Scared.

  I hate remembering how quickly the current had me whipped, the way it spun me head first, like a tornado victim tossed by a cyclone. I could have died out there. I would have died had he not been there. Alone, a small voice whispers in my head. You would have died alone. Because you are alone. One single sob punches from my chest before I find the strength to clench my throat.

  The arm around my shoulders pulls me closer.

  Race leans down, and I guess he plucks his shirt from whatever stone he left it on, because as soon as he straightens back up, he wraps the button-up around my arms and chest. It’s cool and damp, but it still does the job; in a few more steps I’m feeling warmer. His hand rubs my arm. It’s gentle, moving in circles. Surprising…

  When I get the nerve to look up at his face, I can’t glean anything from it. He’s looking up, toward Gertrude’s cottage, which we’ve almost reached. His lips are pressed into a line, but he doesn’t look irritated or angry. He just looks focused.

  It only takes another minute or so for us make our way across the grassy lawn and up two stone steps leading to the front door. I’m wondering how we’re going to get inside when he steps over to a wall lamp by the door, sticks his fingers behind the bulb, and pulls out a shiny, silver key.

  I press my lips shut as he slides it in the lock and pushes the door open.

  As soon as he steps inside, his grip on me tightens, and I feel something change. His body seems to harden—like he’s angry. He lengthens his strides as he carries me through the hall, up some stairs I never even noticed last time I was here. His bare feet slap the hardwood floor upstairs as he shoulders through a little cedar door and stalks across a flower-crazy pink and white bedroom as if he’s going to save—or end—the world.

  I guess he’s angry at me.