Two Time

TEN

I NEVER TIRE of the smell of fresh-cut Douglas fir. I guess I would if I smelled it all the time, but I didn’t have to because Frank Entwhistle let me work more or less when I felt like it. Though he was definitely glad to hear from me when I called, the day after I’d been to see Ivor Fleming.

“I need a guy to do finish at the Melinda McCarthy job. Actually, tomorrow would be a good time to start. All the rock’s up and the floor’s in. She’s sort of eager to get in while there’s still a little season left. She’s on me pretty hard.”

“Timing is everything.”

“I’m ahead of what I told her, but she doesn’t remember.”

“I can only go so fast.”

“Not your problem. The pool’s almost finished. That’ll cool her off”

“Good way to focus the crew.”

“Don’t hammer any fingers.”

I didn’t call Sullivan or Gabe Szwit or anyone else that week. I didn’t want to think about Jonathan Eldridge or Jackie’s face. I wanted to earn a little money and chew on my meeting with Ivor Fleming without having to share every little detail with people who’d have more questions than I was ready to answer. I thought about Ivor’s meatballs, wondering what would have happened if anything had actually happened. It made me a little nauseated to think about. I’ve had too much of that kind of thing in my life. It’s not like exercise, where repetition builds up your strength. It’s the other way around. The more you get, the less you can withstand.

Not that I got hit as much as other people during my brief boxing career. I wanted to hit harder, I was just better at avoiding than delivering a punch. I was fast and athletic, but lacked the pile-driver power real fighters brought to the pursuit. I usually made up for it with a kind of blind, reckless fury.

But I got hit enough. In and out of the ring. And now, at this age, intimations of mental deterioration were stealthily eating at what was left of my indifference to consequences.

So instead of thinking about all the stuff I didn’t want to think about I spent the next two weeks putting trim, baseboards and crown moldings in Melinda McCarthy’s new house. She’d picked some fairly simple molded poplar, easy to work with and destined for paint, so it wasn’t a hard job. The painters were right behind me, plugging holes, caulking and sanding over my lapses in concentration. They were Spanish guys. Central American, as were most of the Spanish people moving into the hard labor jobs on Long Island. Worked like bastards. Kept their heads down, trying to be invisible to administrative threats. Friendly enough, amused by my mangled Spanish. I thought about asking them how to say “be a good Doberman and go bite your little shit of an owner” but never got around to it.

When I was done with the job I took part of my pay and invested it in a case of Absolut and a harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables from the fancy green grocer in the Village. Countervailing forces. I was just settling into one of my rotting Adirondack chairs with a plateful of celery and the first vodka of the evening when I caught some movement over at the place next door. Eddie was already trotting across the lawn in that direction.

The evening was warm, but a fresh westerly was doing a good job of sweeping the languid haze of the day off the beach so the magic-hour light of the sun could saturate the dune grass and hydrangea growing along the breakwater. It looked good on Amanda, too, as she strode across her lawn to meet Eddie and toss him another Big Dog biscuit. She had the type of skin that looked slightly tanned even in the dead of winter. But it was July, and she was a deep reddish brown, contrasting sharply with her pale yellow dress. I couldn’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses, but I could tell she was looking at me. I was about to look away when she waved. I waved back. No self control.

“I have a nicely chilled bottle of white,” she called to me, holding it aloft. “But I could use a place to sit.”

While I was working on a response she crossed her yard, stepped carefully over Reginas wildflower garden and the collapsed split-rail fence that divided the properties, and completed the trip to my Adirondacks. She usually had a way of hiding behind her thick auburn hair, but the freshening breeze off the water was brushing it aside, bathing her face in the evening light. Up close, the dress looked like some kind of rayon that flowed around her legs and painted itself across her midriff and breasts. She stood in front of my chair holding the wine bottle by the neck, tapping it distractedly against her thigh.

“And a glass,” she said.

“And a corkscrew. Unless you’re planning to use your teeth.”

“And an invitation would be nice.”

“You’re already here.”

She used the bottle to point to the other chair.

“To sit. You could say, Have a seat.”

I stood up and took the wine bottle out of her hand and brought it into the house. I pulled the cork and brought the bottle back with a wineglass. It was meant for red wine, but it was all I had. When I got there Amanda was in my chair, legs crossed with an espadrille dangling from her toe. Overall, you’d have to say Amanda was a beautiful woman, but her legs, now mostly on display, could stop your heart. She tapped on the arm of the other chair.

“Here, take a load off”

I poured her wine and lit a cigarette. She took a sip and leaned her head back in the Adirondack. I was grateful she didn’t want to clink glasses. Instead we just sat there and worked on our drinks for a few minutes, pretending to be hypnotized by the restless splendor of the Little Peconic Bay.

“I have to admit I was a little surprised you never wanted to talk to me again,” Amanda finally said, easing right up to the crux of the matter.

I was grateful to have the Peconic to look at, though I’d have been happier if a distraction like the Loch Ness monster or a flying saucer had suddenly presented itself. Instead I had to be content with the coming sunset lighting up the edges of the miniature bay waves, throwing off a warm glint in contrast with the cool blue of the troughs in between.

“Didn’t have that much to talk about.”

“Takes a lot of reticence to fill up eight months.”

“You had a lot to work out.”

“Alone, as it turned out. It’s common knowledge that women love to go through wrenching personal experiences on their own, with no help or support from people they thought cared about them. It’s a female characteristic. Steely resolve to go it alone. Take it like a man, so to speak.”

“I told you I always end in disappointment.”

“You did. And you never lied to me,” she said.

“I never did.”

“But I lied to you,” she said. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“It’s not what I’m saying. Though you did lie to me, since you mention it.”

She had been looking at me, but now got distracted by the Little Peconic Bay.

“The last time I saw you was in the courtroom,” she said. “Roy was giving his statement. He kept looking over the prosecutor’s shoulder, at the back of the room. I followed his eyes and saw you.”

Roy Battiston was Amanda’s ex-husband. He’d tried to scam her out of her inheritance, among other things, but I got in his way. Amanda might have been mixed up in those other things, I never worked it all out. Roy would have given her up, probably, but the deal I cut with him made that impossible. I don’t know why I played it that way, exactly. I never worked that one out either.

“I had nothing else to do that day” I told her. “Too much time on my hands. That’s why I started working for Frank Entwhistle. That and no money”

“You left without a word. I waited outside the courthouse for an hour, thinking you’d just gone off to buy a pack of cigarettes and you’d be back.”

I couldn’t help my eyes from drifting over to her bare ankle, which was connected to an agreeably fashioned calf and long muscular thigh, and then on up to her face, still partially concealed behind a pair of wraparound sunglasses.

“You look good.”

She tore herself away from the Peconic and shook her head at me.

“I’m trying to talk to you about the most difficult and painful things imaginable and you tell me I look good. You never told me that before.”

“I didn’t. But I thought it. So that’s kind of like a lie. A lie of omission.”

“It’s my nice yellow dress.”

“The dress is doing its part,” I agreed.

“That’s why I bought it.”

“Good choice. Fashion standards are high out here on Oak Point.”

“You’re avoiding and deflecting. Again.”

“I think the grandifloras almost all the way in bloom. Early this year.”

I whistled to Eddie, who was out on the breakwater asserting dominance over the local waterfowl. He trotted over and sat down in front of Amanda, looking expectantly.

“Your fault,” I said to her.

“Must be love.”

“Stomach love.”

He stood and wriggled up close to put his head in her lap, challenging further the capacity of the yellow dress to conceal the tops of her thighs.

“Hay que perro tan bueno,” I said to him.

Amanda mussed around with his ears.

“I tried to reach you at the hospital after they blew you up. But they said you didn’t want any calls.”

“I wasn’t blown up. Just blown around a little.”

“You and your lady friend.”

“Jackie Swaitkowski’s her name and she’s my lawyer.”

“I thought Burton was your lawyer.”

“He’s my friend. Jackie’s my friend and my lawyer. Come to think of it, Burton’s your lawyer.”

“Only because of you. To get me through the divorce and estate settlement. You can imagine how complicated that was. He did it because you wanted him to look after me.”

“I never told him to.”

Eddie caught sight of something moving out on the pebble beach and bolted after it. Amanda got up and followed him, bringing along her wineglass. I stayed put so I could watch the way the breeze brushed her thick hair all the way to one side and messed around with her dress. I remembered the first time I saw her walk across a beach, coming toward me against the wind. It was the first time I saw her whole face. Something about it dislodged a critical component inside in my brain. My better judgment, maybe, but that’s what happens when your brain dislodges.

“I’m a fool for coming here,” she said, back from the breakwater and standing in front of me.

“Too late for that.”

“Too late?”

“Regret and self-incrimination. They’re disallowed. Oak Point regulations. You’re permitted to avoid and deflect. Even lie by omission. But you’re not allowed to come out here, looking like that, and move in like you own the place, even if you do, and start angling for sympathy and understanding with idiotic throwaway lines like that.”

She whipped the last mouthful of wine on the ground and pointed the glass at me, anger gathering around her eyes.

“Can I refill that for you?” I asked before she could say what she was about to say. She stood frozen for a few moments, then relented. I picked up the bottle as she held out her glass.

“It’s easy to see why people stay clear of you,” she said.

“I’m working on that. Trying a little self-improvement.”

“Let me know if it takes,” she said, sipping her wine and slowly lowering herself back into the Adirondack.

We put our heads back and silently watched the evening settle like a velvet blanket over the bay. The conversation from there was blessedly superficial and free of disturbing undertones, and the drinks blunted whatever ambition either of us had to journey into more treacherous territory, so when the sun finally dropped below the horizon she went back to her house and I went into mine to get some sleep, however tortured with remorse and tangled in conflicting impulses it would have to be.