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Chapter 4

Stealthily, Carolyn rose. She closed the bathroom door before turning on the light, and with swift automatic skill administered a douche, absently considering that she had not mentioned to Paul the extraordinary presence of Val Hunter in their pool. There was no reason to mention it—no reason to further upset him. She tossed the empty disposable douche into the wastebasket and turned out the light.

She curled up close to him, against the solid comforting breadth of his back, feeling vague arousal as she sometimes did after they had made love. His unhappiness over her work hours could not continue, she decided. A two week trial—then if he was still unhappy she would have to quit.

Quit, she thought wrenchingly. Maybe he would come around...

***

 

Four-fifteen. She looked at the digital clock with a surge of gladness. She did not have to get ready for work till four-thirty; she would spend this extra fifteen minutes dawdling over coffee and the paper. Paul muttered a sound of protest as she took her warmth from him, then rolled over and sank back into sleep.

The coffeepot was attached to a timer set for seven o’clock when Paul got up. She drank instant coffee and gazed at the darkened shadows of the house in contentment, leafing through the Times that had arrived faithfully at some mysterious earlier hour.

At five-twenty she let herself out of the house, pulling a sweater around her shoulders. An awakening pale light, concealing any threat of heat, lay over the Valley, over the joggers androgynous in their sweatsuits in the misty overcast. She drove the Sunbird slowly down Verdugo Road, loving the empty streets, the silence.

That afternoon she arrived home after work wilted by the brief walk to her car in the supermarket parking lot, depressed by reports on the radio of brush fires and first-stage smog alerts. The heat that had arrived that week had settled in, rising in waves from roof and pavement, creating erratic winds that scoured the tinder-dry hills.

She was surprised to hear the sounds from the pool. It was too hot, she thought, to move, much less swim, and the pool would be dirty from the wind, from the ash of fires on the nearby hills.

She drew the drapes aside. The pool looked clean enough; bare of twigs and leaves, but of course Val Hunter was every bit as capable as Paul of handling a skimmer. Carolyn watched her swim, a simple crawl stroke, the head position stationary even during the rotation to breathe, two waves flaring out from the top of the head, both small, one just in advance of the other and slightly the larger. The energy and drive of the body were compelling—the smooth propulsion, the completion of each arm stroke economical and unvarying, each hand entering the water cleanly, coming out cleanly. Powerful thighs generated a rhythmic kick, minimizing body roll, stabilizing the body perfectly. In only eight strokes Val Hunter traversed the forty-five-foot length of the pool and then flip-turned; Carolyn counted again and again.



Val Hunter hoisted herself out of the water at the shaded deep end, dragged a chaise out of the sun and under thick overhanging low fronds of the palm tree. She dabbed at her hair with her towel, then dropped exhaustedly onto the chaise, shoulders heaving.

After a moment’s hesitation Carolyn drew open the drapes, slid back the glass door, and stepped down into the heat.

“Hi,” she said awkwardly. “It occurred to me it’s hard to leap over the fence with a cold glass of something in your hand. Would you like a drink?”

Val Hunter took a deep breath. “You’re wonderfully kind to trespassers. Something cold would be great. Anything.”

“I’m having vodka and tonic. Would you like that?”

“Just tonic would be fine.”

She returned to the pool carrying her own drink and a tall glass of tonic with a slice of lime in it. Val Hunter raised herself on an elbow and drained half the glass. “Oh God that’s good.” She placed the glass on the cement beneath the chaise. “Neal insists soft drinks will eventually shred my kidneys,” she said cheerfully. “Ten-year-olds should be put in camps till they get over that sanctimonious stage.”

Carolyn chuckled, then looked away, into the pool. Drifts of silt had formed patterns on the bottom. “The water’s dirty,” she said.

Val shrugged. “I skimmed out the worst of it. It’s still cleaner than the ocean.”

“I need to change my clothes,” Carolyn said softly. “Would you…like to come in out of the heat for a while?”

Val drained her drink. “I’d love to be where it’s cool. I’ll get out of these wet clothes. Be over in five minutes, okay?”

Before Carolyn could respond Val Hunter had risen, towel in hand, had taken several loping strides to the fence and leaped, grasped the flat top, pulled herself up to hang poised for an instant, then disappeared.

 



Date: 2015-02-03; view: 712


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