VACANCY & ARIEL

He’s scared by what he’s beginning to feel for her, and he’s not yet prepared to turn loose of the pool ladder and swim out into the deep end; but his grip is slipping and he knows immersion is inevitable. At times, in certain lights, she seems no older than twenty. She’s got the kind of looks that last and she’ll still be beautiful when they cart him off to the rest home. That afflicts him. But then she’ll say or do something, make a move in bed or offer a comment about his book or, like the other night at the movies, the first movie he’s attended in years, reach over and touch his arm and smile, that causes him to recognize this is no girl, no beach bunny, but a mature woman who’s committed her share of sins and errors in judgment, and is ready for a serious relationship, even if he is not. That liberates him from his constraints, encourages him to lose himself in contemplation of her, to see her with a lover’s eye, to notice how, when she straddles him, she’ll gather her hair behind her neck and gaze briefly at the wall, as if focusing herself before she lets him enter; how her lips purse and her eyebrows lift when she reads; how when she cooks, she’ll stand on one foot for a minute at a time, arching her back to keep on balance; how when she combs out her hair after a shower, bending her head to one side, her neck and shoulder configure a line like the curve of a Spanish guitar. He wants to understand these phrasings of her body, to know things about her that she herself may not know.

The ninth morning after Cliff quit working for Jerry (he hasn’t made it official yet, but in his mind he’s done), he’s lying in bed when Marley, fresh from a shower, wearing a bathrobe, tells him she’s going to visit her mother in Deland; she’ll be gone two or three days.

“I meant to tell you yesterday,” she says. “But I guess I’ve been in denial. My mom’s sort of demented. Not really, though sometimes I wonder. She never makes these visits easy.”

“You want me to come along?”

“God, no! That would freak her out. Totally. Not because you’re you. Any man would freak her out…any woman, for that matter. She’d hallucinate I’m having a lesbian affair, and then all I’d hear the whole time is stuff about the lie of the White Goddess and how we’re in a time of social decline. It’s going to be hard enough as it is.” She hoists a small suitcase out from the back of the closet. “I want this visit to be as serene as possible, because the last day I’m there, I’m going to tell her about Orlando.”

“It’s not that big a move,” he says. “You’ll still be within an hour’s drive.”

“To her, it’ll be an extinction event, believe me.” She rummages through her underwear drawer. “One day you’ll have to meet her, but you want to put that day off as long as you can. I love her, but she can be an all-pro pain in the butt.”

Gloomily, he watches her pack for a minute and then says, “I’ll miss you.”

“I know! God, I’m going to miss you so much!” She turns from her packing and, with a mischievous expression, opens her robe and flashes him. “I’ve got time for a quickie.”

“Come ahead.”

She leaps onto the bed, throws a leg across his stomach, bringing her breasts close to his face; he tastes soap on her nipples. She rolls off him, onto her back, looking flushed.

“Better make that a long-ie,” she says. “It’s got to last for two days.”

After she’s gone, Cliff mopes about the apartment. He opens a box of Wheat Thins, eats a handful, has a second cup of coffee, paces. At length, he sits on the bed, back propped up by pillows, and, using Marley’s laptop, starts working on the book. When he looks up again, he’s surprised to find that four hours have passed. He has a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant on South Atlantic, then drives home and works some more. Around eight-thirty, Marley calls.

“This has to be brief,” she says, and asks him about his day.

“Nothing much. Worked on the book. Ate lunch at Lim’s. How about you?”

“The usual. Interrogation. Field exercises. Advanced interrogation.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“No, it’s not…but I don’t want to be here. That makes it worse.”

“Are you coming back tomorrow?”

“I don’t know yet. It depends on how much aftercare mom’s going to need.” A pause. “How’s the book coming?”

“You can judge for yourself, but it feels pretty good. Today I wrote about this movie I did with Robert Mitchum and Kim…”

“Shit! I have to go. I’ll call tomorrow if I can.”

“Wait…”

“Love you,” she says, and hangs up.

He pictures her standing in her mother’s front yard, or in the bathroom, a little fretful because she didn’t intend to say the L word, because it’s the first time either of them have used it, and she’s not sure he’s ready to hear it, she’s worried it might put too much pressure on him. But hearing the word gives him a pleasant buzz, a comforting sense of inclusion, and he wishes he could call her back.