34 Seconds (5 page)

“Just a beer, thanks, Liza,” I said after putting my sister’s car keys in my coat pocket and finding a chair to drape the coat over. “Will didn’t cheat on me, Liza. We broke up years ago. I am married with two wonderful children now. Will and I have remained good friends, and I’m happy to see him happy.” Smiling and saying it out loud, I really did believe it. Or I thought I did, anyway.

I’m not sure what happened to the beer I asked for, but next thing I knew I was drinking a bright red drink resembling what I remembered of hurricanes but with tons of rum and an extra shot of vodka. Within minutes, Liza was explaining her cheatin’ heart comment, but instead of a cheatin’ heart makeover, she now had mascara smeared across her cheeks. She told me all about the boy who broke her heart after a year of dating and promises of marriage. I could tell all the talk of Will’s wedding was upsetting for her. I had no idea she was going through so much pain. I knew they broke up, but I hadn’t expected tears and heart wrenching stories of dreams being ripped from her soul.

After dumping the rest of my drink down the sink drain and grabbing a Corona from the fridge, I realized I was in for a night of consoling and listening, and I needed to stay sober to get through it all. This was not a girls’ night for us to laugh, have a drink, catch up, and talk of old times. This was a vent about men night. I didn’t have anything horrible to say about men. I had a wonderful husband who was sitting in the house where I had grown up, taking care of our children, and listening to my father talk about politics while I sat here listening to broken dreams. All the while my ex-boyfriend from many years ago was down the street getting ready to wed a woman I’d never even met. Not that it really mattered much, but my secrets included wondering who she was, what she looked like, and if she was anything like me.

“Dreams. Shattered dreams, I tell ya. He took my dreams away from me there. In my heart I knew he was gunna break it. I knew it in my dern heart. Knew I shouldn’t a loved ‘im like I did. Shouldn’t a let him think I was ready for a house. Kids. Marriage. Nik, how are the girls? They doin’ good? We were gunna have kids a our own. Did I tell ya that? Yep, he was gunna marry me. I should a gotten knocked up. Then where’d he be? Tell me that, Nik…just where would that dern bastard be then, huh, if I were knocked up?” Liza wasn’t stopping. I guessed she didn’t really want to know about my children, even though she had asked. This was a true bitching session, and my job was to make sure she stayed up right, hold her hair if I needed to, and listen and nod my head at the right moments. I knew not to really answer any of her questions about this heart breaker, and I quickly learned she had been drinking long before I knocked on her door. I wondered if she was this noticeable when she saw Chris and our children earlier and hoped she walked or had ridden her bike at least to Natalie’s house when she was looking for me. Natalie lived almost a mile away, but even if Liza had ridden her bike it would have been safer than driving. I didn’t have time to mother my oldest friend, though.

“Liza, let’s go outside and get some fresh air. Is the pool still down the road? The one where we used to meet Will and Brian?” I started to guide Liza to the back door. The pool, if I remembered correctly, was another five or six houses away. It was a great pool when we were kids. Filled with saltwater to match the bay surrounding us; it was always warm and soothing. We used to sneak in after it had closed for the day. I didn’t think I’d even been there during open daytime hours. We’d all walk down the road from Liza’s grandmother’s house, where Liza lived, climb the fence, take off our clothes, and dive in. At first taking off our clothes was a matter of not getting busted. If we had dry clothes to put on when we were done, we could explain to anyone who might ask that we weren’t swimming in the pool, just hanging out around the pool. Years later, it didn’t make much sense, but I guess it was a good thing we never got caught naked in the pool. Well, by our parents at least. After a few times skinny dipping, it became a fun event, and as we got older, it added some erotica to our evenings. Especially when Will and his best friend would come out to play with us. I fell in love with him in that pool.

“This way, Liza. Just how much have you had to drink today? Let’s get some fresh air. Yeah, this way, babe,” I said while guiding her down the steps. My mind wandered to the first night Will and his good friend, Brian, showed up at the pool.

***

It was the start of summer after graduating high school. Liza and I were both eighteen. She and I were already in the pool and already naked, just starting our nightly swim. It was just the two of us. Our dry clothes were waiting on a plastic lawn chair someone had left at the pool. Of course we never thought anyone would ever notice wet hair, because we never did anything to make ourselves actually look like we weren’t just swimming. But we also never got caught. At least not by adults. We didn’t hear them come up at first. I think we were gossiping about the yacht club boys who visited each summer. Liza swam down to the deep end giggling over some guy who won the regatta earlier in day. Not wanting to talk about boys anymore, I stayed in the shallow end bobbing up and down, my perky little boobs barely moving as I jumped in the water. I heard a squeal and Liza yell something unintelligible before going under water. Then I saw two figures run through the dim light with bundles of clothing in their hands. They had taken off with our clothes, and we didn’t know who they were or where they were going. After doing the teenage girl freak out, we realized at least one of us could get back to Liza’s grandmother’s house without neighbors seeing us, but we had to wait until about midnight, after the nightly news was over, and the neighbors went to bed. Until then we’d just swim. On edge.

We stayed huddled together in the deep end where we felt nearly invisible in the dim light of the moon. It only took about fifteen minutes for the two clothes stealing boys to come back to the pool. Only when they walked through the gate, they were stark naked too. They stood there in the moonlight with their treasures hanging loose. It wasn’t a well-lit night. The moon was almost a half moon, but it was quite cloudy. We couldn’t really see anything. Neither of us knew what to say to them or to each other. After standing on the edge of the pool for a minute or two, I heard one say, ‘Ready?’ and then they both cannon balled into the saltwater pool. I wondered if and how much it would hurt a naked boy. Liza and I were back in the shallow end, and when they came up, we both started cussing at them. Being naive teens, we certainly weren’t thinking any harm could come of us. We were trying to sound like we were really upset, but really wondering what fairy godmother had come our way and sent the two gorgeous naked guys into our pool.

We spent the rest of the evening in the middle of the pool. Away from the shallow end where shadows hide, and boobs can be seen clearly by the soft light of the moon. They were both from Richmond. Will’s grandfather owned a house on the Chesapeake Bay nearby, and he decided to spend the summer at his house to help out with the maintenance. Brian was Will’s best friend and was here for the week. After spending the evening naked in the pool with two local girls, he decided to stay the summer with Will. I guess there was too much to do around the house for one cute boy. Watching them do the yard work was a fun and exciting past time for Liza and me all summer. It always meant they would be shirtless and sweaty.

“What do ya’ll do here during the winter months? My grandfather lives here all year now, but I’ve never stayed for more than a weekend. It seems most of these houses here are summer homes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a local outside of the cashier at the Stop and Shop,” Will said, talking of the old lady who usually forgot to put in her teeth before heading to work at the local super market. I was never sure how that place had stayed open this long. No one who lived locally shopped there. There was a Wal-Mart fifty miles away, and locals usually shopped there about twice a month. If you were out of milk and were in desperate need, you’d go to Stop and Shop and pay six dollars for a gallon of milk which was sure to expire the next day. The locals all knew only the summer vacationers shopped there.

Liza spoke up. She was never very tolerant of the summer folks and the ignorance they brought with them each year. “We may not be a thriving metropolis, but I’ll have you know we have a few hundred people who live here year round. We could all live just fine without all you summer folks coming in and filling our streets with big Suburbans, expecting to get your big ass boats down our little country roads. At least us locals don’t go around stealing clothes from a lawn chair late at night.”

Brian spoke this time, but I could tell Liza was just getting more and more irritated by the minute, “Whoa, he’s sorry, girlie. Don’t go flying off the handle there. Your clothes are not far away. All you have to do is go get them.”

“Girlie! Did he just call me girlie?” Liza climbed out of the pool ready to join a fight. Only then she realized she was naked, and her boobs were exposed. In haste, she found her footing on the concrete and delicately placed an arm in front of her chest, leaving the rest of her totally exposed.

“Yes, he did, Liza, but he also said our clothes are close by, so don’t piss him off until we know where they are. And, by the way, covering only your boobs while standing naked outside of the pool defeats the purpose of covering anything at all,” I whispered to her. “How about we get off the local talk, and you two tell us what you’re doing out here at a private pool at this hour?”

“It may be private, but I know it’s open to anyone who lives here in Stingray Bay Hills and their guests,” Will said swimming a little closer to me. I felt my hand touch my stomach as he got closer. Not exactly hiding from him, but feeling a little self-conscious, I kept my hand on my belly in an effort to calm the butterflies taking flight.

I don’t remember many details of the conversation after he moved closer to me the first night we met Will and his soon to be best man. Once the ice was broken and we were laughing, it wasn’t long before Will and I were in the deep end getting to know one another a little better. My memory of it could still generate a nice tingling sensation in my groin, but he was really very respectful and didn’t even try for a simple kiss. Instead he flirted a lot, making me think he was as interested in me as I was in him.

***

“Ow!” Liza brought me back to present day as she moaned when she tripped over a tree root. There was another sign the world around me, the world was once so clean and pure from a little girl’s eyes, was changing. Tree roots were jumping above the ground, poking through grass and causing grown women to catch themselves before falling flat on their faces. It was then I noticed a new street light near the pool, along with the same old wooden short two-rail fence and a new lock on the gate. I guess over the years there became a need to secure the pool from intruders who would jump the fence and swim late at night. Someone put a lock on a gate only about three feet tall. Anyone could just as easily climb the fence and still get into the pool. The only deterrent today was the mold and moss growing on the wooden fence, making it a bit slippery. I almost fell onto the concrete climbing over the fence.

“There it is, Nikki. There is our pool! Hey, you know it’s not salt water anymore, right? Some loony local made it a chlorine pool. Said something about if you want to swim in salt water, the bay is right there. No one argued, so it’s chlorine now.” Liza walked ahead and sat down on a bench and took her shoes off. She threw her head back and started to breathe in the salty air. Salt from the bay, not from the pool. More change for me to process.

Chlorine. No salt water to taste. No salt to feel on my skin.
If
I were to get in. I hadn’t even thought about swimming at all, but when Liza told me it was chlorine, I suddenly felt like I had to get in and swim. Suddenly I really wanted to feel and taste the salt water. And I was upset it wasn’t there. I may not have wanted to swim at all until I saw another piece of my past change for the present. Tree roots above ground, mossy fences, and chlorine. What else could be happening to my world there?

Then I saw him. Will. Standing there against the fence, with his curly locks hanging slightly in his eyes, shorts, and a cotton button down shirt, fitting just loose enough to look sexy. Sexy. Holy shit. I could have been looking at the man I loved so many years ago. I think it is marriage and parenthood which ages us so fast. Will hadn’t been down the road of marriage yet, of course, so he was still as hot as ever. I thought about telling him before he took the fork in the road. I had paused long enough, letting my mind wander to the last time I saw him here. We had decided to meet up, and we simply sat on the cliff just on the other side of the pool playing guitar and singing songs. It was so fun and so romantic. Several people on kayaks and row boats stopped at the bottom of the cliff, listened, and applauded when we were done. I knew no one was applauding me. I had stopped singing long before the boats showed and became once again mesmerized in his reedy, deep voice. The voice which could melt my heart within the first few words. That was the last time we’d made love. Our evening on the beach was spent discovering each other again, years after our loved ended, with sand fleas jumping on the blanket we tried to stay on while rolling around, exploring our bodies as if we’d never touched before. It was the last time I had sex with someone other than my husband, since we started dating just after I returned back to Colorado. And it was the best sex I’d had in years. He held me like he never had before. Touched me with similar emotion. That was the night I learned love making could be about the other person enjoying you as much as you both enjoy the orgasm. Even earlier in our relationship, we were so young and naïve, the sex was good, but it didn’t have the emotion behind what I had experienced with him later. His tongue explored my body, tasting me as I yearned for more. He moaned and looked up at me saying something, making me giggle. I tried to pull him up, but he said he wanted to lick more, taste more, and feel more. Then his fingers alone drove me into an orgasmic frenzy. His tongue and fingers together, the emotion with which he touched me, the way he seemed to want to please me more than have sex for himself; those are the things I remember about our last day together, long ago. Selfless love and amazing sex.