Night Swimming (11 page)

“I know it’s none of my business, Miss McBeal, but I can’t help but wonder why you’re paying like this.”

“Well, you can blame it all on Mr. Dow and Mr. Jones.”

“Excuse me?”

“I lost a fortune in stocks when the market fell, and at that moment decided to save my money the old-fashioned way. I would not be talked into too-good-to-believe investments after my first million was lost to a stockbroker’s bad judgment. Not me. So I began saving my money where I knew it would be safe. At home.”

“But why didn’t you put it into a bank?”

“A bank! Absolutely not. Those bankers are robbers. They’ll take you for every penny you’ve got.” Blossom couldn’t help but be amused by her own mockery. Between MaryAnn and herself, she was always the better storyteller, always the one to get them out of a pinch, but she was still surprised by the tall tales tripping off her tongue.

“They want you to put your money into CDs, they say, so it will grow. Baloney. You can’t get your money out for six months when you do that. And sometimes it’s a year. No, the mattress was good enough for me.”

“Clearly!” Sandra Lockley said, her eyes wide with amazement. Any thought of Blossom’s coming by this money illegally had been dispelled; her customer was clearly just eccentric. But how she had actually made the money was still a mystery.

“If you don’t mind my asking, Miss McBeal, what did you do for work before you moved to California?”

“Oh, I didn’t work. I played the horses.”

Blossom didn’t know a lot about horses, but she knew something. Two towns away from Gorham stretched the Wonderland Racetrack, which she had visited with Tom Barzini, her intended. Tom loved the races. As a matter of fact, Tom enjoyed many things that he didn’t share with Blossom. He had often ignored many of her questions about what he did or where he would go.

There was a part of Tom that felt like a black hole to Blossom, a density of secrets and stories yet untold. But she chalked this up to someone who was simply private, and figured that when the time was right, Tom would open up to her. She wondered if he revealed his secrets to MaryAnn, but she forced herself to stop thinking about this. It could ruin what was so far a good day. All that mattered now was that Tom had taken her to the track enough times so that she could bluff her way through with Sandra Lockley.

“Yup. The track. Sometimes I was just lucky. I won more than a couple of trifectas in my day. There were some races I’d just take chances on when the odds were stacked against me. And on those occasions... well, I’d come out smelling like a rose.”
Wow. I’m good. I especially like that “smelling like a rose” part. It’s like l’m Faye Dunaway in
Chinatown
or Jackie Gleason in
The Color of Money.
No, wait, not Jackie Gleason. Too much of a resemblance. Paul Newman—yeah, that’s better. I’ll be Paul Newman. And I love his buttered popcorn. Perfect.

Sandra Lockley looked horrified, no doubt envisioning Blossom at the track, flapping her fat hands in the air with a wad of sweaty hundreds.

“Isn’t that something!” was all Sandra Lockley could manage to get out.

By nine the money had been counted up, and Blossom was the proud owner of a fancy, furnished Hollywood apartment with an inground kidney-shaped pool on a street lined with palm trees.
There, so you see, MaryAnn, dreams can come true.

And so Blossom moved in with her four suitcases, two of them empty now, and two of them still bulging with their secret contents. She walked from room to room, trying to get accustomed to her new surroundings, but every room drew her to the windows that overlooked the pool. Where was he? She could feel her curiosity creeping into a mild obsession. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirrored entryway, she wondered if she had a snowball’s chance in hell that he would ever find her remotely attractive. She pulled her belly in and lifted up her breasts, trying to reduce the property size of what felt like no less than an acre of flesh.
There’s just too much of me.
She lay down right there in the foyer and threw her arms over her head, trying to look longer and leaner.
Better—still horrible, but a tad better... it’ll be tough to go through life in this position.

She rose and walked back to the window and looked one last time before closing the drapes. She hoped closed curtains might help break the spell she now found herself under. But just as she was about to pull the tie, she saw him. There he was: shirtless, strong, and sexy, a vision among the roses, a virtual homage to the glory of love. Her eyes fixed on his back with a laser precision.

Turn around, just a little so I can see your face.

He leaned in Blossom’s direction, ever so slightly, but enough for her to see him.

Oh, my God, you’re beautiful.

She could not turn away, but at the same time, she wanted desperately to get down to the pool before he went off to do something else.

Blossom was greedy, greedy to see more of him. She took a chance and left the window, hurrying down to the pool. She entered Eden by way of the flowering hydrangeas leading into the courtyard. But where was he?
Damn.

“Morning.” The voice came from just behind her. Blossom turned, much like the slow-motion turn that happens only in the movies, the deliberate turn that suspends life for just a few seconds before the dramatic crescendo....
This
was
that
moment. Suddenly, she found herself face to face with her Adonis, her Romeo, her Mar-cello Brigatino. She scarcely knew what to say. “Good morning” would have been fine, but she couldn’t even find those words. It was as if English weren’t her first language. She opened her mouth, but the only thing that came out was a flutter of invisible butterflies. By the time she was able to form something that resembled a human sound, he was gone.

How could I have let him walk away? I stood here like a mute. He must think I’m rude or slow or deaf. I’m so humiliated. “Good morning” was all you had to say, Blossom. Is that so hard? “Good morning”? You’ve been saying it since you were six.

And as if Blossom were trying to right her missed opportunity, she kept saying “Good morning” over and over again. Marcello Brigatino must have heard her, because he stood up from behind the shrub he was clipping and, in playful imitation, uttered back to her, “good morning, good morning, good morning.”

Astonished for the second time within a minute, Blossom simply, straightforwardly, and unabashedly laughed. And the best part? The part she couldn’t have written any better? He laughed, too. Loud and euphonious laughter, without judgment. And laughed and laughed and laughed.
Yes, sweet Jesus... yes, yes, yes!

Blossom grabbed her bag and some cash and headed out the door to the fine shops she’d passed on the way to the Realtor. She would buy herself nice clothes, jewelry, perfume, but most important, she would buy herself some big, floppy frocks to wear poolside. She’d definitely be spending some time there.

“May I help you?”

“Oh yes... Where are your cover-ups?” Blossom asked.

“Cover-ups?”

“Yes, you know, the little shifts you wear around the pool.” Blossom bit her tongue. How could she have said “little”?

“What I mean is, a smock, a housecoat, a toga of some sort.”

“I understand, madam, but you won’t find them here. We sell only bags. Perhaps you want to go over to the Beverly Center. They have several floors. I’m sure you’ll find what you need there.”

But the woman said it with such disdain that Blossom wished she could respond with something. All she heard was,
Yes, I understand, madam; what you need are tarps, tents, and horse blankets.

Heat rose in Blossom’s cheeks.
You arrogant b.i.t.c.h.
But she could only spell it. One day she would have the nerve to say it, but not today.

When she was done shopping for her muumuus, Blossom reluctantly wandered into the bathing-suit area. The last thing she wanted to do was try on a bathing suit, but it seemed ridiculous not to have just one. Especially if she were going to spend the remaining days of her life at a pool. But she was far too self-conscious to wear it in front of anyone, particularly that gorgeous pool guy. If she were to swim at all, it would be at night, long after he’d gone home.

She looked at herself from every possible angle in the mirror, but every single angle was unforgiving. There were black suits, red suits, striped suits, flowered suits, leopard suits, suits with sequins, suits with skirts, suits with matching tops, suits of every imaginable cut and color. Thank God she had decided to swim at night. Only the moon would judge her.

She tried on no less than thirty-three suits before painfully deciding on one. She had better luck choosing her saris and purchased no less than two dozen, most of them in dark colors, which she had heard were slimming. What would he think of all these pretty things? she wondered.
He? I don’t even know his name!
And so that became her next mission.

When she got home, she called the managing company of the complex immediately. “No, not the maintenance man, the gentleman who does the pool.” She waited, feeling as if some tele-tarot reader was about to reveal the name of the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

“Really?” she said, as if surprised by the answer. “No... thank you very much... That’s all I needed to know.” Then she hung up. She felt like someone who had just been told a secret that would change the world as she knew it—as if his name alone was the password to eternal happiness. “Skip,” she said out loud. “Skip Loggins.”
Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t it lovely? lt sings; it exults; Lord, it downright jubilates. Skip Loggins...It’s perfect.

And like a mantra, Blossom repeated it the rest of the day. And most of the next.

Life is different when you think you are dying. Ordinary things carry a different meaning, a different significance. The mind plays tricks on you: A cold is the precursor to pneumonia, and a headache is the forewarning of a brain tumor.

Blossom simply had a stomachache, but this put her to bed for two days. She realized, as she trembled under the covers, just how precious life was. And maybe the doctor had made a mistake. Maybe she had less than a year left; maybe she had only twenty minutes left. What a waste. And she didn’t even have the chance to tell Skip Log-gins she loved him.

Of course, she didn’t love him. She knew that. But she wanted so much to love before she died.

When her stomachache finally subsided, so did Blossom’s anxiety, and she was ready once again to take on the world...or at least the immediate pool area. She slipped into one of her abundantly dark yet cheerful shifts and went downstairs.

Should I say, “Hi, Skip”? Should I let on that I know his name? He’ll wonder how I found out. Then he’ll think I’m stalking him. No... When I see him, I’ll simply say, “Good morning.” Let’s see if I can finally manage to get that out of my mouth.

And at that moment she saw him from the far right corner of the garden. It was Blossom’s opportunity.

“Hi, Skip,” she said, without thinking. Skip! Skip! Why did I say Skip? What’s wrong with me? I might as well have gone up and kissed him. Oh, Blossom... just... just...

But before she could finish, Skip had waved and yelled “Hi” back.

“How are you today?”

“Oh... fine, just fine,” Blossom said, blushing like a sixteen-year-old.

“I don’t think I know your name,” Skip continued. “You just moved in, didn’t you?”

This was more than Blossom had ever expected. This was a conversation.

“Yes, I just moved in a few days ago. Blossom McBeal,” she said, extending her hand. A warm current ran through her when he took it. It had been so long since a man had touched her, even just to shake her hand. It was as if a tiny light had been turned on at the end of a lonely road that had been dark for years.

“Like it here so far?” Skip asked. He was cordial and nice, and Blossom’s heart pounded like the hooves of horses.

“Oh, very much.” She couldn’t think of anything to say next, and when he simply said, “Well, enjoy the day,” she was both upset and relieved. Upset because she couldn’t come up with intelligent words around him, but relieved because her heart was beating so hard, she was sure that if he stood there for another moment, she’d have a heart attack.

But the ice had been broken, and now she could go down to the pool and make small talk as a normal person would... even though she felt anything but normal.

Blossom sat out there the whole day. It was not so much that she was waiting for another chance to chat, though that would have been nice... very nice. She just liked being in his presence. However, when it was five o’clock, the working people in the complex began to come home. It seemed odd to sit there as the sun was going down, so Blossom rose to leave. When she did, she felt a sting as her shift brushed against the bottom of her leg. She had sat out too long, and whatever exposed areas there were had turned brick red. It was painful to look at.

She didn’t see Skip when she left the pool and went upstairs. She tried to ease the damage by smoothing on all kinds of lotions. But she still looked rubbery and nuclear, like Ronald McDonald. The worst part for Blossom was that she would not be able to sit by the pool for at least two days. Two days. It might as well have been forever.

CHAPTER 18

M
AKLEY HAD RETURNED HOME
from New Orleans. Nothing had turned up yet but he needed to address the business of the bank president; he’d return to New Orleans once he’d sussed out exactly what Kelly was hiding.

An irritated Kelly entered the police station dressed in hunting gear, the rifle slung across his shoulder leading Makley to wonder if the ammunition was intended for the ducks or for him.

“Sit down, Kelly. Thanks for coming in. Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Makley asked.

“No, thank you. Anyway, what’s this all about?”

A fine line of perspiration formed on Kelly’s forehead. “Warm in here,” he observed nervously. Makley smiled.

“Now, Kelly,” the chief began nonchalantly, as if he were asking Kelly about the new Camry in his driveway, “I have to ask you what you were doing with two million dollars in the vault.”