Wanting Rita (15 page)

“Rita…It’s just that…”

“Oh shut up!”

Rita whirled from me. She drained her glass and violently slammed down the cup. Ice exploded into the air, landing and scattering poolside like thrown dice. She whipped off her sweater and tossed it. She kicked off her heels and quickly stripped to her bra and panties, while I watched, wishing I’d kept my self-righteous mouth shut.

She mounted the diving board, rushed to the edge, bounced twice, rose, arched and plunged into a clean head-first dive that scarcely wrinkled the water. I saw silvery bubbles. Her hair rose like grass. When she popped to the surface, she wiped her face and glared at me. “Alan James, instead of becoming a doctor, maybe you should go to the seminary. Then you could just preach away, day and night, to everyone and everybody about whatever. Blah, blah, blah all day and night. And you’d get paid to be a high and mighty fucking pain in the ass!”

She dropped to the bottom, kicked hard and swam, deeply, the length of the pool. On the far side, she broke the surface, pushed from the wall and began a back and forth crawl, applying gentle arching strokes, as her feet chopped up white bursts. She had perfect form: her head was down, her feet up without kicking hard, without struggling. She kicked down with the opposite foot from her arm pull, gliding along, turning her head slightly, without lifting at the forehead. I’d learned those techniques at the Hiller Academy. I wondered where Rita had learned them.

She maintained a rigorous pace for about fifteen minutes, while I sat in a dark mood, swallowing more of the screwdriver than I’d intended, feeling a smooth, hazy buzz. Finally, her stroke began to fall apart. Her body wavered, her arms slapped clumsily, her feet lost rhythm, became dilatory. Still, she pressed on. I poured more vodka, watching her drag herself across the water, like a thirsty man on a desert, clawing his way toward a distant oasis.

“Hey, Rita. Enough. You’re tired.”

She kept going.

“Rita! All right, already!”

She struggled on. When exhaustion struck, she was halfway across, and in deep water. She coughed and shuddered, went limp and sank. Alarmed, I shouted. No response. I shot to my feet, yelling. I slung off my jacket, shed my glasses and shoes. In a running dive, I hit the water. It was a drenching blue, and sharp with chlorine. I saw Rita, rippling in the azure currents, bubbles rushing from her mouth like pearls. My clothes were heavy and binding, dragging on me. I pulled toward her and wrapped her waist with my arms. I felt the cool living weight of her. I planted my feet on the bottom, crouched and sprang off. We rocketed up, breaking the surface, near the left edge of the pool. I sucked in air. With my right hand securely around her waist, I drew her to the edge, gasping. My clothes ballooned and swam around me. My heart thundered. I panted.

Suddenly, Rita reached and grabbed the concrete ridge. Her eyes popped open, wide, lustrous and wonderful. “Hello, Alan James.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, nearly frantic, wiping my face.

Rita let out a naughty laugh. “I’m great, Alan James. Just great!”

I must have looked confused. She giggled and shoved away toward the center of the pool, dog paddling, her laughter echoing off the glass walls. “I knew that was the only way I’d get you in this water, Alan James. If I hadn’t tricked you, you wouldn’t have taken off your jacket and shoes and swum with me, now would you?”

I slapped the water with the flat of my hand, instantly feeling the sting! “Damn it, Rita! That’s not funny!”

She blew me a kiss. “Yes it is, Alan James. It’s funny! Look at you! Your face is all proud and heroic. Your little bristling dark hair is all shiny. Your clothes all wet. Yes, it is funny! Very funny!” She laughed wildly.

I charged after her. Startled, she turned, kicked and made a desperate rush for the opposite end. We chopped and raced, splashing geysers. She reached the corner stairs and escaped just as I lunged for her ankle, missing it by inches. Rita darted away, her breasts bouncing, water flying from her hair and shoulders. I scrambled out and started after her, my clothes squishy and gushing, my socks slapping across the rubbery surface.

“Now, Alan James,” Rita said, playfully frightened. “A sense of humor is very attractive to a girl.”

I was pissed off. I lumbered ahead, head down, eyes fixed and darkly determined. Rita scooted off, rounding the diving board, snatching the towel and skipping away. I marched forward, lengthening my stride.

“Alan James, you’re scaring me, now. It was just a joke. That’s all.”

I kept coming and she kept running. Finally, I broke into a mushy jog.

“Alan James! What are you going to do?” Rita asked, fleeing. Her voice rose to a squeal. “Alan James!”

I was closing the distance. I saw the amused panic on her face. I growled. “I’m coming. I’m coming!” I growled louder, hanging my arms like an angry grizzly bear. “God have mercy on your soul, Rita Fitzgerald, The Blond Blaze of Hartsfield!”

Rita screamed.

We rounded the pool twice before Rita, deeply winded, stopped and stood firmly, her breasts rising and falling. She focused her narrowing eyes on me, now standing her ground, her back to the pool, only inches from the edge. In a Mae West voice she said, “Okay, big boy. Come on and get me!”

I growled, ran and pounced. She screamed. We tumbled backwards and hit the water heavily, making a terrific splash. Underwater, I grabbed her by the hair and pulled her lips toward me. We kissed, tongues exploring, bubbles tickling and dribbling from our noses and mouths. I found her breasts and squeezed and played. She reached for my hard penis and played. We tangled, circled, broke away, and got caught again in an underwater embrace. When my lungs burned for air, I finally released her and drove to the surface. I came up first, coughing and spitting water. Rita followed, gulping air, laughing and pulling wet strands from her face.

“Oh, my God, Alan James. That was great! So great!”

We were in the deep end, both dogpaddling, sucking in air. “So much fun!” she continued. She seized me and pressed her cool lips hard against mine. “You are the biggest nut case I’ve ever known, Alan James!”

Twenty minutes later we sat under a clay potted palm, relaxed, high and quiet, sipping refreshed screwdrivers. Rita had dried off, dressed and turbaned her hair with the blue towel. I was damp, sticky and miserable in my clothes.

“You should take them off and sit in your underwear, Alan James.”

“Yeah, and if somebody walks in? Or looks in from outside? No way.”

Rita chuckled. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Yeah, well you’re the one who got me all wet like this.”

“No, Alan James. You were already wet like that.”

“Well, aren’t you clever? Very funny.”

Rita drank generously, and leaned back luxuriously. “So tell me something about physics, Alan James.”

I was on my way to being good and drunk. “Physics!? Who cares about physics at a time like this?!”

“Well, you’re the only person I know who likes physics. So tell me something about it. Anything.”

My mind was a cluttered muddle. I stared at Rita with hungry eyes, feeling rock hard for her. I struggled to focus. “I don’t know, Rita. Physics is so…so unphysical.”

She laughed deeply. Her laughter was contagious, so I joined her and we laughed much too hard.

“Come on, now, Alan James. Give me something here. Physics! I want physics! I want physics!” She began to chant.

“All right, okay. Let me think for a minute. I’m like…drunk, Rita. I can’t think straight. I’ve only been kinda drunk like this once.”

She grabbed the vodka bottle, clutching it dramatically to her chest. “Then no more for you, Alan James! Who knows what you might do to me, a poor helpless girl, alone with the great physicist and drunkard, Alan James Lincoln. And don’t try to change the subject! Give me physics! Come on, honey baby, give it to me! Give it all to me! Don’t hold back any of it, Alan James.”

“Okay, dammit! Wait a minute!” I sat up and shook my head, struggling for a centered thought. “Okay…here’s something. …Here it is. Quantum physics basically says that there is no underlying reason for reality.”

Rita sat up, groggy eyed. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means there’s no natural explanation for this reality—the reality we live in. Atoms, that make up mostly everything, or, I guess, everything, are nothing but mostly space.”

“Just empty space?” She asked, waving her hand through the air, as if trying to catch atoms.

“Yeah… and yet things appear to be solid things, even though they’re mostly not. And they’re always shifting around. An atom that helped make up the moon last week might be inside you tonight.”

Her face contorted with thought. She shook her head. “I like that... but I don’t understand.”

“Neither does anyone else, Rita.”

“Then what good is it?”

I looked at her, dreamily. “I don’t know. All I know, Rita, is that your atoms are the most beautiful arrangement of atoms and subatomic particles that I have ever seen or will ever want to see in my whole, big, stupid life.”

Her face melted into a soft pleasure and admiration. She straightened. “Now see, Alan James, when you’re like this, I just want to eat you up. You’re so human.”

“I’m always human!” I protested.

She shook her head. “Nope. Not always. But you are now. And you made physics, so… wonderfully physical.”

We shattered into laughter, hooting, screaming and slapping our knees. Finally, we exhausted the humor and fell into a dull silence. Rita leaned back again and, suddenly, there was a sharp memory of pain on her face, impossible to ignore.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

She turned from me. “Nothing. I think I’m just drunk.”

“What were you thinking?”

She shook her head impatiently. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” Then brightly. “Hey, there’s a football game tonight!”

“Yeah, so?”

She stood, abruptly, unraveling the towel and dropping it on her chair. “So, it should be almost over by now. Let’s go to Jack’s.”

“Jack’s!?”

“Yeah. It’ll be fun.”

“We’re having fun here.”

“Don’t be boring, Alan James. Let’s go.”

“No way. It’ll be loud and filled with assholes!”

She seized my hand and tugged on me until I got up. “Come on, antisocial, stiff old man, Alan James!”

I pouted. “I’m way too drunk to drive right now.”

“Then I’ll help you.”

“Yeah, right, like you’re sober.”

“So we’ll get some coffee.”

“Rita, that doesn’t help. Alcohol has to work its way through your system. Everybody knows that.”

She mocked my voice. “Everybody knows that. You go outside and stick your stubborn, elitist face into the cool wind. That will sober you up.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have to take care of something.”

I looked at her suspiciously. “Yeah…like what?”

She shook out her hair. “Never mind. Just go.”

I looked at the half empty vodka bottle. “What are you going to do with that?”

“I’m going to dump it. Go, Alan James! I’ll meet you out front.”

I took an intimate step forward, lowering my eyes on her. “Can’t we go back to the lake?”

She looked at the pool, avoiding my eyes. “No, Alan James. Not tonight.”

Outside, the night breeze burst over tops of trees in little ripples, flinging leaves into dips and spirals. Wind assaulted my damp clothes, bringing shivers and chattering teeth. I was on my way to the car and some heat, when curiosity struck. I stopped, spun about, and crept back toward the hotel entrance, slapping my shoulders for warmth. There was a finely manicured 5-foot hedgerow that bordered the great lobby window. It would give good cover. I ducked behind the hedgerow and used my head like a periscope, rising and falling, stealing looks at Robbie Styles at work behind the desk.

From a side hallway, Rita strolled purposefully across the sea green carpet, without the vodka bottle, and approached the glossy lobby desk. She stopped and faced Robbie, head on. His head was lowered over pink papers. Rita waited, hands folded, head bowed, contrite. He ignored her, and, when she tapped the little service bell and it “dinged”, he turned from her and searched for busy work with little scratches of his head and a squaring of his sloping shoulders.

Rita said something, but I couldn’t understand the words. She waited, patiently, for a response, but Robbie was unmoved.

Finally, I watched in utter disbelief as Rita took two steps backward and, slowly, descended to her knees. She spoke again. Robbie’s head curved around and down until he found her. His face registered shock and embarrassment.

While Rita spoke, she made prayer hands. Robbie’s quick moving eyes were nervous. He shook his head in firm disapproval and swung out from behind the desk, rushing toward her, glaring down and firing a scolding shaking forefinger. She took his rebuke humbly, without the slightest movement, without any defense. Robbie yelled something loud. It was a demand like “Get up, Rita!”

She didn’t move. She gently reached for his hand. He stiffened and faced away again, absorbed in a vehement denial of her. Rita’s arm remained extended, continuing to offer him the elegance of her hand in sacrifice. He shouted again, and I heard it and read his lips when the words were muffled.