“Wait!” Kevin says, and steps into the street. Kelly’s his last chance, his escape route from Stella, the last younger woman he’ll ever need! And she’s available! A turning car jams on its brakes, its driver leans on the horn, but it’s a Lexus, so fuck you, asshole, and your forty-thousand-dollar car. Kevin nearly gives him the finger, but by time he’s thought of it, he’s on the other side, jogging through the viscous heat into the underpass. He should stop and take off his jacket again, he should stop and think about what he’s doing — in Kevin’s control room a klaxon is rhythmically blaring and red lights are flashing and a central mainframe’s calm voice (a woman’s, like in Star Trek or Alien) is counting down t-minus 30, t-minus 29, and Jiminy Cricket’s clutching, what, a strut or something for dear life and kicking back desperately with his little spats at a control stick jammed all the way forward to full speed ahead. But Kevin’s not slowing down, he’s walking a narrow, gritty sidewalk in his fat-soled shoes, only inches from the hot cars backed up down the hill, waiting for the light behind him, because up ahead, striding toward the river, is his last chance — Kelly, Joy Luck, the Girl Formerly Known as the Girl Who Walks Like Lynda. He’s not kidding himself, he knows she’s not Lynda, and that’s okay, because she’s better than Lynda — Lynda was always too diffident, she fucked like a man, selfishly, taking what she wanted and not really giving a damn about him — which, don’t get him wrong, was lots and lots of fun for the three months they were lovers, because nine times out of ten, Kevin totally got what he wanted, too. Up ahead Kelly skirts the plastic fencing of another construction site, nothing but concrete piers and rebar so far, as she makes her way toward a gleam of water through the trees along the river. The last time he followed that same stride toward the water, it was the afternoon of Lynda à la plage, only a week or so after his first night with her, when he took her to the beach at Silver Lake in his deathtrap Pinto. Well, okay, the beach at Silver Lake isn’t really a beach, only a strip of gravelly sand a foot wide where the lawn crumbles away, so maybe he should think of her as Lynda du lac. Either way she’d worn a not-very-sexy Speedo one-piece, black, that went all the way up to her neck and flattened her breasts, but there was no way to unflatter her delicious backside, or her flat belly, or the fetching points of her pelvis. When it was wet, the suit glimmered in the bright July sunlight, and despite the mobs of splashing children and raucous teens and the speedboats foaming just beyond the floats marking off the swimming area, Kevin saw nothing but the glitter of the water and the sheen of the suit as Lynda waded into the lake, the waterline swallowing her thighs, her swaying ass, the small of her back, creeping toward the wings of her shoulder blades. Then she plunged in and Kevin’s heart stopped where he lay with his hands folded behind his head on a beach towel on the grass, wearing a raggedy pair of cutoffs and trying unsuccessfully not to have an erection. A moment later Lynda surfaced, her strawberry hair slicked back from her freckled forehead, and she stood in shoulder-deep water and squeezed the water out of her hair with both hands, and Kevin, losing the battle with his erection, launched himself from the blanket and down the bank and splashed into the cool water with crazy, high steps, and then dived, gliding slick as a seal, his eyes open in the grainy, greenish water, his hard-on like a homing tracker, until he shot up right in front of her, gasping. She gave him a slow, heavy-lidded smile and draped her hands over his shoulders and kissed him, and he slid his hands up her Speedo’d back and lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist underwater. And then, right there, wordlessly, nose to nose with each other, in front of the families lunching at picnic tables on the shore and the dripping kids crowded around the snack bar, in full sight of the screened-in porches across the lake and the slow-paddling canoeists and the speedboats buzzing by only twenty yards away, Lynda rocked herself against Kevin under the surface of the lake. You could hardly call it dry humping under the circumstances, and even through the thick, sodden denim of his shorts, the slick glide of the crotch of her suit was exquisite. It wasn’t even that so much that made Kevin’s pulse pound, made him pinch his lips bloodless to keep from moaning out loud, but rather the warmth of her under the water, both firm and weightless all at once, her flattened breasts pressing rhythmically against his bare chest, her warm thighs clenched around his waist. Looking between them at her foreshortened, refracted body, he glimpsed her sheathed belly flexing with each thrust; looking up, she was so close she seemed to have a third eye in the middle of her face, and he focused instead on the shining droplets caught in the fine blond hairs before her ear. She said nothing, but only breathed a little harder and smiled without losing that look of being half-asleep. Apart from the rhythmic rings of ripples radiating from their shoulders, you’d never know what was going on, or at least that’s what Kevin told himself, and when he came his choked groan was smothered by a series of waves from a passing speedboat that slapped over his and Lynda’s faces, making them both gasp and sputter. He staggered back in slow motion through the water, and she pushed off and glided away on her back, while he let the speedboat’s wake and his pleasure lift him off his feet and float him toward shore.
But he never loved her. So that when she dumped him — or rather when he walked in on her fucking one of her housemates in her bare little room up under the eaves on Jefferson Avenue and she sat up on the mattress without even bothering to pull the covers up, she smiled and just kind of shrugged at him, and he just kind of shrugged back. Because that was the same summer he was in love with the Philosopher’s Daughter, and what he sees now in Kelly/Joy Luck/TGWWLL is the best of both worlds — both Lynda’s effortless sensuality and the imperious passion of the Philosopher’s Daughter, or at least the passion the Philosopher’s Daughter said she was looking for — and now this is his last chance, while he’s still young enough, fit enough, good-looking and charming enough to persuade a girl possibly half his age that, despite what Ian did to her — that feckless asshole — and despite what the Philosopher’s Daughter told him — that vain, heartless bitch — he is capable of tenderness and passion.
Kelly’s veering from Lamar Avenue now, away from the waterfall rumble of traffic crossing a bridge over the river, toward a pedestrian bridge running parallel to it. Under the shadows of the exhausted, drooping trees along the riverbank, Kevin can see figures improbably jogging along a dirt trail. Kelly pauses at a crosswalk to slam a lamppost button with the heel of her hand, then sprints across without waiting for the light. Kevin jogs to catch up, sweat pouring off him, his own scent rising like steam from the open collar of his wilted shirt, and this time he reaches the crosswalk just as the signal flashes WALK. Kelly disappears under a wide spiral ramp that descends from the end of the pedestrian bridge, and Kevin hangs back at the edge of the running trail, his heart pounding from the heat, his exertion, his excitement. In the shadow of the bridge and the trees it’s just as hot as it is in the sun, like being stuck in a windowless, airless room. Two runners in opposite directions labor past each other on the trail, dust puffing behind their shoes: a bare-chested young man in skimpy shorts, his calves and thighs bulging, and a firm-limbed young woman in a sweat-splotched sports bra, her taut muscles gliding under her skin, her blond ponytail swinging metronomically, the hem of her shorts — the Texas state flag — swaying like a bell. Kevin notes the rictus of effort on their faces, the knotted foreheads, the tightened mouths; it’s almost like they’re having sex with each other, but they pass without a glance. Beyond them, even the river looks exhausted — a dull, unmoving sheen of olive green. These people, Kevin thinks, these jogging Texans, they’re like a whole other race of creatures, subtropical übermenschen genetically engineered to run in the heat, killer androids from the future walking through flame. It makes him even hotter to watch them; he can feel his shirt clinging to him like wet tissue. He glances at his watch; it’s nearly twelve o’clock, but then he remembers that he didn’t set his watch back, which means it’s only eleven here, but even so, his interview is at two. What does he think is going to happen if he actually catches up to Kelly? For an instant Jiminy Cricket nearly gets the upper hand — she just broke up with her boyfriend, you idiot, like, ten minutes ago, so go back the way you came, scuttle from coffee shop to air-conditioned coffee shop, drink lots of iced tea, let your shirt air out, and act your age—but then he sees Kelly again, on a flight of stairs that rises to the pedestrian bridge under the winding ramp. Her back is erect with rage and hurt, but her walk is still as feral as a cat’s, a stain of sweat plastering the back of her camisole to her spine.