She wanted to know about him. “So, you’re down here alone, no wife, no kids, no attachments?”
“Just a sister up in Philadelphia, we don’t keep in touch much.”
She asked how he knew Meg.
“We work at the same firm,” he explained. “Nothing exciting, my office is buried in the back.” He tried to sound smooth but his mouth was dry and not working well. She nodded approval and said she happened to have an account with his firm.
After a few minutes, she stepped back. So, that’s it, he guessed, now comes the polite “nice chatting with you” part. Well, it had been nice. Coming to the party had been worthwhile after all. He certainly had received more than his share of her attention. He assumed she was parting to resume mingling, but she just reached to the table for a canapé. She didn’t seem to notice her breast brushed hard against his arm.
Events moved fast from then on.
Abruptly, she whispered something about leaving the party. He thought she meant later and alone. She meant right then and with him. He went over and thanked Meg for the invitation. She apologized for not getting free to talk with him and suggested he stick around. They could talk after the party. But Loraine was already waiting by the door so he supposed he’d better go. Meg appeared troubled.
As soon as they got outside, Loraine grabbed his arm and started to walk fast. “Let’s go.”
“You want a ride home?” he asked.
“Anything to drink at your place?”
“My place? Uh, wine?” He should explain his new apartment was barely furnished.
“What kind?”
“Not sure—it’s white.”
“How cute, it’s white. Christ. Is it at least fresh? Never mind. Your place will do. Where’s your car?”
“That’s mine over there, the green one.” He pointed.
“You’ve got to be joking. We’ll take mine.”
She started off and he hurried after her. Understanding women wasn’t one of his strong points.
At the end of that night with Loraine, there was no doorstep affection, no exchange of phone numbers, and no promise to meet again. He gave her an awkward little grin meaning such casual sex was unusual for him. She, no doubt, had already figured that one out.
And that was it. That’s what he thought.
She phoned a week later on Saturday morning. He was making instant coffee and his biggest problem was whether he could get by that day without shaving. Regrettably, he answered the phone.
She wanted to meet him at the InnTowner motel. Sounding frantic and insistent she hung up without explaining. At that point, he didn’t think she was actually nutty, only a bit off, and he could live with that. Normal women weren’t within the range of his experience anyway.
Why the call? Wasn’t their night together supposed to be just a party thing? Of course, one-night stands do happen all the time—well, not to him. Perhaps he’d been better in bed than he thought. Deciding on a Saturday morning rendezvous with a woman wasn’t difficult even if it meant changing out of his sweats and sneakers. He didn’t want the relationship to go anywhere, but would he like a second go around? Sure. Counting the months before the divorce and the time after the divorce, he had a lot to make up for. And there was available and willing Loraine perhaps phoning for an encore. Whether a woman desires only a one-night stand had always confused him.
He realized his fantasies might be getting ahead of him. This could be one of those “be careful what you wish for” deals. Why else the troubled voice? Likely, she wanted something else from him, wanted him to do something expensive or stupid, maybe both. But the least he could do, he decided, was to show up and see what she wanted. Wouldn’t most people say, don’t ask too many questions, just go?
At the motel, he found her in a poolside setting lifted straight off a Florida postcard: a lounge chair by a palm tree, a green bikini, sunglasses, and a floppy straw hat. She even had the requisite one-knee-drawn-up pose.
She didn’t look bad. The unforgiving bikini provided no place to hide physical flaws but presented no problem for her body. The bikini top was crowded but borderline respectable. The scanty bottom, however, belonged on some topless rollerblader down at South Beach. Loraine had put it all there to be looked at.
The pool area, circled by the small three-story motel, wasn’t crowded. November was warm but still too early for many snowbirds. A young mother waded with her three children at the far end. Across the pool, two women sat on the edge talking and dangling their feet in the water. A balding, overweight man had strategically located himself in the center of the pool in line with Loraine’s legs and enjoyed what he considered his good luck. A bikini can unlock a lot of imagination. She seemed to notice but ignored the sneaky peeks.
After greetings, Ray sat on the edge of a lounge chair facing her. Up close for the first time in daylight, he noticed the lines across her forehead. Her nose seemed more pointed, and she was even older than he had supposed at the party. He chalked it up to the wine then and the bright Florida sun now. She had tied her red hair back. Oversized sunglasses hid those unflinching pale green eyes.
He felt this calm poolside scene didn’t match her frantic phone call. “What’s this all about, Loraine?”
“I enjoyed last week at your place. I’m glad we hooked up.”
“Yes, it was fun. I never expected a follow-up call.” He started to relax, must have overreacted. How bad could the situation be? She was there lounging about poolside as carefree as a puppy. “You sounded as though you needed help. You didn’t mention this poolside event and the green bikini.”
“Chartreuse. Do you like it Ray?”
“I just decided it’s my favorite color.”
“First time I’ve worn it. It’s a thong in the back. Want to see?” she teased.
“No! Stay still. Don’t move anything.” So much skin made him uncomfortable. He glanced around quickly to see who else was taking an interest. A young man with a towel around his neck appeared, from somewhere, and sat a few chairs away. Ray guessed soon another man, and then another, would show up to enjoy a look at the pool. He began to think he had given her too much credit for being clever.
“Can’t wait to go to the beach,” she said as though reading his mind and confirming his judgment.
She seemed completely cool now, not agitated as on the phone. He tried again to get her on track. “Your phone call, what’s up?”
She was quiet for a moment then, “I do need your help. Maybe I’m in trouble.”
“Okay. Before you start a public disturbance, can we end the show here and talk in your room?”
“Well, just let me tell you. Ah….” She appeared serious now. She sat up and arranged her beige see-through beach shirt around her shoulders. Then she blurted out, “My best friend was raped.”
“My God! That’s what this is about?”
“Happened in her apartment, night before last.”
“They catch the guy?”
“Oh, we know who did it, Sonny Barner, her boyfriend. Her bastard boyfriend.”
“Date-rape? How is she?”
“Beat the hell out of her, blackened one eye. I told her to call the police. She was shook. Kept mumbling about maybe it was her fault; maybe she teased him—all that cliché crap. Next day she was still hurting, still curled up.”
“Rape by a boyfriend tough to prove, he-said she-said. Is she going to let him get away with it?”
“The next day she decided to call the cops.” she shrugged. “But by then it was too late.”