“So,” Oscar said, “it has taken me a while to find out what the board would make of this proposal of Alfredo’s, to buy water from the MWD and then sell whatever excess there might be to the OCWD. Because no one on the board is inclined to talk about hypothetical cases. They have enough real cases to keep them occupied, and hypothetical cases are usually too vague to make a judgment on. But one of the board members is a good friend of Sally’s, they were on the board together. I finally got her cornered long enough to listen to me, and she prevaricated for a long time, but it comes down to this—they wouldn’t allow it.”
“Great!”
“How does she mean that?” Tom asked.
“Buying water and selling it, or using it for other water credits, is not something the board allows municipalities to do any more—it’s the state’s prerogative.”
“What about the MWD?”
“They’ve been turned into a kind of non-profit clearing house.”
“You mean after all those years of manipulation and control and raking it in at the expense of Owens Valley and the rest of the south, LA is now collecting and distributing all that water as a non-profit operation?”
“That’s right.”
Tom laughed for a long time.
Oscar surged up out of his chair, went to the kitchen to refill his glass. “There’s no swamp like water law,” he muttered under the sound of Tom’s laughter.
So Kevin was feeling good about things, and late one afternoon after a hard day’s work at Oscar’s place, he gave Ramona a call. “Want to go to the beach for sunset?”
“Sure.”
It was that easy. “Hey, isn’t your birthday sometime soon?”
She laughed. “Tomorrow, in fact.”
“I thought so! We can celebrate, I’ll take you to dinner at the Crab Cooker.”
“It’s a deal.”
It seemed like his bike had a little hidden motor in it.
It was a fine evening at Newport Beach. They went to the long strand west of the 15th Street pier, walked behind the stone groins. The evening onshore wind was weak, a yellow haze lay in the air. The sun sank in an orange smear over Palos Verdes. The bluffs behind the coastal highway were dark and furry, and it seemed this beach was cut off from the world, a place of its own. Stars blurred in the salt air. They scuffed through the warm sand barefoot, arms around each other. Down the beach a fire licked over the edge of a concrete firepit, silhouetting children who held hot dogs out on coathangers bent straight. The twined scent of charred meat and lighter fluid wafted past, cutting through the cold wet smell of seaweed. Waves swept in at an angle, rushed whitely toward them, retreated hissing, left bubbling wet sand. We do this once, it never happens again.
At the Santa Ana River’s mouth they stopped. A lifeguard stand stared blankly at the waves, which gleamed in the dark. They climbed the seven wooden steps which lifeguards could descend in a single leap. They sat on the damp painted plywood, watched waves, kissed until they were dizzy. Lay on the wood, on their sides, embracing and kissing until that was all that existed. How perfect the noise of surf was for making out; why should that be? A waft from the barbecue blew by. “Hungry?” “Yeah.”
Biking lazily to the Crab Cooker, Kevin felt better than he could ever remember feeling. That happiness could be such a physical sensation! Ravenously he ate salad, bread, and crab legs. The white wine coursed through him like Hank’s tequila. He was very aware of Ramona’s hands, of the lips that had so recently been kissing his. She really was stunning.
They sat over coffee after dinner, talking about nothing much. They concentrated on what had been theirs together, laying out for their mutual inspection their long friendship, defining it, celebrating it.
Outside the night was cool. They biked in the slow lane of the Newport Freeway, taking almost an hour to get home. Without a word Ramona led the way down Fairhaven, past the gliderport to her house, a squarish old renovated apartment block. They rolled the bikes into the racks, and she led him by the hand into the building. Through the atrium and by the pool, up the stairs to the inner balcony, and around and up again, to her room. He had never been in it before. It was a big square room—big enough for two, of course—set above the rest of that wing of the house, so that there were windows on all four sides. “Ooh, nice,” he said, checking out the design. “Great idea.” Big bed in one corner, desk in the other corner, shelves extending from the desk along walls on both sides, under the windows. Occasional gaps on the shelves were the only signs of the recently departed occupant. Kevin ignored them. One corner of the room was taken up with bathroom and closet nook. There were clothes on the floor, knick-knacks here and there, a general clutter. Music system on a lower shelf, but she didn’t turn it on.
They sat on the floor, kissed. Soon they were stretched out beside each other, getting clothes off slowly. Making love.
Kevin drifted in and out. Sometimes his skin was his mind, and did all his thinking. Then something would happen, they would stop moving for a moment, perhaps, and he would see his fingers tangled in her black hair. Under her head the carpet was a light brown, the nap worn and frayed. She whispered something wordless, moved under him. This is Ramona, he thought, Ramona Sanchez. The surge of feeling for her was stronger than the physical pleasure pouring through his nerves, and the combination of the two was… he’d never felt anything like it. This was why sex was so… he lost the thought. If they kissed at the same time they moved together, he would burst. They were creeping across the carpet, soon their heads would bump the wall. Ramona made little squeaks at his every plunge into her, which made him want to move faster. Moving under him, tigerish… He held her in his arms, bumped the top of his head firmly against the wall, thump, thump, they were off into the last slide, breath quick and ragged and wordless, his mind saying Ramona, Ramona, Ramona.
Afterward he lay in her arms, warm except for where sweat dried on his back and legs. His face was buried in the fragrant hair behind her ear. I love you, I love you. The intensity of it shocked him. All his life, he thought, his happiness had been no more than animal contentment, like a cow in the sun. A carpenter roofing on a sunny day with a breeze, hitting good nails with a good hammer. Swinging the bat and barely feeling the ball when he struck it. Animal sensation, wonderful as far as it went. But now something in him had changed, and without being able to articulate it, he knew he would never be the same again. And he didn’t want to be, either. Because he was lying on an old brown carpet next to his love, head against a wall, in an entirely new world.
“Let’s go to bed,” Ramona said. He sat back, watched her stand and walk to the bathroom. Such a strong body.
She returned, pulled him to his feet, led him to her bed. Pulled the covers down. They got in and drew a sheet over them. The ordinary reality of it, the sheer domesticity of it, filled Kevin up—the world sheered away and after a while they were making love again, using the springiness of the bed to rock into each other. Euphoria set every nerve singing, this was the best time yet. Their night in the hills had been so strange, after all. Kevin had not known how to think of it. It could have been a stroke of magic, falling through his life just once—a result of Mars, Hank’s tequila, the sage hills themselves, intoxicating the whole party. But tonight was an ordinary night, in Ramona’s every-night bed, with white cotton sheets that made her body dark as molasses, that made everything more real. He was there and so was she, lying beside him, one long leg spreadeagled over his, the other disappearing under sheets. Really there.