Her breathing slowed. She was getting drowsy. “Remember Swing Tree?” she asked, voice sleepy.
“Yes?”
“That one swing—the long one?”
“I think we must have been out there an hour.”
She laughed softly. “All night. It felt like we did everything in that one ride. I thought we had our clothes off and everything.”
“Me too!”
“So wonderful. The long swing.”
“Happy birthday,” Kevin whispered after a while.
“Wonderful presents.”
She fell asleep.
Kevin watched her. His eyes adjusted to the dark. Far away in the house a door closed, voices sounded. Someone up late.
Then it was quiet. Time passed. Kevin kept looking at her, soaking her in. He was lying on his left side, head propped on his left hand. Ramona lay on her back, head turned to the side, mouth open, looking girlish. Kevin closed his eyes, found he didn’t want to. He wanted to look at her.
She had really powerful shoulders, you could see where her bullet throws came from. Funny how flat-chested she was. Dark nipples made little breast shapes of their own. He remembered her once, laughing resentfully and saying, Alfredo’s always looking at women with tits. Still she looked so female. Small breasts drew attention to the greyhound proportions of torso, flanks, hips, bottom, legs. She was perfectly proportioned as she was.
Time passed, but Kevin didn’t grow tired. In a way he wanted to wake her and make love again. Then again, just to lie against her side while she slept… a long quiver shook him, he thought it might wake her. No chance—she was out.
His hand fell asleep, and he lowered his head. Her hair spilled over the pillow, black shot silk against the white cotton. Perhaps he dozed for a while. He shifted and felt her, looked at her again. Occasionally he had seen love stories on TV. I adore you, I worship you. He had watched them thinking, how stories exaggerate. But they didn’t—in fact they couldn’t express it at all—poor stories, trying to match the intensity of the real! They never got it, they never could. Adore—it was all wrong, it didn’t explain it at all, it was just a word, an attempt to get beyond love. He loved his sister, his parents, his friends. He needed another word for this, no doubt about it.
The room was lightening. Dawn on its way. No! he thought. Too fast! The slow increase of illumination brought the room’s dimensions into focus, made everything a bit translucent, as if it were a world made entirely of gray glass. In this light Ramona glowed with a dark, sensuous presence. She stirred, spoke briefly. Talking in her sleep. Kevin stared at her, drank her in, the fine skin, the occasional freckle or mole shifting over ribs, the sleek curve of her flank and hip. Outside birds chirped.
And day came, too quickly. Because when the sun cracked over the hills and the little studio room was fully lit, Ramona shifted, rolled, sighed, woke up. The night was over.
They took turns in the bathroom, and when Kevin came out she had on gym shorts and a T-shirt. “Shower?” he said.
She shook her head. “Not yet. You go ahead, I’ll start up some coffee.”
So he showered, wishing she was under the crash of warm water with him. Why not?
Then later as he sat on the floor beside the coffee-maker, she quickly showered herself. What the hell, he thought. Hadn’t it been an invitation?… Well, whatever. Maybe she liked to shower alone.
Then she was out, hair slicked back with a comb, towel around her neck, dressed again. They sat on the floor in the sun, drinking coffee from her little machine. She asked him what his plans were for the day. He told her a little about Oscar’s house, the progress of the work there.
There was a knock at the door. She looked surprised. It was still a little before eight. She went to answer, coffee mug in hand. She opened the door.
“Happy birthday!” said a voice from the landing at the top of the stairs.
Alfredo.
“Thanks,” Ramona said, and stepped outside. Closed the door behind her.
Kevin’s diaphragm was in a hard knot under his ribs. He relaxed it, deliberately took a sip of coffee. He stared at the door. Well, Alfredo would have had to find out eventually. Hard way to do it, though. He could just hear their voices out there. Suddenly the door opened and he jumped. Ramona stuck her head in. “Just a sec, Kev. It’s Alfredo.”
“I know,” Kevin said, but the door was closing. He could hear Alfredo’s voice, sounding strained, upset. He was keeping it low, and so was she.
What were they saying? Curious, Kevin stood and approached the door. He still couldn’t distinguish their words. Just tones: Alfredo upset, perhaps pleading. Certainly asking questions. Ramona flat, not saying much.
He wandered away from the door, feeling more and more uncomfortable. Fright and confidence both filled him, canceling each other out and leaving him nearly blank, except for a light oscillation, a confused feeling. A discomfort. This was strange, he thought. Very strange.
All the objects in the room had taken on a kind of lit thereness, as things will on a morning when you have had little or no sleep. There on her desk, a few books: dictionaries, Webster’s and a yellow Spanish/English one. Several books in Spanish. A volume of the sonnets of Petrarch. He picked it up but couldn’t concentrate enough to read even a line. Something by Ambrose Bierce. A sewing repair kit. Six or seven small seashells, with a few grains of sand scattered under them. A desk lamp with a long extendable metal arm. From this window one looked into the branches of the Torrey pine in their atrium. What could they be saying?
After perhaps fifteen minutes Ramona opened the door and came in alone. She approached him directly, took his hand. Her expression was worried, guarded. “Listen, Kevin. Alfredo and I, we have a lot of things to talk about—things that never got said, that need to be said now. He’s upset, and I need to explain to him about us.” She squeezed his hand. “I don’t want you to just be sitting around in here trapped by us going over a bunch of old stuff.”
Kevin nodded. “I understand.” No time to think.
“Why don’t you go ahead and go to work, and I’ll come over later.”
“Okay,” he said blankly.
She walked him to the door. Alfredo would see his damp hair and assume they had showered together. In any case he knew Kevin had spent the night. Good. Kevin stopped her before she opened the door, gave her a kiss. She was distracted. But she smiled at him, and the previous night returned in a rush. Then she opened the door, and Kevin stepped out.
Alfredo was standing at one side of the landing, leaning against the railing, looking down. Kevin paused at the head of the stairs and looked at him. Alfredo looked up, and Kevin nodded a hello. Alfredo nodded back very briefly, his face pinched and unhappy. His glance shifted away, to the open door and Ramona. Kevin walked down the stairs. When he looked up Alfredo was inside, the door was closed.
Kevin went to work on Oscar’s place. He and Hank and Gabriela worked on the roof, pulling out the old cracked concrete tiles to clear the way for the clerestory windows that would stand on top of the south-facing rooms. All day he expected Ramona to come biking down the street from Prospect, any minute now, for minute after minute after minute. Long time. Memories of the previous night struck him so strongly that sometimes he forgot what he was doing and had to stop right in the middle of things, looking around to catch his balance. Sometimes this happened while he was working with Hank. “Shit, Kev, you’re acting kinda like me today, what’s the problem?”