Dick has been back at Pentco almost a week, and progress on the submittal for the clinical trial is going well. As he makes the twenty-minute drive home, he listens to jazz and whistles along. Dee, Janelle, and Jesse arrived yesterday and are waiting at the cottage, and he thinks how nice it is to be going home to someone.
His first clue that something has changed is the door. In the center is a pretty wreath with flags and stars for Labor Day, which is a couple weeks away.
“Surprise!”
He falls back as his three ambushers whoop and clap and as Gus leaps around excitedly.
“Wow!” he says, as he takes in the living room, which no longer looks anything like the barren room he left this morning.
“Do you like it?” Dee asks, her hands clasped in prayer fashion in front of her.
It looks like a photo from a magazine. Two overstuffed denim chairs and a sofa in white and blue pinstripe surround a large wood table with shells and candles on it. The highlight of the room, however, is mounted over the fireplace, and Dick can’t take his eyes off it. Suspended in the center of the wall and spanning almost its entire width is a Tom Blake wooden longboard with his trademark squid design emblazoned in red and green on its glossy cedar deck. Dick told Dee about the surfing pioneer and his amazing innovations in surfboards, and she must have remembered and somehow got her hands on one of his reproductions.
“I love it,” he says, eyes still on the board.
* * *
To celebrate the completion of the first room, Dick treats everyone to dinner at Tommy’s, a local diner walking distance from the house.
“Anyone up for a stroll on the beach?” Janelle asks when they walk from the restaurant, fat on burgers and fries.
“I’m beat, and this one needs to go to bed,” Dee says, tousling Jesse’s hair.
“I’ll walk with you,” Dick offers.
Dee and Jesse turn one way, and he and Janelle go the other. He startles at how quickly the energy transforms, the strange molecular rearrangement that happens when a man and woman are alone together, regardless of species. And immediately, he feels the old awkwardness he always suffers around women he finds attractive.
“This place is beautiful,” Janelle says, taking a deep inhale of the cool salt air.
She looks especially lovely tonight. She is wearing the white zodiac halter top she bought on their shopping trip with a pair of tight jeans. Her blond curls are piled on top of her head, and her gold hoop earrings sparkle in the moonlight.
He considers telling her but, instead, like an idiot, blurts, “Richard Nixon used to have a vacation house here. It’s called the Western White House.”
“Oh,” Janelle says.
They reach the beach, and Janelle braces herself on Dick’s shoulder as she slips off her shoes, the touch sending an electric buzz down his spine. Then, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, she takes his hand, and they continue to walk toward the shore.
Arousal and confusion overwhelm him, and he’s transported back in time to twenty years earlier when, out of extraordinary pity and compassion, Janelle gave him his first kiss.
“Let’s go up,” Janelle says, gesturing to a closed-up lifeguard tower.
Dick follows her up, his brain seizing in a dozen different directions. He and Caroline have been divorced two and a half years, but it’s been several years longer since he’s been with a woman. And while the notion seems preposterous, he thinks there’s a chance Janelle is seducing him.
Janelle dangles her legs off the edge of the platform and retakes his hand, and for a while they look at the ocean as Janelle prattles on about everything and nothing. She is the easiest person in the world to be around. She likes to chatter and can create conversation out of anything—songs she likes, movies she’s seen, why purple is magic and blue is sorrow. She talks a little about Dee and Jesse and a lot about Otis and how scary it was when he came back.
“I know it’s a sin,” she says, crossing herself then looking up at the heavens, “but I’m glad he’s dead.”
Dick nods and tries not to react beyond that.
“God finally weighing in on things, if you want my opinion.” She sighs and leans her head on Dick’s shoulder. She smells like gardenias, and somehow their hands are now on her thigh, though he hasn’t a clue how they got there. She’s saying something about maple syrup and agave, but Dick can’t concentrate, the heat of her skin through the denim, several degrees warmer than the air, making it impossible to think about anything else.
As if knowing his thoughts, she lifts her face and giggles, and his face flames. Then she is kissing him, her soft lips pressed to his paralyzed ones.
“Relax,” she says, pulling back and smiling.
He tries. Closing his eyes, he listens to the ocean, focusing on its rhythm and strength, and when she kisses him again, he falls into it, his lips molding to hers and heat filling him.
She puts her palms on his chest, then slides them up his neck.
“I like the way you smell,” he mumbles.
Her smile causes their lips to break apart, and she looks at him with pure mischief in her eyes. Then she is fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. Unable to get them undone, she says, “Screw it,” and yanks the shirt over his head.
He takes it from her and lays it on the plywood deck before lowering her onto it, the cool Pacific breeze rushing over his skin, and his mind on fire.
* * *
Janelle pecks him on the nose, then bounces to her feet. “Brrr,” she says as she tosses Dick his pants, then grabs her own shirt from the deck and quickly pulls it on.
When they’re clothed, they sit again on the edge.
“I like this new you,” she says.
“Obviously,” he answers with a blush.
She giggles. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t have done that with the old you. But, the thing is, the old you never would have done that.”
Dick smiles at the thought. She’s right. Five months ago, none of this would have had the remotest chance of happening.
“Though I suppose,” Janelle goes on, “it’s not really a new you, it’s just that you’re finally letting this part of you out.” She shivers as she says it, and he realizes she’s cold.
He stands and helps her to her feet, and they climb down. He wraps his arm around her as they walk back across the beach toward the street.
“I suppose all of us have that,” Janelle goes on. “Different parts of our personalities, but we only reveal certain ones.”
Dick wonders about that. He’s always considered himself an open book. One look and you know exactly who he is: awkward science nerd.
“Do you have a different personality?” he asks. Janelle’s always seemed like an open book as well—sunshine and sass with a heart of gold.
“Secretly,” she whispers, her eyes darting around furtively, “I’m a double agent for the CIA investigating cybercrimes.”
He laughs, and she nudges him.
“Nope. I’m just me.”
“Well, thank you for being just you,” he says, then suddenly feeling like he should say something else, adds, “About tonight—”
She turns and puts her fingers to his lips. “Tonight was fun. It’s a beautiful night, I had a couple of glasses of wine, and I find you attractive. Don’t blow it and stop being cool now.”
He laughs. He’s not cool. Having sex leaves him feeling exactly as it always has—self-conscious, guilty, and incredibly grateful.