Poolside

As previously promised - some dialouge. Hooray!

Quentin peered around the doorjamb and into the open courtyard. His dark bangs, long from the neglect his peers called “hipster fashion” snaked under his coke-bottle lens glasses as he snapped his head back to avoid being seen. He pushed the hair back absently with his computer pale, clammy palm as he tried to make himself, his black Aerosmith t-shirt (pre-aged for that retro look by Urban Outfitters), his blacker than black jeans and his black Chuck Taylors’ blend, flat and seamless, into the cream-colored, popcorned lobby wall.

“Damn,” he thought, trying to swallow his breath to stop being heard; his chest ached from the effort and he could hear his pulse thudding in his ears louder “Damn,” he thought again, but this time it escaped in a harsh whisper – the breath eager to get out and mingle with the damp, chlorine of the apartment complex’s nearby pool.

It was her. It was definitely her. And she had seen him. He was certain of it.

Sunlight flooded the doorway like a spotlight. The stairs – two flights to the cool sanctuary of his apartment where the blinds where kept permanently closed - were only ten feet away. He’d have to pass the doorway – exposing himself, but if he were quick, he could make it. Even if by chance she did happen to look this way when he passed – there were a good fifteen feet from the pool to the stairs. It wasn’t like she would chase him. Would she?

Quentin heard the dry scrape of the metal chair against concrete. “Shit,” he thought, pushing his bangs back again even though they were well out of the way of his eyes. “Shit.” He stopped breathing all together and listened for the tell-tale splash of someone jumping in the pool.

It didn’t come. Instead – the persistent and grating “flip” and “flop” of someone with poor choices in summer foot ware grew closer.

Quentin closed his eyes and swallowed hard. She hadn’t been the only person at the pool. Maybe Mrs. Dangle – the elderly neighbor he would forever associate with the smell of Ben Gay and stale cat piss, had woken from her daily five hour siesta and was coming in to feed her cats. Maybe..

“Hey.” Her voice was clear and close.

Christ, did he jump? He hoped he hadn’t jumped. His insides shook violently – causing his hands to slightly tremor. He swept them behind his back and said “Oh, hey.”

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t need to. He new it was her. He could smell her perfume mingling chlorine and sun-heat steaming from her skin. Her shadowed silhouette bore the stance he knew so well: arms crossed across her chest, head tilted slightly to the left, right foot slightly more forward than the left. His heart twisted.

“Hey,” he said again. He wasn’t sure where this conversation was meant to go. What was she doing here, anyway. It couldn’t be that she had come to beg for him back; he had given up on that dream months ago. Besides, people who realized they made the biggest mistake of their lives by letting one go wait pentitently on one’s doorstep, wringing their gift-laden hands and smiling hopefully through red-rimmed eyes. (Quentin knew this to be true – as he opened his front door every day – several times a day – for weeks – expecting her to be there, crying and sorry - her perfect blonde hair unbound and wild around her red and puffy face. He find himself always petrified she would be there – and sick with a depth of sorrow he didn’t know he could reach when she was not.) They certainly didn’t show up in a rainbow bikini and sun themselves bronze by your swimming pool until you noticed them out of the corner of your eye on a cigarette run.

Did they?

“So…” he said, turning to face her. Christ, her fair was even perfect after swimming, pressed flat against her head in uniform rows. He was sure she had done it without the benefit of a comb. She was so controlling even her hair fell into line in fear of screaming retribution. “…Um…so what are you doing here.”
She smiled, it was a surprisingly open and friendly smile considering how things had been left. He felt himself smile in return; involuntarily open – but too late to take back. “Swimming,” she said, and laughed. It was a short, quiet laugh – but it seemed to rock her whole body.

She seemed truly happy, Quentin couldn’t deny it.

And he hated her for it. How dare she, come here and be happy when he was happy being miserable here without her. He found himself fumbling the cellophane off his new pack of Marlboro reds. Robotically, he pulled one out and lit it, his hands no longer shaking but on auto-pilot.

He held the smoke in his lungs for a moment – then let it out slowly – inwardly gloating as she wrinkled her tiny nose. “No pools where you live?” Even as he said it he realized how that sounded. He might as well have said “Have you gone psycho? Are you stalking me?” or possibly “And don’t you want to stalk me?” although he desperately hoped the edge on his voice was sharper than it felt.

Another time, this, any questioning of her actions or motives would have made her angry. He wished she would get angry. He new how to fight with her. He know how to scream and curse and shout when she was around. He didn’t know how to deal with this friendly demeanor; this small talk. It was like he was talking to an alien who had replaced this woman he had…well, this woman. Shrew, even.

“This is where I live,” she said, squinting her blue eyes against the changing position of the sun. She moved into the doorway, into the shade, standing now directly between him and the staircase.

The cigarette dangled from his lower lip as he gaped. “Excuse me?” he managed.

“Oh, Quent…we can be adults about this, can’t we? You were always saying how great this place was, it’s close to work for me….Look, I’m sorry. I know this is awkward, ok? I would have told you sooner – but calling seemed so impersonal and well, I couldn’t exactly stop by and borrow a cup of sugar, could I? It’s not like you keep any actual foodstuff around.”

“Ramen is food,” he snapped back automatically. Awkward? This was awkward? Barbara always was the master of the understatement. He had given up so many things to avoid just this kind of confrontation; stopped going to concerts he knew she would also attend, picked petty fights with mutual friends, stopped going places, doing things; all so he could claim his life back – make his own new place, new life, without her icy blue eyes and cold perfect skin. All he had left was this place – a large one bedroom apartment with an in-unit washer/dryer and a northern view so he wasn’t troubled by the sun – and a shared balcony on his floor where he could watch the honeys at the pool while he played Doom III on his laptop. (Granted, the closest thing he usually got to seeing honeys was Mrs. Dangle – but he held onto the hope that a Swedish Bikini Team would move in downstairs – else he might not leave his apartment at all on the weekends).

When he saw here – that horrible rainbow bikini jogging his memory of summer’s past like a beacon – he felt the walls of his sanctuary crumble. He had been infiltrated, exposed, violated. He took a long drag from his cigarette.

Barbara’s mouth twisted into a half smile. “Fine. Ramen is food. But you know what I mean, Quent. I didn’t want to come crashing in. You know,” she curled her fingers into air quotes (he had always hated that), “’respect your space’ and all that.”

Because this surprise attack was so much less disconcerting, Quentin thought. Although he tried to look aloof, his eyes flicked down to check out her body in the bikini. He noticed she had lost some of that weight in her ass. Must have gone back to that step aerobics class she tried to get him to go to when she had still thought things were worth saving.

Damn. She looked good.

“You look good, Quent,” she said, taking a step closer. It took most of his mental will to stop himself from moving in closer to her – to touch her hand, or brush an invisible eyelash from beneath her eye. Why did it take the skin longer to forget? His brain and his heart knew she wasn’t his anymore; but to his body it was perfectly natural to reach for her – to touch her. It knew her scent, her texture, her taste. It knew that it was wonderful and comfortable and good.

He felt like he was standing in the moment between the lightning flash and the thunderclap.

“Yeah – it’s good to see you too.” He could feel the heat rise up his ears. He was blushing…and mortified for it. Her lips turned from a half grin back to a real smile. Oh no, she had noticed. “Christ her smile is infuriating,” he thought. “Why do her cheeks have to dimple like that?”

A door slammed above them, and then a horde of boys – ages ranging from 8 to 15 – ran past them peeling off their sweaty play clothes to get down to their swimsuits – leaving a trail of jubilant noise and GAP products behind them. Quentin and Barbara had to step back from one another to make way for the eight year old – you had stripped down to his bare bottom.

There was a brou haha of splashes and laughter from outside. Quentin and Barbara looked at each other – confused and stunned – then began to laugh. They laughed until tears streamed down their faces – and their shoulders – which neither had known were tense – finally released their nervous tension.

“Wow,” he offered.

She countered with “Yeah.” Then they laughed some more.

“Well – I guess my sunbathing time is over. I should probably head home – you know – get a shower…”

He grinned bashfully and tried hard not to picture her in the shower. Instead he looked down at his Chuck Taylors’ and watched one ground down his spent cigarette butt. “Well, look, since you’re here – maybe we should – I dunno – get together some time. Have coffee. Catch up. You know. Be neighborly.”

She looked at him for a long minute. “I’d like that,” she said, touching his arm lightly – then, on an impulse, reached up and gave him a quick hug.

It seemed it took forever for Quentin to remember how to let go.

“You’ll have to come over sometime,” she said. “See the new place.”

”I’d like that.”

”Great. I know Reg would love to meet you.”

Quentin leaned against the wall in a way he hoped both looked casual and would provide full body support – as he was sure the ground had just given way. He found he was lighting another cigarette. It took him three times. “Reg?” he said, as nonchalantly as his suddenly swollen tongue would allow.

“Yeah – Reg. My boyfriend? Surely Ben must have told you?”

Ben, that bastard, hadn’t mentioned. But then Quentin never asked.

“I haven’t really talked to Ben lately. Geeze, Barb, didn’t take you long, did it? It’s only been a couple of months – assuming you weren’t seeing him behind my back when we were together – and you’re already moving in with him? What happened to ‘being an independent woman.’” He could feel the adrenaline course through him; his hands were no longer shaking – no – when he was angry – he was in control.

The kids laughter rang reverberated through the courtyard. It was the most aggravating sound Quentin had ever heard.

Barbara sighed, all the light gone from her smile. “Cut the crap, Quent. You were the one always going on about needing your independence. I always liked being in a relationship. You knew that. You were the one who felt ‘stifled’ and ‘boxed in.’ You wanted your space, and you got it. Don’t get pissed at me just because I met someone else and you’re stuck upstairs, alone – ogling old ladies at the pool.”

Quentin spat, he saliva yellow with nicotine. “Whore.” It was a challenge. He felt alive for the first time in months. Whatever she came back with, he was ready for her. Their fights had once been the thing of legends. Mrs. Dangle was in for a rather rude wake-up call. “Unfeeling. Superficial. Bitch. Whore.”

“Bring it,” he thought. “I can take it. Bring it.”

But she just looked at him, her arms now lax at her side – her smile faded into a thin, tight line. Her eyes looked like they might spill over any second, but you wouldn’t know it from her voice, which was quiet and cool.

“I’m sorry, Quent. I thought – well – I thought you were – that we could – I’m sorry. I was wrong. I can see you want to be left alone.”

And so she left him.

Alone.

He watched her walk quickly up the stairs, vanishing onto some unknown landing.

He wanted to scream “Don’t walk away from me, whore,” but his mouth wouldn’t make the words. Instead his lips contorted into a great grimace - with his cigarette perilously perched beneath.

As he climbed the stairs slowly back to his apartment – he could hear quiet sobbing. It wasn’t until the tears slid down to his chin that he realized it was his own.