Bathymetry

Late Spring

“Would you be a dear and help me in the kitchen?” Katherine asks.

I would and I give Emily’s knee a squeeze and remember when that squeeze would have been on a leg covered with the silky smooth feel of blue denim worn and faded by a hundred washes, a thousand washes, in cheap washing machines in dank laundry rooms. She would have worn them, even to a party like this, but what am I saying, we’d have never been invited to a party like this, wouldn’t have wanted to be invited.

“This party is awesome,” I whisper in Emily’s ear, “I’m having an awesome time, thank you for staying until the very end,” and she puts her hand on top of mine and it’s dry and cool like a floured flounder filet ready for the hot oil and I leave her deeply involved in a dense legal conversation with our host, Robert, and Tom and Louise, two other members of the firm.

I struggle up off a particularly uncomfortable mid-century modern chrome and black leather sofa and follow our hostess through the black and white and gray living room into an immense black and white and stainless steel kitchen.

The caterers have left the kitchen gleaming and clean and disappeared without a trace. Katherine and I are alone.

“Do you want something to drink?” she asks. “I have an awesome bottle of an awesome merlot or I have some really awesome bourbon if you’d rather,” and she looks me straight in the eyes and I don’t flinch and go for the bourbon. It’s Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve, which I thought was an urban legend. Nobody drinks bourbon this rare and expensive.

“Sorry about that,” I say, “the awesomes.”

She says, “At first I thought I’d invited a Lego movie character to the party – awesome house, awesome food, everything is awesome – and then I realized that you were using a little coded signal to cue Emily to make excuses and leave. That is it, isn’t it?”

I don’t answer. I can’t get my head around her watching a Lego movie.

“What was it?  Five awesomes and you’d head for the door?”  “Six,” I say, “I used three of them coming up the drive.

Awesome cobblestones by the way. Nothing personal, I’m just not very good at parties.”

“And yet, here you are, one of the last couples left, which is why I have finally taken pity on you and, as a fellow nonlawyer, pulled you into my sanctuary.” She pours a generous slug of bourbon into a heavy-bottomed glass and hands it to me and pours herself a like amount. “So, what is it about parties?”

“People suck my energy,” I explain.

“Oh my,” she says. “Well, thank you for this chance to suck your energy.” She puckers her lips and makes a little inhaling sound.

I take a whiff of my bourbon. Oh sweet Jesus does it smell good. I take a healthy sip, put the glass down and look at her. She’s looking at me, her lips still slightly puckered and I can imagine what those lips would feel like. “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?”

She chuckles. An honest to God chuckle. “I suppose I should be insulted.  Mrs. Robinson was, as I recall, the older woman whereas I am younger than you.”  She swirls the brown nectar around in her glass, takes a sip and leaves just the faintest lipstick print on the rim.

“That’s not what I meant.”

She waves it off. “I Googled you. So, I know you are the older man in this scenario. By eleven months.” She takes another sip. Another faint print. She’s decorating the rim with a growing garland of lipstick. “What about Emily?”

“What about her?”

“How old is she?”

“You didn’t Google her?”

“Hmmm.” Another sip, another little half-circle lip print and I think I must stop looking at her lips and I get my eyes up to hers and that’s a mistake. Her eyes are dark and deep, pupils huge and dilated and I really do think she’s trying to seduce me.

“Thirty-six. She’s thirty-six, thirty-seven in August.”

“You, my dear, are twenty years older than her.”

Of course I’ve done this math.

“Did you seduce her when she was a baby?”

“She was twenty-six, fresh out of an MFA program, two chapbooks already published. I was the famous novelist. I don’t remember who seduced who.”

“Does she suck the energy out of you?”

“Right now all I can think about is sucking some bourbon out of this glass.” That, of course, is not all I can think about.

“Who shall we drink to?” she says, pouring another inch into each of our glasses.

“I’ll drink to you,” I say, “for saving me from lawyers.”

She smiles. “I’ll drink to my daughter.” She sips. “She was your waitress tonight. Works for a caterer.” She shook her head. “You and Emily don’t have any children, do you?”

“No, never really fit into our plans.”

“Plans. Wonderful things. But you’re happy then, just the two of you?”

“You know how it is, good days and bad days. Hills and valleys.”

“Hills? That doesn’t sound particularly exhilarating.”

“Mountains then. Mountains and valleys. You move along. Try not to step off any cliffs on the way down. Hope you are in good enough shape to climb to the summit again.”

“You make it sound very, I don’t know, ponderous.”

“What about you and Robert? Hills, sorry, mountains and valleys?”

“More like dancing on a plateau,” she says.

I take another sip and actually swoon a little. Oh my God, it only gets better and better. “I have to get a bottle of this.”

“I’ll send one home with you.”

“That’s too generous,” I say, but I pray she’ll ignore that.

“My Father sent me a case for Christmas. Robert is a scotch drinker. I’d rather give this to someone who would enjoy it than watch my husband wince and make faces like a baby eating peas.”

“Thank you then.” I take another sip. “I didn’t know you and Robert had kids.”

She says, “We don’t. Isabel is mine from a short first marriage to a man who was, is, a shitty human but excellent at making money. Isabel is, well, what shall we say, finding her way. Years of college, no degree. She fancies herself a poet.  She was dying to talk to your wife.”

“My wife would describe herself as a lawyer these days, I’m afraid.” I take a seat on a black leather and chrome stool which is comfortable. Much more comfortable that it looks. Katherine sits on one next to me. She crosses her legs and slips off her shoe, one of those red-soled numbers that Emily has been coveting for years, as if I could buy her 700 dollar shoes.

“Do you mind?” she asks.

“Of course not. Emily would kill for your shoes.”

She slips off the other. Her feet are tiny, thin, smooth, pedicured, the nails painted a deep red.

“Really? I thought she had…never mind.” She stands up and sighs.

I look at her and she explains, “Radiant floor heating.  Hard shiny tile, so cold looking but so warm. You have to feel it.”

“It sounds awesome.”

“No, seriously, I want you to feel it.”

I put my glass on the counter and kneel, place one hand on the floor and it is warm.

She says, “You should propose while you’re down on one knee like that.”

I give her my free hand and her hand is warm and I say, “Will you…” and just then Robert and Emily come in.

“Not interrupting anything are we?” Robert says and Katherine chuckles, that goddamn melodious sound, and drops my hand.

“We are done with the legal talk and we thought we’d tell you it was safe to come back,” Emily explains.

“I see Katherine has you on your knees,” Robert says and I struggle to my feet.

“Radiant floor heating,” I explain to Emily who gives me the look that means stop it and so I shut up and follow the three of them back to the room with the uncomfortable sofa.

“Where did Tom and Louise disappear to?” Katherine asks.

“They had to run off. They left their teenager home to watch the two younger ones and he suddenly got sick. I believe they may have left the liquor cabinet unlocked. Anyway, while he was puking up what was probably a very good scotch, their nine-year-old called and ratted on him. They said to tell you they had a great time.”

“Ah, well, I’ll call Louise later to make sure everyone’s alive.” She tucks her bare feet up under her. “We’ve gotten comfortable, my dear,” Katherine tells Emily. “Feel free to shed the heels.”

Emily reaches down and slips off her shoes and I catch a glimpse of red soles, what the fuck, and she feels me notice more than sees me and she says “later,” just under her breath and I mutter back “awesome,” and turn to Robert.

“I was just telling your wife that Emily has completely forsaken poetry for law.”

He says, “I’ve never read her poetry but she has an amazing gift for the law.”

I say, “Well, I’ve never seen her briefs.”

“Well, I have,” he says, “And they are a sight to behold.”

We all chuckle, Katherine with the best chuckle by far, but I cannot stop being pissed about red-soled shoes.

“Shall I tell the story of when I knew the world had lost another poet?” I ask.

I feel Emily go tense and she says, “Oh God, please don’t,” and I know she hates this story, but I press on.

“It was her first year of law school and we’d finished dinner and she was telling me about a fascinating case study, well, at least she had found it fascinating, they’d done in class that day, about a young boy who had gone with his father while the father was making a delivery.”

“I do not remember any of this,” Emily says.

“So, anyway,” I continue, “While the father was inside the house or the business, not important which, I don’t believe, the young boy gets out of the car against the express orders of his father and is immediately attacked by the property owner’s dog.  Quite severely. Massive blood loss, lots of stitches, it looks like he might not make it. My immediate question to her was ‘Oh my God, did he recover?’ and without a second thought, our poet, our wordsmith, replies ‘Recover?! Of course he didn’t recover. He was clearly at fault, why should he recover any money.’”

Robert finds this extremely funny, Katherine smiles and sips her bourbon.

“I do not remember anything about that other than the case law,” Emily claims, which only makes Robert chuckle again.

“But what about you, Jake, I read your novel.”

Everyone has read my novel.

“What was it?  Fifteen years ago?”

“Just over twenty.”

“A thin collection of short stories five or six years ago?”

“Seven,” I say.

“We have them. We should get you to sign them while you’re here. Katherine, where are they?”

She reminds him they didn’t fit the color scheme and he laughs.

“Magnificent isn’t it,” and he waves his arms around to show off the room and I say “awesome” and Katherine and Emily exchange a look in a language I don’t speak.

“But back to you, I mean, I know you’re a professor over at the university.”

“Lecturer,” I interrupt. “They reserve the big titles for the PhDs.” I remember that I haven’t told Emily yet that starting Fall term the title will be adjunct lecturer.

“But what, as they say, have you done for me lately?  I mean, first, a novel, albeit a very popular bestselling novel, then a short story collection. You’re not exactly prolific.  What’s next?  A book of sentences?” Then he realizes what he’s said and chuckles. “I guess they are all that, aren’t they, sentences that is. Maybe just letters. Like everyone is texting these days, ‘R U here?’” He makes little air quotes around that last sentence. “That’s it. A whole book of those words you can make just with letters  – R, U, C – there must be dozens I’m not thinking of.”

Katherine says, “Grammagrams.”

Robert looks at her, “That’s it.  Well done, dear,” as if he knew but had forgotten.

“I. C.,” Emily chimes in.

“I. 8. A. U.,” Robert comes back at her. “As in mutton.  E-

W-E.”

“Oh, I get it now,” I say. “Good one.”

Katherine takes a large sip of bourbon. The little garland of lip prints decorating the rim of the glass is almost complete.  She must be trying to make it, there’s no way it’s an accident. She fixes me with her eyes.  “R. U. N. V. S.”

I pull my eyes away and look at Robert. He’s staring at Emily’s legs.

“I’m doing punctuation stories these days,” I say.

“That will require some explanation. What is a punctuation story?” he asks.

“A complete story with just punctuation marks.”

“I’ll need to see that,” he laughs. He laughs a lot it seems. I pull a rumpled index card out of my pocket and feel for my pen. It’s not there.

“Bare minimum requirement for being a writer would be having something to write with, it would seem,” and he hands me a huge black Mont Blanc. Before tonight that would have been my most coveted item.

“Thanks.” I uncap the massive Meisterstück. “Here’s one I call ‘The Entrepreneur’ and I write it on the card and hand it to him.

???!__???!__???!!!!$$$$$.

He puzzles for a moment and then chuckles. “Oh yes. Very clever,” he says, “Asking, Discovery, Failure, Asking, Discovery, Big Money.” He passes the card to Katherine.

She takes it and uses it as a coaster.

“You have a whole collection of these?” he asks.

“Quite a few. They don’t take up much space.”

“Will someone buy something like that?”

“Well, I don’t write great literature for the money.”

“Robert,” Katherine says. “He’s pulling your leg.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I say, “I bet I could find a thousand teenage lovers willing to buy a missing period.”

Robert chuckles. “Yes, well done, sir, well done. You really had me going.”

“Speaking of going,” I say, and Robert puts out his hand to stop me from standing up.

“Just a minute. Something has come up. Tom and Louise have cancelled this summer and Emily said that you two would love to join us the last two weeks of August.”

I see Katherine’s hand tighten around the glass, her knuckles whiten and I’m glad for her the glasses are heavy and thick.

“Why, how nice,” she says, “I don’t think we’ve ever had a second-year associate come and stay with us.

“Well, if she keeps performing like she has, big things will be coming her way.”

I close his pen and hand it back. “What, if I might ask, are we talking about?”

“Every year, the last two weeks of August, we visit our beach house down in Carova. It’s a huge place, secluded, can only get there with a four-wheel drive.”

I look blank.

“Outer Banks, North Carolina. We go down the last two weeks of August,” he explains.

“Brutally hot, good chance of a hurricane making landfall, the relaxing vacation we all deserve,” Katherine says with a grim smile, her lips tight and slightly frightening.

“But the fishing is good, not great but good. You fish, right? I seem to remember some fishing stories in your collection.”

I tell him that was metaphorical fishing and he says “I’ve never filleted a metaphor but I’m willing to try,” and he lets out the biggest chuckle of the night.

Chuckles and Chuckles.  Mr. and Mrs. Chuckles. I try chuckling as well, but it comes out sounding more like I have something caught in my throat. Emily looks at me in a very odd way and I remind myself to get my promised bottle of bourbon before we leave.

Early Summer

I play telephone tag with my agent, my ex-agent to be absolutely correct, but if I were to be absolutely correct I couldn’t call it telephone tag because that implies that he’s calling me back and he isn’t. It’s just me leaving a string of increasingly profane voice-mail messages. I finally reach him when I convince an intern, who makes the mistake of answering the phone, that I’m his brother and his mother has just suffered a stroke. I imagine her last act at the agency is to tearfully connect me with him.

“Matt?” he answers, and I’ll be damned, I remembered right, he does have a brother.

“No, you fucker, it’s Jake. You can’t fucking find two minutes to call me back.”

“Is my mother okay?”

“I guess so. Other than having one selfish bastard of a son or maybe Matt’s a bastard too. Maybe there’s a whole litter of you little fuckers running around.”

“Did you ever hear the expression ‘you catch more flies with honey.’”

“At least you admit you’re a fucking insect.”

He laughs. “How have you been?”  “Writing,” I say.

“Oh, Christ. Please tell me you’re not still writing those goddamn punctuation stories. What the fuck was that shit you emailed me? Dot dot hyphen question mark. I called Emily to see if you were alright.”

“The fuck. Like anyone could get in touch with Emily.”

“She’s full on lawyer, huh? Her kind of poetry is selling big right now believe it or not.”

I choose not to.

“So please tell me you’ve come to your senses.”

“I have.”

“You’re writing? Another novel I hope, finally.”

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s gushing out, piles of pages. I’ve lost the ability to tell if it’s any good or not.”

“Send me something. I’ll get somebody to read it and…”  Then he realizes what he said and he quickly adds, “Shit, I’ll read it personally.”

“Fuck you.”

“Come on, Jake, you owe me. Do you know how many free lunches you’ve gotten out of me? It’s been seven goddamn years since I’ve gotten anything other than the dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot from you.”

“You have to admit it was clever,” I say.

“If I say it was clever will you mail me some real writing?”

“If you say it’s clever I’ll fire your fucking ass, and

Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t fire that poor intern. I can be very convincing.”

I hang up.

I search through the fridge and find next to nothing, smell the milk, and decide a bowl of cereal could be called dinner in some places, some very fucked up places. Hours later, Emily finally comes in and finds me watching three movies at once, flicking at every commercial break. I’ve seen them all anyway.

“Ah,” I say, “The love of my life.”

She drops her briefcase and slips off her heels, the fucking Louboutins again, I Googled it, or maybe it’s another pair. I really don’t care.

“Is there anything to eat?” she asks.

“Cereal, but the milk’s a little cheesy.” Probably worse now since I see I left it sitting on the counter.

“Oh God, Jake. Can you please go to the store tomorrow?”

“Don’t want to interrupt the muse, darling. No stores in lawyerland?”

“I’ve billed sixty plus hours every week for the last month, darling.”

I have no idea why she seems so very proud of it. I certainly have no idea why I should be proud of it. “You are such a good provider.”

“I’m not doing this now. I’m tired and I need a shower.”

She showers a lot lately, comes home gets a shower, wakes up gets a shower. She’s turning into some sort of fish.

“I called Steve today,” I say. “He asked about you. I told him you’ll be sending him another book of poems.”

“Fuck you,” she says.

Late Summer

We are fishing. Surf rods, each a dozen feet long, a tackle box of huge lures, a discussion of hooks, lines and sinkers. It’s seven in the morning of our first day and Robert and I are on the beach, the hulking mansion behind us, the tracks in the sand revealing the multiple treks we made hauling the gear. The Atlantic is gray and rough and lies before us, taut lines run from tip of rod to unseen underwater lead pyramid sinkers, bait – a sliver of squid – also unseen, hopefully enticing. We’re drinking Coronas with a lime jammed into the neck and that is my favorite part of the day so far but it’s early yet. If you’re going to drink all day you have to drink in the morning.

“The tides drive it all,” he says, “Time of day, time of the year, the underwater structure, of course, the bait, they all play a part but high tide makes the difference in surf fishing.

The good news is this time next week high tide will be closer to lunch. But you know all this,” he says. “When’s the last time you fished?”

“The last time I fished,” I say, “was when I realized I’d rather be eating the bait than anything I was catching – squid, crabs, shrimp – sounds better than anything we’ll pull up this morning. Take that calamari you found buried in the freezer – little olive oil, some garlic, side of pasta.”

Robert lets out a chuckle, Mr. Chuckles, I’d almost forgotten the sound.

“So anyway, two hours before high tide to two hours after.  Slack tide is useless. No movement. You want the water churning, getting all the bait fish in a frenzy, then the big fish eat the little fish and then the bigger fish, hell, I don’t need to tell you that cycle.” He takes a long swig of his beer. “And the underwater structure here is perfect – a series of sandbars, parallel to the beach.  Troughs for the big fish to feed in.”

“You know,” I say, “when you said fishing, I pictured you as a trophy guy. Marlin. Tarpon. Fancy fly gear, wading the flats for bonefish.”

“Oh, hell, I’ve done all that. Still do, if a client invites me along. Marlin fishing off Bimini, you’d love it – the whole Hemingway thing. Go back to the lodge and tell stories about the big one that got away, while you’re eating fresh fish that you didn’t catch and that didn’t get away. At some point I decided I’d rather have a nice full creel of good eating than waste a lot of time and money looking for the trophy. Sometimes the trophy is right in front of you.”

I look up and down the beach. It’s almost empty. A lone jogger far to the north. The only access to the house is via four-wheel drive. It’s deserted.

“Katherine’s dad taught me to fly fish. He has this place on Captiva – you know, west coast of Florida. Walk out the door, down the pier, into the boat and you’re fishing in two minutes, maybe less. Or you fish the Gulf side. Walk out a hundred yards it’s so shallow. Shit, listen to this, there was this time we were doing that – structure just like here – parallel sandbars – of course, here the waves would knock you on your ass and there you can see the bottom in ten feet of water, anyway, you walk out and you’re waist deep for twenty feet, then ankle deep for ten, then waist deep for twenty, on and on for like I said, a hundred yards, more. Anyway I’m wading out casting this beautiful fly – my God – Katherine’s dad ties them and they are works of art. Talk about wanting to eat your bait, these you’d want to hang on the wall. Again, off topic, it’s to be expected drinking beer for breakfast, beach brain already setting in, so I’m on one of these ankle deep bars and I’m just about to step into the trough and this fucking black shape cruises past less than a yard away. Must have been fifteen feet long. I almost stepped on it. I don’t know if it was a shark or a dolphin I was so busy trying to regain control of my anal sphincter.”

He lets the loudest chuckle yet roll across the ocean.  Some poor beachcomber in Spain is going to get hit with that chuckle many hours from now. I envy him. The guy in Spain.

“Quick, check your rod,” he shouts.

After a lunch of fish and some canned vegetables the girls found in a cabinet, Emily and Robert volunteer to take the four-wheel drive and the grocery list to the store to stock up for the next few days. Katherine and I are left to our own devices.  I think about writing, but the trip down, the early morning, and white wine with lunch have me about ready to take a nap and besides, I see Katherine on the deck, staring at the ocean and I am lured outside.

“You could fit our house on this deck.”  She turns to me and smiles.

“The firm owns this place, they took it as partial payment from a client. Partners take turns coming down. The rest of the year it sits here begging the sea to put it out of its misery.”

“I noticed it has the mandatory cutesy name. ‘Not Enough Sand.’ Irony?”

“It’s from the lawyer joke. You know it?”  I shake my head.

“What do you have when you have two lawyers buried up to their necks in sand?”

“Not enough sand,” we say in unison.

She holds up the large goblet of wine she’s working on.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“No thanks,” I say, “I’m fine.”

“I packed some bourbon – the Van Winkle. I thought we might need it to get through the next two weeks.”

“Tempting, but later.”

“Suit yourself.” She turns back to watch the ocean, it’s much less rough than this morning. “How was fishing? Fun?”

“Four hours of staring at the ocean, sharing fishing stories, male bonding, yielding four flounder that we could have bought for less than twenty bucks. What more could anyone ask for?”

“Robert always has to catch his little fish.”

She moves to a chaise, sits down and unties the belt of her cover-up.

“I know tanning is horrible for you, but you have to die of something, right?”

“Right. I won’t tell if you don’t.”

She smiles and slips off the cover-up.  She’s wearing a bikini, not a Sports Illustrated bikini but a bikini nevertheless – less being the key. It’s nice, black, with a little pink design, triangles, or maybe diamonds, okay I’m staring at her body. It’s fucking amazing. It’s – hours in a gym, salads for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the days you’re not fasting, more hours in the gym – amazing.

I plop down in a chaise next to her in my almost-clean cargo shorts and t-shirt.

“Things going well? Still working on your punctuation?”

“No, I put that aside, exclamation point. I’m working on something longer. My agent likes it so far.”

“How nice for you.”

I feel like she’s pissed at me for some reason. Maybe I should have stared longer, maybe I shouldn’t have stared. Fuck it. I’ll just ask. “Did I do something to piss you off?”

She chuckles. Is this chuckling thing contagious? Maybe I should be wearing a surgical mask.

“I’m not pissed off. You’ll never see me pissed off.”

“What is it then?”

“I’m rather surprised you came. I thought right up until we left that you’d call and cancel.”

“Nope, I thought about it but Emily really wanted to come.

I think she sees this vacation as a career move.”

“Does she like being an attorney?”

“She spends a lot of time at the office. It consumes her.  She wants partner.”

Katherine swirls her glass of wine around. No lipstick garland. She sighs. “She’ll never be partner at Blythe and O’Connell.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t want Emily to be disappointed, but schadenfreude tickles my frontal lobe.  “She’ll find that very disappointing,” I manage to say. “Robert told you this?”

“Robert? It isn’t his decision. My father is the Blythe in Blythe & O’Connell. He has the last word.”

“What about O’Connell?”

“O’Connell has been dead for thirty years.”

“So you’re Blythe.”

“My father is. He still makes the board meetings, still hobnobs with the CEOs of all those old Baltimore firms and foundations and banks that keep the firm secure. He’s always made sure that Robert doesn’t, how shall I say this, bring disgrace down on his daughter, his firm, or his good name. That may be in reverse order. It’s an old-fashioned sort of honor, but that’s my dad, he’s old-fashioned.”

“So you think they’re, you know…” and I can’t bring myself to say it, as if the words, the words out loud, would make it real.

“Fucking?” she chuckles. It’s the ugliest goddamn sound I’ve ever heard. “Of course I do. I think your little poet has her legs spread in the back of the Range Rover right now.”

I’m not sure what expression I have on my face but she gets up and puts her hand on the top of my head.

“I’ll get the bourbon.”

White hot churning acid in my brain is etching a deep mental picture. She’s back, she’s been gone a thousand years, she’s been gone a second. The bourbon is in a tall glass with lots of ice.

“Almost a summer beverage this way, don’t you think?”

“Fuck, I knew. I’ve known for a while. I think it was just hearing it out loud.”

“Keep thinking about it. You’ll build up a callus.” She’s brought herself a bourbon as well. “Turnabout?”

“What?” I say, stalling for time. I heard her. I know what she means.

“Do. You. Want. To. Fuck?” She says it slowly, enunciating each word like she is talking to someone who’s very very dense.

I need to think about it. Oh my God, do I want to, every opportunity to cheat since Emily and I met is racing back, in full vivid Technicolor: book tours, students desperate for better grades, colleagues, drunken neighbors, and it was always no always no but right now I want to go back and fuck them all. Why can’t I go back and fuck every single one of them?

“That’s a no, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be. I am not an insecure woman. I know you find me attractive.”

“I do, it’s not that. I…”

She puts two fingers to my lips to shut me up. Please shut me up.

“I,” she says, “am going to go read.”

“Katherine…”

“Shhh.”  She bends over and picks up her cover-up, slips it on, ties the belt. “Maybe next year I’ll be reading your new book.”

She turns and disappears inside.

I walk over to the railing and stare at the ocean.

The tide is slack.  There is a sandbar a hundred yards offshore that I can’t see, but I know is there.