'Where Everyone Can See', by J.S. Balaban
Tyler put his card pass to the hotel door and held it open for Harper.
She stutter-hopped in her cork platform wedges, hips swaying as she crossed the faded carpet.
“Look at that view!” she yelped, her hands fumbling with the latch to the sliding doors. Across from the balcony, the Pacific stretched for miles.
“Help me,” she pleaded, her body trembling with excitement as she struggled with the door.
That’s what Tyler liked about Harper. Her unrestrained energy.
He set her bag on the luggage stand, laid his own duffel on a chair. Brushing past her, he could smell her lotion, a cucumber scent. Wrapping his fingers around the handle, he pulled. The door would not budge. Putting one hand atop the other, he tried again, grunting as he strained. At last the door rolled open, crying with a nails-on-chalkboard screech.
Harper sashayed across the broad apron to the railing, the same way Tyler had watched her take the stage. Her arms rose, splaying as she leaned over the metal railing. Only her shortness prevented her from swan diving over the edge.
Tyler knew she’d like the room. He’d paid up for it specifically for the view. Joining her on the balcony, he gulped the ocean air, inhaling deeply, nearly snorting the way he breathed during sex. Then, as if reading his mind, Harper was on him.
She took his head, her hands pulling him in for a kiss. He lifted her with a tightening hug.
“This is so wonderful! Thank you!”
“It’s nothing. You deserve a break.” He let her down and grabbed her ass. “Would you like a beer?”
He pulled two bottles from his soft cooler. The weekend was theirs. He felt possessive of it, guarded. No one was to interfere with his and Harper’s love fest. He’d arranged with a colleague to handle his sales calls that Friday. This morning, Harper had crawled into the passenger seat of his aging Audi as he loaded her bag into the trunk. She was groggy, quiet, nearly pouting from working late night morning. She slumped in the seat, head resting, but began to rally when they stopped at Dunkin’ for coffee.
She wakened that, holding her cup, telling him about the fight between dancers and the paltry tips. Shifting in her seat, she looked at him and began to giggle.
“What’s so funny?”
He smiled in response to her own.
“Being with you. Getting away. Taking a little vacation, though I’m missing a good night for tips. So it is.”
She arched her shoulder forward and jiggled her thighs.
He’d taken the long route along the ocean, looking at houses as they drove south through the towns along the coast.
“I’d live here.”
He prided himself on his conviction. But each house he pointed to – a hunter green craftsman, a small Mediterranean-inspired cottage, a frame and stucco bungalow – Harper had routinely dismissed.
“Those are so outdated,” she’d said.
Her window down, the wind tousled her short, dishwater-blond hair while her eyes wandered the hillsides. At last, she found something to show him.
“Over there.”
Her hand rose, directing him to a sleek, modern structure, cantilevered over the hillside.
“That one.” She turned and smiled.
To Tyler, it was a stack of oblong boxes, situated at angles, no more attractive than Amazon cardboard left curbside. He frowned. You could see a hundred of those houses and they soon seemed to be one and the same.
He didn’t mind her objections. He was just looking.
- : -
“What, you’re not going to open it for me?” she giggled when he handed her the bottle, her long nails wrapping around the curve of the label.
“Of course,” he said, taking it back.
He slipped an army knife out of his pocket and pried off the cap. Clinking his bottle against hers, he toasted to the weekend.
Harper threw her head back and swallowed. With a burp, the effervescence escaped her belly.
“Excuse me!” she said and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I could watch this view all afternoon.”
They’d met at a strip club in Corona. He’d noticed Harper while she danced – the rounded shoulders and breasts, the powerful legs moving in spiked heels. Her body shouted its nimbleness and strength. An athlete, Tyler thought. His mind raced with the potential of what she’d be like in bed.
He didn’t go to the strip club often. More out of a primal urge to witness a woman moving half-naked in front of him, a total stranger, someone he could ogle and tease. Through a baseball league, friends of friends, and talking up women at the grocery store or wine shop, he’d meet someone and make a date. But after continued signs of tension or a sexual dry spell, call a friend, another guy in his mid-30s, and they’d hit the bars. If that didn’t pan out, he’d head to the club.
“Where you from?” Harper had asked while counting out singles in the dim light. He was at the bar nursing a rum and coke when she sided up to him. “Don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”
Not everyone could do that. Talk and count.
She listened raptly as he told her where he lived, what he did for work. She was bubbly in a way that the other dancers weren’t. He didn’t think of himself as handsome or special in any conventional way. His ears were too long, his shoulders too thin, his calves too big, as if generations of disparate genes had found their expression through him. But he was eager and so was she.
“Did anyone ever tell you that you look like an Olympic ice skater?”
He set his drink on the bar.
“An ice skater? Hah! I wouldn’t even know where to strap on a pair of skates around here.”
She sipped club soda from a tall glass.
“There must be rinks around somewhere. You know, all those athletes come from California. They’re probably hiding out in office parks.”
She gently smacked his arm, but left her hand where it landed.
“How about you? What’s your sport?”
“Baseball, basketball. You know how men are with their balls.”
It was a stupid joke, but she laughed.
“I like you,” she said. “You’re funny. And cute. Where’d you get those dimples?”
She pinched his cheek.
“So, I’m funny. Was never sure if that’s a good thing or bad.”
“It’s a good thing.”
She grabbed her glass and did a quick swallow.
“Hang around. I’ve got one more set.”
They’d gone out since then, to restaurants and movies. Over a beer afterward, in her apartment or his house, they’d chat about the neighborhood and the cost of housing, what store had opened and which landmark had closed, small talk before they ended the night in bed.
On his way to her house that morning, while waiting out the traffic lights and school buses, he had wondered if it was too soon to ask her away for a long weekend. He didn’t want to give an impression that anything was fixed between them. He hated to call it a date. Sometimes, it was best not to name things. Just let them happen. She was good company. He knew they’d have fun.
She set her beer on the glass table and sat across from him on the balcony. Then she dropped her hand to her purse and pulled out a small tin and a lighter.
Tyler watched her shift her shoulders forward and light the joint. With ritual practice and delicacy, she blossomed upright and held her breath.
He didn’t care for pot. It rarely gave him any kind of lift and often made him tired. It wasn’t like alcohol which left him feeling relaxed, happy. He finished his beer and set it down.
Harper held her arms out like a bird, eyes closed, swooning outward from her chair as if in flight, and exhaled a tea kettle of vapor. The huff of blue-gray smoke swept away with the breeze. Then she collapsed her arms, drew a deep breath and pulled the beer to her mouth, the joint burning in her other hand.
Tyler looked away. On the opposite hill, in the shade of tall palms, was an apartment building, long and sinewy, built into the contours of the undulating grounds. The sole defect he saw was that it faced their hotel rather than the sea. Too bad, Tyler chuckled to himself. Probably cost a lot of money to live there, yet no view.
“What are you laughing about?” Harper’s nipples pressed firmly against her cropped shirt.
“Nothing. Just admiring how comfortable you look,” he said. “I think your top is suppressing your tits.”
“You think the puppies want out of their pen?”
She raised her shirt, giving him a peek at her breasts.
“I’m thinking it’s time to go inside, maybe take a nap. How about you?”
She giggled, her shoulders rocking her chest as her eyes dropped to his lap.
“I think that’s a great idea.”
In the room, Harper wiggled out of her skirt. He loved the look of her. Her perky breasts, the heart shape of her ass. He went back on the balcony, opened her tin and took two quick hits off the joint.
He pulled the curtain shut across the sliding door. The room darkened but he could easily see Harper lying naked on the bed.
“Hmm, you smell good,” she giggled as he kissed her neck and shoulders. Her hand dropped to his groin. She gripped him hard.
“And you feel good, too!”
And then he was on top of her, kissing her breasts and making a line with his tongue from her chest to her belly. He’d left the balcony door ajar, and a breeze gusted through, ruffling the curtains. His hands gripped her waist and slowly his head dropped between her legs.
They both giggled. What wasn’t there to like about this moment?
- : -
It was a truck that woke Tyler. The shrill horn rattled him out of a light sleep. It took a second to remember the hotel and Harper lying naked beside him. Quietly, he tip-toed over their clothes to slide the door shut. Harper lay curled under the sheet, her arm on his pillow. She’d slept through the horn and the squeal of the door. Nothing would wake her now.
He pulled on his underwear and shorts, tee shirt and running shoes. Then he grabbed a room card. It was mid-afternoon. He parted the curtain. Out on the Pacific, the sun shone fully, a commanding dome that seemed to suppress the waves. Harper and he had talked about an early dinner. He had an hour, hour and a half at most for a run on the beach.
Tyler jogged down the long hotel drive to the boulevard, feeling his legs and the rhythmic pumping of his lungs. He crossed and followed the beach access road through a gap in the low hills. Against the cliffs set back from the water, he found some boulders to hide his shoes. Around him, young women stretched out on their towels and sarongs, taking in the sun. Perhaps it was the sun, perhaps the sand, but together they conjured memories of youthful days, of the women he’d met, and the sensual intimacies shared behind the rocks or under a blanket on the beach. He was still young, not yet thirty-five, and the carefreeness of then seemed naive in retrospect. Yet, so many of the liberties of his youth happened against the backdrop of the ocean, whose scent took him back to the lightness of those distant summers.
Keeping to the wet sand, he ran south in his bare feet. His knees lifted and his arms relaxed, making him feel buoyant and timeless. At the lifeguard station in the next town, he turned around and retraced his steps to his shoes.
The sound of the surf still echoed in his head at the stop light below the hotel. His eyes darted back and forth across the busy boulevard, following the rush hour traffic. It was then that he saw a small house with a for-sale sign along the boulevard, a house that he’d missed it earlier. When the light changed, he crossed and jogged toward it.
“For Sale by Owner.”
He looked to the front door of the one-story cottage set back from the road with a porch that ran its width. He’d slept in a house like that, on the floor with cousins after a day at the beach. A house that had belonged to his grandparents. So far, the afternoon had lifted and carried him on a wave of nostalgia. Playing to the moment, he approached the door and knocked. He waited, accepting that what happened next would be up to the fates. The inevitability of what followed made him pinch his thigh and hope there was someone inside to open the door.
- : -
When Tyler returned to the hotel, Harper lay on the bed in a white top and denim skirt. He was excited about what he had seen, excited such that he wanted to tell her everything.
The TV was on. Rolling onto her side, she propped her head on her wrist.
“What house? What are you talking about?”
She swung her feet to the floor.
“You showering? I’m ready.”
Tyler pulled off his shirt. He was out of breath from his hike up the drive.
“A cool fixer-upper.”
He dropped his shorts.
“A cottage, just down the hill. The owner’s an interesting guy. Selling it himself.”
“A fixer-upper? Wow,” she said, feigning excitement. “Why’s he selling?”
“Says California’s too expensive. He has this wild idea to move to Idaho and make photobooks.”
Naked, Tyler stood before her, pulling on his balls.
“He might be a graphic artist or techie. Can’t say for sure. He has quite a setup of monitors and computers. Anyways, he invited us back. I’d like you to see it.”
“What about dinner? You made reservations?”
She slipped on her elevated shoes.
“Not yet,” he said defensively. “I will.”
“Nice meal at a good restaurant, wouldn’t that be fun?”
She tilted her head and smiled.
“I’d really like that. Now go on! Get ready. I’m hungry.”
She watched as he strutted to the bathroom.
After Tyler had showered and dressed, he grabbed four bottles from the room fridge.
“You’re taking beers? I thought this guy – what’s his name – invited us over?”
“We should bring something,” Tyler said, closing the door to the balcony and locking it. “His name’s Easton.”
He checked his pants for his wallet and phone.
“I can’t believe he hasn’t sold it already.”
“I can only imagine what this place looks like.”
She had her hands on her hip, reminding him she was hungry.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I saw the houses you pointed out this morning. You’ve bundled up some serious nostalgia. You should be going for something more modern.”
“Oh, you’re so high brow.”
His eyes danced over the undulating curves of her body stutter-stepping to the door.
“I should warn you, though. It’s not the cleanest.”
“Great. Just what I want to see. Someone else’s mess.”
She flashed her eyes in mock coyness.
“You know what a brat I am.”
In the parking lot, Tyler walked past his aging Audi to the edge of the hill overlooking the boulevard below.
“You’re not driving?” Harper asked.
“There’s no place to park.”
“Well that’s a plus,” she said. “A house without a driveway or garage.”
Too excited to argue, he pointed to a set of steps leading down the hill.
“This is a shortcut. The desk clerk told me about it.”
“Sure, we’re getting our exercise. I get it. What about the restaurant? How are we going to get there?”
“You’re that hungry?”
“I’m always hungry.”
She patted her stomach.
“We’ll take Uber. No worries.”
He put a hand to the rail and started down the steps. They were new, the concrete white and square, surrounded by stunted pines meandering down the hill. But after thirty feet or so the steps ran out. From there, a dirt trail dropped another two hundred feet to the street below. Harper stopped and gave him a hard look.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I can’t walk downhill in these shoes.”
She had on a different pair of platform wedges, blue ones, another in a series of pastel colors.
“You’re making this awfully difficult,” she grumbled and extended her hand. “Let me hold onto you before I fall.”
Her shoes had no grip on the unstable dirt. She held on, but still she slipped, her grasp nearly wrenching his arm as she caught herself.
Feeling her weight on the hillside was different for Tyler than experiencing it in bed. He muscled himself under her, balancing the beer cooler in one hand, and braced himself so they both didn’t tumble.
They slid the last several feet, her swearing as the pine branches swatted at them. Tyler wondered what he was thinking, desperately prayed they wouldn’t fall, and roughly grabbed Harper until they landed at the base of the hill in a spray of dust. Harper’s cough morphed into a scowl.
Tyler had only seen her smile. Or that was the only expression of hers he wanted to see. She was perfect that way, always happy, never complaining, an easy companion for his evenings. But now she was mad. Hoping to ease her anger, he reached for her hand, but she knocked it away.
“My bad,” he muttered. “Sorry you’re so put out.”
He didn’t intend it, but the words came out mockingly.
“Can it, Tyler.”
She turned and gave her skirt one last brush.
“Let’s get this over with.”
They emerged from a copse of trees to the intersection. The heat and exhaust of the stopped cars was on them. A man in a BMW convertible was staring as they stepped out of the scrub and onto the sidewalk.
“What the hell you looking at?” Harper yelled as Tyler got his bearings.
He kept his back turned until the light changed and the cars began to move.
Tyler pointed in the direction of the house. With Harper dragging a half step behind him, he talked about the beach and the expanse of ocean hoping she might feel the magic of the seaside town. But she was too busy looking from side to side, hopping along in her wedges, steering clear of the rocks and sticks.
“There it is,” he said.
The “For Sale” sign was planted squarely in the small yard squeezed between large, white stucco homes with terracotta roofs, situated side-by-side like shark teeth, somehow sparing this particular home. Now that Harper was with him, what had appeared so quaint and inviting on first look began to show its faults. Seeing the home through her eyes, the details he’d previously missed were like sores covered by the perfect linen shirt of his dreams.
“Place could use some paint,” she said as they approached the front porch.
The peeling clapboard had been invisible to him before. They mounted the steps together, felt them bend underfoot.
“That frame’s not right,” Harper said calling his attention to the slant of the picture window.
“How do you have such a keen eye?” They paused on the landing.
“My father was a carpenter.” She took another look around the porch. “How much?”
“Three fifty.”
She shook her head.
“That’s a lot.”
But then, as if to reassure him, she looked into his eyes and added, “You’re handy, right? These things can all be fixed.”
She smoothed her skirt and then took his arm as Tyler knocked on the door.
It opened to a tanned, unshaven young man. Head up, shoulders back, Easton was tall, athletic looking, the sinews of his arms and legs like cords binding firewood. He pushed a mop of brown hair off his brow and invited them in.
He wore the same ragged tee shirt and pants threadbare at the knee. When Tyler introduced Harper, he bowed, lifted her hand to his lips and gently inhaled before kissing her knuckles.
Weirdo, Tyler thought.
“Oh, my,” Harper giggled, leaving her hand in Easton’s until he let go.
“I brought beer,” Tyler said.
He brushed past Easton and cleared the magazines and cracker cartons on the coffee table to set the partial six-pack. Tyler had thought Easton might have tidied up the room or put away his clothing draping the chair backs, but everything was mostly as he left it an hour before. Boxes, some with books, others with clothing, sat on the floor under the side window.
Tyler opened a bottle with his army knife and handed one to Easton.
“No thanks. I don’t drink.”
Tyler took back the bottle.
Wondering what the man might drink, he asked in the order of his personal preference, “No wine, no rum, vodka, bourbon?”
“Pretty much everything. Trying to keep my body clean. Moving is a trying time. I want to avoid any psychosomatic dependency and stay focused.”
“Oh, you’re one of those guys,” Harper said, not judging as much as noting his abstinence. “Vegan or vegetarian?”
“Vegetarian mostly. There are always exceptions, you know.”
He skirted the coffee table with unusual grace and stood beside it, smiling.
He reminded Tyler of the techies he’d met, earnest young men, especially the cyclists, triathletes and climbers. No junk food or alcohol to compromise their competitive edge. All edge and no depth.
“Do you smoke?”
Harper’s fingers touched the clasp of her purse. Tyler gave her a quick look.
“No, strictly nose candy. Or fentanyl if you have it.”
Harper’s look was one of shock, but then she and Tyler both laughed.
A character, Tyler surmised.
“I just wanted to show Harper your home before we go to dinner,” he said, getting the conversation back on track. He took a quick gulp from his bottle.
“Tyler, you should ask Easton if it’s okay to drink. Where’s your manners?” Harper giggled and raised her hands in apology.
“C’mon. Sit down.”
Easton cleared a pile of bed sheets from the couch. Tyler hoped they were clean.
“Should we see the place first?” Harper asked, suddenly business like.
That’s my girl, Tyler thought.
“Yeah, sure.”
Easton dropped the bedding on a chair and stepped deeper into his house.
“This is the dining room.”
He scooped a dirty glass and bowl off the table, which lay in hazy darkness.
“Many of the features are original,” he said, waving an elbow toward the brick fireplace and built-in shelving.
A series of small, geometric graphics rose along one wall.
“What year is the house?” Harper asked.
She opened the louvers on a full closed blind.
“Early 1920s.”
Easton stepped into the light, his head surrounded by a halo of dust. Then he turned and led them through to the kitchen where he dropped the dishes on a cluttered countertop. He showed Harper the pantry, understanding that she was the one requiring persuasion, and opened the back door to a small yard. A large rose bush climbed a tall trellis and cast pink blossoms around its gnarled bole.
“It’s a lovely yard.” Harper said, stepping past the rose into an oblong patch of sand and grass. “Look, you can see our hotel.”
She pointed over the tall, surrounding fence to the rising hill.
“The house is a beach lover’s dream,” Easton said, his manner oozy and unctuous, unlike the ‘whatever, man” that greeted him. “The simplicity and closeness to the ocean make it ideal.”
Harper nodded. “So, what do you do?”
There was a bench in the yard, and Easton motioned for her to sit.
“Websites. For a company up in L.A. Technical stuff, though I have a degree in graphics.”
“I have a friend who does graphics for websites. Works remotely. Do you get to L.A. a lot?”
Easton told her about his job, but quickly turned the conversation around.
“How about you? What do you do?”
“I dance. In a bar.” She giggled.
“No! How cool is that? Just one bar, or a couple of different ones?”
“Couple of different ones. Have to go where the money is.”
“Ah, so you’re an entrepreneur!”
“Hah, I never thought of it that way. But I guess so, right, Tyler?”
Her look questioned his attention.
“Whatever.”
He dug into his pocket and fingered a loose thread. He wanted to have a look at the house. Leaving them to their small talk, he paced his steps through the yard, calculating a rough distance to the fence. Looking back to the house, he imagined what he could do with the space. Perhaps a small garden. Or pavers and a pergola with all-weather couch and chairs. Some combination of both?
Slowly he returned to the back of the house, passing Harper and Easton, who were deep in conversation, Harper smiling, legs crossed, both hands clasped around one knee, giving Easton her full attention.
Tyler continued to the rear wall, where looking up, he noticed dry rot on boards over the porch. He climbed a step for a better look and felt the tread sag under him. He backed down and stepped again, verifying that the spot was as weak as was his first impression. Continuing to the corner of the house, he entered the narrow gap between it and the behemoth home next door. He walked along the side of Easton’s house, and raising his hand against the sun, he saw where wasps had made a nest in the eaves. His eyes dropped from the weathered clapboards running along its length to a sizeable crack in the foundation. He shook his head.
The house needed a lot of work. He started running numbers in his head. He had no sense of the true cost, and his rough calculation was interrupted by a muscle car rumbling past on the street. Tyler grumbled back. Even if he could buy it, Easton’s home would take more effort to rehab than he could afford or was prepared to do himself.
He swallowed hard. Enough thinking for now.
As he rounded the corner of the house, the rope smell of marijuana assaulted his nose. Still seated on the bench, Harper exhaled a stream of smoke and passed the joint to Easton, who watched her face as he put it to his mouth and took a long pull. He smiled and handed it back.
Tyler’s beer was no longer cold. He took a final chug and walked to the bench.
When Harper handed the joint back to Easton, instead of puffing, he offered it to Tyler.
“Sure.”
Tyler watched them both and took a hit.
“Crazy how expensive everything is,” said Harper, and looked from Tyler to Easton. “I get your wanting to move. It’s a shame.”
She shook her head and raised her eyes to the sky, her chest forward. Easton’s half-stoned smile grew bigger.
“Shame to give up such a nice location.”
“A lot.”
Easton’s eyes brightened.
“I walk the beach almost every morning. Tried surfing, though I wasn’t very good. Had friends visit or crash for the weekend. Many quiet evenings alone, also. The house served me well. And the town is growing. Shops, restaurants. You’ll get your money back in a few years if you decide to sell.”
“It won’t be my house. It’s his,” Harper said, pointing to Tyler.
“You’re not together?”
Easton’s finger strayed, pointing from one to the other.
“No, just fuck mates.”
Harper shot Tyler a dry smile and snuffed out the joint.
“Well that about says it,” Tyler deadpanned. “I’m going in for a beer. Anyone want anything?”
“I’m good,” Harper said, and turned back to Easton.
Tyler remembered he’d left the beers on the table in the living room. As he walked through the house, he was aware of a smell, an aroma he’d missed or simply ignored. It was Easton’s. The rooms held his scent like the musk of some animal. It was not an odd or bad smell, just one of Easton: his food, his clothing, his body. For the first time, Tyler felt like an intruder, and he found himself aware of it in a primal way, one male beast sensing another.
He carried the beers to the fridge and set them inside. As he stood back from the matte black door, Harper and Easton entered the house talking.
“The road noise is not too bad,” Easton was saying. “You get used to it. I sleep in the back of the house. The bedroom’s smaller, but it’s quieter.”
He slipped passed Tyler to open the fridge.
“What can I get you? Water? Carbonated juice?”
Looking at Harper, he crouched such that the fridge light gave a waxen glow to his face.
“A juice sounds fine.”
She strolled to the sink, ran water to wash her hands and dried them with a paper towel. Planting her hip against the counter, she waited as Easton dropped ice into her glass.
He handed her the drink and disappeared into the hallway.
“Why are you talking with him so much?” Tyler whispered when they were alone.
“Why not?”
She set the juice aside.
“I’m asking you.”
“He seems, you know, interested in what I have to say.”
He found it hard to believe that Easton could ask or say anything all that stimulating.
“Are you saying I’m not interested in you?”
“Tell me!” she said.
Tyler scratched his neck.
“I remember what you said about your niece.”
“Cousin. That’s my family. It’s not about me.”
“Well, you like your family. And how she’s . . . she’s into making jewelry? Hell, I’d like to see her stuff sometime.”
“She works in a micro-brewery.” Harper paused. “You’re still not listening.”
“I can’t remember all the details. I’m only human. Do you hear everything I say?”
His mouth opened as he leaned forward.
“Most of it. Look, I know what this is about.”
She smiled, and dropped her eyes to his crotch.
Tyler shook his head. To him it was also clear: their connection was all about sex. He wanted to tell her yes, good company made for good sex. Isn’t that what they both wanted?
“Besides, he’s cute.”
Harper pushed a finger teasingly into Tyler’s ribs.
He brushed her finger away. This was not going well.
“Okay! So where were we?” Easton asked, rubbing his hands as he strolled into the dining room.
“I’m getting hungry.” Harper looked at Tyler. “Should we go to dinner?”
“Why not stay? We can order pizza,” Easton said. “I’ve nothing planned for tonight. I know we just met, but why not?”
Tyler and Harper both laughed, but it was she that he and Easton both watched, waiting on her to make a decision.
“Sure, why not? How about you honey?”
Her eyebrows rose as she wiggled her hips.
“I thought you wanted to go out to a restaurant? You must have told me ten times.”
“Yeah, but I’m having fun. Besides, don’t you just love this house?”
Tyler felt that she was deliberately testing his patience, but he decided to play along. In a way, she was right. They wouldn’t have a whole lot to talk about over dinner. Easton was a good distraction. Get through pizza, he thought. Then back to the hotel. Maybe a quickie before the night was over.
“Fine, then. I’ll order,” Tyler volunteered. “What’s the name of the place? And what do you want on it?”
“Sausage,” Harper said and licked her lips.
“Easton?”
“Chick peas, romaine and cukes.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, then just one half. Or better yet, order me a small and you get what you want.”
“A salad pizza? Huh. Any arugula on that?” Harper joked.
Once he’d placed the order, Tyler walked into the hallway and closed the bathroom door behind him. The lid was up, the toilet clean. He relieved himself and then pulled back the shower curtain and opened the medicine cabinet. For all the disarray in the house, the bathroom was orderly, if not exactly meticulous. It was as if Easton had put all his effort into this one room. Tyler looked along the mosaic floor and thumbed through a magazine in a basket. Then he flushed the toilet and washed his hands.
Tyler walked out of the bathroom hallway and neither Harper nor Easton were in sight. But there was a huddle on the couch. And as he wandered into the living room, Harper and Easton separated. Harper’s hand straightened her top.
“What the hell?” Tyler stood over Easton, glaring. “Tell me this is a joke.”
“Geez, Tyler!” Harper said. “Easton and I were just getting acquainted.”
Her eyes lingered on their host, who dropped his head and closed his legs like a guilty school boy.
“Well, if you two want to make out, I’ll just go.”
“Go where?”
Harper looked up at him and pulled on her skirt.
“You want to go, I’ll go with you.”
She shot a glance back to the man she’d just been kissing.
“But what about Easton?”
“You’re kidding.”
Tyler felt his pockets for his phone and wallet. Who is this kid? Only a punk would make out with another guy’s woman while he’s ordering pizza.
“C’mon, let’s go.”
Tyler motioned Harper and waited for her to stand.
“Where?”
She pushed herself off the couch and stood between the two men.
“What about the pizza?”
“Fuck the pizza. Let’s go.”
He grabbed Harper’s arm, but she shook him off. Easton straightened up, as if prepared to come to her defense.
“Just a minute. I’m going to the bathroom. Geez, you’re an impatient one.”
Tyler opened the front door and put one foot on the porch, straddling the threshold so he could keep an eye out for Harper. Across the way the hill rose, blocking the view of the ocean. A dump truck downshifted on the boulevard. It was monstrous, and its thunderous groan grated to his bones.
Closing the door, he stood inside between the limbo of the house and noisy road, and the other of himself and Harper.
“Sorry, Tyler. Don’t know what came over me.”
Tyler snapped to attention, but refused to look at Easton. He stiffened when he heard him rise from the couch.
“Must have been the pot,” Easton said, not five feet away.
Tyler grumbled. Easton was naïve to think he’d get a pass by blaming the marijuana.
But then Easton further closed the distance between them.
“Harper’s a pretty lady. And a sensitive woman,” he said, as if it was something Tyler should know.
Tyler looked to the hallway and back, his hands shaking.
“Try treating her better.”
Tyler’s breath quickened. The blood coursing through his head reached some critical mass, blurring his vision. He turned and took a wild swing. His knuckles missed Easton’s jaw and knocked the side of his head, clipping his ear.
“Jesus Christ!” Harper cried as Easton reeled backward and fell to the couch.
Tyler watched in disbelief as she bent down beside the man, her hand gently taking his upraised arm.
“You okay, honey?”
She turned to look at Tyler.
“What the hell was that? What’s wrong with you?”
She shifted her gaze to Easton and tilted his head sideways to have a look at where he’d been hit.
Wincing, Easton massaged his ear.
“Look, I’m sorry for what happened.”
“That’s okay, honey. Don’t worry about it. The man’s a Neanderthal. Do you want some ice?”
“Yes, please,” he said, rolling onto his side, as if trying to find comfort and hide his head.
Harper held a rag of ice cubes against his ear until he could manage it himself. She dropped her hand to look at him and then reached around him for her purse.
“You’re going to be all right.”
She pulled back and checked inside the open pouch. She turned to Tyler.
“Best we get out of here.”
Leaning forward, she kissed Easton on top of the head.
Then, she strode to Tyler’s side and grasped the door. “Let’s go.”
Tyler gave one last look at the living room and followed her out to the porch.
- : -
“You’re a crazy man.” Harper took his arm as they strolled along the sidewalk.
Tyler sniffled, bothered by the idea he was not right in the head.
“It wasn’t that nice of a house,” Harper added, plodding along evenly in her platforms. “And the road noise! You can do better.”
Tyler stopped.
“So, why were you flirting with him? He’s just a kid.”
“Just trying to get a rise out of you. Checking if the blood flows anywhere else besides your penis. Were you jealous?”
“There’s no point in being jealous. I can’t make you not look at others. Or stop others from looking at you. That’s what you do. It’s part of the thrill of watching you dance.”
In some way he thought of himself as lucky, that he was the one she went home with come night.
“If you want to fuck him, then do it. I wasn’t going to wait around.”
“Oh, my! You are jealous.”
She giggled and squeezed his arm as they reached the intersection.
“Stop it! I’m not jealous. Put off, yes. But not jealous. Save the showmanship for the club.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and let him lead when the light changed.
He ordered a Lyft. They had dinner at a steak house. He did his best to keep the conversation going. Perhaps there had been something to what she said, that he wasn’t showing any real interest in her. Who was he kidding? His interest lay between her legs and the glories of her body. The rest would come with time if it came at all.
He mentioned an upcoming sales convention in Vegas. She named a club there which had the best strippers. He shrugged but made a mental note of the club name.
Back at the hotel, Tyler stepped onto the balcony. It was dusk, and through the cut in the hill, he could see the surf breaking in the last glow of the day. Beyond it, the ocean surface stretched like a purple coverlet.
Harper slipped through the open glass doors. She was barefoot and stood in the corner gazing at the ocean, one foot rubbing against the calf of the other leg. Without her cork wedges, her chest barely came up to the railing. Tyler had realized that first morning, after she’d spent the night, how short she was. She had gone to the bathroom and was walking back. He’d swung out of bed to take his turn. Her breasts came to his sternum, and her face was such that he looked down on her head.
Tyler took her hand, turned her towards him and walked her to a chair at the edge of the balcony. In some way, it felt like he was leading her onto the stage, some bit of action before the show began. The windows from the apartment building on the opposite hill glowed like a hundred pupils, widening to capture their movement.
He pulled up Harper’s top. Her bare nipples were stiff, perfect. Leaning back, she clasped the top, holding it across the width of her collarbone.
Tyler crouched, put his tongue to her nipple and looked up into her eyes.
“Should we go inside?” she whimpered.
“No, stay here. I want to be with you here, where everyone can see.”
Harper moaned as he licked and pulled at her nipple. He brought his head up, but she pressed her hand against it, pushing his mouth down along her abdomen.
He felt himself falling into something familiar. Somewhere between the ocean and land. He could smell the sea, feel the languid weightlessness of its waters, the pull of the tide. He held onto her waist and let himself drop, closed his eyes and entered the comfort zone of her sex, trusting that she would let him down gently.
# # #
For the most recent twelve years, J. S. Balaban has been a contributing member of a small writers’ workshop in Pittsburgh. Night Picnic Press will publish “Rice & Beans” in its summer edition. Fodderwing, a D.C.-based literary magazine had published “The Lake.” Another short story “Coins” placed in a competition hosted by the Baltimore Writers Alliance.