Swiftly, yet slowly and distinctly, Rita interrupted him: “You do not know where I live! You lied to me! You guys are all liars!”
“And how about the money Frank owes you? How do I know that’s true?”
“Okay! You are right! We started off on the wrong foot. Let me make it up to you. Take me home, I will make you dinner.”
“This is another one of your games. You’re scheming to keep me until Frank pays you.”
“You do not have to believe me. Just take me home then. I could have been your date tonight, if you had...”
“You call this a date!”
“Why didn’t you play along when I offered to keep you?”
“Were you flirting with me?”
“If I had made it plain, you would have called me a whore.”
“So Frank does not owe you money?”
“Are you coming over for dinner?”
Tom parked his car. Rita asked if she could hold his arm. She showed him in and offered him a glass of wine. She played her iPod through the radio: an eclectic selection of love songs from Piaf to Amadou and Mariam. There was a pan of lasagna on her kitchen counter. She put it in the oven on low heat.
Tom was slim. His face was distant and rugged. He had wide and sparse eyebrows, and green eyes with specks of gold. Her eyes landed on his lips. She imagined them on hers. She came close without touching him. He didn’t move much and their lips touched. His were a little dry. She made them moist. Her hands brushed against his arms and then played with his long brown hair. She felt her cheek against his beard. She pulled him to her bedroom, kissing him, softly inviting him to fall over her, on her perfectly made bed.
The door bell rang. Rita went to the door viewer, somewhat disheveled. She went out and closed the door behind her.
“Frank, what are you doing here?”
“I came to give you your two hundred dollars. I know Tom’s here. I saw his car. You won our bet.”
“No. I started as planned, but I am not playing the seduction game anymore. There is something about him… I do not want your money. Just be a friend to him. This whole bet never happened. Please go.”
She went back in and locked the door.
“Who was it?” Tom asked.
“Frank! He just wanted to see for himself that you had fulfilled your promise.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That he is interrupting. Let us not bring Frank into our bed! I promise not to answer the door anymore.”
She turned off her phone.
Later they ate dinner in bed and finished the wine.
“I won’t be able to see you again before the weekend,” Tom said, as he was dressing up.
“I won’t die by the weekend, I promise,” Rita said. She reached over to kiss him goodbye and went to the bathroom.
“Does Frank really owe you money?”
Rita said something with toothpaste and a toothbrush in her mouth. It wasn’t clear what she said. There is a beauty about her, Tom noticed, but, most of all, he felt her strength. He locked the door as he left.
“Tom! You scored!” Frank said, loudly.
“You know Frank, in the past I would have shrugged that off as being you, but I gotta tell you that you make a mockery out of the most beautiful thing.”
“Come! Let’s have a beer and tell me what happened.”
“I’ll pass.”
“What will it take to cheer you up, my friend?”
“To cheer me up?”
“You’ve been looking gloomy. I’ve never seen you with a date … You’re kinda trapped in your own world, like you’re better than everybody else.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously!”
The door to the house opened and Rita came out with clothes on: “What is all this noise?”
Locking up, she continued: “It is not tomorrow yet. Tom, where do you want to go?”
“Huh … Mendon Ponds Park.”
“Sounds perfect, doesn’t it Frank?”
“I don’t ever go there at night, but I got beer in the car.”
“No beer, Frank, please,” asked Tom.
“Alright, O Gloomy One!” teased Frank.
“It’s about peace and beauty,” tried to explain Tom.
“Whatever,” said Frank.
Tom drove for about half an hour to Devil’s Bathtub. From there, with a flashlight, he quietly led the walk around Deep Pond.
It was 5:37 AM, Tom reminisced as if he was still there. The sweet aroma of the sea was corrupted by the poignant stench of a burnt engine. The inflatable boats were hoisted down and all passengers sent to them, efficiently, in no hurry. I knew them all by some details of their lives. When the ship exploded, behind us, ripping through the quiet doom of dawn, my heart burst open and I sobbed all the salt out from within me. A few got sea sick. A mother and her son died from pneumonia soon after. I never had a chance to share with her how I loved the way she cared for her son, how much I loved her. I have been cursing God for ten years, living with the desperate feeling that everything I love will be taken away from me, always. I never took people to sea again, never saw the sea again, never felt at home anywhere. I swore never to fall in love.
“Let’s skinny dip, right here!” Rita said, disrobing innocently under the full moon.
Frank followed suit.
I could love her, oh! God, save me from the spell of the past, and, please, let nobody die tonight.
Rita called out: “Tom, leave your thoughts. Come out and play!”
In the throes of throwing up, Tom saw his past like a vampire trying to pull him into darkness. He cried in the moonlight with an agonizing howl, until he finally heard the carefree splashing noises and laughter of his friends.