Chapter 23
October 2
Driving a Bargain
I STOOD AT THE WINDOW of my workroom, looking down into the courtyard behind the hotel. It faces southeast, so it catches the sun in the morning, preserving an isolated bit of summer well into fall. Louise and Miranda were out there, taking a break from their kitchen work, sunning themselves, naked. Because they were so gorgeous, so delightful to look at, and because they were, let us say, carrying on a dalliance, I could not keep my eyes off them. I mean that, reader. They were so attractive that every time I turned away from the window and told myself to get back to work I would find my thoughts drawn back to the window, and a moment later I would find myself drawn back to the window, back to the beautiful view. After this had happened several times, I decided that my debt to you, my obligation to record all the significant events that occurred during my reading of Dead Air, required me to stand at the window and watch the girls, that watching was, if we were to be perfectly accurate about it, work.
Miranda was slowly rubbing sunscreen onto Louise’s breasts when Albertine crept up behind me, put her arm around my waist, and looked over my shoulder. “Oh,” she said, when she saw what I saw. “Keeping an eye on the guests, I see.”
“Right,” I said. “I feel a responsibility to observe and record any goings-on that I happen accidentally to notice, even if it does make me feel a little like an old goat.”
Albertine and I stood there together, watching. Miranda completed her attentions to Louise’s breasts and began rubbing the lotion down along Louise’s belly. When she slipped her hand between Louise’s thighs, Albertine slipped her hand between mine, and when Miranda began licking Louise’s lips, Albertine pulled me to the floor.
Later, when we were dressing, Albertine tiptoed to the window and whispered, “Thanks, girls.”
“Did you come up here just for that?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” she said. “I brought three pieces of news.”
“Yes?”
“First, listen to the silence.”
“Oh, my God,” I said. “I never noticed.”
“I guess your attention was focused elsewhere.”
“What happened?”
“Dexter came out to the barge in his little skiff, got on board, and chugged away, just like that.”
“The Demolition Man — ”
“Well, maybe not, because the second piece of news is that Hurricane Phil is moving up the coast and is expected to strike here tonight or early tomorrow morning.”
“It’s late in the season — ”
“I tried to explain that to Hurricane Phil, but he just wouldn’t listen.”
“We’d better go into our routine — get the candles out, fill the tubs with water — ”
“Item number three,” she said. “There is no water.”
[to be continued]
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You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
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