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work on it.”
    “And I bet he still hasn’t given you a
raise,” she continued as if Kirk hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know why
you take his shit. Makes you look like a worm.”
    Under the drone of the hair dryer Kirk
muttered something to himself. He spoke out then: “You know I’ve
been looking for a better job.”
    “Just how much you think a better-job
mechanic makes? If it wasn’t for the money I make—Jesus!”
    “Stop it!” he demanded, standing now.
    Lisa flicked her eyes to his mirrored image.
A threatening stare, one that almost brought him to strike her. An
impulse he had never had toward a woman. He restrained himself as
Lisa clicked the hair dryer off and set it on the counter.
    She fluffed her hair out, eyes back on her
own reflection. “No, I can’t drive you,” she said tiredly. “It’ll
make me late. Get Beverly to drive you, or take the bus.”
    And then another stab from her: “You and
that damn piece-a-junk car.” She gave her hair a quick spray.
“Sorry,” she said, “I mean ‘classic’ car. Only reason you got it
was because you can’t afford anything new and comfortable.”
    Kirk scowled and sat back down on the
hamper.
    Lisa raised a foot against the countertop.
Her towel hiked up and revealed more thigh as she massaged the
lifted leg with lotion.
    Kirk averted his eyes. With no pay-off in
sight, there was no point in feeding his desire. Cold and difficult
they called her, he thought. Maybe everyone else was right and he
was wrong. Maybe he was the one who didn’t know the real Lisa
Brock.
    Blinded by love…he smirked at the old
phrase. Kirk looked at her in the mirror. Dark hair framing her
angelic face, brown eyes aglow with childlike innocence. The
perfect woman, if it weren’t for her disposition.
    Lisa dropped her leg from the countertop,
raised the other and proceeded to massage it with lotion. Kirk
appraised what he saw. No, he decided, he wasn’t blinded by love.
He was blinded by passion. Taking the verbal punches in exchange
for the touch of her skin, the spreading of her legs.
    Lisa capped the lotion bottle and put it
back under the sink. She padded barefoot out of the bathroom. Kirk
followed her into the bedroom.
    She took the towel off and tossed it on the
bed. He went to his dresser and put on a fresh T-shirt. Kirk sat
then, alongside the damp towel. Eyes on Lisa, naked at the closet,
bewitched by her inviting figure. The line of the back curving in
above the buttocks that rose up and out like a pony’s, as if
pleading for the feel of his hand.
    Her two little words came back to him: Not
now.
    Lisa put a tight-fitting blouse over her
bare firm breasts. No bra, Kirk noted. No surprise, the way she
liked to billboard herself in public. He watched her button the
blouse and said, “I saw the trophy in the living room. What’s it
doing out?”
    “Since you don’t like it,” she answered
casually, “I’m going to take it in tomorrow and see how much it’s
worth. Twenty-four carat,” she added. “That’s pretty good.”
    Kirk said nothing, convinced now that it
would take more than fire to melt this woman’s heart. Okay, he
thought, the damn trophy reminded him of the past. That was no
reason to sell it. For better or worse, it was his. And maybe it
was good to be reminded of his mistakes. They would always be with
him, thinking about them or not.
    Lisa stepped into a blue-pleated miniskirt.
She hooked the waist while on the way to her dresser. Kirk followed
her with his eyes. She pulled a cashmere sweater out and put it on
over the white blouse.
    Kirk said, “Schoolgirl look. Very nice for
your age.”
    “Don’t start with me,” she told him.
    He was struck by the start word. Finished
seemed more like it.
    From another drawer of her dresser came dark
tights and a pair of white socks. Lisa brought them over to the bed
and sat on the other side of the damp towel. She pulled the tights
on, stood and rocked her hips, adjusting the tights under