clumps of shrubbery and grasses that hardly needed tending.
“Have you seen the pile of sticks 3D’s made under the tree out front?”
“He’s a problem hoarder,” Victor says.
She laughs. 3D tips onto his back, exposing the buttercup swirl in his armpits. “He isn’t much for pride.” Victor nods. “Exactly what I’ve been discussing with him all morning.”
She excuses herself and returns wrapped in a sheet. Victor sets up the massage table. She hops up and closes her eyes. She becomes aware of the starlings singing in the rustling leaves at the window, a car passing in the distance, 3D’s blubbery sigh. Victor is causing pain to her shoulder she trusts is therapeutic. She tells herself quiet between friends is good. A sign they are real friends, not afraid to be peaceful together.
“Don’t your hands get tired?”
“In the beginning, but not anymore.” He lifts her left leg and shakes it.
“Did you hear the rain last night? You saved me from the worst dream.”
“Supposed to rain all week.” His thumbs jam into her spine, but he doesn’t ask about her dream.
“Rain makes me miss smoking,” she ventures, with a sigh.
“Smoking’s the best. After-rain smoking is the best of the best. It’s the humidity in the tobacco. You never heard me say that. I’m a trainer. But we have our memories. When did you quit?”
“Right before I met George. More or less.”
“Convenient.” He pounds the back of her thigh.
“George’s mother’s probably keeps me from picking it back up. The look she’d give me.”
“Scared by the in-laws.”
“What do you know from in-laws?”
“I had a wife,” he says, surprising her, working the back of her neck. “Isabel. But I never got to know her family. New Zealand, too far. You liking the Davis? Keeping you off the streets?”
“The what?” He’s changing the subject. The book he loaned her, The Bluest Ribbon . She turns and raises her face so it’s not smashed against the table. “I like it okay. Maybe I missed something, but nothing’s actually happening, right? I mean, what’s her name is all—‘I love this one, no I love that one.’ But all she’s doing is sitting on a ship and staring out to sea? Having a rough think? Both guys are basically assholes and they aren’t even on the ship with her? And it’s a two-year voyage? And it seems, I’m not sure, like she might already be dead? Does anything happen?”
“Yeah, something happens.”
“Like, she gets out of her chair and walks over to the other side of the boat?”
“No, no, she has to choose! Dax-Fabian or Piers! What a choice! Or, she doesn’t choose. I see how you almost tricked me there. I’m not telling. Maybe she can’t decide. Then life will decide something for her. That usually doesn’t turn out well.”
Iris doesn’t like The Bluest Ribbon . Every time she wades forward a page, it pushes her back. But is it her fault or the book’s? Then it’s out of her hands—upstairs when she’s down, inside when she’s out. The last time she looked, she hadn’t been able to find it. She’s hardly opened a book the last three years. When Victor pressed this one into her hands, its dreamy cover of a woman looking out over ocean waves dissolving into blue ribbons, she accepted it anxiously and hopefully, as it dared out of memory her old love, the pleasure of other people’s thoughts.
“How about the part where the baby falls over the rail, into the ocean?” Victor asks. “How long does that bassinet take to sink—ten pages! Terrible, didn’t you love it?”
“But that was so upsetting!”
“It’s a book. The more upsetting the better.”
Instantly she knows it’s true, but why she can’t quite grasp. The way he says it makes it sound like something everybody knows. She’d felt it in the dark lecture hall as she listened to the professor in her square of light, but she’d never had the words for how something that was upsetting doubled back and became
“Have you seen the pile of sticks 3D’s made under the tree out front?”
“He’s a problem hoarder,” Victor says.
She laughs. 3D tips onto his back, exposing the buttercup swirl in his armpits. “He isn’t much for pride.” Victor nods. “Exactly what I’ve been discussing with him all morning.”
She excuses herself and returns wrapped in a sheet. Victor sets up the massage table. She hops up and closes her eyes. She becomes aware of the starlings singing in the rustling leaves at the window, a car passing in the distance, 3D’s blubbery sigh. Victor is causing pain to her shoulder she trusts is therapeutic. She tells herself quiet between friends is good. A sign they are real friends, not afraid to be peaceful together.
“Don’t your hands get tired?”
“In the beginning, but not anymore.” He lifts her left leg and shakes it.
“Did you hear the rain last night? You saved me from the worst dream.”
“Supposed to rain all week.” His thumbs jam into her spine, but he doesn’t ask about her dream.
“Rain makes me miss smoking,” she ventures, with a sigh.
“Smoking’s the best. After-rain smoking is the best of the best. It’s the humidity in the tobacco. You never heard me say that. I’m a trainer. But we have our memories. When did you quit?”
“Right before I met George. More or less.”
“Convenient.” He pounds the back of her thigh.
“George’s mother’s probably keeps me from picking it back up. The look she’d give me.”
“Scared by the in-laws.”
“What do you know from in-laws?”
“I had a wife,” he says, surprising her, working the back of her neck. “Isabel. But I never got to know her family. New Zealand, too far. You liking the Davis? Keeping you off the streets?”
“The what?” He’s changing the subject. The book he loaned her, The Bluest Ribbon . She turns and raises her face so it’s not smashed against the table. “I like it okay. Maybe I missed something, but nothing’s actually happening, right? I mean, what’s her name is all—‘I love this one, no I love that one.’ But all she’s doing is sitting on a ship and staring out to sea? Having a rough think? Both guys are basically assholes and they aren’t even on the ship with her? And it’s a two-year voyage? And it seems, I’m not sure, like she might already be dead? Does anything happen?”
“Yeah, something happens.”
“Like, she gets out of her chair and walks over to the other side of the boat?”
“No, no, she has to choose! Dax-Fabian or Piers! What a choice! Or, she doesn’t choose. I see how you almost tricked me there. I’m not telling. Maybe she can’t decide. Then life will decide something for her. That usually doesn’t turn out well.”
Iris doesn’t like The Bluest Ribbon . Every time she wades forward a page, it pushes her back. But is it her fault or the book’s? Then it’s out of her hands—upstairs when she’s down, inside when she’s out. The last time she looked, she hadn’t been able to find it. She’s hardly opened a book the last three years. When Victor pressed this one into her hands, its dreamy cover of a woman looking out over ocean waves dissolving into blue ribbons, she accepted it anxiously and hopefully, as it dared out of memory her old love, the pleasure of other people’s thoughts.
“How about the part where the baby falls over the rail, into the ocean?” Victor asks. “How long does that bassinet take to sink—ten pages! Terrible, didn’t you love it?”
“But that was so upsetting!”
“It’s a book. The more upsetting the better.”
Instantly she knows it’s true, but why she can’t quite grasp. The way he says it makes it sound like something everybody knows. She’d felt it in the dark lecture hall as she listened to the professor in her square of light, but she’d never had the words for how something that was upsetting doubled back and became
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