He waded about in the water for a bit; it would have been too obvious if he’d just dove into the water and come straight back. He could feel the water evaporating on his skin already, and the slight residue of salt clinging to his skin. Walking back toward the shore, he spotted an intact sea star and bent to pick it up. It was as dead as Tut, stiff and hard, with a bumpy pink color. He smiled as he turned it over, examining the small beak of a mouth. He held it in his hand as he walked parallel to the shore, enjoying the feeling of the waves lapping against his ankles as he went. A few yards farther and he found an intact whelk shell, its spiral, tapering shell a graying white on the outside, but a soft, shining orange on the inside. He ran his finger along the inside rim, marveling at its smoothness, then held the shell up to his ear and smiled — he heard the ocean — of course! He glanced up and whatever he had managed to recover of his good mood evaporated as he realized that Manny from engineering had his video camera pointed right at him.
Annoyance roiled up within him once again. He knew the image of him listening to the sound of the ocean when he was already at the beach was definitely going to make it into next year’s home movie. He made his way out of the surf and over to where Manny stood. There was something he needed to say.
• • •
“Where have you been, Dave?” Presley asked as he came back to their towel a few minutes later.
“I found these for you,” he said, handing the sea star to Denise and the whelk to Presley. Both women turned the objects over in their hands, examining the subtle beauty in color and forms. Dave sat down and drew his knees up toward his chest, feeling pretty self-confident after his talk with Manny. He didn’t think the man would be a problem to Presley after this, and he rather doubted that Manny or Pat would be troubling him any more, either. But just in case, he wasn’t going to be eating any burgers with the works this year.
“How’s the water?” Todd O’Connor asked, sitting next to Denise on the far side of the blanket.
Dave shrugged. “Warmer than a tundra. Colder than the air. About right for an ocean.”
“I was talking to Denise and Todd about how we can get back at Manny and Pat,” Presley informed him. “I think maybe you and I should wait until everyone’s looking and then come up from behind and yank down their swim trunks. See how they like being put on display against their will.”
“That’s not very subtle, Pres,” O’Connor told her.
“Neither am I,” Presley shot back.
“I don’t think they’ll be as much of a problem to you this year,” Dave told Presley, meeting her eyes as he spoke.
A slow grin split Presley’s gamine face. “We saw you walking up to Manny. What did you do?”
A small, smug smile pulled up the corners of Dave’s mouth. “I told him that you were up here talking to Denise about how a person files a sexual harassment suit. Told him that Denise thought that considering the fact that everyone saw the movie and could testify that Manny and Pat had filmed close ups of Presley’s backside, that they followed her around like a couple of stalkers, and even chased her into the ladies’ room, that it was a pretty open and shut case.” He shifted his gaze from Presley to Denise. “I don’t think you’ll be having a problem with them this year.”
Presley threw back her head and laughed. “David DiSciullo, you’re brilliant! That’s perfect! Thank you so much!”
O’Connor and Denise were grinning as well. “That was great, Dave. Really clever,” Denise praised him.
Feeling smug and wanting to bask in the glow of their approval, Dave lay down on his back and soaked up the sun.
• • •
It hadn’t turned out to be such a bad time after all, Dave thought not long after lunch as he sat back on the blanket and listened to Presley arguing with Todd O’Connor about the best place to sit to take in the Boston Pops’ annual Fourth of July concert on the Esplanade. Denise lay on her back just a few feet away, sunglasses on so that Dave couldn’t see her eyes. She might even be asleep for all he could tell. There had been two more hasty dips in the ocean during the course of the day. One when she sat up to slather more sunscreen on her front — the sight of those long, sexy fingers stroking her breasts above the bright red of her top had damn near done him in. He’d made another trip into the ocean, less hurried, when she accepted O’Connor’s proposal to take part in the
A.M.
vs.
P.M.
crews’ volleyball game. He wasn’t fool enough to go and watch, but just the thought of Denise in her sexy red bikini raising up her arms to spike the ball had him doing a little unscheduled spiking of his own.
But between his forays into the ocean, Dave had worked up enough nerve to start a conversation with Denise and discovered all over again that he really did like her. She was down to earth, easy going, and had a wicked sense of humor. He hadn’t done much talking himself. He was unsure of what to say to her, and afraid that he might say the wrong thing, but his reticence wasn’t a problem with Presley to fill in the silence.
The best part of the day had been when O’Connor had gone off to use the men’s room and Presley had gone off blanket-hopping, and it had been just him and Denise. He’d asked her shyly how she’d liked being back in Boston and she’d talked to him at length about living in Europe. He’d loved the way her eyes lit up when she told him about her adventures riding the Metro in Paris, navigating by the sight of the Eiffel Tower, and how she could get into the Louvre free on Wednesday afternoons and just spend hours strolling around studying the masterworks.
“What’s your favorite work of art?” he asked, hoping that she wouldn’t say something so obscure that he wouldn’t have any clue as to what she was talking about.
“In the Louvre or of all time?” she asked.
He shrugged. “All time,” he replied.
“I suppose it depends on my mood,” she said. “But I’ve always been partial to sculpture. Classical — not the abstract stuff you see around now. I saw a lot of Rodin when I was in France. You know — The Thinker, The Kiss. Did you know that if you walk all around The Kiss that the couple’s lips aren’t actually touching? He has them just a hair’s breath away, but you can’t tell that until you’re right up to it and looking at it at exactly the right angle.” She blinked at him. “I think that you can sense the sexual tension in the piece, though, even if you don’t know their lips aren’t touching. Don’t you?”
“Oh, definitely,” he said, actually feeling quite pleased that he knew the sculpture she was referring to. “Although I never knew that they actually weren’t kissing until just now.”
“What’s your favorite?” she asked, seeming to enjoy the conversation.
“Nudes,” he replied promptly, then nearly whacked himself in the head when it occurred to him just what he’d said.
Her smile slipped just a bit. “Nudes, huh? You mean like photographs?”
He knew then that he had just blown it big time. Now she was going to think he was some sort of lecher. “No,” he replied coolly, “although I’ve seen some nude photography that’s really blown me away. I saw a book of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs once and just couldn’t believe — ” He hesitated, trying to find the words to express himself properly. This was her field, not his, and he didn’t want to come off as a fool. “I guess I tend to think of photography as a sort of back-door art — after all, the camera is just recording what’s there, right? It’s not like the artist really created what he’s showing. He just arranged it, set up the machine, and pushed the button. But with Mapplethorpe, even an idiot like me could see the line and the composition, the contrasts in black and white and the absolute beauty of the image as it was laid out before me. That was ingenious, and it kind of pissed me off that in the end he’s mostly known for what got interpreted as his ‘obscene’ works — you know, the interracial, sexually explicit stuff.”
She looked intrigued. “Did you think it was obscene?” she asked.
He shrugged. “There’s a difference between art and pornography. It’s kind of like when you look at the pictures in a smut magazine — they look like pictures of genitalia with a person attached to them, whereas in art, you look at the picture and you see the person, and the lack of clothing is almost secondary to what you see in the person.” He paused and felt suddenly unsure. He didn’t think he should be talking about pornography if he wanted to make a good impression, and he was afraid that she — a woman with a degree in art history — would realize that he was a blithering fool. “Do you know what I mean?”
She nodded slowly, a thoughtful look on her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone explain it quite so well,” she said.
Dave’s heart soared with pleasure. “When I said that I liked nudes, I was thinking of sculpture — especially Michelangelo. I love the lines in his bodies, and the vitality. Like when you look at David and half expect him to pivot and pick up another stone for his sling. To be able to create that from a chunk of stone — God, that’s genius.”
She was smiling at him now. Smiling and nodding. “I think you’ve got that right.”
Then Todd O’Connor returned and captured Denise’s attention with some sort of inane remark about tan lines, and Dave’s private talk with Denise came to an end. But Dave didn’t really mind. He had not only held his own in a conversation with Denise Johnson, but he had actually impressed her. Life was very good indeed.
Todd suddenly glanced at his watch and frowned. “Hey, Neesie, it’s two-thirty.”
Pushing her sunglasses up, Denise frowned. “Already? Shit.”
Todd nodded. “We need to head back now if we’re going to make it back in time.”
“You’re leaving?” Dave asked stupidly.
Denise nodded as she began to pack up her beach bag. “Todd and I are on the air at four o’clock. That’s why he took his car instead of riding the bus.” She reached for her T-shirt and pulled it over her head, then accepted Todd’s offer of a hand to pull her to her feet.
“Make sure you say hi to us when you’re on the air,” Presley told her.
Denise smiled but made no reply as she brushed off her bottom and pulled on her shorts over her bathing suit.
“You’ll bring that blanket back to the station for me at the end of the day, wouldn’t you Pres?” Todd asked as he pulled his own shirt on over his head.
“You can get it at my desk any time,” she promised.
“You’re a peach,” he told her.
Denise stuffed her sunscreen and towel into her beach bag and smiled at Presley. “I’ll call you when I get off my shift,” she told her. Then, “It was nice talking to you, Dave.”
“Same here,” he said numbly.
Dave watched in despair as the tall blond Greek god slipped his arm around the waist of the girl of Dave’s dreams as they walked off along together into the direction that would be the sunset in just a few hours.
Dave really hated the beach.
“I’m not sure that reading these things is really going to help,” Dave admitted on their third meeting.
“Too bad they don’t have those little books like they’ve got in college where it just tells you what happened in each chapter and sums up the key points,” Kirk said.
“Or that they never discussed romance books on
Oprah
,” Dave agreed. “I’d love to hear women discuss one of these things some time.”
“They aren’t that bad,” Ghoulie remarked. “At least, I think I can see what women see in some of them.”
There was a long pause while they waited, but the follow up was not forth coming. Finally Dave prompted, “Well?”
“Besides the really mind-blowing sex,” Ghoulie said, “all these guys are like Superman. They win every fight, they’re easy on the eyes, and they always make sure that the woman comes before they take their own pleasure.”
“Take their own pleasure?” Kirk crowed. “You make it sound like they’re going for a Sunday drive.”
“But it’s true. They always make sure the women come — sometimes three or four times at a shot before they come themselves.” He shook his head. “Shelby would probably love that.”
“Let’s leave sex out of it for now,” Dave said. “I have to get her to at least notice I’m alive before I have to worry about bringing her to wild, unbridled rapture.”
“Superman,” Ghoulie repeated. “Doesn’t everyone secretly want a hero? It’s here in all the books we’ve read so far. The woman goes for the sheriff, the patriot, the spy, the sea captain. Women don’t want wimps — they want men who can come to their rescue.”
“Great,” Dave grumbled. “But I’m not a sheriff or a spy or a sea captain. I’m a sales associate at a Boston radio station. What’s heroic about that?”
• • •
“Oh my Gawd!” exclaimed Presley. “This looks like the bimbos versus the hippies!” Sitting beside her on the aluminum bench, Denise burst into giggles as Presley blew and popped a large, pink bubble. Presley was blase about the game — she was the pitcher for the WMTR team. Denise, on the other hand, was nervous. She claimed to be barely able to play the game at all and, having seen her fan the ball repeatedly at their one and only practice, Dave was inclined to believe her.
Gazing across the field, Dave thought it was easy to see exactly what Presley had meant. The soap opera stars were there in all of their lipsticked, blow-dried glory. They sported identical uniforms bearing three overlapping red stars over the left breast and the words
Soap Opera Stars
over their right. Every player had their hair neatly styled and shellacked into place with a generous layer of hair spray.
By contrast, the WMTR team looked like refugees from a Salvation Army tag sale. The only common aspect to them was the fact that everyone wore matching T-shirts bearing the station’s call letters. Dave suspected that the shirts themselves had been scavenged from the station’s prize closet.
Dave frowned as he looked at Todd O’Connor in his Mickey Mouse cap — he needed to get a game face on, Dave thought, to take the game seriously. Not to be sitting there flirting with Presley and Denise. For Christ’s sake, did he have to sit so close? He was practically in Denise’s lap!