Buy the book on Amazon Kindle.
Number Two: Golden Gate Bridge
Roadway and
railings of concrete, two towers of steel, pieces welded precisely together.
Rings at the ends of the railings and tops of towers for suspending cables. The
object is to traverse the bridge by striking the ball down the center, avoiding
foot-wide gaps to the left and right. A smaller mound nearby was found to
contain a scale model of Alcatraz Island. Both island and bridge are marked
with raised concrete block lettering.
After an
appointment with the one-armed temptress, David is wired, so he goes to the
kitchen for a glass of wine. He is joined by Elena, who wanders into the
kitchen in her bathrobe. She smiles.
“You too?”
“Yep. You
want some?”
“Sure.”
He pulls out
a glass and fills it up.
“The red
stuff always does the trick for me. Something about the tannic acid.”
She takes a
taste and smacks her lips. “Mmm… toasty. School going okay?”
“Yes. I have
achieved cruising altitude. It’s all pretty easy and smooth, and yet the
subject matter still holds my interest. In another ten years, I will be jaded,
bitter and ready to retire.”
Elena lets
out a laugh that’s like an L-shaped birdsong. Ha-haaah.
“You’re a
funny man, Mr. Falter.”
“That’s what
my students say.”
Silence.
David’s a little afraid of silence these days. A marriage has a way of leaking
truth, and the balance of their symbiotic adulteries will tumble at the least
exposure.
“I’m sorry
about the ice cream parlor.”
“Ah, it was
time.”
“Yes, but it
was my idea in the first place.”
“Good ideas
don’t always turn into good businesses. Besides, Pablo will take care of us in
our old age.”
“I heard about that! What an amazing
project.”
“They
uncovered the Golden Gate today.”
“It’s like something from a fairy
tale. Does he know anything about the builder?”
David gives himself a refill. “Went
to county records in Montesano. Ocean Shores was basically created from scratch
in 1960. Bunch of investors who wanted to turn it into Cape Cod West. Palm
Beach. Newport.”
“I’d settle for Tillamook.”
“Silence woman!”
Elena giggles like a geisha. “Sorry,
teacher.”
“So one of those original lots went
to Howard Blaine. The address on the deed is Hoquiam, but I’m not sure if that
means anything. He could have just been staying there while he worked on his
golf course. I’m working on a little hunch, however. You remember Gerry
Kolder?”
Elena gives her puppy-dog smile, her
mouth part-way open.
“Kolder’s Hardware! My God, is he
still around?”
“Well, he sold the store, but they
were nice enough to give me his phone number. I’m meeting up with him Saturday
at Lake Sylvia. Got a fishing cabin with his own boat-landing.
“How nice. Tell him I said hi.”
“I don’t know. I always thought Gerry
had a thing for you.”
“I’d bet he had a thing for anything
female that made the mistake of wandering into that store. Bunch of cavemen.”
“You make a good point.”
“By the way,” she says. “I’ve got
news.”
David takes comfort in the word news. News is okay; confession would be alarming.
“You gonna tell me?”
“Yeah, well, I hope this is all
right, but the boys seem to be pretty independent these days and…”
“So tell me.”
This is an old game. Elena hates to
say anything that might stir the waters, so David has to tease it out of her.
She ducks her head to the left as if she’s sneaking up on the subject.
“I got… a job.”
“Que bueno! What’re you doing?”
“Well, a friend of a friend in
Aberdeen needed a part-time receptionist at his contractor’s office. I thought,
you know, I could contribute my share to Derek’s college fund, make up for the
ice cream thing.”
“That’s very thoughtful, honey. And
it sounds like something you’ll enjoy. You’re definitely a people-person.”
Now it’s the beauty-queen smile, the
one that still yanks the chain at the back of his medulla oblongata.
“I think I will. Thanks.”
The husband and the wife talk into
the night. Somewhere along the stream of the conversation, it occurs to David
that spouses with mutual affairs might actually treat each other with more
civility than standard couples, since the edifice of their happiness depends on
getting along with their partner. He also realizes that now he knows what the
chubby chaser does for a living, and that he will be using money from the man
who’s shtupping his wife to send his kid to college. It’s a brave new world.
Photo by MJV
No comments:
Post a Comment