look where it got her. Wanted a man, a baby, look where it got her. Maybe she shouldn’t want things anymore. But she does.
25
A Modest Proposal
CHLOE
When the sun is hanging low over the water, Dan and his friends sail in, pack up their gear, and load it into Kurt’s van. They drive to the converted inland garage where the guys are staying in the quiet exhaustion of exertion, none of them saying more than “Quality sesh,” or “You were laying down some sweet jibes, dude.”
“Okay.” Dan opens the passenger door for Chloe. “We’ve got the van for tonight.”
“But—” Chloe stands uncertainly on the prickly grass before getting back in, looking from Dan to Kurt and Paolo, who are hosing the sand off their feet by the garage. “It’s New Year’s Eve. Don’t you guys want to go out or something?” She had been picturing something festive, a beachfront bar, music, fireworks, hooded sweatshirts, beer, maybe a bonfire, other people to talk to.
“Nah,” Kurt says. “We’re bushed.”
“Yeah, we’re just gonna smoke a bowl, maybe watch a little Bone-A-Rama 2000, since Danny won’t be there to bitch at us.”
“What?” Chloe looks to Dan, who is jingling Kurt’s keys in his palm.
“Nothing.” His neck turns red. “Ready?”
“Pretty Boy won’t let us watch the Bone.” Paolo grins, showing the perfect gap between his square front teeth.
“I don’t have a problem with porn.” Dan’s voice goes up like a twelve-year-old’s. “I have a problem with low-quality porn. The girls on there, they’re always fucking grimacing, I want to help them out with their rent or something. I want to say”—he puts an arm around Chloe—“my girl here’s a social worker, give them one of her cards. Brutal.”
THEY DRIVE TO THE place Dan has rented for them with his warm hand cupping her knee, a light smile on his cherry lips. He is humming along to Steely Dan, the tape jammed into the van’s player. The last of the afternoon light falls on his dark hair, almost dry, where it curls over the crest of his perfect profile, and she cannot believe he is hers.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She laces her fingers over his hand on her knee.
“You’re staring at me.”
“I’m happy,” she tells him. “You’re back.”
Dan grins as he pulls into their parking space, dried leaves crunching under their tires. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
THE RENTAL IS A tree-house addition to a typical upcountry ranch home that overlooks the jungled green countryside. It is a single room built in the crook of two giant koa trees, connected to the main house’s garage by a long, open catwalk without guardrails. The three large windows are glassless, and guests are protected from pests by an ethereal mosquito netting hanging over the bed. A hose runs up through a hole in the Formica countertop, and cut into the counter, there is a stainless steel bowl, the perfect size for mixing a cake, with a rubber stopper that serves as a sink. There is no bathroom, just a toilet and sink in a closet back in the garage, and the shower is a cold-water hose attached to the bib at the garage end of the catwalk.
“I met the owner this morning,” Chloe tells him when they pull into their parking space, dried brown banana leaves crackling under the tires. “She said they’re going to put a bathroom addition on the tree house, in that tree over there, splitting the plumbing off the main house. She said it’s going to be amazing; there’s going to be a big open-air bathtub, right in the trees.”
“I hope they run two pipes,” Dan says as he turns on the hose, running the water over his hand. “This is freezing.”
Chloe says, “I think bracing is the word you’re looking for. Let me feel.”
Without warning, he turns the hose on her, using his thumb to make it spray out in a fan-shaped arc.
He hoses her down, one hand clamped on her wrist to keep her in range, and she twists away from him, shrieking as he laughs. Then he surprises her by putting the hose in the hand of the wrist he is holding, says, “Careful.” He doesn’t let go of her hand, nods to the tangled green hillside that falls away six feet, then seven, then eight feet below the catwalk they are standing on. Beneath them it is verdantly wild and beautiful, sharp-tipped birds of paradise and hermaphroditic anthuriums with their hot pink petals like wax candy lips.