Presumption of Death

1 Nina Reilly wiped her goggles and watched Paul swim. He stroked smoothly, kicking underwater, moving up and down the lane without stopping, like a pacing porpoise. He wore his yellow snorkel and goggles, and she could hear his lungs laboring when he came close. Enjoying the pattern of the water on the ceiling of the condo-association pool, she returned to backstroking in another lane. Pull hard back with the arms, keep the legs stiff, and windmill that water. The two of them were going nowhere, but it felt like lovemaking, the cool slap of the water he churned up, the water rippling back to him, a water bed without the plastic. She touched the wall. He turned at the far end. As he swam down the lane she had the strangest feeling about him, as if the pale watery creature before her solidified before her eyes. Hanging on to the rough concrete wall of the pool, she thought, he might swim toward me with that silly yellow snorkel for the rest of my life. How many years do I have left? Forty years, if I get lucky? She was in her mid-thirties, Paul was over forty. How long did they have? A lifetime? A summer? Well, that's what I came down here to find out, she said to herself. He hit the wall and came up grinning, goggles fogged up. "Done?" he said. Then, "What's the matter?" "Nothing." "Your face says different." "I'm trying to see the future." "What do you see?" He pulled himself over until his face was inches from hers, his hazel eyes reddened by the chlorine, the lashes beaded, the water making rivulets along his nose, red lines across his forehead and cheeks from the goggles. "You." "That is the correct answer. As your reward, I will sing you a song I just made up." He pulled himself onto the edge of the pool and, legs dangling, sang in a gravelly voice: I am the creature from the lagoon You're a blond coed starin' at the moon I'll rise up drippin', a scary sight Baby, are you ready, it's love-monster night-- "Like it?" She hung in the water, her eyes at his ankle level. Tilting her head back and holding the wall with both hands, she let her gaze move boldly up his body, the strong pale thighs, the tight stomach with a little hangover of flesh at the waist, the sensitive nipples and broad shoulders. She said, "Are you going to wear your snorkel when you rise up?" "I'll do whatever it takes." "It won't take much." A look passed between them, and Nina reached over and squeezed his big toe. "Let's wrap up in our towels and get back home," Paul said. She mantled up onto the side of the pool, rested her knee on the concrete, stood, and adjusted her swimsuit bottom. Paul brought her the striped blue towel and they walked outside, down the path beside the bougainvillaea, below the neighbors' balconies. In the misty late afternoon they saw lights come on as people came home from work. A line of birds sat quietly in the branches of the oaks, paired off mostly, looking around. Peter Jennings pronounced the news in fatherly fashion from somebody's living room. Paul hadn't even locked the door to his condo. Inside, in the hall with the bokhara rug that led to the living room, he said, "How was it? The future?" "Blurry." He said seriously, "You know, this could go on forever or a day. Either one is okay." "No, a day wouldn't be okay." "You going to make me a declaration, Nina? Finally?" He folded his arms so the biceps bulged, Mr. Clean in a baggy wet pair of red trunks in his narrow hallway, and waited for her to tell him she was ready to link up her short time on earth with his. The conversations lately had been skidding into turns like these. Paul needed someO'Shaughnessy, Perri is the author of 'Presumption of Death' with ISBN 9780385336451 and ISBN 0385336454.