Free Out of the Blue by Sally Mandel Page B

again first thing tomorrow and then I want to take you upstate.”
    It was difficult enough adjusting to the fact that I’d had underwater sex with this man on our second date. I wasn’t ready for relatives. I could hear him smiling. “Just up the Taconic Parkway. There’s something I want to photograph. There ought to be some leaves left.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    Thinking back days later, and ruminating on my resulting scars, both psychic and physical, I probably should have passed. But it seemed like a harmless enough invitation at the time, and truthfully, if he’d asked me to join him on a trek to the Staten Island landfill, I probably would have said yes.
    “Excellent,” he said. “I wanted to celebrate Halloween with you.” Our first holiday. It made me wonder if our future held a Thanksgiving or a Christmas. I forced myself to draw the line at New Year’s Eve.
    Halloween is busy for Ma, and I made sure she was already at the bakery when Joe was supposed to pick me up. I waited in the lobby with the New York Times Saturday killer crossword. I’d pretty much decided Joe was blowing me off, and had already resorted to magic thinking: If I figure out the answer to 4 Across, he’ll come. After twenty minutes of mind games, he drove up. The doorman, Big Bob, flung himself at the car so he could check Joe out. Actually, it was a good thing he was there. I needed a hand getting into the front seat.
    Joe made a fairly big deal about leaning across to give me a kiss. I refused to look at Big Bob but I could feel his beady eyes making a thorough scrutiny for the future police report: The perp was wearing a yellow crew-neck sweater, blue jeans, tennis shoes. Hole in left elbow of said sweater… Big Bob was always ready. He used to be a cop, but got terminated due to what he refers to as “philosophical differences” with his superiors, and subsequently went to work as a bodyguard. His boss, a “Mister G,” was currently conducting business out of maximum security in Ossining, hence the doorman job. Anyhow, Big Bob made me feel very secure in contrast to Joe Malone, whose presence was already giving me agita. It was a damn good thing that Bob wasn’t at the door when we got back, considering what I looked like. He would have rolled Joe flat as a lasagne noodle.
    “Sorry I’m late,” Joe said. “The garage forgot where they put my car.” Big Bob backed off with a salute as Joe pulled out onto First Avenue. Standard shift. Like many Manhattanites, I find automobiles baffling, even intimidating. Most of us didn’t learn to drive until we were in college, and even then we never approach a steering wheel with the same ease as our suburban contemporaries. Cars are what you rent to get someplace you can’t go by subway.
    “What kind of car is this?” I asked.
    “A ’seventy-nine BMW.”
    “Is that cool?”
    “Very,” he said, flashing me a grin. I stared at his profile and marveled at what we had done together in the moonlight, the intimacy of it. After a few blocks, I began to feel as if there was somebody else in the car with us, somebody large and pushy. I wish I could do something about my mouth, like learn to keep it shut, but when there’s something working at me like that, I become physically uncomfortable. I’m reminded of aliens who burst out of people’s chests. Well, there was a beast swelling inside me, and no ignoring it.
    “You’re going to have to pull over,” I said.
    He shot me a look of alarm.
    “No, I’m okay. But I need to say something.”
    He pulled next to a fireplug and turned off the ignition.
    “What we did …” I started. “I mean, as mature adults we have to address—” He reached for my hand, which didn’t help. “Where was everybody anyway? Up at the pool.” Although the thought had occurred to me that anyone might have stepped out of the locker room, spotted us doing our moonlight water ballet, and made a hasty retreat. Some nice mommy with her little girl, no