Hide and Seek

Now that the tourists were in town Lydia was a lot more generally

available. Off-season she was just about the prettiest thing we had in

DeadRiver and you could buy her drinks all night long at the Caribou

and hardly get a smile or word out of her. She got nicer with

competition around.

So I couldn't get Rafferty to leave. The dog in the honey pot He kept

baring his crooked teeth at her.

I quit trying.

We had Rafferty's car that day but I figured I could probably hitch a

ride along the coast road. I packed my gear, slipped on my jeans,

shirt and sneakers and headed up the beach to the goat trail.

On the way I passed them. A tall, slim guy with dark skin and dark

hair and as harp straight nose. And a pretty green-eyed blond, a

little on the heavy side for my tastes but still very tasty, looking a

couple years younger than the guy- sort of barely ripe- in her tiny

yellow two-piece.

The other girl's towel was empty.

Climbing the goat trail I did a quick scan of the beach. I couldn't

find her anywhere. About ten feet from the top I turned and looked

again. Nothing.

"I'm up here," she said.

I almost fell right off the trail. It would have been a bad fall.

It was very matter-of-fact, though, the way she said it. As though it

were obvious I'd be looking for her. As though she simply knew. I

turned and saw her standing there above me, and I think I must have

flushed a little, because she smiled.

I climbed the trail to the top. I watched my footing, not because I

really needed to, but because, as I say, it's my habit, and because it

was sort of hard to look at her directly. Bathing suit or no, I don't

think I'd ever seen anybody look so naked before.

Maybe it was the fact that she seemed so comfortable in her own skin,

like a kid who doesn't know about clothes much.

But there was something consciously erotic about her too and a long

haul from innocence. Just in the way she stood there, flicking a

green-and-white bath towel at the hawk seed hipshot.

The breeze had died down long ago.

The sun put red and brown into the still dark hair.