Hide and Seek

She stepped back away from us.

"You both can."

I watched her disappear down the far face of the rock. I covered Kim's

hand and helped her press down on Steven's wound. I glanced at Kim.

She was totally concentrated on him.

It was only then that I realized I was shaking.

I never did find out what caused it, though I was pretty sure he'd made

some moves on her. His mood was just silly enough for him to try.

Nobody talked about it.

We drove home with the girls in the backseat wrapped in towels and the

two of us in front. Same as before. Only this time I was driving and

Steve was clutching his hand, squeezing my bloody T-shirt to a wound

that would take seven stitches once we got back to town.

All the way home nobody said a word. The freeze between Casey and Kim

was a palpable thing. You could hardly blame Kim. I was damned mad at

her myself. No matter what had gone on up there, it was clear she'd

overreacted, to say the very least. And then I kept seeing that cold

unconcern on her face while she stared at us. It could have been a

concussion. Yet all we got was anger.

You had to wonder. How well did I even know her?

And despite our weekend together, that kept coming up again. I kept

wondering how many more surprises there would be like the one today,

and whether I really wanted to be around to see them.

I dropped the women off at their respective houses. Then I got a spare

pair of pants from my apartment, helped him on with them and took him

to Doc Richardson over on Cedar Street. I stood there watching through

the injection, the bandaging, the stitching, the swabbing and patching

of the head wound while the Doc complained good-naturedly that the

times had not been good since Hoover.

By the time we drove back through town Steve was feeling better. I

dropped him at his parents' summer house and watched him move slowly up

the field stone walk, through the white colonial doors.

I didn't see him again for nearly a week.

The next I saw of Kim she was still angry. But you could tell that the

bitterness was wearing off some, eroded by understanding. We