(3) Bedtime An Beyond
The sheets were cool. Perhaps the heating needed turned up? Didn’t he
do thatalready? Jordan was asking about another seminar. Could he get the
place for mid April? Andrew thought of fun stuff he could do over that
weekend. What could he convince Vee to do? Manhattan for the weekend?
MOMA, Broadway and shopping?Would Anna be on the mend by then? One
could never tell with strokes. Sometimes it took years, and they never fully
recovered.
He and Vee had bonded at the memorial service. They both felt it, the
glow, the radiance, the look you can no longer deny, the guilt you sweat to
dispute. They’d hugged and cried. They’d talked about how Lara felt close,
between them almost. Around them.They’d cried again, hugging. Andrew
asked about her ex and why she never mentioned getting in touch when she’d
insisted on contacting her brother. Dean, who was standing some feet away,
talking to Dennis. Vee said, somewhat surprised, didn’t he know, he’d
disappeared, probably caught in some storm off the Gulf Islands, body had
never washed up. There’d been some talk about money problems and drug
running across to the US, but nothing more…substantial. Some of those left
coast hippies had turned ugly with profits. He was surprised, Lara had never
mentioned it. They looked at each other, reluctant to be confrontational. There
was too much between them to be approached now, never mind resolved. It
would have to wait and they both knew it. Long talks, angry recriminations, soft
laughter in the dark, guilt framed apologies, maybe all of the above, it would
come, sometime when they were ready, but not now.
This reminiscing, really a bit jagged for that time of night, gave way to
fond thoughts of Lara, her sweet ways, her disarming provocations, her tender
designs. Her complete and utter difference from Vee, - fair, petite, elfin to
Vee’s dark, robust, earth mother sensuality, it all rolled through, reaching into
his own shadowy sexuality and turning him on. Leaving him energised as he
lapsed, somehow, into sleep.
Hours later, in the light of the new day, with dream fragments trailing him
to the bathroom, ribbons tied to gifts rapidly disintegrating, turning into dust as
he tuned himself up, Lara felt close and unconfined. He wondered, toothpaste
on his chin, if he should talk to her openly, as if she were there. It was his home
after all, but Jordan could walk in any minute. Which he did a moment later,
