DARING

     She slept late—until she heard a knock on the door and at her window saw Terry below. She went down to answer it in her nightgown, just as she was, one strap hanging down, one breast exposed. Then in the narrow lower bunk of her bed, she surrendered to him again, this time without regret.

     There was another excursion planned for the afternoon, to the lighthouse. It seemed to her that the round of picnics and parties never ended, but Terry appeared eager to go. She would rather have spent a quiet day with him, just the two of them, but, not wanting to hold him back, she said that she’d like to spend the afternoon pottering around the house. What she didn’t tell him was that she wasn’t sure it was safe for her to swim while she still had her diaphragm in. They agreed to meet at the Café Maritime at 5:00 to begin cooking—the guests were invited for 7:00. When she was dressed, she set to work in the kitchen, scrubbing Jean-Michel’s old navy-blue refrigerator. She found the housework welcome, lulling. Still, as the day wore on she began to miss Terry and wished she’d gone along after all.

     She sat in a corded chair on the balcony of Jean-Michel’s apartment, sketching the rooftops and the harbor beyond and thinking about all that had happened. Terry tried so hard to please, seemed always to be putting on a show, a lonely effort that touched her. What would he be like, she wondered, if and when he realized he didn’t have to try so hard to be loved? It was strange, she thought then, that they’d never talked about themselves, that whatever they had been before they’d left behind them, as though it was irrelevant in Cadaques. She thought she sensed a sadness about him—had he broken up with someone recently as she had? The day after next he would be leaving. What an adventure, how daring, she thought suddenly, to go with him!