The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [53]
You blew it, asshole.
“I didn’t blow it.”
You did. You didn’t even wave.
“I can wave next time.”
When he could finally unhinge his left hand from the banister and forcefully unparalyze the hand that had never waved to beautiful bikini girl, Fred walked back into his office. Longing to feel better about himself, he began organizing his desk. He rolled up his maps and stacked folders. He separated out a small pile of things that had to go to the bank safe and gathered other things to put in his own.
Removing a large modern painting from the wall, Fred opened his safe and placed his new deeds in it. Moving back the way he came, he kicked a heap of dirty clothing to the top of the stairs where Winston would find them. It had been twenty-five minutes since he’d seen the girl in the coral bikini, and he still couldn’t erase her from his mind.
“I will talk to her next time,” he said, and no one answered back.
Fred turned on the TV just in time for the weather report. June in Billy’s Bay is much like any other month—eighty-five and sunny. Sometimes the rainy season brought a bad storm or even an early hurricane, but most years it passed by unnoticed. So far that year the weather had been perfect, and Fred wondered again why the beach was so empty.
He heard Winston using the shower downstairs.
“It’s about time I got out and did things. All this daydreaming is getting me nowhere,” he said, and there was no answer. So he moved his morning business to the sun deck to tan his toned calves and enjoy the scenery. After a half-hour nap in the sun, he heard Winston knocking.
“Come in!”
Winston moved slowly through the office and out the sliding door.
“You cleaned up, Fred!” he said.
“You know, I can do that sort of thing from time to time.”
“You feeling all right now, mon?”
Fred threw him a dirty look. “I never felt otherwise.”
“You been cranky for tree days now, Fred. I can tell dese things.” Winston smiled, and reached out to touch Fred’s shoulder.
Fred flinched. “What do you want? I’m working!”
“Still dat way, yeh?”
“What do you WANT?” Fred boomed.
Winston spoke through a stifled grin. “I’m goin’ to Black River today for some tings, mon. You wan go to the bank?”
“No. Not today. I’ll go tomorrow.”
“You sure, mon?”
Fred wiggled his hand in Winston’s direction. “Whatever, whatever. Just leave me alone. I have work to do!”
“All right, mon, no problem.”
“Sure, yeah.”
Fred looked up at him from the handmade wooden lounge chair on the deck. Winston stood there smiling at him, goofily.
“What?”
“Just you, mon. I dunno.”
“Well, go and figure it out somewhere else.”
Winston laughed. “When you get so mean to yourself, Fred?”
“Just go away,” Fred answered. And Winston left, still giggling to himself. Sometimes under his breath, he spoke like a Jamaican woman, like his own mother, in psalms and songs that Fred could not understand. On his way through the sliding doors he said, “Who feels it knows it, Lord,” and yelped to himself as if that were a really funny thing to say. Fred heard him get in the car and drive away, still laughing. He ripped a large corner from one of his papers and wrote Stop saying that annoying rubbish in block letters, and placed it neatly on top of Winston’s folder.
And then she appeared again.
“God! What timing!” Fred marveled to himself.
When she was halfway across his beach, he stood and approached the stairway again. This time, when he knew she was looking his way, he waved. She squinted again, and covered her brow with her hand and waved back, but kept walking.
Rusty appeared and began to trot toward the sea, and Fred hurried down the steps to grab him.
“You’ll stay!” he said to the dog, holding him forcefully by the scruff of his neck, every so often squeezing so hard that Rusty would squeak in pain. The girl looked back to the house and squinted again, but could not see Fred where he now stood with the dog. He waved, but she didn’t wave back. He kicked the dog for that, and then watched as she vanished again behind the tree line to the left.
“Well, she did wave,” he