Night Swimming

by Robin Schwarz

  “Jeannie,” Skip said, “you remember Blossom.”

  Jeannie looked Blossom up and down—the sort of look a cheerleader might give the quarterback’s pretty girlfriend. All judgment.

  “No, I don’t believe we have met.”

  Blossom stood up. “Oh, yes, we have. Several months ago, Jeannie. Right here, as a matter of fact.”

  Jeannie studied Blossom. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember.”

  “Sure you do,” Skip said. “Blossom borrowed Vinny for a party. Remember?”

  Jeannie gasped. If she had tried to hide that moment of recognition, she’d failed miserably. All she could muster was “Oh, yeah, right, right.” Then she pulled herself together. “Your hair is shorter.”

  Blossom stood up and extended her hand. Jeannie was beautiful—of that Blossom was sure—but she was beautiful in a distant way. Jeannie was like a flower in spring during a cold snap, a flower that becomes sealed inside a very thin veil of ice, frozen, cold in its inaccessible beauty. You cannot smell the flower or touch its fragile petals. The sheerest sheet of ice separated Jeannie from the world, and her beauty was eclipsed by it in some way. If Blossom looked different to Jeannie from when they had first met, Jeannie looked much different to Blossom.

  “It was nice meeting you again,” she said confidently, picking up her book and towel, turning toward the stairs. Jeannie’s eyes followed Blossom until she disappeared.

  “That’s the same woman I met? The same woman who borrowed Vinny?”

  “Yup.”

  “What happened to her? She dropped a whole other person.”

  “Yeah, she looks great, doesn’t she?”

  “She looks okay.”

  “Oh, Jeannie, loosen up. It doesn’t take anything away from you to say she looks great.”

  “She could be more toned.”

  “Meow.”

  “So is this who’s putting you in a better mood lately?”

  “How do you know I’m in a better mood lately?”

  “We still have mutual friends, Skip.”

  Skip was walking Jeannie toward the gate. “Well, yes, she’s helped make this transition a little more palatable. And yes, I enjoy Blossom’s company. What do you care? You’re with Felix now.”

  “Fallon, Skip—his name is Fallon.”

  “I knew it was an F word—I mean name.” Skip smiled.

  “Cute, Skip.” Jeannie took the envelope. “I’ll send you a copy of all this stuff.”

  “So I guess this is sort of it. Guess this wraps up things between us.”

  “I guess it does.”

  There was an awkward pause. Skip shifted from one foot to the other.

  “Good luck, Jeannie.”

  “Yeah, you, too.”

  Jeannie turned and walked toward her car. Skip watched the past seven years of his life disappear in front of his eyes. How could it be? Two people can hold each other for seven years, ten years, twenty years, laugh and cry with each other, love each other through the best and worst of times and then, one morning, one of them wakes up and has absolutely nothing to say to the other. This thought stayed with him as Jeannie headed down the street, turned the corner, and drove out of his life forever.

  CHAPTER 58

  MAKLEY WAS IN HIS OFFICE going through unpaid traffic vilations when the phone rang.

  “Mr. Makley?” asked an unfamiliar female voice.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Sandra Lockley. I’m calling from L.A. Actually, from Beverly Hills.”

  Makley sat up in his chair.

  “Yes?”

  “I work in realty here. Sandra Lockley Fine Homes and Realty. I returned last week from maternity leave, and I was going through some old messages; the woman I had hired to fill in for me while I was gone obviously didn’t give me all my calls. I’ve been going through them one by one, and I just got to yours. So I’m just getting back to you now.”

  Makley sat up in his chair. “I’m glad you called. What can I do for you?”

  “Your message said you were looking for a large woman who might have purchased a home in the past year. Your description of the woman fits someone I did sell a house to, and she was from New Hampshire, as I recall. But the name you gave doesn’t fit. You said it was someone named Charlotte Clapp?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Well, the woman I sold the house to, her name was Blossom McBeal.”

  “Blossom McBeal?”

  “Yes.”

  It could be a different woman. Then again, it would be quite a coincidence. Charlotte could have changed her name.

  “The reason I remember her so clearly, and the reason why I’m calling, is because she paid in cash.”

  “Cash?”

  “Anyway, I thought it odd. It was mostly in small bills: tens, twenties. It took us an entire day to count it. You don’t forget something like that.”

  “How much was the house?”

  “A million dollars.”

  Bingo! Makley knew he was close. “Can you give me the address?”

  “Under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’d like my name to be kept out of this. If she should be arrested for something she did, I don’t want her to know how you found her.”

  “That isn’t a problem, Ms. Lockley. I give you my word your name will not be mentioned.”

  Sandra Lockley gave Makley the address.

  “I really appreciate your calling. If this is indeed Charlotte Clapp, then you’ve helped bring a situation to its rightful end.”

  “I don’t want to know anything about it, Mr. Makley. I’m glad to have helped, but when I hang up, I hope we’ll never have to speak to each other again.”

  “I understand, Ms. Lockley.”

  “Good.”

  “Thank you for calling.”

  “You’re welcome. Good-bye, Mr. Makley.”

  And she hung up. Makley sat there looking at the address as if it were a winning lottery ticket. So Charlotte Clapp was now Blossom McBeal. Well, well, well. He called information in Hollywood and asked for her number. There was a Blossom McBeal listed at the same address that Ms. Lockley had provided. A moment later Officer Hobbs walked through the door.

  “I’m going to L.A. again,” Makley announced.

  “On another one of MaryAnn Barzini’s wild-goose chases?”

  “Nope. We got a lead to beat all leads. Seems our little Charlotte Clapp has been living the high life in Hollywood, California, under the name of Blossom McBeal.”

  Officer Hobbs stepped back. It almost looked as if he were using the wall to hold himself up.

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I’d say there’s a ninety-nine-point-nine percent chance that we just might have our girl.”

  “This is unbelievable.”

  “That it is.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow. Keep this under wraps. I don’t want the whole town buzzing. Gossip spreads like an epidemic in Gorham. I don’t need the Ladies’ Auxiliary calling up here and asking a million questions.”

  “Right.”

  Makley got up. “I gotta get to the bank before it closes. Do some last-minute errands before I leave. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  And he left, with a strut in his walk that said he was having a good day. A very good day.

  Officer Hobbs was still leaning against the wall, thinking.

  “Damn,” he said softly. After all the good things he had learned about Charlotte, this was the one he hoped would get away.

  CHAPTER 59

  BLOSSOM CARRIED HER BOOM BOX down to the pool. She wanted to swim to music tonight.

  Tony Bennett’s voice hovered over the water like a light mist as she stepped into her netherworld. “Old Devil Moon,” “It Has to Be You,” and “Body and Soul” drifted like wispy, low-lying clouds over the pool, caressing her. She fell back on the music as if soft pillows were catching her in their embrace.

&nbs
p; Back and forth, back and forth she went with dolphin ease. The lights flicked off at midnight, as they had so many times before, and Blossom lay on her back drinking in the night sky like a dark, sweet liqueur and thinking about Skip. Was he leaving this week? Next week? Then, as if desire had conjured up his very presence, Skip appeared at the edge of the pool like an apparition. She blinked to make sure she was actually seeing him.

  “Skip?”

  “Hi.”

  “What are you doing here? Getting more tools?”

  “Uhhh, yeah,” he lied, kneeling down by the edge of the pool, drawing his hand through the water and feeling the warm-cold silk of it.

  “Guess you leave soon, Skip.” She just couldn’t help saying it. That reality was as present as they were, as present as the grass he stood on or the sky above them. But it was a starless sky tonight, and suddenly the feeling of being lost in a lush, liquid world dissipated, becoming bowls of blackness and a barren feeling of loss.

  “Yes, I leave soon.” He paused, then tried to change the subject. “But more importantly, you still haven’t told me what the last thing on your list is. You said you’d tell me before I left.”

  “True, I haven’t. But I will. There is something I would like to tell you. Something I’ve tried to tell you a hundred times before, but the words never came out. It’s not on the list, but it’s important.”

  “Okay.”

  “There is no right time to tell someone this. This isn’t a right time, either. But the truth is, there will never be a right time. The thing is...it’s a sort of strange thing to tell you, Skip, but the fact is... I’m kinda sick.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well it means that several months ago I was given a year to live, and my year is almost up.”

  “What are you talking about, Blossom?”

  “And I need you to know this so when you go away, you won’t wonder why you haven’t heard from me. You will always be in my heart, Skip; I just won’t be here. Here like this.”

  She went on to tell Skip exactly what Dr. Jennings had told her and how she had decided, in the last stretch of her life, to change everything. She did not confess any of the other strange and incalculable circumstances of her life. She did not tell him she had robbed a bank or changed her name or had fallen hopelessly in love with him. She did, however, tell him what she believed to be true. She was dying and most likely had less than a month left.

  Skip listened with eyes wide, as if he had inadvertently got tied into a party line that was none of his affair and was unable to hang up although he desperately wanted to.

  “This can’t be right.”

  “It is, Skip.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s nothing to understand. It just is.”

  “I don’t believe you. I refuse to believe you, Blossom.”

  Blossom was quiet. She finally broke the black, inscrutable silence. “That’s okay.”

  Skip stood up slowly and stared at Blossom in the pool. She seemed so far away from him, as if he were running toward her in a dream, but she only continued to move farther, ever farther away. No, this wasn’t true, this wasn’t right. No, no, no, no, no, no, no...

  Still with his gaze fixed upon her, he began unbuttoning his shirt. Blossom watched as he loosened every button, one by one. He took off his watch and undid his belt. He removed his shoes, slipped off his khakis, and tossed them onto the grass. Finally, he stood naked in front of her. He was perfect, like one of those Parisian statues in the center of a fountain. Blossom did not say a word. He entered the water like a secret, a leaf floating down from a tree and landing effortlessly on the surface. His strong, masculine body moved toward her with purpose and tenderness. He reached for her, only a sheer curtain of water separating their bodies. He slid the straps of her bathing suit off her shoulders and pulled them down to her waist. Now even the water between them disappeared. He brought her in close, her breasts warm against his chest, his hands around her back. Tenderly he lifted her face in the half-moonlight that hung like a candle behind the clouds and kissed her cheek, her eyes, her lips. Blossom’s eyes closed, defenseless against the utter pleasure of his touch. Was this a dream? If it was, she didn’t want to wake up. She wanted to stay folded in the sweetness of the unexpected “now” of it, experiencing the pure distillation of every feeling she’d ever had for him.

  He slipped off her suit and carried her down to the shallow end of the pool. He laid her back along the top step and gently lay on top of her. He opened her legs and, in the pearl black darkness, found his way to the center of her being, the very core of her existence. Then he rocked her back and forth, like the movement of water finding its way to the shore. She held on to his neck as to a lifeline, taking in every sweet and excruciating plunge. A distant chorus of music drifted in and out of Blossom’s brain. “The Good Life” played on, somewhere in the middle distance of the moment.

  And Skip kissed her neck and whispered something, though she couldn’t quite hear it. She only felt the strange shape of words against her ear.

  Small, undulating movements came quicker now. She was so hot, she thought the water might start boiling around her at any moment.

  And then, in the slippery wet underworld of wonder and dream, they released themselves utterly and completely to each other. Everything that was far away became tactile and immediate. Everything that “was” or “had been” changed in a second. They held on to each other as if they were the lone survivors of a shipwreck in some nameless ocean.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Skip whispered.

  “In a minute,” Blossom answered, not wanting to let go of this exquisite moment.

  “Okay....Do you remember a while back when I didn’t know what name fit you exactly? And I told you when it came to me I would tell you?”

  “Yes, I remember it well.”

  “Well, it’s finally come to me.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Your first name should be Lila.”

  “Lila?”

  “Yes, because Lila means ‘night,’ and your last name should be Nata because Nata means ‘swimmer.’ Night Swimmer—that’s what your name should be, Blossom, because that’s who you are.”

  “I love you, Skip.”

  “I love you, too, my beautiful night swimmer.”

  He finally lifted her out of the pool, wrapped a towel around her and then around himself, and carried her upstairs to bed, where they tumbled under the white waves of sheets and down until morning.

  CHAPTER 60

  SKIP AND BLOSSOM SLEPT, two lovers tied together in a single knot of bliss. A sudden knock at the door woke them both. Blossom looked at the clock. It wasn’t yet six. She rose, threw on her robe, and walked, half awake, to the foyer. She opened the door to three people standing before her like Publishers Clearing House representatives.

  Makley thought he might have the wrong person. In no way did this woman standing before him resemble the Charlotte Clapp in her pictures, the Charlotte Clapp who had made an indelible impression on him for months.

  “Charlotte Clapp?” Makley asked tenuously.

  Charlotte saw Makley and knew. He didn’t need to say another word.

  “Yes.”

  “We have a warrant for your arrest, originating in the district of New Hampshire, authorizing us to arrest you for a charge of bank larceny.”

  Skip had gotten up by this point and was standing beside her, listening to the charge.

  “What?” he asked, incredulously. “There must be some mistake,” he continued.

  “No,” Charlotte said, turning to Skip. “I’m afraid there’s not.”

  He stood there, staring blankly, too stunned to move from his spot.

  “We’ll wait here, Charlotte. Please get dressed,” Makley said.

  “Who is Charlotte?” Skip asked, confused.

  Charlotte walked past Skip, who turned and followed her mutely back into her bedroom.

  “I can’t tell y
ou everything right now, Skip. It’s too long a story. Ask Dolly. She knows the whole thing.”

  Skip watched Blossom hurriedly dress and gather some things up from her bureau. As she began to walk out, she turned to him one last time.

  “Thank you for the most unforgettable night of my life, Skip. I was able to complete my list... more than complete it. So now you know. Now you know what the long-withheld secret remaining on my list was. It was to love you.”

  She stood on tiptoes and kissed him. “And I do love you,” she said, as easily as if she were telling him a wonderful dream she’d had.

  Two local FBI agents—one male and one female—and Makley all piled into a police car and headed to the federal courthouse, with Blossom in the back, staring forlornly out the window as Makley read her Miranda rights.

  “How did you find me?”

  “It took quite a while, Charlotte. We just pieced it together bit by bit.”

  “What happens now?”

  “Well,” Makley continued, “you’ll be arraigned in a California federal court and formally charged with bank larceny in New Hampshire. And depending upon whether you want to contest identity, you’ll either stay here and have a hearing, or agree to go back to New Hampshire, and plead guilty or be tried.”

  “I’m guilty. I’m the one. I stole the money. I’m not going to put up any fuss about it. I don’t need a lawyer. Especially since I’ll probably be dead in a month anyway.”

  “What?” the male FBI agent asked, turning toward Charlotte. “Are you planning to commit suicide?”

  “No. I was given a year to live, and that was just about a year ago, so I’d say my time is almost up here.”

  Makley cringed. Jesus! Charlotte was still laboring under the belief that she was going to die. Of course she was—no one had told her otherwise.