James Patterson: Lifeguard

I did a double take. No one had ever said that to me. I just stood there with a dumb-ass, starstruck grin. Don’t think I even let go of her hand.

“ Sydney. New South Wales,” she said, displaying her Aussie “Strine,” her accent.

“ Boston.” I grinned back.

And that was how it started. We chatted a little more, about how she’d been living there for a couple of months and how she’d take long walks on the beach. She said she might come back this way the next day. And I said there was a chance I might be there, too. As I watched her walk away, I figured she was probably laughing at me behind those $400 Chanel sunglasses.

“By the way,” she said, suddenly turning, “there was a movie. Humoresque . With Joan Crawford. You should check it out.”

I rented Humoresque that night, and it ended with the beautiful heroine drowning herself by walking into the sea.

And on Wednesday Tess came back. Looking even hotter, in this black one-piece suit and a straw hat. She didn’t seem sad. We took a swim and I told her I would teach her how to bodysurf and for a while she went along. Then as I let her go she hopped the right wave and crested in like a pro. She laughed at me from the shore. “I’m from Australia, silly. We have our Palm Beach, too. Just past Whale Beach, north of Sydney.”

We made a “date” for lunch at the Brazilian Court in two days. That’s where she was staying, one of the most fashionable places in town, a few blocks off Worth Avenue. Those two days were like an eternity for me. Every ring of my cell phone I figured was her canceling. But she didn’t. We met in Café Boulud, where you have to make a reservation a month in advance unless you’re Rod Stewart or someone. I was as nervous as a kid going out on his first date. She was already sitting at the table in a sexy off-the-shoulder dress. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. We never even made it to dessert.

“SO, I’M THINKING this was one of the top ten afternoons of my life.” I folded my arms behind my head and tickled Tess playfully with my toes. Both of us were spread-eagle on the king-size bed in her hotel suite.

“So, you were a lifeguard on Midtown Beach,” she was saying. “Before you became a kept man. What does a lifeguard do – in Palm Beach?”

I grinned, because Tess was so obviously tossing me a softball. “A good lifeguard is a true waterman,” I said with a twinkle in my eye. “We watch the water. Is it glassy, choppy? Are there riffs? Smooth flashes warning of riptides? We warn the sleepy snowbird to roll over and fry the other side. Douse the occasional jellyfish encounter with a splash of vinegar. Stuff like that.”

“But now you’re a kept man?” She grinned.

“Maybe I could be,” I said.

She turned. There was glimmer in her eye that was totally earnest. “You know what I said about your luck changing, Ned. Well, maybe I’m starting to feel the same way, too.”

I couldn’t believe that someone like Tess McAuliffe was actually saying this to me. Everything about her was first-class and refined. I mean, I wasn’t exactly Average Joe; I knew if I was on the show, I’d be one of the hunks. But holding her, I couldn’t help wondering what in her life had made her so sad. What she was hiding in her eyes that first day on the beach.

My eyes slowly drifted to the antique clock on the foldout writing desk across from the bed. “Oh, Jesus, Tess!”

It was almost five. The whole afternoon had melted. “I know I’m going to regret these words… but I’ve got to go.”

I saw that sad look from the other day come over her face. Then she sighed, “Me, too.”

“Look, Tess,” I said, putting a leg into my jeans, “I didn’t know this was going to happen today, but there’s something I have to do. I may not see you for a couple of days. But when I do, things are going to be different.”

“Different? How different?”

“With me. For starters, I won’t have to keep people out of trouble on the beach.”

“I like you keeping people out of trouble on the beach.” Tess smiled.

“What I mean is, I’ll be free. To do anything you want.” I started buttoning my shirt and searching around for my shoes. “We could go somewhere. The islands. That sound good?”

“Sure, it sounds good.” Tess smiled, a little hesitantly.

I gave her a long kiss. One that said, Thank you for an amazing afternoon . Then it took everything I had to get out of there, but people were counting on me.

“Remember what I said. Don’t move. Don’t even blink. That’s exactly how I want to remember you.”

“What’re you planning to do, Ned Kelly, rob a bank?”

I stood at the door. I took a long look at her. It was actually turning me on that she would even ask something like that. “I dunno,” I said, grinning, “but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

NOT A BANK , I was thinking as I hopped into my old Bonneville convertible and headed onto the bridge to West Palm, floating on cloud nine. But Tess was close. A one-shot, can’tmiss deal that was going to change my life.

Like I said, I’m from Brockton. Home of Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Rocky Marciano. Ward Four, Perkins Avenue, across the tracks. There are neighborhoods , anyone from Brockton will agree, and then there’s the Bush .

Growing up, people said Brockton ’s a quarter black, a quarter Italian, a quarter Irish, a quarter Swedish and Polish, and another “quarter” no one wanted to mess with. Hardscrabble neighborhoods of run-down row houses, churches, the ruins of closed-up factories.

And the Bush was the toughest. We had gangs. We got into fights every day. You didn’t even call it a fight unless someone broke a bone. Half the kids I knew ended up in reform schools or juvie detention programs. The good ones took a few courses at the junior college or commuted to Northeastern for a year before they went into their father’s restaurant or went to work for the city. Cops and firefighters, that’s what Brockton seems to breed. Along with fighters.

Oh yeah, and crooks.

It wasn’t like they were bad people. They paid for their homes. They got married and took the family out for birthdays and Communions like everyone else. They owned bars and joined the Rotary. They had barbecues on Sundays and screamed bloody hell for the Sox and the Pats. They just ran some bets at the same time. Or fenced a few stolen cars. Or cracked open some poor sucker’s head now and then.

My father was that kind of guy. Spent more time up in the Souz in Shirley than he did around our dinner table. Every Sunday we’d throw on a tie and pile into the Dodge and make the trip up to see him in his orange prison suit. I’ve known a hundred guys like that. Still do.

Which brings me to Mickey, Bobby, Barney, and Dee.

I’d known them as long as I can remember. We lived within about four blocks of one another. Between Leyden and Edson and Snell. We knew everything about one another. Mickey was my cousin, my uncle Charlie’s son. He was built like a wire hanger with curly red hair, but as tough a sonuvabitch as ever came out of Brockton. He was older than me by six weeks but made it seem as if it were six years. Got me into trouble more times than I can count – and got me out of it a whole lot more. Bobby was Mickey’s cousin, but not mine. He’d been like a big brother to me, ever since my own big brother died – in a shoot-out. Dee was Bobby’s wife, and they’d been together since before anybody could remember. Barney was about the funniest human being I had ever met; he’d also been my protector all through high school.