Brian Freeman: The Bone House

'You shouldn't brag about that,' he said, before he could stop himself. He didn't want to lecture her or be drawn into a discussion of her sexuality. He just wanted to turn around and go. Things were getting out of control.

He saw her eyes focused on the palm trees over his shoulder, and he flinched. He turned, expecting to see someone watching the two of them together. He knew it would be the same as last year if they were discovered. Suspicions. Accusations. You're a predator, they would say. Instinctively, he thought of ways to explain his behavior, to defend himself, even when he'd done nothing wrong.

Instead, he saw no one. They were alone. Weren't they?

'I'm leaving, Glory,' he insisted.

'If you go, I'll just tell everybody we had sex anyway,' she said. 'Who do you think they'll believe? If you stay, it can be our secret.'

Glory reached behind her back. He didn't realize what she was doing, but when her hands came forward, they held the strings to her bikini top, which dangled at her hips. She tugged the ties at her neck, undoing the knot, and shrugged her torso, letting the red top peel away and fall to her feet. Her eyes were serious and confident as she cupped her naked breasts.

'No one will ever know,' she whispered.

'You're quiet this morning,' Hilary Bradley said to her husband.

They sat at an outdoor table by the pool with plates filled from the hotel's breakfast buffet. It was early morning, just after seven o'clock, and the patio cafe was sparsely populated. Both of them were early risers. Hilary sipped her orange juice and watched her husband, whose blank eyes were focused on the wide stretch of beach and the placid GuIf water.

'Anyone in there?' she asked when he didn't answer her.

Mark's head snapped toward her. 'Oh, sorry. I'm not quite awake yet.'

'Drink your coffee.'

He sipped from a ceramic mug, not saying anything more.

'You OK?' she asked.

'Sure. Fine.'

Hilary didn't push him to talk. She tried the jalapeno-laced scrambled eggs, which were spicy and delicious, and she picked up a piece of crispy bacon with her fingers. The buffet meant an extra hour on the treadmill tomorrow, but the trade-off was worth it. Hilary was tall, and she would never be thin. Even when she'd danced in school, she hadn't been a waif; instead, her muscular physique had been an asset in winning competitions. That was a long time ago. Now she was only two years away from forty, and she found herself waging a daily battle to maintain a weight where she could look at herself in the mirror and not wince. Each year the battle got a little harder, but she wasn't about to starve herself.

She studied her husband, who had shown surprising willpower at the buffet this morning. Mark was a rugged man, the kind who turned women's heads. She felt satisfaction when she thought about his toned body, but she also felt mild jealousy and annoyance. He carried his own weight well, but he had the advantage of being three years younger than she was. He was a man, too, and a lifelong athlete. When he gained ten pounds on a vacation, he added half an hour to his weightlifting regimen, and the pounds miraculously vanished on the second day.

Annoying.

Hilary followed Mark's eyes to the beach, where she saw a large cluster of people half a mile away near the water. They weren't dressed like swimmers. She thought they looked like police. 'I wonder what's going on,' she said.

'I don't know.' Mark sounded distracted.

She leaned back in her chair, brushed her long blond hair away from her face, and adjusted her sunglasses. Even early in the morning, it was already warm on the patio. She tried to read her husband's mind and decipher what was bothering him. 'If we have to move, we move,' she said. 'We've done it before.'

'What?' he asked.

'Home. Money. I know you're worried. So am I. But what's the worst that happens? We pack up and go somewhere else.'

Mark dragged his gaze from the sea. He rubbed his chin, which was stubbled; he hadn't shaved yet. He picked up a fork to eat his breakfast and then put it down. 'Who says it'll be that easy? Any high school district in the country looks at a male teacher released after two years, and what do they think? Inappropriate behavior.'

'Not necessarily.'

He set his mug down sharply on the glass tabletop. 'Let's not kid ourselves, Hil.'

'I'm just saying, budgets are tight everywhere. We're coming out of a big recession in a small district. People get let go. It doesn't have to raise red flags.'

Mark shook his head. 'You don't think there's a back channel between principals? You don't think they talk to each other off the record? "What's the deal on Mark Bradley?" "Forget about him, he was banging one of his students." Face it, wherever I go, I'll be blacklisted.'

'You don't know that.'

'The hell I don't.'

She saw bitterness in Mark's face, which had grown and deepened over the past year of joblessness, until it was a constant fixture in his eyes. She couldn't blame him. He'd been treated badly, convicted without a trial or an appeal. He was in an impossible situation, and he was angry about it. The trouble was that his anger didn't change the reality or make it better; it only threw a shadow between the two of them. When they were together, when they were in bed, his anger was always there with them now.

She let the silence linger, and then she changed the subject. 'Did you see the bulletin board in the lobby? Amy Leigh's team from Green Bay did really well. They got first runner-up for small ensembles.'

'Good for her.'

'I wish I could have seen their final performance, but that was the day we drove to Tampa. Amy was one of my favorites in Chicago. Bubbly girl, really sweet.'

'I remember her.'

Hilary had coached Amy Leigh in dance for four years while she taught in the northern Chicago suburb of Highland Park. Amy didn't have natural grace but compensated for it with practice and enthusiasm. They'd become friends. Hilary's last name had been Semper, not Bradley, until Amy's senior year, and Amy had been among the students who were most excited when Hilary had announced that she was getting married.

'I called Amy's room to congratulate her,' Hilary said, 'but the Green Bay bus left early. I missed her.'

'You can post on her wall on Facebook when we get back,' Mark said.

'Yeah.' Hilary yawned and worked the crick out of her neck by stretching her arms. 'I hope I can sleep on the plane. I'm still really tired. You must be, too.'

'Why do you say that?'

'You didn't sleep well, did you? I woke up at one point and you weren't in bed.'

'Oh,' Mark said. 'No, you're right, I couldn't sleep. Sorry, I was obsessing about the job again. I know you think I should just let it go.'

'I never said that. I just don't want it destroying our lives, OK? Look, we'll get home, and you can focus on something else. You can paint.'

'I'm not going to make any money that way.'

'Who knows? That gallery in Ephraim talked about selling your stuff. Anything will help right now.' She frowned when she saw Mark's face. He thought she was chastising him. She tried to make it better, but she only made it worse. 'Or you could do golf lessons this summer. A lot of women are looking for a sexy pro to help them stop shanking. A lot of men, too.'

'We've talked about this.'

'I know, I know. I'm just saying.'

She let the subject drop. On some issues Mark was stubborn, and you couldn't get him to change his mind. Golf was a big one. He'd spent several years in his twenties on the pro circuit, working his way up the ladder and into the money, until a shoulder injury ended his career. As an ex-pro, he could have made a decent living giving lessons or working in the business, but Mark had an all-or-nothing attitude. If he couldn't be competitive as a player, he didn't want to be part of the game. She'd never been able to help him past it.