Kim Robinson - The Gold Coast

This is the Look, in the society of the Look:

Freckles on cheeks, under a sunburn that might start peeling right now.

That brake light in your brain.…

Well, it’s worth a little adrenaline, Jim thinks. Of course everyone is beautiful these days, we’re in California after all, but for Jim, Virginia Novello is it. And here she is talking to him. She has before, of course, a bit remotely perhaps, and in the context of Arthurness, but now… Jim offers her his new margarita and she takes a sip. Arm muscles slide and bunch under tan skin, silky hairs on forearm gleam in the light. Her white blouse is a nice change from all the spectrum-slide primaries in the room. These are fabrics that are colored in a very narrow band of the spectrum, say fifteen hertz, so that you can, for instance, just begin to see a blue blouse shade into violet, or yellow into green, across the whole of the piece of cloth. It’s a great look, and very popular because of that, but still, a change is nice. Kind of bold.

“Ping-pong is funny,” Jim says. “It really varies from day to day how much you can count on your game working. You know?”

“I think most sports are like that. The edge comes rarely. Maybe it goes beyond sports, eh?”

Jim nods, regarding her. Her smile, seldom seen, small and controlled, is actually quite nice. He doesn’t know much about her, despite the admiration from a distance. Business executive of some sort? Funny match with Arthur’s political activism. Maybe that’s why they broke up. Let’s not worry about it.

They go out on the balcony, and Jim asks her about her work. She helps to administer Fashion Island, the old mall above Newport Beach. So she’s working for the management company hired by the Irvine Corporation, which owns the land. The old rancho dismemberment wealth, extending two hundred years into time… although Irvine’s only a name now, the family long out of it. Jim talks about this aspect of the land ownership of OC, and Virginia listens, interested and inquisitive. “It’s funny, you never think about how things got this way,” she says brightly.

Well. Jim does. But he passes on that. He tells her about the recent archaeological dig under Fluffy Donuts, making himself the butt of the jokes, and she laughs. The Fool, after all, can be a useful role, as he already knows. Especially after a show of competence at the ping-pong table; then it can be mistaken for modesty. They watch cars track over the freeways. Leaning over the red geraniums that line the balcony’s top, their arms brush together. It’s accidental and means nothing, sure.

“Do you surf?” Virginia asks.

“No. Tash tried to teach me, but the moment I stand the board flies away and I fall down.”

She laughs. “You’ve got to just commit and jump up without thinking about balance. I bet I could teach you.”

“Really? I’d love it.” No lie. Virginia at the beach? What an image. “Tash just always says, like I’ve done it on purpose, ‘Don’t fall, Jim.’”

She laughs again.

Now, at this time Jim is in alliance with Sheila Mayer. As his mom would be quick to point out. They’ve been allied for almost four months now, and it’s been a pretty good four months, too. But Jim has been taking it for granted for some time; the thrill is gone, and Sheila is a Lagunatic and doesn’t get up to central OC more than twice a week, and Jim has been entertaining himself pretty frequently with other women he’s met at Sandy’s. All his friends therefore know about it, and he’s come to consider himself a free man, though Sheila might be surprised to hear it. But there’s not been a really comfortable time to discuss it with her, yet. He will soon. Meanwhile he fancies that his infidelities make him a little less The Fool in the eyes of his friends, a little more The Man of the World.

And at the moment he isn’t thinking about any of that anyway. He’s forgotten Sheila, in fact, and if he’s thinking about friends, it’s only a vague underfeeling that he would be really impressive if allied with Virginia Novello.

They talk for quite some time about the relative values of surfing and bodysurfing, and other philosophical issues of that sort. They go in and sit down on one of the long beige couches and drink more margaritas. They talk about Jim’s work, people they know in common, music groups they like. The party is getting emptier, only the old regulars left, Sandy and Angela’s actual friends. Sandy drops by and crouches at their feet to chat for a while. “Did Jim tell you about our attack on the parking lot?”

“Yeah, I want to see this piece of ancient wood you liberated.”

“Did you bring it, Jim?”

“I’m having it made into the handle of my ping-pong paddle.” They laugh; he made a joke, apparently! This must really be his night.

Tashi’s ally Erica stands over Sandy, grabs him by his long red ponytail and pulls. “Sandy, are you going to open the sauna and jacuzzi tonight?”

“Yeah, haven’t I already? Man, what time is it? One?” The psycho grin grows impossibly wide, Sandy goggles at Erica with his lecher leer. “Come on along while I turn on the heat, you can test it out for me.”

“Test what out for you?”

Arms around each other they walk toward the sauna and jacuzzi room at the end of the ap, calling for Tash and Angela.

“Want to jacuzzi?” Virginia asks Jim.

“Sure,” he says coolly.

They follow Sandy and Erica and Tash and Angela and Rose and Gabriela and Humphrey and one or two others down the hall and into the Jacuzzi room. Sandy snaps on light, water heater, sauna heater, water jets. The room is hot, humid, filled with Angela’s most tropical houseplants, hanging in a network of macramé. Redwood decking, redwood walls, domed skylight, big blue ceramic tile Jacuzzi bath: yes, Sandy and Angela live a good life. They go into the changing rooms and strip.

Of course they do this often at Sandy’s place, social nudity is casual and no big deal at all. That’s why Jim’s left eye has gotten stuck looking straight into his nose, from trying to watch both Virginia and Erica undress at the same time. Surreptitious knuckle in there to free the poor thing, for more looking you bet; video saturation has trained Jim, like everyone else, to a fine appreciation of the female image. Now when arms are crossed and those blouses come over those heads in a single fluid motion, breasts falling free, hair shaken out all over shoulders, the men exhale a happy connoisseur’s sigh. No doubt the women get a little peak in the readout too, moment of pseudotaboo exhibitionism here, quite a thrill just to Take It All Off in Front of Everybody, whoah, besides here’s all these wrestler/surfer muscles everywhere.… But it’s a casual scene, sure, of course, obviously.

Naked, they go out into the Jacuzzi room and step into the bath. Rose and Gabriela, long-time allies, duck each other under the hot water. Steam and laughter fill the room. Debbie Riggs, Humphrey’s sister, comes in to find out what the noise is all about. The water’s too hot for Virginia and she sits dripping on the decking beside Jim. They all talk.

Bodies. Wet skin over muscles. We all know the shapes.

Ruddy light breaks in wet curls of hair.

Wrestlers’ bodies, swimmers’ bodies, surfers’ bodies, spa bodies.

Tall breasts, full from the collarbones down.

Cocks float in the bubbles, snaking here and there, hello? hello?

Hello?

Curled pubic hair: equilateral eye magnets.

Blink blink, blink blink, blink blink (in the brain).

Virginia leans forward over powerful thighs to check one manicured and painted toenail. She’s gone for the muscly look, especially in arms and legs, although her lats show a lot of rowing and her abdominals a lot of sit-ups. It’s a nicely balanced look, refreshing after some of the other women’s extremism: Rose, for instance, who has left her upper body childlike while her bottom and legs are immensely strong, or Gabriela, who has bench presser’s pecs and campily big breasts over boyish hips and long slim legs… both just going with their original forms, both bizarrely attractive in their own ways; but there’s something to be said for moderation, the standard proportions taken to their perfect end point.