Tara Ison - Rockaway

“Very Hugh Hefner,” she tells him.

He leans against the doorjamb, sheepish. “Yeah,” he says. “I just put this in a few years ago. Wish I’d had it before. When I was young enough to really enjoy it.”

“Aw,” she says. Her tank top is sticking to her back; she suddenly feels dirty, aware of all the sweat. She thinks she smells like old egg. “Hey, can I take a bath?’

“What?”

“Can I take a bath in that thing? Let me take a bath.”

“Yeah, sure.” He straightens up, interested in this abrupt project. “Those towels are clean,” he says, motioning to a neat, folded pile, “and here, you push this for the jets. .” He turns the faucets on full blast, and points out a button to push.

“Do you have any bubble bath?”

“Uh, yeah. I do.” He selects a bottle from a large wire basket, offers it to her to sniff.

Cucumber, clover maybe, sweet lemon. “That’s good.”

He squeezes in a pint; she pushes on the jets, and the water turns to scented froth. “So, uh. . yeah,” he says, waving fingers at her. “Have fun.” He leaves, sliding the bathroom door closed behind him.

She strips off her tank top and shorts, her underwear. She steps in the tub, the hot foam already rising to her knees. She sits, opening her legs, scooping water under her arms.

“You need anything?” she hears him yell.

“Yeah,” she yells back, over the jets. “Bring me something to drink.”

She settles back as the warm water floats up her arms, her shoulders, bubbling up to her throat. She turns off the faucet, then the jets. Her body floats like the jellyfish in the tide pools. I live on the beach, she thinks, it’s right there, the whole entire beautiful ocean, and I never even go in. I should, this is so lovely, floating. Her hair drifts off, darkening in the water, and she thinks of seaweed; she slides her hands up across her scalp, pulling the hair out further, letting it soak, getting so dark now, used to be so blond when she was little, at least all the sun and lemons are helping.

She floats.

She wishes there were a big tub like this at Nana’s, so she could float this way every day, be cleanly buoyant. She lets her head drop back until the water covers her ears, so she can have all the peace of being inside water. She recalls some portrait in some gallery — Germany? England? Late sixteenth-century, a Holbein knock-off in an unbefitting Baroque gold frame — of some blood-bathing Countess who killed hundreds of virgins so she could soak in a vast bath of their blood, convinced of its rejuvenating potential, its power to keep her young. The portrait showed a beautiful but viper-faced woman around thirty, with milky, unstained skin and aureate blond hair, an angelic smile. She wonders how long the Countess lived, if she ever ran out of virgins, if she died retaining her youthful, venous blush.

There’s a knock, she hears that, faintly, and the door slides open again; Marty hands her a tiny, silver-filigreed crystal glass of cold pinkish liquid, a copy of Newsday , a rolled towel for her neck. He places a clean, folded T-shirt on the sink.

“This is so nice,” Sarah says. “This is perfect.” She sits up to take everything from him, the water dipping to nipple level, her throat and chest covered in bubbled, sliding foam. “I am never leaving. I am staying here for the rest of my life.”

“Don’t,” he says, leaving again, waving his hand at her. “Don’t do that to me.”

WHEN SHE PADS damply back to his room an hour later, wearing his T-shirt and her flannel boxer shorts, he’s on his bed, asleep. Curled on his side like a tuckered-out little boy, amid a pile of pillows and magazines. He’s changed his baseball cap to a black knit one, with a tiny pompom on top. She tosses her underwear and tank top at the foot of the bed and climbs up, gently, on the side of his backbone’s convex curve. She finds an old Rolling Stone , props herself against the headboard, reads. She wishes she’d gone downstairs, first, for another vodka-and-schnapps, but she likes the composition, doesn’t want to move again. The wall of his room facing the ocean is floor-to-ceiling glass, leading out to a small balcony; there’s a beautiful, dimming light coming through, the shadows just beginning to angle. She hears seagulls, and the muted sounds of families leaving the beach, a soothing, tranquil noise.

Marty stirs, rolls to his other side, facing her. “Hey,” he says when he notices her, as if surprised.

“Hey,” she says.

“How was your bath?”

“Lovely.” She smiles briefly at him, goes back to the article on Elvis Costello.

“What time is it?” His little cap is askew, he adjusts it, then rubs his eyes.

“Around five, I think.”

“I should go to shul.”

“Okay. I’ll get going.” She puts the magazine down and turns to crawl off the bed, but he grasps her wrist.

“No, wait.”

“Why?”

“Come here.” He tugs her back down, positions her so she’s on her side, facing away from him. He crimps his knees behind hers, wraps an arm around her shoulders, holds her close. She counts to ten in her head, very slowly, like giving a child plenty of time to hide, then tenses as if to leave. His arm instantly tightens, his hand at her throat, and she smiles to herself. “Don’t go, yet,” he mumbles.

“Okay.”

His hand travels slowly down the front of her shirt, across her waist, to her hip, and stops at the edge of flannel and skin. She feels fingers brush the hem of her shorts. Then stop.

“This isn’t exactly uncle and niece,” she says after a moment.

“What?”

“That’s how you usually treat me. Like an uncle and niece.”

“Wow,” he says. “I do?” His hand slips just inside her shorts, palms itself flat against her buttock.

“Well,” she says, shifting her legs.

“Okay, stop talking now,” he says.

She smiles, waiting. She feels her heart thumping against his arm, and hopes he doesn’t notice. She waits for the crept-into feeling of his hand at the back of her neck, his fingers in her hair, steadying her. She tries to slow her breathing to match and keep pace with his, until she realizes, from the deepening, slowing feel of his chest rising and falling against her shoulder, that he has once again fallen back to sleep.

THE CONNECTICUT COUNTRYSIDE in autumn is Sarah’s favorite — the smell of stripped corn, the orange, yellow, and green plaid of trees. Moons that hang low and burn through a haze of chaff and dust. The ducklings have grown glossy over the summer, and waddle around the grounds; the sheep’s wool has grown in enough from spring shearing to gather burrs and a confetti of hay. They bleat inscrutably when she passes by to collect eggs, or rip beans from their twining vines in the arbor. It isn’t really autumn yet — still early August, she knows there’s time left — but it’s beyond the flush of summer; the oversized fruits and vegetables in Emily’s garden have peaked, and Sarah feels a hurry to use everything so the lushness isn’t left to rot. Rubbery zucchini, wilting lettuces, old, uncracked eggs, leathered melons — every day she dumps more used and unused food on the compost heap, which rises to slow, decaying prominence in a far corner of the yard.

Emily is nine days overdue, and the household is on chaotic edge, waiting.

The doula, Sarah reads in the dog-eared pregnancy and childbirth books sagging a kitchen shelf, is the primary female caretaker of the mother-to-be during late pregnancy, labor, and delivery; the midwife arrives only when contractions are reliably prompt and severe, expecting advanced cervical dilation and lots of snacks, and the coach — Emily’s solemn husband, Michael — is himself fully involved in the birth experience. But the doula, while often a dear friend, is still an outsider, a woman who can focus solely on the birthing mother’s needs and wants. This, Sarah is happy to interpret, means the fun stuff.