Six
 Rob led the way, showing her some of the house’s twelve rooms, two full baths, and two half baths. They didn’t go upstairs, where he said were five bedrooms and a library. The tidy white kitchen gleamed with soft fluorescent lighting partially covered by stained-glass designs. The enormous living room, which was deeply carpeted with heavy couches and chairs done in a thick wheat design offset by brass handles, had several picture windows overlooking the ocean. “Glass of wine?” Rob asked.
“Thanks, just a small one.”
He poured them each half-glasses. “Got to drive yet,” he explained.
She pointed to the many pictures all around. “Who are these people?”
“Family. I don’t have any children, and my ex is out of the picture. I have several brothers and sisters, and they have children. I won’t bother naming them all right now, but I promise you, if you stick around, I’ll eventually make you memorize all their names.”
They walked through the living room, up some steps, and out onto the back lawn. “Oh Rob, this is so beautiful.” The house lights were dim, and the full moon rode high, casting chairs and a diving board and a golf cart and a parked sailboat into shadowless relief. The lawn curved away, as if its curvature were that of the world. From this house she felt a power emanate; she could almost reach her arms out and move the ships around that lay full of lights on the ocean. Or reach up and turn around a large prop plane that droned overhead with winking signals, as if it were a child’s toy.
“Watch your step!” Rob said suddenly.
She nearly fell into a hole in the lawn, and Rob caught her around the waist. As she recovered, he released his grip on her, and she felt embarrassed. “I was so taken with your view that I fell over my own two feet. What is this hole for?” The hole was Robed with slender wooden poles joined fence-like with white twine about two feet off the ground, and someone had hung little warning rags all around. The hole was about ten feet long and two feet wide.
“I’m putting in new sprinklers. The old ones no longer work.”
They stood at the rim of the hill, where the lights of other houses peeked mysteriously from among huge trees below. They watched the ocean a while longer, big thing like an animal with its belly pregnant with mysteries.
Rob drove her home. As she got out, he leaned close, and she planted a brief kiss on his lips and touched his nose.
Next morning she finally got to the bank with her check. Then she went to visit Claire Morelos, her personnel rep at Moorage Technical Temps. Claire was a large, pleasant woman with incredibly beautiful, thick black hair. “Hi, Sylvie. I hear you did a wonderful job for our client.”
“Thanks. I felt pretty good about it. I also felt good taking the check to the bank.” Claire had left Sylvie’s check with the client to save Sylvie a trip to MTT’s offices.
“We felt good cutting it for you. So are you almost ready to go back to work?”
“Oh please, I need a week or two to sleep.”
“Those 14 hour days get to you, eh?” Claire checked her schedule. “Yes, looks like you can pick up a three to six month assignment starting about two weeks from now. Or would you rather rest a little and see what we get in the door a little later?”
Sylvie briefly thought it over. “No, I want one more good juicy job this year. I want to take November and December off and visit my folks back East. I also might take a trip to Cabo then. I’d rather take the job.”
“Good. I’ll put you down,” Claire said with a flourish of her fountain pen. “You have two weeks to rest up and enjoy yourself before we throw you back into the cauldron. What are you going to do with your time.” She leaned close and whispered: “Anybody special in your life?”
Sylvie grinned weakly. She knew she had a reputation as a workaholic, which was unfounded, because she did like her free time a lot. It was true that she had trouble meeting or keeping boyfriends because of her lifestyle. Her goal was to finish paying off the condo before taking a regular position and possibly looking around at the eligible men. She was attractive and had no worries about not finding someone.
“You do!” Claire said. “I can see the light in your eyes.”
“Just a flirtation.” Sylvie rose quickly, to head off Claire’s imaginative mind. “Just right for a week or two, and then it’s back to business as usual.”
“Make the best of it!” Claire chimed as Sylvie left.
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Copyright © 1996 by John T. Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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