8.
 The next evening, the maitre d' led me and Sandy to a seat overlooking San Diego Harbor. I was a little woozy on my feet, but Sandy in her gauzy white dress was one you wanted to keep following no matter how woozy you got. The place smelled of roast beef and oozed jazz. A fountain pattered. Did I mention the aroma of the house wine, a brothy Napa burgundy, and its wimpy cousin, the Napa Rosé? We ordered drinks. Sandy ordered "Orange juice!"
"My stomach," I said.
She slapped her hands together. "Now about this story you promised me. After getting me up in the middle of the night and not inviting me over. This better be good, Seth Lambert." She had her shoes off and one toe strayed behind my kneecap under the table. Sandy was the kind of trim athletic girl you saw in beer commercials. When Sandy turned her head, her profile was sharp enough to cut paper. People stared enviously. I told her about my unexpected three-day case.
"How exciting," Sandy said. She glowed, reflecting candle light. "What's the skinny?"
I leaned forward, folded my hands over her dear freckled ones, and lied: "I have no proof, but I think it was a double suicide."
A bit of the smile vanished. She tried to hide her disappointment. "Yes, I read something like that."
Moments later, she said: "Here comes the soup."
I wondered, after three days of popping pills, what it would be like to eat again. The soup was liquid and would go down, I thought, and stay down. I was wrong.
When I woke up it was dark. I could see right away I was in my bed in my apartment. I sat up on one elbow and looked outside. The ocean was covered with white caps as far as I could see. "Brr," someone said. I looked the other way. It was Sandy, wearing nothing but a kind of lacy thong that glowed like a tooth in the dark. Her lithe body flitted through the room and she flowed into the bed with me. I gasped as her freezing feet pried my calves apart. She stilled me with hot damp kisses still vaguely tinged with Napa rose.
"What happened?" I asked.
She pressed me back and bit my nipple. "When I saw your eyes in the candle light, I knew you were on pills. I tried to get you out in one piece, but we were waiting for a doggie bag, and you got up. That was when you first started to throw up, and you were kind enough to make it to the door. You luged down the front steps in a trail of barf. I got you here, cleaned you up, and put you to bed."
I embraced her with genuine affection. "Sandy, you are the most beautiful woman in the world."
"Oh yeah," she guffawed. But she believed me, and I was pleased because I meant it. And it was true. I had learned my lesson about truth and beauty, and intended never to forget it.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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