at First Sight (2008)

by Stephen Cannell

  She was just coming out of the pool, shiny black hair wet and pasted back against her head, her natural beauty radiant, without benefit of makeup or jewelry. Long legs … slender arms, and a mouth that … well, it defied description. Okay … I’ll use my feeble skills and try. Happiness lurked in both corners. Full lips, but no collagen, no artificial enhancements, just slightly pouty but without a trace of petulance. How’s that? Her eyes were blue … not just the blue of azure skies or clear crystal lakes, but the intense blue that bespeaks intellectual honesty and purity of soul—that kind of blue.

  I can already hear you laughing, because you’re right—how could I know of her intellectual honesty? I hadn’t even said one word to her yet. But trust me here, some things defy the norm. Some things are transcendental. I just knew.

  I sat in my wife’s power cabana while she was in the gym pumping up, getting ready for her first grand entrance—her first cartilage-popping pool strut—and watched this remarkable creature. I fantasized what it would be like to possess such a beauty. But you must understand that it wasn’t lust alone that fueled these thoughts. Okay, there was some lust, I’ll admit; but what I was experiencing was … well, it was also deeply spiritual. There was a communion of souls here, a connection deeper than anything I had ever felt before, and, I remind you again, this was with somebody I had yet to speak to. But I knew when I did speak to her she would be everything I’d hoped for, and more. Don’t ask me how I knew this. I can’t tell you. I just knew.

  For at least two hours, I sat and watched, trying not to be obvious about it. She caught me once, and I looked away, my ears turning red. My face felt thick, as if it belonged to someone else. I got up, walked to the pool concession, holding my stomach in like a fucking idiot, and bought a pair of large sunglasses. I went back the long way around to my power cabana. I put the glasses on a little crooked, so I could pretend to read my book, but I was really just looking at her.

  Then I had a very uncharacteristic moment—a very un-Chicklike thought. I wondered if she knew that only very important people got issued these high-ground cabanas. No kidding, that’s what I thought. I was that fucked up.

  About ten o’clock, disaster struck.

  A man came down from the hotel and sat in the pool chair next to her. Husband? Boyfriend? I didn’t know. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I’d already checked that. But he had one, so he was married. But who was he? Her secret lover? No. She wouldn’t date another woman’s husband. She was too well-adjusted, too pure. I already knew this about her. I know, I know, this sounds like a verse in a Barry Manilow song or the flap copy on a Danielle Steel novel. Silly. But I knew. I could feel it.

  I watched in dismay and anger as they held hands and kissed. They swam in the pool together; they laughed at each other’s jokes. I forced myself to stop looking at her for a minute and take inventory of this asshole who had joined her.

  The problem here was the guy was gorgeous, younger and much better looking than me … fit, but not gym-fit. He had an athlete’s build, teeth square and straight as a row of tombstones—shiny and white as a porcelain toilet—curly copper hair and a strong hero’s jaw. I hated him. I wanted to vomit.

  Then Evelyn saved me from further tragic comparison as she plopped down next to me. I’d missed her grand entrance, but she didn’t mention it because she was already angry about the cabana.

  “This isn’t the one,” she growled. “The best cabana is that one over there.” She pointed with a muscular arm at another tent that maybe, if you had a calibrated altimeter and a topographical survey map, you could prove was a foot or two higher than the one we were in. I’m not kidding. These are the things Evelyn worries about.

  “Honey, Melissa couldn’t … “

  “Don’t gimme any more Melissa b. S. That girl just sleeps and eats. You ask her to do one damn thing, it’s worse than a root canal. She wants to be paid for sitting down here. Ridiculous. After all we do for her we’re supposed to pay her for helping us out? She knows which cabana I want. This is just her bitchy way of getting back at me. How many times have I discussed it?”

  It went on like that for almost ten minutes. I had learned years ago not to fight with Evelyn because she is an emotional terrorist. You take her on, she escalates the battle way past ground you’re prepared to defend. She’s capable of throwing an ashtray or a drink in public. I hate public confrontations. Public anger conveys weakness. My father raised me to show no weakness—no vulnerability. Good advice until you get sloshed and pile your fucking Jag into a bridge abutment. In case you’re some kind of amateur psychologist, I’ll cop to it now. I’ve got some major abandonment issues over Dad’s death, but we’ll get to that later.

  “Y’know, I’ve been thinking … ” I said. “Maybe I will ask Mickey D to fax over a workout routine.” Me, searching for a safer topic.

  That shut her up. “Really? You’ll start weight training?”

  “Yeah, I think I should tighten up this stomach a little, work on the old pecs, whatever … “

  “No kidding?” I really had Evelyn’s attention now. She stared at me hard, studying me, using the look she wore when picking out diamonds. “You’re serious? You’re not kidding?”

  “As serious as Robert Schuller interviewing Pat Robertson on the Hour of Power,” I quipped halfheartedly.

  So I spent the afternoon in the gym with Mickey D’s workout regimen and a twenty-year-old kid named Brian. Sit-ups, flies, dead lifts—two hours of torture. Two hours spent getting the old bod tuned up and ready for what would come next.

  You see, I already knew I had to meet her.

  Chapter 3

  THE NEXT DAY STARTED OUT DISASTROUSLY. TO BEGIN with, I’d overdone it in the workout center. My body felt like I had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, taking every shot to the solar plexus. Getting out of bed was like peeling a stuck bandage off a dry scab.

  The hot shower didn’t even begin to hit it. I was in agony. I canceled Brian—told him I’d be back tomorrow. Then I waved off breakfast with Evelyn and went down to face Melissa.

  She was asleep in the right cabana, the higher one. It sat on the top of a landscaped berm, which was fashioned like a huge pork chop and wrapped around one end of the pool. The berm was wide at the end where we were, but it stretched back toward the hotel along a narrowing ridge. Before waking Melissa, I looked at the loser tent we had occupied the day before. No doubt about it, this was high ground—a lofty Olympian peak. I surveyed our old digs, where a fat woman and a man with the worst toupee in Hawaii lay, thinking they had scored the best location. But they were losers—hotel indigents. We had the primo spot. I had climbed one or two perilous feet to reach this glittering social peak. Evelyn and I had finally become pool-area royalty. Valhalla.

  Melissa opened her eyes and looked at me. “Happy?” More sarcasm.

  “Delirious,” I said.

  She grabbed her stuff and got up. That was it for this morning’s discourse. Melissa was out of patience. She had a meager supply. But who can blame her? It was nuts getting up at 4 A. M. just to snag one of these dumb things.

  I watched her rolling, sexy walk; watched the lechers by the pool sneaking looks at my barely pubescent daughter. As far as I was concerned, they were all candidates for the Mann Act.

  I waited until Melissa was gone. Then I sat and scanned the area, looking for my goddess, holding my breath, so that when I spotted her I wouldn’t lose it, gasping and sighing like a busted windbag, making the same hopeless gushing sound I’d made when I spotted her yesterday.

  And that was the second disaster.

  She wasn’t there.

  I left my stuff in the chair, then got up and walked all over the grounds. I asked one of the pool boys if the ladies’ room was empty: a tough question for a mid-fifties guy to ask, but I cleaned up the moment by adding that I was looking for my wife.

  He smiled and said, “Yes, Mr. Best, it’s empty.”

  I looked around. I waited. Then fear overtook me. W
hat if my goddess and Mr. Tidy Bowl had left? What if their vacation was over? What if I’d never see her again?

  When I got back to the tent, my stuff had been moved and there was a thirty-five-year-old, wide-shouldered asshole wearing a CSI: Miami baseball cap occupying my cabana. His skinny, big-breasted squeeze was sprawled in the pool chair beside him.

  “This is my spot,” I told the guy. He was big—huge actually. I’m beginning to suspect that a lot of guests at this hotel must be on steroids. Maybe Brian gives shots. This guy had shredded arms and a rippling six-pack. I haven’t got the time to work up a set of abs like that. I’ve got a business to run. His face was crafty but pockmarked. He and Evelyn would look perfect together on a Gold’s Gym poster—“The Anabolic Workout.” He glared at me with mean, dangerous eyes.

  “It isn’t your cabana,” he said. “It’s mine.”

  “My stuff was in it. I had my book, my sunglasses … my radio. It was all on the towel right here.”

  The guy smiled a lazy, sweet smile. “I think you’re mistaken.” “My daughter got up at 4 A. M. to secure this cabana. I just came down.”

  “Nobody was here when I sat down. I think that’s your stuff over there.” He pointed to my things piled on a nearby table, while his wife, or secretary, or whoever the lounging cupcake in the string bikini was, just stared, holding her hand up to shade her eyes, squinting at me like I was dirt that blew in under the door.

  “Look, this is my cabana,” I said, turning up the volume, putting a little more bass into the mix.

  “Don’t make this into something you can’t deal with,” the muscle-head in my pool chair said softly.

  “Are you threatening me? Is this a threat? Are you suggesting violence?” I was outraged.

  “Get the fuck away from me,” the man said, softly. Only now, he sat up. Shit, a monster!

  So, there you have the gist of it. Me, standing there with a body that already felt like the home stretch at Hollywood Park, him looking like Bluto in a TV-show ball cap. Normally I don’t back down, but this morning, with everything else, I just decided to let him have the cabana … but not before giving this bastard a good parting shot.

  “You haven’t heard the last of this,” I whimpered. Shit. More and more, I was beginning to act and sound like a total pussy.

  Next I had to take on Evelyn. I caught her as she came out of the hotel and tried to convince her that we should go into Lahaina and shop, but she wanted sun. Then I said, “Let’s rent a catamaran.” Anything to keep her from seeing I’d lost her power position by the pool.

  But no, she wanted the cabana. Then, shrewdness born from years of pool-chair infighting crossed her narrow features. “Who’s guarding our place?” she wisely asked.

  “Uh, well … I lost the cabana,” I finally admitted.

  I won’t go into a play-by-play of what happened next, but let me say here that it wasn’t pretty, and it did absolutely nothing for my self-esteem.

  We ended up playing golf. Evelyn was pissed, but her anger gave her an extra twenty yards off the tee. She beat me easily.

  The only great thing that happened on the golf course occurred when we got back to the caddy shack to turn in our shoes, rented cart, and golf clubs. Actually, it was more than just great—it was miraculous. Because, you see, she was standing there—my dream woman and the curly-haired, athletic asshole with the perfect teeth. They were also returning their rented equipment.

  “Great course,” I said to her as she was passing to leave.

  “What?” she said, turning. God, up close she was even more breathtaking.

  “Great golf course,” I repeated.

  “Yes, it is.” She turned and left with the handsome man.

  Our initial contact—our first conversation. Okay, okay … I know … not much, I agree. But at least we had exchanged words. I would give you some kind of glowing description of her tonal quality if I could, but to be perfectly frank, I was so shaken, and she had said so little, I didn’t even remember what her voice sounded like. I was that gone … that out of it … that completely in love.

  Chapter 4

  I CAME UP WITH MY PLAN DEVIOUS, BUT CLEVER.

  It was pretty obvious to me that I would never get anywhere just sidling up to her with some dumb opening line about the weather, or how great the hotel was. My approach demanded subtlety.

  I may not be a dot-com wizard anymore, but I still remember how to secure an important account.

  Rule number one in the sales manual: If you can’t get to the client, get to the client’s spouse.

  I made my move.

  The next morning he was standing at the bar getting drinks, his brown, muscled shoulders massive … his coppery hair in sun-lightened ringlets. He smelled of aftershave. Minty. I choked down my envy and moved up next to him.

  “That’s a great course, that Blue Course,” I said. Before you ask, let me explain. There are three world-class golf courses at the Four Seasons Resort: the Blue, Gold, and Emerald. We’d all been on the Blue Course yesterday afternoon.

  “Yeah, sure is,” he said, then turned to the bartender. “Give me an extra cherry in the Mai Tai. My wife loves maraschinos.”

  My heart clutched. His wife … This unworthy asshole was actually married to her. I was immediately in free fall. My vision blurred and dizziness descended, covering me like emotional Saran Wrap.

  I can just hear you saying, “Give it a rest, Chick. Back up. What on earth do you think you’re doing?” And you’re right, of course. It was insane. But I had already lost control. I was already on the road to self-destruction.

  “The Blue Course is a little easy, though,” I continued through my psychic pain. “I’m thinking of trying the Gold tomorrow.” The Gold Course was acknowledged as the toughest of the three.

  He turned and smiled at me. The guy had a killer smile—perfect ivory—a fucking box of Chicklets. “I played the Gold two days ago,” he said. “The Gold’s the best course, but the fairways are narrow. My wife shanks every other shot, so she prefers the Blue. Otherwise I’d spend all my time in the brush looking for her ball.”

  “That was her you were playing with yesterday?” I asked, desperately hoping that they weren’t married … that my goddess was just a friend. His wife’s sister … anything.

  “Yeah, that was her,” he said, crushing that slim hope like a bug on a windshield. “She’s just learning. I’m trying to give her lessons but I think tomorrow we’ll sign her up with a pro.”

  So it was true. They were hitched. I remember my body feeling numb with this confirmation, my mind pinwheeling with disappointment and distress. But I held on, dangling from a psychic rope stretched over an emotional cavern of deep despair.

  “My wife is a great golfer,” I finally managed. “She played on her college golf team. I can’t come close to beating her.”

  “Sounds like we’re at opposite ends of the wife-golf-conundrum,” he smiled. “Well, gotta get these back before they melt.”

  “I’m Chick,” I blurted.

  “Chandler,” he said, holding out a pinky finger for me to shake. The rest of his fingers were engaged in holding the two drinks: the Mai Tai for my goddess, and some sort of white foamy calorie-busting gunk for him—a Pina Colada or something.

  So we shook pinkies and off he went. I followed him until I could see that they were sunning down by the beach. Then I went back to the power cabana. We had retaken Pork Chop Hill. We were back on top. I’d been contemplating setting up better fortifications. A machine-gun nest and some razor wire. But now I didn’t care and just flopped down next to Evelyn.

  “I wish we could go topless here,” Evelyn said unexpectedly. She has protruding nipples that look like pencil erasers. She knows they drive men wild, and she loves to show them. She’s always pestering me to go to nude beaches, an activity that doesn’t suit my new executive spread. Of course, if she took off her top at this hotel, the staff would swoop down on her and run her off the grounds in a towel trolley. But
still, the idea of stripping down to her thong appealed to her, and she was still thinking about it as I brooded in my chair. How she got this way is still a mystery to me. When we first got married, she didn’t act like this. Of course, that was before Mickey D and the Buns of Steel cassette. But still .. .

  “We should go to the beach,” I said.

  “I’m not going to the fucking beach. The beach is Skid Row. All those morons who get stuck in the hotel’s back rooms use the beach. We’re in the best cabana. We’re fine where we are.”

  “I’d like to do some body surfing.” I think I was whining. I hope I wasn’t, but lately I’ve been turning into such a wuss, it’s hard for me to tell. I hate myself for some of this stuff, but let’s not go into that now … let’s get past it.

  “I don’t see why we can’t try the beach just once.”

  “I don’t want to be seen down there. Besides, it’s all sandy. I don’t want to ruin my tan. The sand sticks to my suntan oil. I hate the fucking beach.”

  So for the moment, I was trapped in our power cabana, frustrated as the towel boy in a room full of virgins.

  “I think I’ll go give it a shot anyway,” I finally said ten minutes later.

  “Do what you want.” She seemed disinterested in whatever I was going to do because she was checking out another woman with a pretty good body. Competition. This woman had abs almost as good as hers. “That bitch is on steroids. She’s way too muscular. Looks like shit,” Evelyn said, as I stood and looked down at my own wife’s super-enhanced pecs and abs, all oiled and rippling.

  Sometimes, I just don’t get it. Sometimes, I’m completely at a loss about what’s going on in her head. More and more, I find myself thinking about divorce.

  The beach was beautiful. A light breeze rippled the water. Up by the pool the air was as still as Texas hair. I had one of the beach boys get me a chair and I dragged it to a spot where I could watch my goddess and Chandler, who I knew had to be using some kind of lightener to get that color on his copper curls.