A Small Fortune Read Free Page B

cliché. Even as I steady my breath, it feels like something straight out of Wicked and Wanting , pool boys specializing in the pleasuring of women. It’s just the memories of Seth making me feel this way. I should have never allowed myself to go there. I swallow, badly in need of a drink.
    He strolls toward me with a small rake he now uses to gather dead leaves and tree debris beneath the red hibiscus no more than four feet away. “What are you reading?” he asks without turning.
    Blood pumps into the tips of my fingers. My book lies on the ground next to me. “Joella Lundstrum?” I say as if I’m unsure.
    He nods, still raking. “Lundstrum. She’s big here in Mexico. I assume she’s big everywhere.”
    He has virtually no accent.
    “You’ve read her?”
    He stops and leans on his rake, suddenly looking right at me. “My favorite is Road to the Open Sea .”
    I sit up. “Really? I liked that one, too, but if I had to choose a favorite I’d pick The Feast .”
    “Haven’t read that one yet.”
    “Oh, you should!” I say in a voice too eager for conversation with a stranger. “I think it’s her best work.”
    He meets my eyes and smiles. “Then I’ll be sure to pick it up.”
    My hands begin to sweat. We’re only talking about books, and yet it feels as if I’m laying myself bare.
    “I’m Benicio,” he says.
    “Nice to meet you,” I say, but I’m cut short by the gate opening.
    Jonathon, legs as white as concrete. He has on the leather sandals I bought him for this trip, which in the store seemed perfect, but on his feet, and especially here at the pool, they’ve taken on an effeminate flair. Mandals, Oliver calls them.
    A look exchanges between Jonathon and Benicio. Is it jealousy? That would be a first.
    Jonathon isn’t wearing a shirt, and his white belly protrudes slightly over the waist of his brown swim shorts. The fresh, happy look he sported when we left the house this morning has disappeared. He seems pensive, completely out of place. He belongs in a bank.
    “Nice talking to you,” the man says and ducks away from Jonathon’s glare. In the last second he turns at the gate and smiles as if he knows I’m watching. I squeeze my sweaty hands into fists.
    Then the gate clicks behind him and he’s gone.
    I stand and begin to gather my things. I feel Jonathon’s eyes on me.
    “What?” I say.
    “I had no idea you looked like that beneath all those layers of clothes you wear back home.”
    I glance down at my oily body, already browning from the sun. All the time at the gym has carved my muscles into lean, taut flesh. I haven’t worked so hard for the purpose of looking good, but there it is. I think of Benicio’s eyes on me moments before.
    “What took you so long?” I ask. “I’ve already had quite a bit of sun for the first day.”
    “I was just putting things away,” he says.
    “Strange how Oliver was nice when I was leaving,” I say.
    Jonathon laughs as he shuffles over in his stiff sandals and drops his towel and small beach bag on the chair next to mine. The corner of his BlackBerry pokes out. “Don’t worry. It didn’t last.” He puts his hands on his hips and surveys the pool.
    “He hates it here already, doesn’t he?” I say. “He hasn’t even seen anything yet, but I know he’s made up his mind.”
    “He’s sixteen, Cee. Have you forgotten what it’s like to be sixteen?”
    I recall my high school years and want to laugh. The self-doubt and loathing had been overwhelming. Worse than that was the longing, and not even knowing for what. “No,” I say. “In fact, some days I think I’m still sixteen myself.”
    “Well, you still look it. That’s for sure.”
    This sounds strangely lewd coming from my husband.
    “My head is starting to hurt,” I say. “I think I’ll go inside and lie down.”
    A hard expression crosses his face. His eyes fix on something in the distance. An empty road up the hill, and just below that, two men talking and laughing