Avalon by Nell Zink

Author:Nell Zink [Zink, Nell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2022-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

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Peter swung by L.A. in August on his way home from Singapore, staying at Jay’s house for six days. I was over there all day, every day. He had been accepted by Harvard long before he admitted it to us, he was going, and we could not get enough of him.

He had jet lag and slept at odd hours, and Jay drifted into consciousness around eleven. But every morning around nine, after Jay’s parents went to work, I drove from Will’s house over to Jay’s. His family’s maid, Esme, let me in the front gate, and I snuck past the house and went skinny-dipping.

The pool was up the hill, in a corner of the lot, screened from the house by a row of cypresses. I could swim if my toes were touching the bottom of the pool. (That is, I could not swim.) When I got tired of splashing around, I would sit on a lounger and eat a pomegranate off one of the trees that lined the high stucco wall topped with razor wire that shielded the property from prying neighbors.

My aquatic forays were prompted by motives of the purest exhibitionism. It got me high to imagine disrobing in front of Peter. Little porn clips played in my head. It was highly unlikely, however, that he would see me, because I usually pretended to swim for all of two minutes before I got out to eat pomegranates with my clothes on, and he sometimes slept until noon. But I liked the adrenaline. He had hooked me on cheap thrills, and we both knew better than to expect time alone at Jay’s place. When awake, Jay never took his eyes off Peter, and Peter—to avoid fostering delusions that we were alone—never came downstairs until he heard Jay.

I had not used the pool since middle school. The water stung my eyes. It was as chlorinated as the ocean was salty. I had never owned a swimsuit. Shorts and a T-shirt are better for playing in the ocean. It was rare to see feminine skin at Redondo Beach, where ethnic groups with strict notions of modesty prevailed and white girls bobbed in the water like seal people, hands on their surfboards, in full-body neoprene.

After the pool I would go in the French doors from the terrace to the kitchen to drink coffee from the big percolator. Jay would get up, Peter would follow, and the day would begin.

Esme was gone by then. Her shift was four hours, but she did her work in two or less. If she had taken time to socialize with all her employers, she would have had a ninety-six-hour week.

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