Open Water by Maria Flook Page A

Holly had to remove a jeweled sewing box from the center of the double bed. Holly admired the sewing box before putting it on the end table, out of harm’s way. The man made love to her; he tucked his forehead against the hollow of her throat and she turned herface away. She studied the diminutive masterpiece, its tiny drawers and glossy shellacked shelves where spools of thread were lined up in colorful gradations, the silver thimbles tilted on tiny wooden dowels.
    What was the name of that street? Commodore Perry Boulevard?
    Holly heard the storm door rattle. She pushed herself up from the bed. The room spun a half-circle and ratcheted backward until again it was level. She grabbed her robe from the floor. Nicole Fennessey had come over to Holly’s side of the duplex, carrying a large square of glass. She said she wanted to fix a broken pane in Holly’s bedroom, and she walked right through the house into the back room before Holly had a chance to make the bed or straighten up. Nicole was tall, willowy, with a rope of fine blond hair dangling down her spine. Nicole showed Holly the tiny stencil marks on the glass, the letters “TG” at every corner. Tempered glass. Holly tried to focus on the tiny stamp.
    “I don’t scrimp on important things,” Nicole said. “Now, tell me about this fire you had over here. Rennie said it was a conflagration. If you want to burn trash, we share that barrel out in front—”
    “It wasn’t my fire,” Holly said. Dizzy, she sat down on the bed. “Did Rennie tell you I started that fire?”
    Nicole was holding a special cutting blade in one hand and a rubber-tipped hammer in the other. She tapped the rubber hammer against her chin while she was looking at Holly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, but my job keeps me on call.”
    “You work at the hospital?”
    “I’m a massage therapist at Newport Jai Alai and I have private clients all around town. I’m gone all hours. I can’t be here to referee the neighborhood.”
    “I guess not,” Holly said. Holly’s lips felt swollen and tingling, like a pincushion.
    “At least you can’t call me a slumlord. I keep my property in good condition,” Nicole told Holly. “But what happened to you? Did I wake you up?”
    Holly nodded. Nicole seemed on the defensive and she described her busy schedule to Holly. “Massage therapy is a combination expertise. It’s an important alternative. There’s the mental-health industry, but they forget about the body. They talk and talk and never lay a finger on the patient. Actually, I’m like a psychiatrist. I’m an educated ear. My job is mostly listening. Even if they don’t say anything, you listen to that. The silence. I’m kind of a transcriptionist with my hands.”
    Holly had been in the house only a few weeks, but she had watched Nicole coming and going at odd hours, her long blond braid swinging like a silk pendulum. Sometimes Holly heard the telephone ring.
    She heard it right through the wall.
    Within minutes after the first jangle, Nicole left the house, carrying a large flat leather portfolio just like an artist might use to transport drawings. Nicole told Holly that the portfolio was actually a lightweight massage table with collapsible legs and imitation leather veneer.
    “I take my table to every job,” Nicole said. “Otherwise they think they can get me into their bedrooms where they recline on their Perfect Sleepers. If they try something I fold up the table. I break the legs down, crunch, crunch, crunch. I’m out of there before anything happens. My business is portable. I take my table, my bottle warmer—that’s for the Egyptian oil. Ointment goes right in my pocket to keep warm.”
    “Egyptian oil?”
    “Yeah, it’s basically just baby oil with some sassafras.”
    Nicole stood on a chair and tried to remove the top grille from Holly’s bedroom window. Nicole was still wearing her nightgown, a satiny sack that outlined her hips and buttocks each time she reached