Open Water by Maria Flook Page B

up with her arms. Holly wondered if Nicole was aware of how she looked. Holly remembered what her husband Jensen used to say to her; he often said that she looked “ripe.” Then Holly realized that she was always thinking too much about sex. Anything could make her think of sex. She looked away. Even the silver finger loops of a scissors left out on her dresser. Everything in the book had either curves or erect lines. Egyptian oil had an erotic ring.
    Nicole asked Holly for a table knife to scrape away the old caulk and Holly handed one up. Nicole maneuvered the little window onto the bed. Holly wanted to ask Nicole if she had a particular mate, or if she was, like Holly, single. Except for the matter of sex, a solitary existence was attractive to Holly after years of being paired up with a heel. Being single might be thought of as a pursuit, not a default. She had read about the success of celibate career professionals in a woman’s magazine. Women can become their own erotic guides. The article joked about masturbation in double entendres; the writer invented terrible puns, such as: “In a pinch,” women can “singlehandedly—”
    What was so newsbreaking about that? Just the other weekend, Holly had masturbated in a dressing room at Sears. She had noticed a middle-aged salesclerk in the appliance department. He had a small mole on the left side of his chin. A beauty mark of some distinction. A tiny maroon button half hidden by salt and pepper stubble. It looked undeniably erotic.
    Holly said, “Are you raising those kids alone?”
    “Do you see a father figure waltzing around?”
    “It must be difficult.”
    With the window removed, Holly listened to the little bird, its bright program.
    Nicole told her, “Don’t feel funny about it. It’s the American way.”
    Holly said, “After being married, it’s hard to reinvent yourself.”
    Nicole dropped the hammer to her side and peered at Holly. “You do look a little shaky.”
    “Shit, does it show?”
    Nicole looked at her. “You feel that bad, do you?”
    Holly straightened up. “Really, I’m fine. My ex-husband, he’s not even stateside, so that’s a relief.”
    Nicole took the rubber hammer, tapped a pane loose from the frame, and collected the broken glass in her palm. Then she measured the windowpane and marked the new piece of glass. She scored the glass with the special knife and tapped it gently with the rubber hammer, making a clean break along the scored edge. When she was finished, she rested the new pane inside the frame and puttied the edges. Holly couldn’t help admiring the way Nicole handled a man’s job.
    “When Rennie was sick last year, I went over to give her foot massages. There’s a spot on the instep that corresponds to the bowel, the large intestine, but Rennie didn’t want me to do it. She’s likes to be self-sufficient, you know.”
    “Rennie told me that she almost died,” Holly said.
    “Colon cancer.”
    “Does she have one of those awful bags?”
    “No, it was too late for that. The doctors couldn’t remove all the cancer. No sense chopping her up. It would have been closing the barn door after the cow got out.”
    “What’s the prognosis?”
    “Of course, it’s hopeless, but I bring her raw almonds from The Golden Sheaf.”
    “That hippie store?”
    “Call it what you want. Almonds are supposed to have some healing substance like laetrile. I get a pound for her and she eats them, but I guess she knows it’s a shot in the dark.”
    “She’s skinny, but she looks tough.”
    “Staring death in the face gives Rennie a zing.”
    “Shit.”
    Nicole said, “She’s not scared. Rennie said at her age she has to keep looking down the well and hollering for the echo.”
    “It must be a mess with those two brothers—”
    “Well, she can’t rely on them. If I don’t see her one day, I try to go over to make sure, and she’s always fine. She’s got her clam rake and she’s down at low tide poking around, or