It was getting so that Amy was his only reality. He watched her crawl the length of the pool, kicking steadily, pulling air into her mouth on every second right-hand stroke. She was the natural, graceful athlete; he was the classic no-talent over compensator, his golf swing as conscious and memorized as Arthur Murray dance steps. If she had grown another four or five inches, she would have been a professional caliber swimmer, golfer, or tennis player. She could have done anything she wanted. In his present state of mind he was ready to believe she never would have married him, never would have dated him, never would have looked at him twice. He would have never gotten this far. She reached the other end of the pool and grabbed the edge.

“I’m going upstairs for a moment!”

Amy wrinkled her nose. He pointed her toward their balcony. She yelled something he couldn’t hear, he cupped his hand to his ear, she waved him off and shook her head to indicate that it wasn’t important and then kicked away from the edge, beginning a slow, confident backstroke. He didn’t think she meant to suggest she wanted to continue swimming for long. He was going back up to the room to get away from the autograph hounds. He couldn’t imagine what they did with those little pieces of paper anyway. Didn’t serious collectors have autograph books?

He didn’t even know that – if he ever had.

He was stopped in the lobby to sign still another autograph, then another, and finally a third. People crowded around him, wanting to chat. The pumped-up air conditioning in the lobby was cold on his bare legs.

A mother wanted Merrill to pose with her little boy and sign a postcard. A white Lincoln Town Car stretch limo pulled up under the canopy outside the automatic sliding glass doors of the entrance. The men emerging from the Lincoln looked like Germans, some of them big and yellow-haired, all in white dress shirts and white or pale beige slacks. They looked like they belonged here, living an easy life, Merrill thought, as they stood talking near the elevators.

One man was looking straight at him – - at last he waved at Merrill, giving him a big smile. Merrill waved back. Another, talking now, nodded toward the pool area. After more talking, they divided into two groups. A trio headed toward the pool. Maybe they were Americans, after all. Sometimes it was difficult to tell.

Merrill saw the elevator closing on the other group, and when another family approached him for autographs and pictures, he was thinking that it was just as well because he was going to have to wait for another car.