He smiled as though he was proud of what he had to show her, proud to be in this situation in the first place. He threw his shirt on the sandy area next to a tree a few feet away. Then he unbuckled his belt, his eyes trained on her. She could have sworn that the metallic ripping sound his zipper made when he unzipped it could be heard for miles around, as loud as an airplane crossing in the sky.

“Well,” he said. “I guess it’s my turn to be looked at.”

Ann felt suddenly shy, unable to bring herself to watch him continue to undress. It was strange, how her desire could come and go so quickly. She looked at the water gently lapping the shoreline behind him and thought about home. Were her parents starting to wonder where she was? Did Poppy go out with her new friends again? Her mother had complained she’d hardly seen either of her girls.

“You know, I’ve often thought about that afternoon in our bedroom.” The word “our” unsettled Ann, the way it invoked Maureen. She’d been trying hard not to think about her. “That was so damn erotic. I’d had such a hard day at work and there you were, it was like finding the mermaid medallion. The last thing I expected. Glorious.”

Ann could feel the whiskey kicking in, dulling her nerves. Her thoughts were starting to bump into each other. She tried hard to be clearheaded.

“Besides, you need to rinse the smell of whiskey off your clothes before I take you home,” he said. “Come on.”

“But then I’ll have to explain why my clothes are wet.”

“They were wet when you walked into the sprinklers. What do you think your parents are going to do, hire a detective? I can’t take you home to your father smelling like whiskey.”

Her father. She could just picture him on a public beach right next to where she stood, reading the mystery novels he only read on vacation, his floppy hat on his head, one hairy leg crossed over the other, his Birkenstock hanging off his callused foot.

“Let’s find that medallion,” Anthony said. He dashed into the water. She saw his bare ass in the moonlight. It was round but muscular, a shocking flash of vulnerable white.

Alone on the beach, Ann drunkenly weighed what to do next. She wanted to swim. She loved swimming more than anything, even running, and it was still so hot. She decided that Anthony was right about needing to get the smell out of her clothes. She took off her shirt and dragged it around in the water, then hung it on a branch to dry. She saw Anthony’s head about twenty feet away, far enough to feel he couldn’t see her too clearly. The alcohol mellowed her nerves, and so did his admiration. She liked being watched.