1. #2
“You’re bleeding.”
“I can get a band-aid at the pharmacy,” she says. “It’s not far. I already walked.”
“Come on, that’s ridiculous,” I say. “You shouldn’t be crawling around on rocks at night anyway.”
“Yeah, okay,” she says. “But first, can you—?”
“Get you something to wrap yourself up in. Yes. I’m on it. Wait here.”
I go back inside and find what I need in the first floor bathroom.
All these towels are guest towels, thick and white, still in the same neat fold the housekeeper left them in.
The bottle of rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, and bandages are in the drawer under the sink, tucked in there by whoever stocked the place, on the theory that someone, at some point, would need them.
That theory has now been proven correct.
I return with a big towel, which she reaches for with her free hand.
She wraps it around her shoulders. I look away while she does it.
I wasn’t trying to notice that her breasts are perky and her nipples are smooth and round.
Not taking note of these things. Just can’t help but see out of the corner of my eye.
I look back and see that her knee is starting to turn purple. Not much blood, but the bruise is already rising, a dark crescent just below the kneecap. I kneel down with the stuff in my hands.
“May I?” I ask.
“Yeah, sure,” she says.
I take a cotton ball from the bag, unscrew the cap on the bottle and start to work. The smell of rubbing alcohol, sharp and clinical, is strange out here in the pool air.
“Does that sting?”
“No, it’s alright,” she says.
I put on the bandage. It’s a wide one, the kind you’d use on a child, the only size left in the box.
“You have a really nice house,” she says, trying to make conversation.
“I think so too,” I say. “But it’s not mine. I just rent it.”
“You have to be rich,” she says, looking around at the pool area, which I have to admit is pretty opulent. Infinity edge on the far side, the sea below, that rock in the middle of it all catching the blue-green light.
“You should see some of the other houses around here,” I say.
“I have,” she says. “I walked all the way up here just to see it. An old woman I met called this Millionaire’s Mile.”
Admittedly, the place is in an expensive neighborhood. But there’s a big difference between being a Thai millionaire and a dollar millionaire.
“I’m not a millionaire,” I say. “At least not where I come from.”
“Well, then you must be lucky because this view is unbelievable.”
I happen to stop what I’m doing to glance at her lap, the line between her thighs, the bikini bottom. That’s not a bad view either. Of course, I keep this to myself.
“You live alone?” she asks.
I nod.
“I would have thought you’d have made sure of that before you let yourself in to use the pool.”
“It was an impulse,” she says. “But I owe you an apology. And a thank you.”
I finish up with the bandage and stand.
“It’s alright,” I say. “You surprised me. But I guess I surprised you, too.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I figured no one lived here when I didn’t get caught the first time.”
“First time?”
“I’ve been coming here the past couple days,” she says, her shoulders shrugging slightly beneath the towel. “It’s such a nice place, and no one was using it.”
“I don’t have to look through my drawers to make sure nothing’s missing, do I?”
She looks like she’s been slapped, much more offended than she has any right to be given the circumstances.
“I never went inside your house,” she says with all apparent sincerity. Then, almost as an afterthought—“Your back door is unlocked, but I’m not a thief. I take chances but not other people’s things.”
“That’s good,” I say. “The second part of what you said, at least.”
She bends her knee, testing the bandage, then bends both knees, bringing her painted toes up and wiggling them to admire them. The polish is the color of watermelon rind, a pale coral-pink, a little chipped on the left big toe.
“Do you ever get pedicures?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“You can, you know,” she says. “Guys can do it. It’s not like you need to paint your nails. It’s so much cheaper here than it is in Queensland. I could go every week.”
Queensland. I guess I was right.
“They look good,” I say.
Neither of us knows what to say next. How do you make small talk with someone you caught sneaking into your swimming pool?
“Do you want me to go?” she asks finally.
“You don’t have to,” I say by reflex.
“I should go,” she says, wincing just a little as she stands up.
“How are you going to get home?” I ask. “Or wherever you’re staying.”
“My hotel’s not that far,” she says. “You know the Princess Kamala hotel?”
“Sure.”
“Mine’s kinda near there, down the road on a side street, on the second floor behind the cat cafe and above a bar.”
I know the bar. The cat cafe has a hand-painted sign with a cartoon cat on it. I’ve walked past it twenty times and never gone in.
“Budget traveler, huh?”
She shrugs again, those soft shoulders rising and falling beneath the towel.
“It’s a gap year, not a gap week,” she says. “I’ve got to make my money last.”
“I remember what that’s like,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s not too bad. I’ve stayed in some grungy places.”
She’s still wrapped up in my towel, and I think we both realize it at the same moment. She can’t return it to me now. Not without something to put on underneath.
“My top’s over there,” she says, pointing to a spot at the edge of the concrete, just past the rock. “Can I?”
“Sure, of course.”
She moves carefully on the wet concrete this time and goes over to retrieve the discarded bikini top.
I turn in the direction of the house, suddenly taking a great interest in the curve of the roof.
The terra cotta ridge tiles. The satellite dish.
The moth circling the light above the French door.
I don’t turn around again until I can hear her footsteps coming toward me, making tiny splashes as her feet touch the wet spots.
She holds out the wet towel.
“Thanks.”
The bikini top is dark navy, not black as I’d thought before. It contrasts with the white strip of skin where the sun didn’t reach, that line just below the shoulder strap.
“Are you comfortable in that?” I ask. “On the bike, I mean. I’ll drop you off.”
“My leg’s fine,” she says. “It’s not like I have to hobble around on crutches.”
“I’ve got a motorbike,” I say. “It’ll take five minutes.”
“It’s really not necessary.”
“Well I want to. If you’ll let me.”
She shifts her weight to one knee, tapping her foot on the concrete like she’s trying to make up her mind.
“Well, okay,” she says. “Thanks…?”
“Michael.”
“I’m Thalia.”
She offers her hand, the same coral-pink polish on the fingernails as on the toes. We shake. Her hand is still faintly damp from the pool.
“I’ve got a T-shirt I can lend you for the ride,” I say. “Come inside.”
She grabs her purse from the spot where she left it on a flat section of rock near the steps and follows me inside. The beer is sweating on the counter, forgotten.
She waits in the kitchen looking around while I grab one of my old band tees from the pile on the bedroom chair. The Strokes. Still my favorite band, even if it’s no longer my favorite shirt. It’s faded to a grey that used to be black, the logo cracked at the corners.
I bring her the shirt and she pulls it over her head, hair still not fully dry. I watch as the fabric slides down over her stomach, that smooth flat stomach.
“Ready?” she asks after she smooths it out.
“Sure.”
Outside, I show her my bike. It’s nothing too flashy. Just a Honda PCX, cream-colored, a few scuffs on the footboard from when I bottomed out six months ago. I grab the extra helmet from the hook by the shoe rack, a matte black half-shell that’s been there since I moved in.
“Thanks, but—my hair?”
“You’ve already had one accident tonight,” I say.
She accepts the helmet without protest. I get on the bike and she climbs on after me, one hand light on my shoulder as she swings her leg over, then both hands settling at my sides.
We head down the hill. We pass a bonfire on the beach, a circle of low white plastic chairs around it, someone playing guitar badly.
Thalia takes her helmet off for a few seconds and lets her hair untangle in the cool night air and I pretend not to notice.
I make a left at the 7-Eleven—the one with a gaggle of old guys always hanging out and playing Go in the covered shelter—and take the little road that runs along the beach down toward the Princess Kamala.
It’s named for the town, Kamala Beach, which I guess is probably named for some princess. I’ve never looked it up.
I pull up in front of the hotel entrance and kill the engine. Thalia gets off and hands me the helmet she wasn’t wearing.
“Is this close enough?” I ask.
“Yeah, I can walk the rest of the way.”
I figure that’ll be the end of it, not worried about the shirt. Then she reaches down and starts to pull it off.
“Oh, that’s okay,” I say.
But she hands it to me anyway. I take it.
Neither of us knows what the right thing to say next is.
An old taxi driver sits idling at the curb twenty meters away, watching us with the patient, incurious look of a man who has seen every version of this scene.
I can guess what he thinks. Me and this young girl have just had a fun night together.
And though it’s not what he thinks, in a way he’s not wrong. I did have fun.
“Thanks, Michael,” she says. “For the ride home and, ya know. Not calling the police.”
“No worries,” I say.
She starts to walk back in the direction we just came from. I call after her.
“How long are you in town for?”
“About a month,” she answers.
She takes a few more steps before adding, “maybe longer!”
About a month. Maybe longer. Well, it’s a small town.