The sun beat down on his head and his scalp prickled in the heat. I should get a hat, Tony thought.
He dug his toes deeper into the sand. It was cool and damp down there. He thought of scuttling crabs and other unnamed horrors and pulled his feet up until they rested on the edge of his lounger. Blinking, he looked out at the blue water. A billion tiny mermaids flashed their make-up mirrors back at him, dazzling him. And all because of a dishwasher, he thought, not for the first time.
It had been fifteen years and he still couldn’t believe his luck.
There he had been, twenty-five and his life mapped out. He had the college degree, the wife, the townhouse, and the aspiration to make it to VP by the age of forty. It was, he thought, smiling, as if they had handed him middle-aged spread and lowered expectations along with the diploma at graduation. He had been transplanted from his frat house to a fifties sitcom overnight — and he hadn’t even noticed.
Which might explain how he had found himself unaccountably fuming at the prospect of his young wife waiting in all day for some dishwasher repair man, and why he’d insisted that he stay home instead that day. Or maybe it had been all the lonely nights watching dubious late night movies alone, after she had turned in at 9:30…
Tony closed his eyes and tried to recognize himself in the upright jerk that lived in his memory. A cold tentacle unwound itself from its home somewhere in the depths of his belly and began to snake upwards, chilling him.
A shadow fell across him and his eyes snapped open.
The sun was directly behind her, turning her hair into a blazing halo of gold. He couldn’t see her face but he knew it would wear a half-smile and a sleepy-smart expression in her eyes. She held out an already-sweating glass.
Shaking off the past, he laughed — a deep, genuine chuckle. After all these years, the sigh of her still made him feel like a teenager.
“Who the hell are you?” he barked, playing the old game with a grin.
Her head dipped down, still in shadow but he knew the expression she wore.
“I’m Heidi,” she said, low and sweet. “Heidi, your plumber. I fix things.”
She held out a hand, businesslike in spite of her white bikini. He grabbed her hand and pulled her down on to he lounger with him.
“Oh honey,” he whispered into her hair. “You certainly did.”
