Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood Read Free Book Online Page A

don’t know what magic Eva worked in that backyard while I was gone, but the two men had settled down into a more polite banter: Ted talking about the garden he planned to grow, and Frankie offering tips to keep aphids off the roses and deer away from the green beans. He even took Ted on a tour of the labyrinthine garden of our own that Frankie had cultivated, and I was careful to make sure they left their drinks behind.
    While they were gone, I said to Eva, “Sorry about that. Looks like Ted accidentally pushed one of Frankie’s buttons.”
    She brushed her hand dismissively, and shook her head. “You don’t have to tell me about buttons. Ted’s got more buttons than a telephone switchboard.” Despite this kind attempt to make me feel better, I found that hard to believe. Ted and Eva had seemed like such a happy, playful couple the few times I’d seen them together. He was a drinker, that was obvious, but he also struck me as more bark than bite.
    When the two men emerged from the garden, Ted was slapping Frankie on the back. “Well, it seems like they made up,” I said.
    Eva nodded. “Come here, Teddy,” she said, and reached for his hand, pulling him to her and pressing her body against his.
    Ted seemed to soften around Eva, turning from a grumbling bear into some sort of puppy. It embarrassed me to watch her flirt with him, and the way he responded to her. All afternoon I had kept thinking that there was something familiar about Eva. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But as she leaned into Ted’s shoulder and he circled her with his arm, nuzzling his big, square face into her neck, I realized it was that she reminded me of Marie Bilodeau from back home. Marie lived down the road from me growing up, the only girl in a family with six boys. She didn’t look anything like Eva, wasn’t nearly as pretty, but she had the same ease as Eva, the same comfort in her own skin. The same way of making a man feel like he was the only one in the entire world. Of hanging on his words, and on his arm, while still clearly being the one in control. Of seeming to offer herself, pressing herself close, while somehow simultaneously rendering him powerless. Of crushing him. I had always been riveted by girls like this: girls who knew how to use their bodies, their beauty, as a way to control situations. My body had always been such a utilitarian device, something made simply to get me from one place to another. It was like the difference between our Studebaker and the Wilsons’ Caddie. Girls like this, like Eva, both fascinated me and made me feel clumsy and awkward. Girls like this had no use for girls like me.
    As the sun went down that night and the kids chased fireflies, Eva helped me clean up while Ted and Frankie sat by the fire pit and lamented the Red Sox season thus far, making plans to catch a game together, maybe bring Johnny along, one weekend. Then when the air grew chilly, and the children sleepy, the Wilson family said their good-byes and made their way back across the street.
    I sent Frankie upstairs to bed, told him I was feeling a little under the weather (a tired excuse, worn out as the dishrag in my hand, but one I knew he had no power to refute and no choice but to accept). And as he lumbered upstairs, I lingered at the sink washing the charred remains of our dinner from the spatulas and platters, peering at the house across the street.
    From the kitchen window, I watched the downstairs lights at the Wilson house click off one by one. And then Eva’s and Ted’s silhouettes appeared behind the closed drapes in one of the illuminated upstairs windows, their separate shadows merging into one before this last light went out. I felt my skin grow warm as I imagined them making love. Wondered if they still did with Eva’s belly so very big. I could barely remember the last time I had made love to Frankie; the only reason I had any recollection of it at all was because I had racked my brain trying to