Part 5 (2/2)

”You bring out my best side,” says Bernadette.

She takes his face in her hands and kisses his mouth. The sourness wells up around her gums and teeth. She wonders if Jann can taste it. She presses her stomach against him and works the T-s.h.i.+rt over his head. Undressing a person is easy-she makes a living at it. Jann smells like the beach. His chest is nearly hairless.

”What's the matter?” he says.

His eyes look cloudy and small. He pushes her down and moves above her now, pulling off her jeans one leg at a time. She watches his arms, the same thready muscles and veins she has watched as he held his camera these past days. She probes them with her nails, leaving small white crescents. He doesn't protest. She has him now, she knows it. And yet, she thinks, what difference does it make?

Later, when they have made love and the sounds of the bar have died down, Jann and Bernadette lie still.

”You know,” she says, ”this room is a lot like the one where I spent my honeymoon. New Orleans.”

”Honeymoon?” he says.

”Sure. What else was there to do in the early seventies?”

Jann says nothing.

”I was pretty then,” she adds. ”My hair was down to here.

She turns a little, touching the base of her spine. The skin is damp.

”You're pretty now,” says Jann.

”Please.”

He runs a finger down her cheek.

”Stop it,” she says.

”How come?”

”Because old skin always looks tear-streaked.”

”How old are you?” he asks.

”Thirty-six.”

He laughs. ”Thirty-six. G.o.d, what a business we're in.”

Bernadette touches her cheek in the place where Jann's finger was. She presses the skin as though searching for a blemish.

”I've been a stylist for sixteen years,” she says. ”I felt compet.i.tive with the girls at first. Now I feel maternal.”

”Sixteen years,” says Jann, shaking his head.

”They're younger now,” she says. ”You know that.”

”They get older, too. Think what it's like for them.”

”Who knows? They disappear.”

”Exactly,” says Jann.

They lie in silence. Bernadette decides she will go back to her own room. Conversation is meant to get you somewhere, and she and Jann have already been and gone.

”You know,” he says, ”it's hard to picture you married.”

”I hardly was. It lasted a minute.”

”How did it end?”

”Christ!” she says. ”What have I started here?”

”Tell me.”

She narrows her eyes and sits up. With her toes she searches the floor for her sandals.

”You can't answer a simple question,” says Jann. ”Can you?”

Bernadette touches her knuckles to her lips. The door is ten feet from the bed. She wishes she were dressed.

”I got restless,” she says.

”Restless,” says Jann.

”You know-restless? I kept thinking how many places there were.”

Jann laughs. ”I guess you picked the right life.”

”I guess so,” says Bernadette. She fumbles for her lighter. ”You know,” she says, ”you ask too many questions.”

She lights a cigarette and smokes it lavishly, sending out plumes through her nose and letting the smoke roll from her mouth. She thinks how much she loves to smoke, how conversations like this would get to her otherwise.

”So,” says Jann, as she stubs her cigarette into the half-sh.e.l.l ashtray, ”were they as nice as you thought? The places?”

”Sure they were nice. They were very nice. This is nice.” She waves her arm at the ceiling. ”I've been all over the world. You've done it, too, right?”

”I've done it, too,” Jann says.

She shrugs, then slides her feet into her sandals and lights a last cigarette. One for the road, she thinks.

”My only regret,” she says, ”is that I hardly have any pictures of myself. All I've got is the shots I styled.”

Jann nods. ”It's like looking through someone else's photo alb.u.m.”

Bernadette twists around to look at him. He has a sweet face, she thinks. ”That's right,” she says. ”That's exactly how it is.”

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