Chapter 14: Salt Water Smells
Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Chapter 6. Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Chapter 11. Chapter 12. Chapter 13.

     Later that evening, Liz and I made love on Robin’s plaid pullout sofa. Robin had gone to sleep, dreams of country clubs and thoroughbred cocks dancing around in her head.
     When we’d finished, Liz opened a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine, strawberry and began to drink feverishly. She was sitting upright, her knees tucked tightly to her triangular breasts. The light from the street poured in from the window behind her, bathing her upper torso in a thin wash of meringue.* It occurred to me then that her breasts quite resembled the triangles of bologna and mayonnaise on Wonderbread my mother used to make, albeit garnished with pink, thimble-like nipples.
     I decided to keep the thought to myself.
     “Aren’t you going to share?” I asked.
     She stared at me blankly for a moment before handing me the bottle.
     I leaned forward and took a big gulp of the sweet wine. “Is something the matter? You look a little pale.”
     “Yes,” she said.
     “Do you want to talk about it?”
     “Oh it’s nothing, really,” she sighed. “I just wish you were alive is all.”
     “Well,” I said, drawing the scratchy blue blanket Robin had left for Liz over my waist, “we can’t have everything, can we?”
     Liz only frowned. “I guess not,” she said. She reached over and wrapped her arms around my shoulders, and I felt her warm salty tears against my neck.
     Funny, but in the dark like that, naked, Liz and her warm salty tears pressed against my neck, the only thing I could think of was this:
     Trout Fishing in America.
     Maybe it was the smell.

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Chapter 15