Angie Price

The Cold Shallow

1
It was the dead of afternoon and Inez languished by the pool. All around her, the heat had stilled the world to a heavy sleep. The palm branches did not wave, the movie star neighbors did not shout or screw on their marble terrace, and from inside the big white mansion the vacuum cleaner could not be heard. Her brown skin sweated and she reveled in the view of her own breasts beaded and tan between her slim arms. The pool was completely blue and transparent, like a substitute sky, and expensive lounges floated like empty clouds on its surface. She poured herself another martini and watched the green olive bob to the surface on its clear plastic skewer.

Inez was pretending to sleep, waiting for the gardener. Since Paul had gotten jealous of the old one she had been left alone for what seemed like an endless succession of languid days. But the waiting had paid off and eventually a tanned and toned successor had materialized from somewhere, presumably out of the endless flow of her husband’s cash and connections. The real stage of her and the new boy’s daytime companionship hadn’t begun but she wasn’t fazed. She had plenty of time. Usually she would have been annoyed by the fact that he hadn’t introduced himself yet, but after Paul’s reaction to the last one she wouldn’t be surprised if her husband had warned his new employee to steer clear of the lady of the house, for his own personal safety. She didn’t completely mind this, it was better if he had a clear picture of where he was in the scheme of things right from the start. It would keep things simple.
She had learned very early that what Paul didn’t know wouldn’t hurt anyone, even if what he did know would. So it was a good thing he didn’t know anything, Inez thought. She was always a silent woman when it came to men, who didn’t like talk anyways except in bed. There were other ways of communicating that she had learned long ago, and so with very few words she had always managed to get what she wanted, when she wanted it.

A thought which made her smile.
Paul red in the face and stomping, pointing his finger, veins popping. “Chirstinheaven you fucking whore, what is it that you want?!?! a goddamned gardener?!?!” And Inez quietly disrobing, naked and brown and putting on her silk bathing bottoms, sitting in the red satin lined window mirror to tie her bikini top on, looking out the mirror of the underground room into the bottom of the pool. She lost herself there in it’s familiar silence, then returned to the roaring in her ears that was her husband. Turning brown eyes on him and laying blame for the long hours and secretaries and the blatant boredom in his eyes when he touched her, running his hands over her skin like a marble banister or a vase, some finely made but not longer treasured prize. On a raging man who was anything if superior and nonchalant now.

Not that she didn’t miss Luke. Or at least parts of him. Surprisingly it was his eyes that she thought of the most, the devotion she had seen there. Those watery blue eyes had always stood out from the rest of him, as tan and taut as any part of her, but always somehow stringy and emaciated like he hadn’t had enough to eat. But wiry little muscles in those thighs and with such a loving look on his face, and wonderful slickness in his mouth and his tongue. But she had often looked in those eyes, and felt herself sinking in, down into some soft wet space. The suction just slightly cold around her as she dissolved there.

But he was gone now, and she was still here, waiting for some new stimulation. She wasn’t going to waste time on heartbreak, it never got anyone anywhere. Not that she really wanted to be anywhere but here. Here she was sexy and in control, here there was no conversation to keep up with or feign interest in. No greasy casino owners and the lesser copies of her on their arms for her to meet.
Inez had always loved the sun. She had found her place in it and she intended to stay there. That saying was one she had always taken literally, a place in the sun, all day, out back of another very expensive place was all she had ever wanted. And she got it, as she always knew she would. Nothing as small as divorce was going to stop her, so when the lawyers showed up tomorrow, she was tell them. She was sure they would listen to reason.
It was strangely cold for August. Too cold to go in the pool, though she didn’t really go in much anyways. She couldn’t really swim that well. The pool was just something to look at, something shiny and contained and blue. Something to provide contrast with her; for the guests to look at and be blinded by reflections and hence turn back to her. Of course nobody would be looking at it now, it was a terrible mess. Green and yellow algae lined the steps and were just visible in the dark spot at the deep end of the pool. The ladder was starting to look spotty, and there was a strange shadow beneath it. Some other sort of brackish fungus, or mold.
The first thing she’d have done would be to have it cleaned. Luke never liked cleaning the pool, he’d thought of himself more as a gardener than a pool boy. Towards the end it almost seemed as though he thought of himself as neither, that his status as her lover meant he not longer had to do his job. He’d show up every day with his equipment, walk into the backyard set his tools and chemicals down and then sit by her side on the ground, staring up at her until she said something or his desire to speak overwhelmed his silence. Once she even woke up to find him asleep in one of the floating lounge chairs in nothing but his jockey shorts.
What if my husband had come home and found you like that!!!
There was a ripple. Her head suddenly jerked up, her eyes wide her hair flying and her sunglasses falling off one ear and dangling.
A sudden tear in the surface of the water, like a shark swam beneath it. A white jagged cut and then suddenly it was gone.
She got up, she ran. The deck chair lay empty, a blue and white towel lying across it, stiff as a board from so many days in the sun.

2
The new boy still wasn’t speaking to her. She had even come up behind him one day. She had stood there for ten whole minutes, before he had looked at her. Then he had only glanced quickly over his shoulder at her before picking up his tools and moving on into the house.
The chicken shit punk had practically run. Good old Paulie, you could always count on him. Great at scaring lowlifes and servants. Many people asked her what she ever saw in him. Short and slightly bald he was still in good shape and could have been considered handsome; but with the manners of a bull elephant and the taste of an educated gorilla he never managed to pull away from his shortcomings. Paulie was nothing if not possessive and driven. Inez had always smiled mysteriously and vaguely. How do you tell a polite acquaintance’s acid faced wife that they only things you ever saw in your husband was a man smart enough to be rich and dumb enough to be devoted and blind?
Of course Inez herself was never really sensitive enough to discern the difference between devotion and possessiveness. So had mistaken the little gifts he had showered on her during their courtship for tokens of affection rather than expensive dog tags saying ‘Paul wuz here’. She hadn’t really cared if he loved her for sentimental reasons, it just made more sense to marry a man who passionately worshipped you if you wished to rule unrestricted over your own private, opulent kingdom of thick blue carpets and desert sun.
She had learned to tell the difference when he had blackened her eye for talking to a lounge singer. They had been out on a dinner date when he had been called away on business, so she had instructed the driver to take her to a show. It hadn’t mattered particularly which, she really didn’t care much for music. She wanted to be seen that night and if she couldn’t be seen on the arm of her powerful husband, the driver would at least offer some sort of a shield from unwanted admiration. She hadn’t done her hair for nothing, and she would never be stupid enough to have Luke over this late at night when there could be no hope of a pretext for the “odd jobs” he regularly performed for her. So she would content herself with a more distant audience; even if was really somebody else’s.
So when the singer had appeared at her table with a bottle of champagne after his set, she hadn’t been displeased. The driver had stepped out back for a smoke and she had heard a quiet step behind her. Then a pair of glasses had been set on the table, then a metal urn beside her with the green and gold bottle nestled in amongst sparkling ice cubes. The waiter had popped the cork, replaced the sweaty tube in it’s silver home and disappeared. A hand had placed itself on her shoulder and a voice in her ear asking “May I take this seat?”
She had swiveled her head (careful to stretch her long neck gracefully and keep her shoulders stretched down) and looked at him. He was 80% charisma, but still the glamour of the stage was clinging to him still, so she smiled turned back to the table. She gracefully took a sip of bubbling wine, her fingers applying just the slightest pressure to the glass so it seemed to be floating there by some special magic. The singer (she could never remember his name, even though he had a platinum record way back when) had made small talk mostly, smooth enough to never come outright and say it, but making his desire quite apparent nonetheless. She had listened attentively to his ramblings about how he was really ‘in it for the music’ and looked over his shoulder at the white light from the wall fixtures, thinking about the lovely contrast and imagining how they would look upon red seat of the window in her little underground cave. She felt his hand come to rest, fingers first, on her thigh, and made a point of twitching her leg away just enough to keep his motor running. Men didn’t like things that came too easy.
This had gone on for several minutes, and Inez was near to considering a proposition when Paulie had walked in. His hand rested on her shoulder where the singer’s had been a few minutes before, and Inez could feel the skin twitch as though he had left some handprint behind that was now burning her husband’s flesh. “Am I interrupting? Darling, why don’t you introduce me to your new friend?” While he spoke, his hand had slowly tightened on her shoulder until she winched and pushed his hand away. He leaned down and whispered into her ear. “Inez, my darling, I suggest you get your ass out of that chair and into the car; unless you want me to do it for you. Only if I have to do it, you ass will end up on the floor.”
She had dabbed her lips with the white napkin, pushed her chair back with controlled violence (just short of her husband’s crotch) and stood, throwing her stole around her shoulders. She drained her glass and said “Thank you, sir it was a lovely evening. I enjoyed your performance. My husband seems to have something he must talk to me about, but I’m sure we can all get together sometime. Perhaps we’ll have you over for a barbeque by our new pool? I’ll be sure to have something for you to autograph.” With that she spun on her heel and walked towards the exit, feeling eyes looking up at her from around the white linen tables, from at and behind the bar. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored wall by the door, and was dismayed to find her cheeks splotchy. Behind her, in the reflection, she could see her husband and the singer talking. She could imagine what he was saying, Paulie was a partial owner of the club, and she doubted that this particular act would be playing here again anytime soon.
There had been hours of screaming once Paulie had come home. She had shut herself in her rooms and was sitting at her vanity table when he returned. Her ears were ringing from the noise and the lights around her mirror had seemed to get brighter and brighter as she removed her make up and took down her hair. Carefully she had removed all the diamonds from her ears and around her neck, leaving the delicates safe in the wood and velvet box with the little lock. Paul’s volume increased every moment of her silence seeming to add fuel to the fire, even as his voice went hoarse. This wasn’t first time she had endured such a barrage, her husband had a talent for angry rants, but this was the first time she was afraid of him. Finally when she rose to change it happened.
He cut her off on her way to the closet. She stood in front of him for a second, looking straight into his eyes. Even then she didn’t know if he had it in him, but looking in his eyes she couldn’t sense or feel anything about him. It was if everything inside him had gone dark, or maybe it was just the inside of her peeking back through the lens of his eyes.
So when she stepped around him and opened the closet door she was only half surprised to hear his voice growl and scream “DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME BITCH!” She took her pink satin robe off the hook inside the door and had one arm in the hole when he spun her around by the wrist. For a second he held her like that, her wrist disappearing into his red fingers, her arm raised between them like she was showing off her wedding ring, and then he hit her. Hard enough for her to slump down to the floor, her arm still extended, her wrist still viced in his hand. She didn’t cry out, but on the inside, some tiny bubble had popped. She had never loved her husband, but now there was a crashing sound in her head as a pane of glass slid down between them. When they looked at each other the next morning over the breakfast table they both knew.
When Paul went to work, she had seduced Luke again. She came up behind him and slipped her hands around his waist, under his white polo with the little palm logo on it “Oasis Pools and Services” and ran her hands over him like a sculptor caressing their own statue. He immediately turned in her arms, his blue eyes closed, and kissed her. She bent her back. He leaned into her. He put his hand on her cheek and stroked.
She grabbed his away and placed it on her breast. Even as his thumb moved itself in a small slow circle, he opened his eyes. She turned her head away, placing it on his shoulder but he had already seen. His hands went to her shoulders and she stood completely still keeping her head in it’s place between his neck and collarbone. If she didn’t move maybe the scene could be avoided.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“No, Luke. You aren’t. And I’m not leaving him either. I’ve told you, from the very start, that I’m not going to give any of this up. A few bruises don’t change this.”
“The bastard will do it again. He’s dangerous and I won’t let him anywhere near you, not after this.” Luke’s eyes were beginning to get puddly, his lips were paling and his cheeks were blotching.
“I know he’s dangerous. I got sloppy, and it won’t happen again.”
“But, guys like him don’t change! I can’t let you….”
“Bullshit. You don’t let me do stuff. You are not the boss.” She moved her hands over his back, trailing them down to his buttocks.
Luke simply stood. “You could divorce him. I could take pictures; we could take them to court for the judge to see. You could keep the house, you could keep everything.” He paused, then pushed her back by the shoulders and took her chin in his hands. “Inez, I love you. We could finally be together; he wouldn’t be able to stop us anymore. He’d be gone. It would be just us all the time, just you and me. He’d be all gone and we’d be alone. We wouldn’t have to worry about anybody finding us, ever.” His hands were tightening and she could feel that he was getting excited, aroused by the thought. He had never said the words before; they had always been tucked safely beneath the palms, dormant and safe in the dirt. Now he had dug up a squirming mess laid it slimy and muddy on her crystal perfect world.
“How’s that going to work?” She shook her head way and stepped away from him. “I’ve been cheating on him for years. Last night I had dinner with another man, I may not have been fucking him but a whole restaurant full of people saw me with him. A whole restaurant of people saw me fight with Paul, a whole restaurant of people that have heard the rumors and know more about us that Paulie ever will if you can keep your fucking head straight.”
She sat down in a nearby lawn chair, and poured herself a glass from the sweaty pitcher of martinis that the maid had laid out there for her, just like she did every morning at 11am. “All of the other servants know about us Luke. And that means that other people’s servants know too. Right now they’re keeping quiet because once one of us gets caught all the other husbands and wives get suspicious. Our little arrangement isn’t unique, no matter how pleasant it is. So it suits them right now to be mute. But if the secret comes out, or if I try to divorce my husband, why should the rest of the staff bother to keep quiet, especially once lawyers or PI’s start asking questions? I’m an outright bitch most of the time so they aren’t going to risk their skins for me. Or for the guy who cleans the ice queen’s skimmer. They also know that Paul has never hit me before. More than a couple of them think I had it coming. So a few little snapshots of a one time incident certainly isn’t going to be enough in court, not when it comes up against my little indiscretions! I would lose everything! I’d be lucky to get a job as a cocktail waitress in this town after Paul was done with me! We have our fun and I like you around but…I’m not going to leave a good life here to live with you in a shit-hole apartment. Not for a stupid black eye. Not because you say you love me. So the way I see it is, let’s have our fun today and then it would be best if you didn’t come back for a while. Paul is bound to start getting suspicious after today so we need to stay away from each other. Until things calm down. I can think of some excuse to why I had to let you go, we’ll get somebody else for a while, and then I’ll find another excuse to hire you back. You have other jobs you can do to keep going for now. I know how to handle Paul and I’ll get things back to where they were in no time. Then we can go on just like we were. It’ll be like this never ever happened baby.” She stood up and let her pool robe fall open to reveal her body, dusted with gold bronzing powder and wrapped only in a string closed bikini. She poured another martini into a blue tinted glass, plopped in a skewered olive on a red toothpick, took Luke’s hand and wrapped it loosely around the stem. Now it was her caressing his face. Devotion had tied him to her from the start, if she could just soothe him a little, he would be alright, he would see what she was talking about.
Luke kept staring at her, his mouth in a white line and his eyes wide and white and blue. It seemed like his pupils had constricted themselves out of existence and there was nothing left but the watery blue irises wobbling there on either side of his perfect nose. He drank the whole cocktail in one huge gulp, then gave a wet cough and looked down. He twirled the glass in his fingers by the stem for a second then threw it. It smashed against the rock grotto with the entrance to the underground room. He looked her and said “It’s alright Inez. I know that you love me. It’s not safe for us now, so you don’t have to say it. You don’t even have to know it, because I do and soon you will too.” Then he lifted her up and carried her to the grotto door and they descended together. Down in the dark they made love while Inez stared out the window into the turquoise of the pool. Sun pierced through the water but around them there was only red velvet and darkness. It wasn’t until after, when he had left and she turned on the light to find her black suit, that she realized he had cut his foot on the broken glass and left his blood behind him, staining the white stone floor.

3
The fucking lawyers were finally here. Two men in blue suits carrying briefcases, they couldn’t have been more cliché or more reassuring. Too bad she had to hide. She was completely drunk and wearing a thong swimsuit. Not exactly the best costume or attitude for a legal battle. She couldn’t even remember going to bed last night, she must have fallen asleep in the underground cave again. Too many martinis and too much memory. Many nights now she had simply laid on her red velvet seat and in a haze-like sleep stared out into the dark waters of the pool until morning. She hardly bothered with the house; there were no visitors now that Paul’s associates no longer came by. All she really wanted was to be in the sun so there was no point. Being alone in that huge house made her feel thin and faded. She’d just stay here by the pool as long as she wanted to. It wasn’t like there was somewhere else she had to be.
So as they closed the garden gate, casually glancing at the white columns and green palms of the back porch, she grabbed up her drink and a towel and headed back underground. She ducked behind the rock wall that slowly piled up to conceal the entrance to the underground lounge. She peered around the edge, while she reached for the latch. They didn’t seem to be looking too hard. Too busy admiring the house and taking notes. Probably making estimates for the settlement. Her hand waved in the air as she fumbled at the entrance. She needed to make sure she wasn’t seen yet, she was sure there were some clothes she could change into down there and some make up. Just then, her fingertips slipped forward into shadow as the door opened.
“I don’t really think you need to worry. They already think you’re a whore, and they know you’re a drunk.”
Inez could not move. Then the shadow of fingers passed over her wrist and she was pulled into shadow.

4
Beneath the rock wall, Inez sat on the red lounge and looked into the pale face of her lover. Behind her was a glass-contained carefully sterilized world of blue green water. In front of her was a world of white and green tiles, divided in half by a line of shadow. Half in and half out of that light his face hovered over a slice of white throat. His eyes shone blue, untouched by dark pupils. The tile floor shone with shards of glass, and in places, dried blood marred the tile. The floor had never been cleaned since Luke’s last night. The door to the world above revealed a crack of clear sunlight, streaking across the floor and ending in a beam over her heart.
“It’s been a while since our last visit here together. You would expect things to be a little different this time around. Time heals all wounds, that sort of thing. Too bad it’s all bullshit.”
Vivid memories of them together suddenly sprang together in Inez’s thoughts. Luke’s first day at work, the first day she seduced him. He had only been 20 then, a student at the local tech school. He wanted to work on computers, designing video games of all things. She had gradually talked him into taking on more and more hours with the service that had assigned him to her and Paul’s house. It was the only way he could spend time with her and still get his job done, so Paul wouldn’t become suspicious, she told him. In truth she had just liked having him around, tending to her every need, fiddling around with the garden plants, mostly palms and cacti, which actually needed little attention. Not that he had a clue of what to do with them. She never remembered exactly what time of day it was when he arrived then, and she never remembered when he left. He would appear like a ghost and then vanish until the next day. Saturday and Sunday would pass without him, she would loiter outside and then venture out at night to the lights of the strip, glowing with diamonds. Bronzing power dusting her temples and her shoulders. Monday would come around again, and he would be there fiddling in the dirt by the pool while she recovered from the night before.
She never told him she loved him, and he assumed he knew. She never mentioned the word love until their last night together here. How long ago had that been? Long enough for Paul to find somebody else and leave her. She had seen them once at a party thrown by acquaintances, who apparently had been unaware of the split. The girl was tiny, almost five feet tall, with tiny features and pale white skin. She looked like a china doll. She couldn’t have been more than twenty one. She wore a silver gown and carried a tiny black bag. She had black feathers in her hair and seemingly wore no makeup. She drifted wanly along beside Paul, smiling on cue. The rumor at the party was she barely spoke English. Inez sat at the bar and tried to look nonchalant while the couples came by to leave condolences. A few of the husband slipped their office numbers into her palm when they shook hands. After that there were no more invitations, and the long string of days by the pool began.
“I lived here like a ghost after he left. You could have tried to come back to me then. Why did you wait? Did you expect me to call you? Did you expect me to beg? You knew you couldn’t expect me to change. I don’t change. I don’t want to. Why would I change what I worked to so hard to become?”
She stood, blinded as the beam from the door fell across her left eye. “You always were…”
Suddenly the light was blinding. She felt nothing, just a tingling in her fingers. As her robe fell from her shoulders, she looked down.
“This place could never change. Just like you. You never change even after your whole world comes crashing down around you. You just can’t let go. This place is so fucking important to you, you’re willing to give me up to it just so you can hang around here in your bathing suit and drink martini’s alone for eternity. And I’m stuck here with you. Whether you want me here or not. I couldn’t have loved you anymore, trust me I tried. I’ve pulled you along in this relationship from the start and now that I want to leave you alone, I can’t! If you are so determined to have this place, you can have it, but I’m never leaving here again, whether you want me to or not. You can have you precious world, but now I’m part of the bargain.”
Luke heard strings. The blue light filtering down through the pool enveloped his mind, and as his hands moved over her shoulders to rest below her chin he thought of all the nights he had slept in this very room, catching a few hours before dawn after a chilly night keeping watch outside on the rocks of the waterfall. Keeping watch through the lighted windows as she removed her makeup and jewels, disappeared into the bathroom, and then lay down alone in her room. He watched her husband pacing in his bedroom, trying the locked door between them, watching the blue lit screen of the flat panel television.
When it was over, he laid her down on the red velvet below the window. Carefully he placed her on her back, one arm behind her head so her neck wouldn’t get sore. Her head turned toward the side so she could look out into the pool. Then closed the door to the outside and waited there with her until nightfall. He emerged then and wandered around the poolside, uprooting rose buses and collecting her various toiletries, her glass martini pitcher (he made sure the pitcher was full before he left.) He arranged his gifts around her, the pitcher and glasses near to her dangling right hand. The roses he trimmed of thorns and set at the foot of the bier.
Then he climbed the stairs. He turned to take one last look at the house. With no light coming from within, it looked like a tomb, and frightened he looked away. Catching one last look at the stars, he walked to the steps that lead down in the shallow end of the pool. The water was no longer sky blue, but opaque and black. As the water hit his ankles, he stopped, hearing a sudden slicing of water. Trembling he looked back up at the sky, but no doubt could enter him and he submerged himself in the chilly liquid. With strong strokes he pulled himself to the deep end, and lay in a dead man’s float beneath the diving board. She would be right beneath him now. And even though he couldn’t see her through the inky, chlorinated waters, he suspected that he could see no less than she.
When morning found them, the sun’s rays sought out the still murky, slightly molded bottom. Luke cast a shadow as his head bumped dully against the Spanish themed tile on the side. Beneath him the light reflected from the window, obscuring the view within. But in one small place a pair of black eyes could be seen as they looked upward toward the quavering yellow disk.
A week later, when the realtor and her unfortunate clients discovered the now swollen and sun decayed body floating in the pool, it was drained. The house was sold to a young casino owner and his lover. Inez was not discovered (lying elegantly intact on her velvet chair) until the new pool boy walked down the slow incline to clean the last of the mold from the nooks of the waterfall. Later, she was removed, burned and secreted away into a small cemetery, one of many embellished boxes reserved for her since her marriage. But the young man could swear at his first glance, the woman behind the glass stirred towards him, smiling a cool smile.