Steph said, “it’s an omen.” She hefted the bag from the moving platform. “Good luck and good things are coming.”
“Oh, I hope so.” Jessie fumbled in her purse for her baggage stub. “Sometimes I’m so up, excited about starting a new phase in my life.” She looked her best friend in the eyes. “Then, at other times, I’m so down. Rob and I were comfortable and good together. I knew what he was thinking and he knew….” Her eyes began to fill. “It’s so final.”
“None of that,” Steph said, linking her free arm with her friend’s. “Only good thoughts will be permitted.”
Jessie shook her head and a wisp of hair fell from her French knot. Impatiently she stuffed it into one of the bobby pins that pulled her hair tight against her head. “Right. Only good thoughts.”
They arrived in Harrison and had just pulled Jessie’s suitcase from the trunk of Steph’s BMW when Brian drove up the long driveway, honking the horn of his Lexus and grinning through the windshield. He pulled to a stop, jumped out of the car, and enveloped Jessie in a giant bearhug. “Oh, JJ,” he said, reverting to Jessie’s nickname from their days in high school. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Me too,” she said, hugging him back. “I’d almost forgotten the days of being called JJ. You’re the only one who calls me that anymore. It takes me back.”
“If you hadn’t been so hooked on Rob, I would have jumped you back then and Steph would have had to find someone else.”
“You are so full of it, Brian,” Jessie said, laughing, swatting him on the ass. “You should have been born Irish.”
“Okay, okay, so I exaggerate a bit. But I am glad to see you.”
Jessie pushed Brian to arm’s length and looked him over. Although he was not particularly tall, Brian was a big man, with large hands and feet and an open, ingenuous smile that lit up his ordinary-looking face. His tennis whites accentuated his oversized arms and legs, all covered with heavy black hair. His skin was heavily tanned, making his eyes look even paler than she remembered. She hugged him again, enjoying the feel of a virile man after so many months alone. “You look fantastic, sir,” she said, a bit embarrassed by the erotic thoughts his tight shorts aroused. “And happy.”
Brian reached out and draped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Happy doesn’t describe it.” He pecked Steph on the cheek, then said, “When’s dinner? I’m starved.”
“Everything’s in the fridge and ready to go. You get the fire started and I’ll show Jessie to her room.”
“Will do. I’ll start the grill, then take a quick shower. Dinner should be ready in less than an hour.”
Just over an hour later, the three friends were filling their plates with rare steak, a rice pilaf that Steph had just removed from the microwave, and a crisp green salad with tiny shrimp and bacon bits. “I hope you’re not watching your calories,” Steph said. “At least not for today. I decided that in honor of your arrival I would make all the things I don’t ordinarily eat. To hell with cholesterol.”
Brian uncorked a bottle of California Cabernet and poured some into each glass. Jessie looked at the label on the bottle. “Stag’s Leap. 1984. Very nice wine.”
Brian lifted his glass. “For a very nice lady and her new life. To JJ.” His eyes locked with Jessie’s and, after a moment, she looked away.
This is silly, Jessie told herself. It feels like he’s flirting with me. It only goes to show that I’ve been celibate too long. He’s my best friend’s husband, for heaven’s sake. She shook it off and spent the rest of the evening chatting amiably with Steph and Brian.
The following day Jessie unwound. Between Brian’s job and Steph’s stint at the hospital, Jessie saw nothing of either of them. Content to be alone she sat beside the pool until her skin turned a luscious shade of soft apricot, read a romance novel, soaked in a bubble bath for an hour in the oversized jacuzzi-tub in her bathroom, and generally exorcised Rob from her consciousness.
She saw Steph briefly late that afternoon. Jessie had grabbed a container of yogurt from the fridge and was sitting at the table in the kitchen, eating with one hand and holding her book open with the other.
“Hi, Steph,” she said, looking up from her book. “What’s up? How was your day?”
“The day was great, but I now have a delightful idea. Brian got two tickets for a concert tonight from some client and we can easily get a third. Very last minute. It’s the Julliard String Quartet. Brian and I love them and we don’t get to hear them very often. How about us both joining him in the city? Dinner, the concert? It would do you a world of good.”
“I’m not a concert kind of person, Steph. All that music, particularly after a good dinner, just puts me to sleep. You go, and have a great time.”
“But we haven’t spent any time together. You’ve been alone all day.”
“And I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Go and enjoy your concert. I want to get to bed early anyway. All this relaxing is making me tired.” To emphasize her drowsiness, she yawned. “I don’t want you to feel you have to entertain me. I do just fine on my own.”
“I feel so guilty. But we’re best friends and I’ll trust you to be honest. So if you’re sure you don’t mind I’d really like to see this. And the next two days, and Friday as well, are ours. Shopping. Bloomies maybe?”
“Done. See you in the morning.”
The next morning, dressed in jeans and a white tank top, Jessie sat in a long white lounge chair in her favorite room in the Carltons’ house. Jessie knew that, when Steph and Brian had bought the house a dozen years before, the room had been an open flagstone patio overlooking the pool, shaded at each end by a huge red maple. The couple had immediately seen its potential and had enclosed it with louvered windows and white wood. They had furnished it in white wicker and cluttered it with dozens of pillows in primary colors.
Once the room was constructed, Steph had worked with a florist, learning everything she could about houseplants. She decorated the room with carefully selected specimens, and then tended them with loving care. One end contained cactuses, many blooming with either flowers or colored globes. The other end was all greenery, with ivys, ferns, and a six-foot-high fig tree. In the center, where there was sun most of the day, Steph had put florals with several plants in bloom at all times—African violets in exotic shades, orchids and lilies, anything that caught her fancy. One section was her hospital. The owner of the florist shop frequently gave Steph plants that weren’t doing well, for her to nurse back to health. She spent time almost every day misting, watering, pruning, and removing dead blooms.
Jessie had gotten up early that morning and, although it was only eight-thirty, she was sitting and reading, a cup of fresh coffee at her elbow. As she read, she suddenly became aware of sounds from the pool. She shifted her position and peered through the leaves of a deep orange hibiscus. She couldn’t believe what she saw.
Not twenty feet away, beside the pool, Steph lay, stretched out on a lounge chair, dressed in only the top of a tiny black bikini. The bottom of the suit lay on the concrete beside her chair. Her legs straddled the cushions and a man lay between her thighs, his head buried in her pussy. “Ummm,” Jessie heard Steph mumble. “That’s wonderful.” As Jessie watched she became aware of a smooth, tanned back and a tight, tiny ass. She realized
