ONE
DANNY RYAN WATCHES THE WOMAN come out of the water like a vision emerging from his dreams of the sea.
Except sheās real and sheās going to be trouble.
Women that beautiful usually are.
Danny knows that; what he doesnāt know is just how much trouble sheās really going to be. If he knew that, knew everything that was going to happen, he might have walked into the water and held her head under until she stopped moving.
But he doesnāt know that.
So, the bright sun striking his face, Danny sits on the sand out in front of Pascoās beach house and checks her out from behind the cover of his sunglasses. Blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a body that the black bikini does more to accentuate than conceal. Her stomach is taut and flat, her legs muscled and sleek. You donāt see her fifteen years from now with wide hips and a big ass from the potatoes and the Sunday gravy.
The woman comes out of the water, her skin glistening with sunshine and salt.
Terri Ryan digs an elbow into her husbandās ribs.
āWhat?ā Danny asks, all mock-innocent.
āI see you checking her out,ā Terri says.
Theyāre all checking her outāhim, Pat and Jimmy, and the wives, tooāSheila, Angie, and Terri.
āCanāt say I blame you,ā Terri says. āThat rack.ā
āNice talk,ā Danny says.
āYeah, with what youāre thinking?ā Terri asks.
āI aināt thinking nothing.ā
āI got your nothing for you right here,ā Terri says, moving her right hand up and down. She sits up on her towel to get a better view of the woman. āIf I had boobs like that, Iād wear a bikini, too.ā
Terriās wearing a one-piece black number. Danny thinks she looks good in it.
āI like your boobs,ā Danny says.
āGood answer.ā
Danny watches the beautiful woman as she picks up a towel and dries herself off. She must put in a lot of time at the gym, he thinks. Takes care of herself. He bets she works in sales. Something priceyāluxury cars, or maybe real estate, or investments. What guy is going to say no to her, try to bargain her down, look cheap in front of her? Isnāt going to happen.
Danny watches her walk away.
Like a dream you wake up from and you donāt want to wake up, itās such a good dream.
Not that he got much sleep last night, and now heās tired. They hit a truckload of Armani suits, him and Pat and Jimmy MacNeese, way the hell up in western Mass. Piece of cake, an inside job Peter Moretti set them up with. The driver was clued in, everyone did the dance so no one got hurt, but still it was a long drive and they got back to the shore just as the sun was coming up.
āThatās okay,ā Terri says, lying back on her towel. āYou let her get you all hot and bothered for me.ā
Terri knows her husband loves her, and anyway, Danny Ryan is faithful like a dog. He donāt have it in him to cheat. She donāt mind he looks at other women as long as he brings it home to her. A lot of married guys, they need some strange every once in a while, but Danny donāt.
Even if he did, heād feel too guilty.
Theyāve even joked about it. āYouād confess to the priest,ā Terri said, āyouād confess to me, youād probably take an ad out in the paper to confess.ā
Sheās right, Danny thinks as he reaches over and strokes Terriās thigh with the back of his index finger, signaling that sheās right about something else, that he is hot and bothered, that itās time to go back to the cottage. Terri brushes his hand away, but not too hard. Sheās horny, too, feeling the sun, the warm sand on her skin, and the sexual energy brought by the new woman.
Itās in the air, they both feel it.
Something else, too.
Restlessness? Danny wonders. Discontent?
Like this sexy woman comes out of the sea and suddenly theyāre not quite satisfied with their lives.
Iām not, Danny thinks.
Every August they come down from Dogtown to Goshen Beach because thatās what their fathers did and they donāt know to do anything else. Danny and Terri, Jimmy and Angie Mac, Pat and Sheila Murphy, Liam Murphy with his girl of the moment. They rent the little cottages across the road from the beach, so close to each other you can hear your neighbor sneeze, or lean out the window to borrow something for the kitchen. But thatās what makes it fun, the closeness.
None of them would know what to do with solitude. They grew up in the same Providence neighborhood their parents did, went to school there, are still there, see each other almost every day and go down to Goshen on vacation together.
āDogtown by the Sea,ā they call it.
Danny always thinks the ocean should be to the east, but knows that the beach actually faces south and runs in a gentle arc west about a mile to Mashanuck Point, where some larger houses perch precariously on a low bluff above the rocks. To the south, fourteen miles out in the open ocean, sits Block Island, visible on most clear days. During the summer season, ferries run all day and into the night from the docks at Gilead, the fishing village just across the channel.
Danny, he used to go out to Block Island all the time, not on the ferry, but back before he was married when he was working the fishing boats. Sometimes, if Dick Sousa was in a good mood, theyād pull into New Harbor and grab a beer before making the run home.
Those were good days, going after the swordfish with Dick, and Danny misses them. Misses the little cottage he rented behind Aunt Bettyās Clam Shack, even though it was drafty and colder than shit in the winter. Misses walking down to the bar at the Harbor Inn to have a drink with the fishermen and listen to their stories, learn their wisdom. Misses the physical work that made him feel strong and clean. He was nineteen and strong and clean and now he aināt none of those things; a layer of fat has grown around his middle and he aināt sure he could throw a harpoon or haul in a net.
You look at Danny now, in his late twenties, his broad shoulders make him appear a little shorter than his six feet, and his thick brown hair, tinged with red, gives him a low forehead that makes him look a little less smart than he really is.
Danny sits on the sand and looks at the water with a yearning. The most he does now is go in and have a swim or bodysurf if there are any waves, which is unusual in August unless thereās a hurricane brewing.
Danny misses the ocean when heās not here.
It gets in your blood, like you got salt water running through you. The fishermen Danny knows love the sea and hate it, say itās like a cruel woman who hurts you over and over again but you keep going back to her anyway.
Sometimes he thinks maybe he should go back to fishing, but thereās no money in it. Not anymore, with all the government regulations and the Japanese and Russian factory ships sitting thirteen miles off the coast and taking up all the cod and the tuna and the flounder and the government donāt do shit about them, just keeps its thumb on the local guy.
Because it can.
So now Danny just comes down from Providence in August with the rest of the gang.
Mornings they get up late, eat breakfast in their cottages, then cross the road and spend the day gathered on the beach in front of Pascoās place, one of about a dozen clapboard houses set on concrete pylons near the breakwater on the east end of Goshen Beach.
They set up beach chairs, or just lie on towels, and the women sip wine coolers and read magazines and chat while the men drink beer or throw in a fishing line. Thereās always a nice little crowd there, Pasco and his wife and kids and grandkids, and the whole Moretti crewāPeter and Paul Moretti, Sal Antonucci, Tony Romano, Chris Palumbo and wives and kids.
Always a lot of people dropping by, coming in and out, having a good time.
Rainy days they sit in the cottages and do jigsaw puzzles, play cards, take naps, shoot the shit, listen to the Sox broadcasters jaw their way through the rain delay. Or maybe drive into the main town two miles inland and see a movie or get an ice cream or pick up some groceries.
Nights, they barbecue on the strips of lawn between the cottages, usually pooling their resources, grill hamburgs and hot dogs. Or maybe during the day one of the guys walks over to the docks to see whatās fresh and that night they grill tuna or bluefish or boil some lobsters.
Other nights they walk down to Daveās Dock, sit at a table out on the big deck that overlooks Gilead, across the narrow bay. Daveās doesnāt have a liquor license, so they bring their own bottles of wine and beer, and Danny loves sitting out there watching the fishing boats, the lobstermen, or the Block Island Ferry come in as he eats chowder and fish-and-chips and greasy clam cakes. Itās pretty and peaceful out there as the sun softens and the water glows in the dusk.
Some nights they just walk home after dinner, gather in each otherās cottages for more cards and conversations; other times maybe they drive over to Mashanuck Point, where thereās a bar, the Spindrift. Sit and have a few drinks and listen to some local bar band, maybe dance a little, maybe not. But usually the whole gang ends up there and itās always a lot of laughs until closing time.
If they feel more ambitious, they pile into cars and drive over to Gileadāfifty yards by water but fourteen miles by roadāwhere there are some larger bars that almost pass for clubs and where the Morettis donāt expect and never receive a drink bill. Then they go home to their cottages and Danny and Terri either pass out or mess around and then pass out, and wake up late and do it all over again.
āI need some more losh,ā Terri says now, handing him the tube.
Danny sits up, squeezes a glob of the suntan lotion onto his hands, and starts to work it onto her freckled shoulders. Terri burns easy with that Irish skin. Black hair, violet eyes, and skin like a porcelain teacup.
The Ryans are darker-skinned, and Dannyās old man, Marty, says thatās because they got Spanish blood in them. āFrom when that armada sank back there. Some of them Spanish sailors made it to shore and did the deed.ā
Theyāre all black Irish, anyway, northerners like most of the micks who landed in Providence. Hard men from the stony soil and constant defeat of Donegal. Except, Danny thinks, the Murphys are doing pretty good for themselves now. Then he feels guilty thinking that, because Pat Murphyās been his best friend since they were in diapers, not to mention now theyāre brothers-in-law.
Sheila Murphy lifts her arms, yawns and says, āIām going to go back, take a shower, do my nails, girly stuff.ā She gets up from he...
