James Brawley

It looks like I'm in about six feet of water, but really it's about 18 inches.

My thighs are in agony.

And I can't hold out much longer when France lifts her shirt, her dress, over her head and I spring up on the beach and behind the chair and I am wet but covered when her head pops through the dress hole and she steps back in surprise and lets out a little French vowel.

And we get dressed, and we're walking across the cobblestones back to the hotel, which are slightly uneven, so the backs of our hands brush.

And she takes mine and hers, which I've read in Let's Go Europe is a friendly and warm gesture among European women.

And I don't get any ideas.

So I'm feeling friendly and warm, trying not to have any ideas, when France says, Susan is very lucky to have you.

And I say, well, thank you very much, but I'm very lucky to have her trying to regain a shred of dignity while holding onto this woman's hand.

And Franz smiles the smile of the boyfriendless and yet supremely confident goddess and says, why?

And there are all sorts of reasons I'm lucky to have Susan, but I can't think of any of them at the moment.

Because my mind is blank.

And I say, well, why are you friends?

And Franz looks at me and says, because she pursued me.

And our hips bump at the base of the stairs of the mountain to the hotel.

And she puts her arm around my waist, right above the bear claw.

And all I can think is to hunch down, like I've got osteoporosis, so that her arm slides up my rib cage.

But with each step up the stairs, it slides back down, and then it hits.

And she starts laughing, this bubbly French laugh.

And she says, I don't speak French, and I don't want to know what that means anyway, so I keep walking.

And she says it again.