In 1998, Matthieu was twenty-eight and teaching tennis at the Monsanto Country Club in Phoenix, Arizona. A year earlier he had been doing engineering work in the Utah salt flats, a quick but well-paying job for the state's Non-Profit Housing Corporation. A friend suggested they do a quick tour of Arizona before heading back to Marseille and he gladly tagged along. The others left after a week, as scheduled. Matthieu postponed. Then he made friends at Lake Havasu and postponed further. He had nothing pulling him home, not by his standards of "urgent". He wanted to squeeze the orange dry before leaving, but he'd find out on a weekly basis that the thing remained juicy.

The Monsanto was tennis-centered and lacked a golf course. Clients were people who didn't go as far as to require the opulence of the Pine Canyon, but were upper-middle-class nonetheless. He heard about the coaching job through the grapevine. He never imagined that his ranking in the French Tennis Federation would ever come in handier in finding a job than his engineering degree, but he wanted something that he could drop quickly. As such, it fit like a ring on a finger. He got paid by the hour, but handsomely: two hours in the mornings and afternoons three days a week, a full day on Saturdays, and any one-on-ones that he could fit in between. Lots of sweat and baked-red necks, and traces of red clay dirt on everything he owned. But the staff was young and fun, and they would throw clandestine pool mini-parties every other Sunday night after it closed down for members. It got rather glorious when it wanted to.

The flings came steadily Matthieu's way. He knew that his being a six-foot green-eyed Frenchman was a big part of it. Beefy within the ranges of fit. Stocked eyebrows the shape of elongated bricks and close-cropped brown hair that would be curly if he let it grow out. He could get laughs, too. He found himself to be a competent teacher, patient with kids, and effective even with big groups. In short, he enjoyed it. And the college-aged women that paid for personal lessons enjoyed him in return. The hook-ups with trainees started piling up, often followed by drop-outs. Who would want an awkward lesson with the guy they had driven to the nearest motel with? Eventually, Mr. Espinosa approached him to inquire why certain trainees had left weeks' worth of pre-paid lessons unused. The thought of his father ever finding out that he couldn't keep a tennis-coaching job hurt like a whip. So he cooled it.

He took higher-level English lessons. He bought a bike just in time for summer. Every passing day, his plans to return home drifted further away like an abandoned floatable in the club's pool.

Bianca was introduced to Matthieu on the first day of Summer Tennis Camp, not so much to the person or even the face, as he initially remained a token character in the background, but as the reason Julian and Leslie were bubbly on the drive home, a big contrast to the grumbling they'd given her in the morning. Tennis camp had been her idea, a patch-up replacement for the swimming lessons they'd had to abort due to Julian's eardrum infection. On the second day, she became friends with a young mom, who watched over her six-year-old's practice with hawk-like attention even as she talked to Bianca about schools, sunblock brands, and the weather. The woman was surprised to learn that Bianca wasn't the kids' mom, but their aunt. It was a common mistake, as Bianca had become not their full-time caretaker, but close enough. She assured Bianca that she'd keep an eye on the twins, so why not stretch her legs a little? Bianca did. She found the walkways around the club's grounds powerfully soothing and loved the young mom for it. The place's pine trees provided a cool shade that past year's anxieties seemed unable to penetrate. On subsequent strolls, she would start humming without realizing it.

Tennis Camp wasn't just tennis, staying true to what had been advertised. The children had swimming time on Wednesdays and Fridays, meals, a group game time in the common room and – the twins were only five, so they would be skipping that one – an overnight camping trip. The French coach was funny. He fooled around often and made the kids laugh. With the little mistakes peppered into his English, he made the moms laugh too. On Wednesday, he lined up the kids in front of the parents in the stands and simulated a military drill. He asked them questions about sun safety and gently pulled their hats down over their eyes if they didn't know the answer. Bianca felt her young mom-friend clenching up on her left, but she chuckled.

"At the end of camp, every kid will have to play a match against their mom," the coach said. "I'd start my yoga now if I were you." From that point on, he was easy to love.

The next day, Bianca shoved her wavy black hair into a swim cap and finally tried out the pool. In her black one-piece, she felt self-conscious over being the only solo swimmer, as the other occupants were either parents with kids or noisy teens playing ball. She found it less of an issue in the deeper end and made that her turf. She covered the length twice doing the breaststroke, then thought to hell with it and dived fully, soaking her hair. It would be frizzy all day after that, but the summer humidity had been pushing it there anyway. Between that and the walking, she began, with some guilt, to see tennis camp as a treat more for her own benefit than for the kids'.

The first time Bianca talked to Matthieu was over Leslie's attitude. He came to her discreetly during the first break to ask if Bianca knew what was up. Leslie didn't want to run, didn't want to play, and the one friend she'd made said she had given her the cold shoulder all day. Had she fought with her brother? Julian swore she hadn't. Leslie kept it up for the rest of the day, but Matthieu was gentle and didn't push. The next morning, Matthieu came up to Bianca during the same break with an answer.

"I don't think she's mad at Julian, or you," he theorized. "I think Julian's made so many friends, and he's loving every day, and he's having many, uh, fun times. I think she feels a little... ignoré?"

"She's jealous, you mean?"

"Yes!"

Bianca found out he was right on the money. She asked Natasha – her younger sister and the twins’ mother – for permission, canceled Julian's scheduled hangout with his next-door buddy, and took the two of them out for burgers and to the movies. The family time improved the chemistry between the twins, and her short talk with Leslie afterward sealed the deal.

Matthieu had mentally pinpointed Bianca as, "the pretty lady with the Italian face," placing her somewhere between her early forties and fifty. It was difficult to say with the sunglasses on, worn by all parents at all times.

He knew he was making a good impression on the whole group. He had been ending every single class with little talks with the parents, less about tennis and more about their kids' personal qualities. If he talked long enough, he managed to hit on exactly what either the parent or the kid was hoping to hear.

He somehow found himself having dinner at little Steve's hyper-posh apartment at the end of the second week. His dad, Mark, was a fellow Olympique de Marseille superfan, having lived for a number of years in Perpignan. He did have a better knowledge of the Saint-Germain’s current line-up, and Matthieu suspected his Olympique love had been a front to facilitate the invite. Mark was a VP for a multinational that imported lysine into Arizona. He and his wife were a hip young couple, brilliant conversationalists, religious but open-minded, and for whatever reason had found Matthieu impressive enough for an invite - which intimidated him. Once the subject of his being an engineer was broached, the conversation seemed to be headed somewhere fast. They asked when he was planning on returning home. He gave his same old line.

"My ticket's booked for August!"

Before the evening was over, Manuel had offered to connect Matthieu to acquaintances in Paris. Folks who might hire him for something. Matthieu put on a show of gratitude and of having every intention of pursuing the opportunity but left their apartment deflated and with a good deal of self-hatred.

.............................................

Rudy, Bianca's boyfriend, paid for dinner. She held his hand on the way to the mall's parking lot and said goodbye to his two grown daughters, who wished her a happy trip, as they wouldn't be seeing her for the rest of the month. In the car, she and Rudy discussed travel arrangements. He wouldn't be going on the Florida trip, but his problem-solving side, hyperactive to put it mildly, kicked in full gear regarding Bianca's choices of hotel and car rental company. He was critical of both and recommended his favorites. She could have let it turn into another small tiff, or reminded him that booking things for people is what she used to do for a living. But she chose not to, lied, and said she'd think of changing it.

She had met Rudy sometime around Christmas the previous year, a golfing buddy of her sister’s husband who showed interest early on. Natasha encouraged Bianca to go along with the flowers and the wine-tasting dates, and there was sweetness in her concern, as she felt her older sister had been single long enough. He was fifty-three, almost a full decade on Bianca's forty-four, but had charm to spare and seemed to have read all the books on what's expected of classy older gentlemen, possibly even written one himself. They saw very little of each other every month, as his company kept him flying back and forth between Phoenix and Salt Lake. Did she miss him? She did at times. The past couple of visits, however, had been dampened by the recent drama in her family. He could have supported her. Instead, he took their side and made himself into one more voice to fight against. She still resented him.

Right after getting dropped off at home, she got in her own car and headed straight to the club. These weren't Tennis Camp hours and she wasn't a member, but the guard saw no problem and let her right on in. With a few hours to go until the 8 PM closing time and the sky the color of peach, she changed into her one-piece, took a shower, and dove into the mostly-vacant pool. Her sister had the kids that night, so a pleasantly empty apartment awaited Bianca after this. She loved the idea of finishing her book in bed over a mug of tea while her skin still smelled of chlorine. As usual, her anxieties seemed to dissolve into the water.

"Hey!"

She looked up. The kids' tennis coach had a fresh-off-the-shower look. She guessed he had just finished using the pool himself.

"You're the twins' mom, correct?"

"Yeah. Uh, Daniel?" she asked.

"Matthieu!"

"Matthieu! French, right?"

"That's right."

"Where from?"

"Marseille," he said, pronouncing it as an English speaker would.

"Oooh," she said.

"Yeah. The Provence region. Do you know?"

"Is that close to Paris? Because that’s the one I know."

"No," he chuckled. "Not even a little."

By then, she had reached the edge of the pool. He sat down on a lounge chair. Without meaning to, they obligated one another to stay for a conversation.

"Do you come to the pool often?" she asked him.

"Oh, all the time. All the time. Half the pool's chlorine... spent only on me."

She laughed. "I've been coming almost every day. While the kids have their class. I can't tell you how much I'm loving it."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, it's extremely relaxing. I don't have a lot of access to pools, so I've appropriated this one completely. It makes me wish I could float on a buoy with a book in hand all day."

"Are Leslie and Julian here somewhere?" he asked.

"They're at home with their mom. It's just me right now."

"Their mom?"

"I'm not actually the kids' mom," she said on autopilot. "I'm their aunt."

"What?" he asked, outraged, and his look made her laugh again. She explained, selectively, the family history, yet another recurring script, although one that usually took longer to pop up in conversation. When Bianca was twenty-one, her dad remarried and had Natasha. When Natasha’s mom died just five years later, Bianca became a competent substitute. Then Natasha got pregnant at eighteen, right out of high school. She was currently twenty-three, and one year into a job as a photographer, which kept her passions burning but her schedule busy. Bianca was divorced and childless, so how could her help not be available?

She didn't mention Natasha's new husband. It would have ruined her mood.

Bianca had a gentle voice, a little hoarse, a little nasal, thick with patience, and naturally low-pitched, much like an introvert's. Her tone got sing-songy whenever she was her own topic for too long, a way of making it clear she didn't take herself too seriously. Her laughter was discreet, but it dragged out when strong, with little silences in between. Matthieu noticed the exact same graceful design of Mediterranean eyes the twins had and was surprised yet again to know there was a whole descendant between them. He asked her about their last name, which was Italian, and got to hear all about Italian immigration from Italy into Arizona in the late 1880s.

"I don't speak any Italian, no," she said. "It got lost in the generations. Maybe I should learn."

"I bet you it's easy."

"Did you feel learning English was easy?"

"I'll tell you when I learn it," Matthieu replied. He got that laugh again.

.............................................

In Phoenix, Matthieu got used to the smell and feeling of wearing layers of sunblock from head to toe, with particular care paid to the "behind" spots - knees and ears. He eventually began using a moisturizer gifted to him by his matronly landlord, who liked him for always being on time with rent. He had spent Christmas by himself but did take up an invitation to a New Year's Eve beach party at the Colorado Plateau to greet 1999. While the fireworks boomed overhead, he had pushed away scary questions of what the year had in store for him. On the previous one, he had done the same and good stuff had come. Maybe the key was expecting nothing.

Meanwhile, his self-imposed August deadline loomed ever closer. Then, after the morning class one Friday, he got summoned to the staff office. They were happy with him and felt a contract was due. No more getting paid by the hour. The workload would increase, as he'd be in charge of inventory and administrative planning, but for him, that was not an issue. The recent conversation with his father, that was. A lot had been said and Matthieu had come close to agreeing that it was time for him to head back home. With just one phone call, August had been made to feel like a tangible reality. And with just a signature, it turned into smoke again. He would have to worry about it again in exactly twelve months.

That afternoon, Bianca played with the kids in the club's pool. For Leslie's sake, who was still extra-possessive towards her brother, she made sure it was just the three of them. Natasha came through with her promise to join them for lunch and it was certainly nice to have her help with the kids at the table. Natasha was more snappy and hadn't yet mastered the little tricks for how to get them to sit up straight or eat the veggies that came with the burgers. But when she committed to spending the afternoon with them, Bianca did a good job of hiding her joy. She waved them goodbye in the parking lot, then swam from 4 to 6 PM, to the point where the water felt heated and the air freezing. She read a People magazine with her arms folded over the pool deck, further accumulating sun freckles on her shoulders and back. She had a virgin daiquiri and ate the fruit.

As she pulled her car out of the parking lot, hair still wet from the shower, she saw Matthieu lugging his heavy tennis bag. Her mind being cleared and light as it was, saying hi felt like the thing to do. He returned the greeting with a wide smile.

"That looks heavy," she said. "Do you carry that all the way to the bus stop?"

"Ehm," he said, hoisting it with one arm as he pondered.

"Where are you headed?" she asked.

"Litchfield."

"I'm headed to the market, that's on the way for me. I can take you no problem."

Matthieu considered it for a beat, then threw his bag into the back and took the passenger's seat. He made no mention of the fact that he actually never took the bus home and had just been steps away from his bike when she stopped to talk to him. He would have to leave it at the club overnight and come to work the next morning by bus.

"Can I slide the seat backward?" he asked. "I look like I'm riding a Devalkart. Do you have Devalkarts here?"

True to habit, Matthieu started the chatter early, feeling the best way to earn his spot in the car was to kill all lulls. He asked about Julian's nosebleeds, of which he had seen two. Bianca told him he had always been the frailer one. He got them at school on occasion, although the first one to panic was always his sister.

"You're a nurse, correct?" Matthieu asked.

"Nurse? No. Why?"

"I thought so because of your shoes. A nurse I knew had the exact same model."

"Funny you should ask," Bianca said. "I did get them when I was helping a nurse friend of mine do some shopping. That's a good eye." She turned right at Camelback Road and shifted to third gear. "I'm actually a manager at a supermarket."

"What? No way."

"Yeah."

"I never would've guessed."

"Because I look more like a nurse, you say."

"Oh, you look like a manager too," Matthieu said cheerfully. "I just had the sun in my eyes."

"I worked as a secretary for years. Many, many years, for the assistant manager."

"And you learned the job that way."

"Exactly. Then he got promoted..."

"... and you got his job," Matthieu finished. He was a good audience.

"Correct," she said with a wistful smile. "Then last year I got the manager job."

"That's amazing," he said. "The American Dream. The Arizona Dream?" His next question was inevitable. "So you're on vacation now?"

"No. I'm in the process of quitting the job." Lying was never the first option for her, even when tempting. "We're moving to Vegas, me and my sister’s family. By the time the school year starts. But before that, my sister’s husband is taking us to Orlando, so the kids can enjoy the parks and all that."

"Oh," he replied. Then, "Do you have the option to transfer to the same supermarket chain over in Vegas?"

"No," she answered. "Even if I did, I'm going to be helping my sister more. With the kids. You see how it is for her... they keep her very busy at work. And she's living her dream, she's doing a lot of the things she's always wanted to do, meeting all the right people. She needs the help."

"So that's the plan."

"That's the plan."

Matthieu caressed his sunburnt knees for a moment. The first real lull of the ride.

"While you were secretary," he finally asked, "did you ever feel you could do your bosses' jobs better than them?"

"No comment," she said after laughing. "But I'll write my book about it one day."

"I would read that."

.............................................

Bianca had asked Natasha for two days of alone time so she could get ahead on packing. She did most of it on Day One. Small as her apartment was, she had made it a point over the years to fill up the walls with family pictures and affordable art. It was sad now to see them bare. Day Two was being used to arrange the boxes in order of fragility, when her phone rang. It was Natasha. In choked tones, she told him that Julian had fainted during pool time at Tennis Camp. Bianca was at the clinic in under thirty minutes, pampering a perfectly OK Julian, who had simply suffered heatstroke. She did feel an MRI was due, as the kid had hit his head on the way down. Phillip, Natasha's husband, arrived soon thereafter.

The Radiology Room allowed only parents as company, so Bianca headed down to the cafeteria, ready for the long evening ahead. She'd be going home with them after this to spend the night. As she took the first sip of her espresso, someone made her look up. It was Matthieu, in his red clay-stained tennis shorts and wide stubbled smile, having come straight from the club. He had seen her walk past the lobby and followed her into the cafeteria, eager to hear about Julian. Bianca offered him the seat to her left.

.............................................

Bianca reminded Matthieu of a classic Greek or Roman painting, something out of a vase or a fresco. Eyebrows were drawn like an elegant brushstroke, thick and perfectly horizontal, before splitting downwards into wing-like spikes towards the sides; heart-shaped lips flanked by puffy cheeks and smile lines; wavy black hair down to the base of her neck. Her skin was the color of peanuts. There were curves under her swimsuit, uneven around the waist and hips, and a heavy bosom that she tried to hide by slouching on the short walk from the lounge chair to the pool.

They were swimming together. On Thursdays, the pool crowds usually cleared out right after lunch. Two older women dipped their feet while they watched over a kid playing in the shallow end. A middle-aged gentleman splashed around, noisily focused on doing laps. Jackson the caretaker fished out leaves. The next day was pool day for the army of Tennis Camp kids, usually set to constant yelling by Matthieu and his fellow coaches to keep the younger ones on the safe side of the rope. The day prior was the calm before the storm.

For several minutes, Bianca and Matthieu talked only casually about Phoenix, France, and the rules of soccer vs. American Football, all the while gravitating towards and away from each other in the water, like balls on a pool table. Whether they meant it that way or not, it worked as a palate cleanser. On the day of Julian's incident, the talk in the hospital cafeteria had stretched out for over an hour. As a way of repaying Matthieu his interest in her supermarket career, she displayed genuine interest in his, not knowing that his mess had been private for a long while by that point and that unwrapping it for others to watch was deeply counterintuitive. Bianca poked and prodded skillfully. When he talked about choosing Water Resource Engineering as his career, she asked why. When he told her about the "dream job" that he'd had for years, she asked to hear about it.

In truth, Matthieu had been fired. He had worked for four years at a company in charge of channel improvement at Marseille’s Huveaune River. It was an outdoor roughneck job that seemed to be teaching him everything vital about sliding into adulthood. In return, he had given it his all, aiming for a management job early on. Through a friend of a friend, he met Lea. Within months they were living together, all very grown up. Only months later, however, he got the boot, courtesy of the project’s new leadership. There was never a sit-down, just a letter, and he was left to speculate as to the reason for dismissal. It might have been a lack of kissing up. Or they might have gotten wind of the fact that he had interviewed elsewhere. Or simply, and flatly, performance. He had never asked; therefore, he would never know. He hadn't imagined just how much worse that would make it during the years after. In his attempt at Life, he had made the leap, missed, and fallen hard. The paralysis had yet to lift.

Bianca seemed to put two and two together regarding the Lea heartbreak. In turn, when it was his turn to be nosy, Matthieu didn't ask about Bianca’s ex. He still got more than he expected. Bianca told him she was a recovering alcoholic, sober for eight years since her last and only relapse. It was the kind of information that seemed to lift a veil off a person, adjusting their colors and details in an eyeblink. Without offering every detail herself, it became evident to Matthieu just how much of her life had needed to be rebuilt from scratch. Initially, Matthieu had felt unworthy of her story. But Bianca, in all her modesty and softness and low-key approach to everything she said and did, was fiercely proud of it all.

Then she touched on her imminent departure from Flagstaff and her voice raised an octave. She didn't want to go, no. She had just gotten the job of a lifetime a year prior, how could she? She was going because Natasha had asked her to. Begged her to. That came in large part, Bianca knew, from Natasha's husband, who had somehow convinced Natasha that her sister would suffer another relapse if left alone. It had triggered a bitter argument, made all the more suffocating by seeing Rudy add his voice to their case. Maybe her brother-in-law didn't want to bother finding a full-time nanny. Maybe he just wanted his wife happy and working unencumbered. Maybe his fears were genuine, even if idiotic. In any case, he and Natasha were getting what they wanted. Bianca had quit her job and was headed up to Vegas with them.

In the water, however, none of it seemed to matter much.

"I hate six o'clock, it's when the cold starts," Bianca said, holding onto the edge of the pool to rearrange her swimming cap. The sun had mostly disappeared on the horizon, even if there was still daylight for another hour. "It makes me a little sad. Makes me think I should have come earlier."

"There's always tomorrow," said Matthieu, doing a backstroke. "Although I don't recommend it. Not after forty little kids have used it."

"Oh, let them. They look forward to pool-time all week."

"Good thing you don't mind sharing."

"I don't," she laughed.

The red in Matthieu's chlorine-affected eyes somehow made the green in them shine brighter. He had a pleasant suntanned face, stuck in a semi-permanent superhero smile of big white teeth and a sharp chin covered in stubble. It hid so much so well, Bianca thought. He had stopped by the pool for a quick hello during her swim and she had suggested that he jump in, not really expecting him to want to. There was too much self-consciousness attached to having a pool companion and she initially counted this one as a "lost" afternoon in the relaxation department. But as she heard him share enthusiastically about X, Y, and Z and she became endeared to him all over again, she was reminded that there was a lot she had left unasked during their talk at the clinic. A lot she felt she could recommend. She wasn't going to bring it up at the pool, but what she had noticed about Matthieu was that he had a lot to share and that he needed to. He was only waiting to be asked.

Matthieu leaped out of the pool and sat on the edge, creating a big puddle.

"Is it cold out there?" Bianca asked.

"Hmm, I'll wait three seconds and see." He thrust a hairy chest outwards. "One, two, three. Oof. Very."

"I really don't want to get out," she said dramatically, dipping herself back in up to her ears.

"I don't either," said Matthieu. "But I'm doing it in stages. I've wanted to go to the bathroom for an hour now. I've been holding it in just to stay warm."

She laughed hard as she spun around slowly, creating delicious watery murmurs with her elbows. Matthieu leaned back on his arms, his bent knee protruding outwards. They stayed silent for a moment.

"All that the twins talk about is Disneyworld," Bianca said, joining Matthieu on the edge. She folded her arms on the stone and rested her face on them as if taking a nap, sun freckles covering her arms and shoulders from elbow to elbow. "I'm hoping they don't panic on the plane. It's their first time flying."

"When is it you're leaving?" he asked.

"Monday after next. Natasha, the twins, and me."

"Not her husband?"

"No. Just us four." They would return to Flagstaff only briefly before heading down to Vegas. The upcoming week was set to be the twins' last in Tennis Camp.

"Ok, bathroom time," Matthieu said, getting to his feet. "When you've gotta go, you've gotta go."

"Good!" said Bianca. "It's not OK what you're doing! Hurting your bladder."

"By the way," Matthieu began, throwing the towel around his neck, "how long are you staying in Phoenix after you come back from Orlando?"

"Not long. Two days, I think..."

"Then would you like to have dinner with me before you leave?"

"Oh. Yeah, sure."

"I'm thinking next Thursday? I assume Friday is a peu heavy, it seems like a family night. And I have to do inventory." He removed his swim cap and began drying off his short hair. "But I'll wait for you to tell me what works best."

"I think Thursday's fine."

"Perfect! And don't worry, it's my treat."

.............................................

On Wednesday evening, Bianca made pizza with the kids. She used the next morning to take them shopping for clothes for the trip, as Natasha had asked. It was all conducted on autopilot, as her mind was elsewhere. She had been turning Matthieu's invitation around in her head like a Tetris piece, testing the many ways in which it could fit. Having no one to discuss it with, she was stuck with her own conclusions.

Once enough t-shirts and shorts were bought and bagged, she stopped by Zara and got herself a loose denim shirt to wear that night. She would be matching it with dark jeans and a grey top. Plain colors for what she envisioned as a short evening. She got them some lunch at the mall's food court, dropped them off at Natasha's afterward, and headed home to get ready.

She saw the evening ahead as a message that had to be sent gently, in doses. Matthieu had to have seen or heard enough to make him think she was open for invites, and she had to acknowledge her role in feeding that fire, however unintentionally. She hadn't felt, at the pool, that he deserved a flat no. During the week, however, she strongly considered making an explanatory call. The alarmist thoughts piled up in her head to the point where she had to consciously kick them out. Then she decided to postpone all thinking and make it a Thursday problem.

Matthieu arrived at the restaurant at 6:30, half an hour ahead of the date, in dress shoes, pressed jeans, and a navy blue shirt, worried only about his chosen amounts of cologne. If pressed, he would have told Bianca that he wasn't expecting the world. He came from a habit of expressing interest without high stakes, like a kid making friends at the playground. No's had stopped hurting some time around high school. He would admit that he could guess younger men might not be her thing, but that he did want more. Maybe talk a little more, get to know her more before she left. He would say he wished he had asked earlier in the summer. The truth was, he liked her a good deal more than he planned to reveal. He wanted a chance to tell her she looked like an amalgam of all the Italian movie bombshells from the 1960s and that he hoped to be able to see more of her even after she moved to Vegas.

Come seven, Bianca still hadn't arrived. Seven fifteen came and went and he thought nothing of it, killing time by playing Snake on his cellphone. By quarter to eight he had broken his record, yet still no sign of Bianca. He had her home number, so he called once. No answer. He left at eight-fifteen.

.............................................

On Thursday afternoon, Bianca arrived home from the mall ready to cancel on Matthieu, having made the decision in the car. She would make it up to him by buying him lunch at the club - an appropriate send-off for the young coach with the scarred past and the heart of gold. They would talk and she would get to dish out the life advice she had been sitting on.

Her phone started ringing just as she opened the front door, so she never got to make the call. It was Liliana from the supermarket, telling her the payroll system had crashed. Bianca had hoped to hear that her help was wanted much earlier than this. She went happily.

When she reached the supermarket's office on the second landing, all the lights were off. A second later, they came back on just as a small crowd of employees startled her with a chorus of "Surprise!" Having to say hi to all the old faces kept Bianca busy and masked her urge to cry.

They were hours away from closing, but her old employees rotated themselves out so everyone could get a little cake and a goodbye hug. Even before leaving her apartment, Bianca had tried calling Matthieu's number several times, and she kept doing so at the party, but there was no answer. It occurred to her that she might have made a mistake in transferring the number from her hand, where Matthieu had written it, into her book: nines that looked like fours, threes that looked like fives. Then Berta came for a chat, and everything else took a backseat. The topics pinballed around fast - from the twins to Natasha to Vegas - and Bianca knew where it would land because they'd had this conversation before. This time around, it all packed a different punch. "Why? Why are you leaving?" At that point, the only honest answer was that she had already said she would.

She left the party with a smile on her face, but a feigned one, knowing that she was tearing herself away from a place where she happily belonged. As she pulled out of her parking spot, she wondered how long it would be, once they all moved to Vegas, until a decision felt entirely her own again.

On Friday morning, she arrived with the twins at the club earlier than usual, hoping to talk to Matthieu before he got swimming day going. She found him right away by the pool with an armload of styrofoam noodles. He gave her the same old huge smile when he saw her, not a microsecond of delay. Bianca explained how things had played out on her end. Matthieu nodded along to the details. Then Bianca brought up lunch. Would he want to, after coaching? He answered that he had inventory to do and he usually worked right through lunch on Fridays to get it all done before six. She laid a genuinely apologetic hand on his shoulder. "Schedules just don't match sometimes," he said. She agreed, and they smiled at each other before heading back to their respective spots. It was all very quick and courteous.

Bianca didn't swim that morning, despite wearing her bathing suit underneath. She walked to the club's restaurant and, while the twins did their pool games with Matthieu, she began writing him a letter. Just like the ones her aunt would write to her during her marriage, packed with trauma, then again during rehab. Subconsciously, she even employed the same structure. She was flattering. She added bits of personal experience where she could fit them. She looked for spots where she could fit the terms "promising" and "potential". It was all sincere and surprisingly easy. She was done with it by noon.

She went back to the lounge chair area, currently stuffed with parents, and waited for the swimming to be over. The letter in her hands, folded elegantly into its own envelope, excited her. She hoped strongly, as she watched Matthieu merrily direct a Waterpolo game, that she had said the right things, even through the condescension. She hoped her words did him good.

As usual, the swarm of wet kids invaded the lounge chairs the second they were dismissed. Leslie and Julian stayed in the water with friends while Matthieu went up to the lawn to have a word with a parent. As soon as he was free, Bianca beckoned him closer.

"Hi," he said, happily soaked, his towel around his neck.

"Hi," she said, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. "A good lesson?"

"A really good one. They made me work out for real. I'm sorry, am I dripping on you?"

"Oh, you're fine. The kids are gonna splash all over me anyway."

"They were really great today," he said, drying his face. "Did you see Leslie, finally playing with everyone? I'm really gonna miss them."

"You've been incredible with them, I guarantee it's reciprocal." She got to her feet, her heart beating fast. "I wanted to apologize again for yesterday. And to give you this."

She extended him the letter. Matthieu did a strange thing. Smiling widely still, he kept his eyes on her face, never looking down at the letter. His head tilted sideways as if studying her. Strong flirting vibes. She laughed at that.

"A little goodbye message," she added, explanatorily. "Matthieu, I think you have enormous potential. And you're going to find success, whether it's..."

He held her hand with cold wet fingers and gently pushed the letter back towards her.

"I really want to read that," he said firmly. She hadn't heard that from him before. "I really want to. But I'm going to the storage room now. I would like to read it there."

She smiled at what she thought was a joke.

"I'm going to the storage room," he repeated seriously. "And I want you to give it to me there."

Bianca stood on the spot for a long moment after he walked away. Leslie and Julian snapped her out of her trance. They came over with another set of siblings their age, Danny and Sarah, begging to be allowed to have lunch with them. Becky, their mom, joined in on the begging. She and Bianca had had good talks on the stands and Bianca vaguely remembered them talking about doing lunch together some time.

It was on the doorstep of the restaurant that Bianca stopped in her tracks. She had suddenly remembered, she told Becky, that she had to discuss the reimbursement for a deposit with Front Desk. "The twins won't be partaking in next week's barbecue, you see, because we're leaving for Florida on Monday."

"No trouble at all," Rebeca said, "I'll eat with all the littles and you'll join us when you're done."

Bianca asked once, twice, three times if she was sure, then thanked her profusely.

Maybe she was actually headed to the Front Desk, she thought hazily, as her body felt like it was operating with a dissonance among its parts. She then found out, as she walked past the entrance, that no, she wouldn't be doing that. She kept going straight and made a left.

The storage room was a windowless wooden cabin on the side of a gravel walkway, located between the Front Desk building and a small orchard strewn with stray tennis balls. Bianca had only ever walked past it. She stood in front of the door for a long moment, half-wishing to be interrupted by a passerby. Her heart thumped like tribal drums in her chest.

She knocked softly with her middle finger. The floorboards creaked loudly under the footsteps inside. The door opened and Bianca disappeared through it just as someone turned the corner into the gravel walkway. It was the passerby she had wished for, just one second too late.

Matthieu closed the door behind her. The room, small, cramped, and lined by piles of sports equipment on every wall, was lit only by an energy-smart white light on the ceiling. To the right, there was a desk, sprinkled with red clay and covered with notebooks and spreadsheets, an inventory in progress.

He was still in his swimming trunks, bare-chested and wet. As soon as the door closed, rather than fully stepping into the room, Bianca had simply moved sideways, her back lined up against the wall. She wasn't sure of what was wanted of her. She wasn't sure whether to speak. Submerged in half-certainties as she was, she forgot all about the letter.

The distance between them kept closing in small increments. Lit up from the back by the white light, Matthieu had become a silhouette. She was hearing her own breathing growing more tremulous by the second, and she knew he could too. In a flash of understanding, she realized he enjoyed the sound. He stayed close for a long beat, his face on her level, offering himself to her. That was his move, now she had to make hers. He gave her time. With adrenaline coursing through her like she was about to parachute-jump, or something even more insane, she leaned forward, and the first kiss was hers.

It was all it took for Matthieu to leap in fully. Her bag slipped off her shoulder as she was pushed against the wall and she felt his hands on her face, his breath on her mouth, his stubble all over. Bianca's belly started shaking violently as if she had been doused in cold water, and she found herself capable of little else besides closing her eyes. The ideas were going to have to be all his. She felt his wet face traveling to her neck, his cold fingers gripping the flesh on her arms. His sucking and kissing of her neck became vampiresque and a heavy gasp escaped from her throat.

When he got to her lips again, Bianca was ready. She welcomed him with a fully open mouth in a lock that drew soft moans from both of them and that kept refusing to break up. They filled the room with the sounds of kissing and heavy breathing. He punctuated one with the first ass grab through her white shorts, sliding them all the way up to the edge of her buttocks, but abandoned it quickly in favor of her waist, as if simply testing her limits. There was little else to test, though. Bianca was allowing his tongue into her mouth. She had let him remove her denim shirt, bought the day before for the date she'd had to miss, and had welcomed the eager squeezing of her left breast as he sucked on her neck again. She allowed herself to feel his meaty arms, his shoulders, his back, cold and sleek from the pool and the room's building heat.

After a stretch of crazed, breathless touching, they broke apart. The initiative might have been Matthieu's, for pacing purposes, or Bianca's, out of self-awareness. Matthieu kept himself leaning over her, one hand set on the wall right above her. She laughed softly, catching her breath. What else was there to say? Maybe they had gone far enough. Cars had brakes for a reason.

But when Matthieu made his next move, there was no protest. He coaxed her to turn around and pressed himself up against her back. She simply looked downwards, watching as his hands traveled up her belly and hungrily seized her 36D breasts through her orange top and the swimsuit underneath. Her arm reached back and she ran her fingers through his short hair. Self-consciousness, insecurities, the awareness of bodily imperfections that grew keener by the year - it all seemed to disintegrate under the power of Matthieu's fascination with her body. The hand on which he wore his watch slid down her lower belly and invaded the triangle between her legs, squeezing gently through her shorts. Without feeling it herself, she knew how warm it was. His three fingers and palm found the right area and pinched it once. Then again, and again. Despite the two layers in between, it wouldn't surprise her if she was soaked through.

He spun her around again and the kissing resumed, interrupted only by his swift removal of Bianca's top, unveiling the ample cleavage behind her one-piece that she had seen him eyeing in the pool. As she dropped her arms back down, she had them land around his neck like he was a boyfriend and she was twenty years younger, like she was someone else, doing the things only other people did. She caressed the back of Matthieu's head, enjoying every bit of the taste of his tongue on hers. Warm lips sliding wetly. She found herself being guided and placed on top of the desk, her butt wrinkling the pages of Matthieu's inventory papers. Laughing with her, he slid them out from under her and chucked them unceremoniously onto a rolled-up tennis net in the corner. She leaned backward on the desk as he flexed her legs up, setting her feet on the edge. Once again, her belly shook frantically as she watched him unbutton her shorts, now stained copiously with red clay dirt. He pulled them off through her feet. She was down to her black swimsuit now, feeling exposed and an inch away from ridiculous. There were still instants when she could see herself in the way that others would. It was so tenuous, this bubble.

Matthieu seemed transfixed. He was better lit from this angle and she could see all of him. "Mon Dieu," he whispered, talking to himself. "Mon Dieu, tu es parfait." He slid his hands up and down Bianca's opulent thighs all the way to her hips, kneading every inch of flesh he could. He could see her trembling but stop he did not. Frantic, he sat on a dusty swivel chair, leaned in, and, inches away from her crotch, breathed in deeply, eyes shut. He covered the remaining distance slowly and landed his nose right over the area, warm and wet as it was. It sent an electrical shock through Bianca, who threw her head backward and made her hips leap. Matthieu stayed there, which sent Bianca into a state of hyperventilation. It was foreign, invasive, and unbearably tickly, bordering on torture, but not quite. Without meaning to, her breathing turned into a strange mix of panting, wincing, and almost laughing. Placing her hand on his head came almost out of necessity, as a way of feeling she had some control over the feeling. She felt Matthieu's mouth spread wide open, like a famished man finally ending his fast. She felt, through the polyester, the heavy strokes of his tongue caressing her labia underneath. He brought the tip straight to the clitoris, drawing firm circles, and for a moment, Bianca had to imagine Matthieu with other women, as this was something he knew how to do. Women his age. No. She pushed the thought away.

Before long, she was pressing Matthieu's face up against herself with definite firmness as she kept thrusting her hips upward, contributing to the friction against his mouth. A distant part of her brain registered the crunching and voices of new people walking past the storage room, but she was unable to care. When again she looked down, she saw Matthieu trying to move the swimsuit aside so as to allow himself access unimpeded. It was tight, though. He yanked it up tightly, causing it to wedge into her lips. When he saw the effect this had on her, he yanked repeatedly. She would have orgasmed with that alone. But he got to his feet and, in an eyeblink, produced a pair of scissors, its blades peppered with old pieces of scotch tape. Three cuts later, the crotch section snapped upwards, like an unfastened strap. She chuckled breathlessly at the stupidity of it all, and the smile stayed on her face as she saw Matthieu burying his nose into her pubic hair. In her whimpering and panting, she heard sounds she couldn't remember ever hearing herself make, and the louder she allowed herself to get, the more aroused she became. Her first loud, unrestrained moan didn't take long to hit. Matthieu licked and sucked and nibbled her into a frenzy that was, quite simply, new.

Then it stopped. Matthieu advanced his mouth along her belly and toward her breasts. He groped one and got to sucking on the other through the swimsuit, before moving up to kiss the summer freckles on her chest. He was crazed, clumsy, desperate. Bianca wrapped her arms around his neck and let him lift her into an upright sitting position, her legs spread on both sides of him. In breathless tones, his hand on her face and his thumb drawing a line on her bottom lip, he said, in French, that he really wanted to fuck her. Again, she let her hands wander firmly over his arms, from wrists to shoulders. Over his jaw, over his chest. The hairy chest that had made her so uncomfortable at the pool. He smelled of chlorine and sweat and menthol, and seemed to be radiating copious amounts of heat, as the air hitting her back felt distinctly cooler. Down below, his erection was poking out shamelessly through his swimming trunks. She pulled them down herself. His cock bounced back up instantly, so hard it was pointing straight up, emanating a faint aroma that made her salivate. It was thicker than she expected, its veins inviting to the touch. She began stroking, her heart thumping in her ears.

"I don't have a condom," Matthieu admitted.

She whispered her indifference toward the fact. For some reason, she didn't want to hear her own voice. She granted permission with a shy kiss on his chin and, to steel herself, placed her hands on his upper back as he closed the short remaining distance between the two bodies. She knew it would hurt. The tip of his cock pressed against her entrance and about half of his length made its way in much faster than expected. She let out a gasp, her brow furrowed. After a short wait, more slowly this time, he slid the rest. She clenched her legs around him to keep herself from crying out.

Matthieu gave his own tortured moan. He withdrew and moved back in softly, out of consideration as much as necessary, as he was too close to cumming. Sticking to slowness as the rule of thumb, after every few superficial thrusts he would shove it all the way to the base, drawing loaded gasps from her. She was so wet that the work did itself. He kept his eyes on her face, using her expression as a gauge, and as soon as it felt right, his thrusting turned hard. To his delight, she clenched her legs even tighter. Her moans turned longer, showing off fascinating variations in her voice that would have never been heard otherwise. The fleshy sounds of each thrust got loud, enough for him to worry. But no decisions were coming from that part of his brain. With his hands holding tightly onto her thighs, he began fucking her hard, making the desk slide across the floor in small increments. He felt her nails stabbing his back and the moisture of her mouth on his shoulder.

With his hips on fire, he finally got her where he wanted. Bianca's orgasm reached her with her face pointed upwards; she froze for two seconds of complete silence before exploding into a moan that no doubt could be heard all the way to the orchard. It washed through her in a long wave, holding out in full blast as he kept thrusting into her, harder than ever. On the verge of cumming, Matthieu pulled her off the desk and onto her feet, laying a desperate kiss on her even as she tried to catch her breath. They panted into each other's mouths while he squeezed her ass to his heart's content.

Without skipping a beat, Matthieu turned Bianca around, slid the straps of her swimsuit down her shoulders, and peeled the chest portion off. He squeezed on her bare breasts hungrily, whispering into her ear all about wanting to kiss each and every freckle on her back. Bianca let herself be bent over the desk and spread her legs apart. She was virtually naked now, with only the last vestiges of her swimsuit crumpled around her waist. To Matthieu, it was a powerful picture, made more so by her looking back at him. Her bulbous ass, with a natural, graceful sag, was whiter than the rest of her. The hourglass-shaped back, with slight rolls on the sides. She looked delicious. After laying a kiss on her back, Matthieu took his cock and slid it back in. This was his home stretch. Gripping tightly onto her hips, he leaned back and threw all care to the wind. Plaff, plaff, plaff, plaff, plaff. Each new thrust made her ass ripple vigorously. He was making her moan again. An intense joy invaded him even before the orgasm hit, stretching far beyond the sex being had in his shaggy little storage room. It was the thought of being able to do this again, soon enough, maybe for the rest of the summer, maybe longer.

Half his load shot off inside of her, the rest was squirted onto her buttocks, swimsuit, and back as he pulled out. He collapsed on her back as he kept stroking himself to the last drop. She reached back and brought his face into contact with hers. It was a tender gesture, meant to acknowledge all the effort made. They stayed that way for a good long while. He, kissing her shoulders; she, enjoying his weight. Meanwhile, his cum trickled out of her and down her legs, turning cold.

She didn't remember arriving back at the restaurant. Sitting across from the twins, her breathing ragged still, the sense of dissonance prevailed, as she wasn't so much talking as hearing herself talk. They were begging for permission to have a sleepover at Danny and Sarah. Bianca said they couldn't because they had to get their vaccines for the trip early in the morning. Julian started getting droopy and Bianca resorted to tried and tested tricks. "Danny and Sarah are going to see you cry... are you sure you want that?" A little bit of shame always worked. On their way to the parking lot, she promised the twins a movie night after their baths. Before leaving, she hugged Becky goodbye, who said she wished them a good trip, and wouldn't it have been nice to get to know each other better?

.............................................

Matthieu spent the following week relearning discipline. He couldn't get rid of his hopes, but he tried hard to keep them in check. Throughout the week, he did his job happily, feeling Bianca's presence on the stands still. All the while remembering that a car ride from Phoenix to Vegas took only five hours. He left her letter unread and saved it for later, feeling that there was a perfect time to open it, and it wasn't just yet.

He called her on Wednesday, the day before he knew she was set to leave for Vegas. She was happy to hear from him. They covered many things, and sweetness and maturity remained their tone of choice all the way through. But by the end of it, she had left it fairly clear that they wouldn't be seeing more of each other. He said hi to the twins, who asked to be put on when they were told it was him on the phone. He got to hear all about Universal Orlando and then some.

The rest of 1999 brought much more with it, whether welcome or not. The club's participation in the Challenger tournament. October smacked him with a chickenpox diagnosis, as he had never had it as a kid. In November, his brother came to visit with his girlfriend. Together, they ventured out to the epic Antelope Canyon. It was there, while laying in a tent in the desert, that the realization hit: the orange was finally dry. Matthieu kept his head down and worked all through the rest of his contract, but long before the end of the year, there was a plane ticket back to France with his name on it. It was time to stop running.

Matthieu and Bianca found each other again in 2005. She looked him up on Hi5 and reached out. He browsed through her pictures while they chatted and was glad to see she had her own business and looked happy. She did the same on her own end and had to ask whether the two kids in several photos were his. She was thrilled with the answer. At one point Bianca asked if he had ever read her letter. He laughed it off and said he had lost it in the move, but whether it was the truth or wounded pride, she thought to herself that maybe there had been no need.