Near Love Stories
by J. B. Hogan

"Damn it," she said, surprised by her own rare swearing. He didn't seem to hear or at least didn't look over. She leaned back in the chair and hid her face with a beach towel. It felt dark and simple under there and that fit her mood perfectly.

*    *    *

That evening, sunburned and sober, he was himself again. Solicitous, kind, funny. She hugged him tightly when they entered the hotel restaurant and he made a production of getting her seated. To her amusement, he ordered their meals in Spanish and carried on happily with the restaurant help. She watched him, her eyes crinkled from the smile that he said made her the prettiest woman he'd ever seen and that in his typical, fanciful writer's way always told her would melt the heart of the hardest man on earth.

In his extravagance, he spilled water on the white peasant pants he'd bought that afternoon and she laughed out loud at the stain that made him look like he'd peed his pants. He laughed to see her laugh and they had kissed across the table and smiled at each other a lot over their plates of rice and enchiladas. He had just ordered them dessert when the long distance call came.

"Who in the world could that be?" she said, seeing the curtain of self protection drop over and dull the sparkle that had returned to his eyes. "I didn't think anybody knew where we were."

"It's probably your mother," he said tonelessly. She tried to laugh but could only hurry away from the table without looking at him. The phone was at the hotel lobby desk and she took it from the clerk without a word. It was her manager.

"No, Harry," she said, turning away from the overly attentive clerk who shrugged his shoulders and pretended to busy himself with non-existent mail. "I told you no before we left." The clerk turned back to the counter and began drumming a pencil on the desktop but stopped when she turned a withering look on him. He smiled sheepishly and tossed the pencil down. She continued her end of the conversation.

"The difference," she was saying, "is that the record company doesn't care about me, Harry, just the money I make for them - yes, he does - I know you do, too - How can I come back right now - Why? - They could get someone else - all right, all right."

The clerk, who found the young gringa very pretty, had backed away from the desk at the sound of her rising voice as she spoke into the telephone. He watched her talk some more, argue it seemed, then look very sad and after a few moments more she hung up the phone. The clerk was quick with the key to her and the older señor's room. When she took the key from him he was surprised to see such unhappiness in the eyes of a woman so young and so pretty. He was about to say something to her but she took the key from him and instead of going up to her room as the clerk had anticipated she went back to the restaurant.

She only had to step a few feet inside the restaurant to see that he was gone. It did not surprise her and she did not know if she was sad about him being gone or not. A waiter signaled towards a back door that led to the beach but she just shook her head. For a couple of moments she stood where she was, looking at their table with the nearly empty plates and half-filled glasses, and then she turned and walked out of the room. She didn't look back.