His eyes wade through the small sunlit establishment of porch tables and gathered legs, soaked in the oils of tanning or the thick, mechanical-smelling pastes to block the sun. His hand shades his eyes. A brisk collar, well- ironed and cut to the wind, over a neckbone under tightening skin. Slack, dry-swallowing movement of his throat betrays a nervousness.

I? I am in the rear of the restaurant, looking out from the darkness of the massive awning to try to spot his eyes. His ageless eyes. (Across the parking lot where they put the Mercedes BMW and not yet Lexus, there is an old house that everyone wonders about when will she sell when she has to go into a retirement home, and after that some undeveloped land, a giant old house that belongs to the school, and then an empty field behind a row of apartments and an art supply store. It's tucked between two parking lots, an alley, some older homes, and a new modernist building that has no windows in the back, so no one really knows this space is there.)

The pool reaches from the bar to the far end of the pool, a concrete rim of horizon. Water buckles, crumbles, rushes as a living surface to the school of gestures that is the pool, waters rushing like hands at conversation or fading smiles.