Ray walked onto the porch with another two bottles and handed her one.
Ray said, "Well, too, the thing with my wife is that when all that happened I wasn't real proud of how I behaved, you know? I went nuts."
Renee said, "Well, I bet! Can't blame you for that."
He said, "No, well, it was really not cool, some of the stuff I pulled. Not cool at all. I finally had to take a look at myself and really ask myself what kind of man I really am, pulling wacky shit and getting all obsessive. It wasn't cool at all, and I'm still not proud of any of it. So I sucked it up and stayed."
She played with her hair, raising her arm and showing off a fine breast in the black top. "Is that really fair? It seems unfair, that your wife did something, and you decided not to end it, but you haven't done anything? What does she think?"
He made a wry smile. "Actually, she told me once I should get a girlfriend. 'It'd be good for you', she said. I couldn't believe it."
Renee dropped her arm. "That's CRAZY!"
He shrugged, again, and made a short sighing noise. "The world is full of crazy people."
They stood together, watching the seventy-three year veteran pluck flower buds.
Renee said, "You know, I don't see you guys do much together. You don't seem to go out, like, get dressed up and stuff."
Ray said, "No, not really. We don't socialize much together. I mean, the home life is fine, but it's more about our daughter at this point." He looked out over the empty, scorching street. "Yeah. Well, like, today, she's at school, and she'll go out with friends, and probably won't be back until tomorrow morning."
The two of them, Ray and his neighbor, stood silently for quite a while. Then, Renee said, "You should totally do something with someone else."
Ray said, "Yeah, probably, it would be good for me. But-" he laughed- "all our friends are married. And it's really, really hard for a married guy to do things outside a marriage without seeming like a total dirtbag. And I don't like that idea, of seeming like a dirtbag who cheats on his wife." He took a pull of the beer bottle and leaned against the wall. "We've been 14 years, now." He gestured at Mrs. Lambino with the bottle's neck. "That's where I'll be, fifty years from now, if I live that long. You watch."
Renee faced him squarely, bottle held at waist height in front of him. "You should totally, totally do something. With someone." She waited for a long time.
"How about me?"
He almost dropped his beer. After an initial speechless period, he managed to croak out a very inarticulate "Huh?" He thought, fantasies are one thing, the real deal being something else altogether.
She continued. "You should fuck me. We should totally do it. Let's do it."
He came close to falling over, blinked several times, then said, "Okay. Yeah."
She bluntly said, "Your place? Or mine?"
He said, "How about yours? I know what my place looks like."
She turned to walk away, holding the bottle of beer. "Get a few more beers and come on over. Let's do this. Totally."
He thought, "This has got to be about that Rocket fool cheating on her. Got to be."
He rushed in, grabbed the rest of the 12-pack, and just about fell down the porch steps. He decided to stop, briefly, and try to relax a little. He stood in the back yard, breathing, looking around the neighborhood for a few minutes.
Then he walked next door.
The stairway to her place was dark and narrow. It was in the foyer, and the front inside entrance for the lower place was a door set in a crudely built wall. He walked up the old, creaky stairs, running his hand on the vintage bannister rail, listening to the squeaks and groans of the wood risers.
The door at the top of the steps was open and he walked in, saying, "Hello?"
He heard Renee's voice call out, "Come on in!"
The apartment was hot; he could hear a window air conditioner running, in the bedroom probably, and the place was dark. There wasn't much furniture: a futon, an entertainment center, a fuzzy rug. The front room, where you came into the apartment, had some knicknacks on shelves, a few candles on wall-hung sconces, and a poster of some emo band. He walked into the room, turned around, and was faced with a gigantic portrait of Marilyn Monroe that covered damn near the entire wall. Renee walked into the room, still wearing the black bikini and looking very fine indeed. She approached him, touched his bare stomach, and pulled a beer out of the box.
"So?" she said, smirking.
He had to say it: "You're really gorgeous." He meant it.