"Let's take the drinks out to the screened porch."
"Sure, why not?" Marsha asked, watching her friend take charge in the kitchen, having made a beeline for the refrigerator from the front door.
Her best friend was acting strange. But there was nothing new about that. They'd been best friends since high school here in San Diego and now they were in their late forties, still close buddies. But they couldn't have been more opposite of each other. Marsha was the sensible one. They were both extraordinarily good looking and trim, but Marsha was understated, wearing her age well although not hiding it, not on the make, whereas the more buxom, curvy, boisterous, and daring in makeup and dress of the two, Vivian, was fighting the battle of age hard. She was making every effort to keep her appearance in the thirties and her boyfriends, when she could, of that age period as well.
The two were poster children for the "Opposites attract" adage. They even were radically different in the drinks they were carrying to the screened porch at the back of the house overlooking a flagstone terrace and small swimming pool. The backyard was nicely landscaped and well taken care of. Marsha was carrying a pitcher with ice tea. Vivian had grabbed an ice bucket and ice from the freezer and plopped the three beer cans she'd brought with her in it.
She had more or less invited herself over to Marsha's gentrified Olive Lane bungalow today and had arrived in a bikini with a diaphanous wrap over it. "It's a hot day for late December," she said. "I thought a dip in your pool this afternoon would be nice."
That too was strange. Vivian hadn't shown interest in Marsha's swimming pool before. She most certainly hadn't turned up in a bikini before to swim in it, and there was no way she'd be seen by anyone else with her hair down and wet. With her voluptuous figure, she was barely contained by the bikini. Marsha felt seriously flat in contrast to her best friend. She wouldn't dare try a bikini at her age. Not that she wouldn't have looked good in one if she tried. Marsha underestimated her looks while Vivian tended to overestimate hers. There weren't many men unwilling to fit in with Vivian's flirting--and more.
Once on the screened porch, Vivian dropped the ice bucket on a side table and went directly to the screen facing the back garden. The sound of the lawnmower told Marsha all she needed to know about her friend's strange behavior. The last time they'd met Marsha had mentioned she had a nineteen-year-old gardener who looked like a Michelangelo statue.
"My god, isn't he a hunk?" Vivian said, releasing her breath in a deep-throated laugh. A full-blown husky laugh was one of her hallmarks. Vivian didn't do anything by half.
"He's nineteen," Marsha said, unable to keep a tinge of disgust out of her voice.
"What's his name again?" Vivian asked. "And how did you manage to land him as a lawn boy?"
"His name is Robbie, I think. And I just called a lawn care service and he's who they've sent to do my lawn and trim my bushes."
"I'd certainly like to have him trim my bushes--or anything else he wanted to do." This was accompanied by another full-throated laugh.
"That's why you showed up today, isn't it? To ogle my lawn boy. Although he's not my lawn boy. He's the gardener the company sent when signed up with the gardening service. You were arriving when he was leaving last week and I told you when he'd next be here."
"Guilty as charged, Ma'am. But isn't he just about the most gorgeous young man you've ever seen?"
"With an emphasis on young," Marsha said. "What about Phil? I thought you were solidly in with Phil Braxton."
"Phil's great--and he's loaded and good in bed. But he's fifty-one."
"And you're forty-eight, which makes you the perfect couple. That young man out there can't be more than nineteen. He told me he's only a year out of high school."
"Fifty-one. Who knows how long it will be before Phil needs Viagra or develops a paunch?" Vivian said. "Whereas that young hunk out there can go for hours, I bet."
"No doubt," Marsha said, adding in her mind, and how much longer before your engine slows down. Viv?
"We have to grab our pleasures while we still can," Vivian said.
Marsha nearly hiccupped at how close Vivian had come to discerning what she was thinking. But Vivian wasn't wrong and Marsha had to concede that. "I suppose," she said.
Robbie wasn't being shy. A blond, blue-eyed Apollo, he was coming close to the pool with his mowing. He was wearing athletic shorts low on his waist and combat boots. His T-shirt was off and hanging on the handle of the mower. His tan and musculature were "just right," and he was smiling. He knew the women were on the screened porch, watching him.
"Back in a minute," Vivian said. She fished two cans of beer out of the ice bucket and headed for the door out to the patio.
"Wait, Viv. Don't. I don't think--"
But Vivian was already off the porch and sashaying out to where, with impeccable timing, Robbie had completed the mowing. Vivian reached him and handed him one of the beers. They took swigs out of their respective cans and Robbie smiled as Vivian went up on her toes and pushed her bosoms out. She gestured toward the chaise lounges on the patio next to the swimming pool.
Marsha couldn't tell what Robbie then said, but she could see him gesturing toward the hibiscus hedge separating her property from the adjoining one, and Vivian looking a bit disappointed. Robbie turned the mower and wheeled it to the garden shed. Vivian stood there as if he would come back to her after stowing the mower, but he didn't. When he came out of the shed he was carrying hedge clippers. He went to the hibiscus hedge and started trimming it.
Vivian turned in disappointment. She didn't come back to the screened porch, though. She pulled off the diaphanous robe she'd been wearing, leaving her in a bikini that barely held her in, went to the pool, and stretched out on--no, more posed on--a chaise lounge. Over the next twenty minutes she showed the young man several provocative poses, pushing her chest out, but he worked on the hedge.
Eventually, Robbie returned the clippers to the shed and disappeared around the side of the house. The hedge wasn't finished, and his time in the garden wasn't completed. When she realized he wasn't coming back, Vivian picked herself off the chaise lounge and, in a bit of a huff and with a bit of sunburn, returned to the screen porch.
The entire time Marsha had been sitting on the porch, sipping iced tea, and taking it all in.
"I think he's gone," Vivian said.
