A Wee of Sunrises

Day 1: Friday

"Thanks for doing this for me, Joey," my sister Margaret said as we entered my condo.

I winced a bit when she called me that, using my turn to close the door behind us to hide my reaction. My fiftieth birthday was only just a few months back, still visible, but rapidly receding, in the rear-view mirror and my family

still

calls me that.

My friends and colleagues call me 'Joe,' and, while everyone in my family knows that I don't like being called 'Joey,' they still do. Old, ingrained habits die hard - or not at all. They'll never change.

I blame it on their advanced dotage.

It also sucks being the youngest.

"You're welcome," I said to her now. "Any time."

"You didn't have to offer," Mags said as she put her hand on my arm and boosted herself onto her toes to kiss my cheek - she was just above average height at 5' 5", but I loomed over her at a hair under 6', like our older brother - as I stood there holding her travel bag. "Thanks."

"Hey, you put me up during my recovery after my trip to the Rip-Out Room four years ago. This is the least I could do to help you save on an unnecessary expense during the worst part of the reno. At least they scheduled all the suck to be handled at the same time. You really don't need to have to pay for a week or more at a hotel, on top of all of your other expenses, when I have an available spare bedroom."

I'd gone down to the lobby to let her in when she arrived after work this evening. She didn't pack too heavily, which I appreciated, as I was volunteered to be her pack-mule.

Packing light should pose no issues, since she can always wash things as many times as she needs to all week. I have in-unit washer/dryer - one of my four 'must haves' when I was looking at condos - so she wouldn't need to make multiple appearances in a common laundry room.

"Are they still projecting minimal re-habitability for a week from Monday?" I asked her.

"Actually, my most recent update was that they may - and I stress the word

may

- be able to let me back in by Saturday, if they can wrap up this stage by end-of-day Friday," she said. "It's mainly due to the water-shutoff, not that the place is a wreck."

"Sounds like planning for it to run long is the best approach," I said. "What can't be cured, must be endured.

"If the work does wind up running longer, and you need to stay a few more days, you're more than welcome to," I added.

"Thanks, but I only put in for five days' PTO. I'm due back a week from Monday. That's sort of set in concrete, at this point. If I

have

to, I may impose upon you for that extra day or two, but the commute from here will stink," she said.

"No offence," she added, looking up at me with a smile.

"None taken," I laughed back. "I agree completely, the drive in

would

suck from here."

She was renovating her house, a medium-sized, three bedroom, two bath ranch in the western suburbs, not more than twenty miles from here. She'd bought out her ex-husband's share at the divorce - it was a remarkably amicable split after twelve years and they were still on fairly good terms with each other - and she's lived there ever since with her twin boys.

My own divorce wasn't quite so amicable, when

She Who Must Not Be Named

was caught red-handed riding her side-piece's cock in my own bed. She unrepentantly admitted as much to all of us and my family pretty much disowned her from that point on. Her total lack of acceptance for being at fault in the divorce seemed pretty delusional, on her part. Things verged upon ugly.

In an almost comical side-effect, without actively discussing it, at least around me, my family all joined me in never again mentioning the witch's name.

To my amazement at the time, I managed to get out of the marriage without excessive damage. I guess the judge didn't like her self-deception, either.

More than

seven

years down the crapper.

At least we hadn't any kids to drag through the mess.

My old house held too many memories of the

ex

, so I sold it fairly quickly and rolled that into a high-rise ­- well, six floors, if that counts as high - townhouse condo on the water.

Technically, it was a

penthouse

condo on the water. I discovered during my condo search that 'penthouse' simply referred to a top-floor unit, which is

usually

well-appointed.

It didn't

need

to have its own pool or direct-elevator access, or anything else quite so lavish. And it didn't.

The

complex

didn't even have a pool, but it

did

have the Atlantic Ocean less than ten yards from its foundation pilings and a beach stretching two miles both north and south from its closest approach to the complex, less than a quarter-mile away.

Referring to it as 'the penthouse' made it sound classier, too.

So, I bought the

condo-with-a-view

and have been wallowing in my own personal solitude pretty much ever since.

* * * * *

Mags and I were the youngest of five kids and we'd all settled in and around the city we grew up in.

We'd all also known her

ex

, Max, while we were growing up and it was almost expected from the start that they'd eventually get married. "Max 'n' Maggie" was a running joke for our family ever since they started dating. We'd usually sing that out in a chant to highlight the alliteration whenever they made their appearance at a family get-together.

I always shortened 'Maggie' to 'Mags' because it moved the names closer to rhyming. I never stopped, once I started.

I'm not certain what she thought of it, but the rest of us all thought it was a hoot.

While that much was the siblings'-doing, the two of them kind of trumped us all by taking ownership of the joke when their twin boys were born and they had the temerity - perhaps

gall

would be a better word - to name them Matthew and Mark.

"I'll take this upstairs to your bedroom," I continued. "Why don't you grab us a couple of beers and meet me on the deck?"

"OK," she replied. "And whatever you say, I still appreciate you letting me stay here."

* * * * *

I didn't want to just abandon her here for the week, so, in an unusual move on my part, I planned to work from home most days this week, maybe even take a day or two off while she's here, to spend time with her, if she wants. It's not like she's from out of town, so she doesn't need a tour-guide. She'd even gone to college just a few miles away from here, so it's hardly uncharted territory for her. Her current place is no more than twenty miles away, in the western suburbs, while I live just north of the city.

I'd made no concrete plans, though. Just waiting to see what pops up.

With the long-range weather forecast for the next ten days to be hot and sunny, or mostly sunny, except for one overnight and the following morning, I suspect that she may take advantage of the beach's proximity to spend a good deal of time down there. She'll probably also spend time laying out on the deck, given its high-degree of privacy.

She was still her slim self, after all these years, and always more than a bit of a sun worshipper. Despite the years of sun, her skin still seemed nice. Not quite as supple as in her heyday, perhaps, but still pretty nice. She could still turn heads. Maybe not in the numbers she used to in her twenties, but I've seen it happen enough when around her, to know she still has it, if in more of a

cougar

-ish way.

* * * * *

I made us a light dinner and afterward, we relaxed on the deck, each with a beer, trying to decide if we wanted to watch something.

"Do we want to pick movies randomly, scrolling through

Netflix

or

Prime

?" I asked Mags. "Or watch a franchise series?"

"Marvel has

way

too many movies. Even if we did two a night, I doubt they'd fit in the time you'll be staying," I said. "And some do kinda stink. I've always felt that

Iron Man 2

was nigh unwatchable with

Ragnarok

and

Dark World

close on its heels. I thought the first

Thor

was pretty good, even excellent, given the limitations of the source material they were working with. I was never a Comics-Thor fan, but I liked the first movie.

"The core

Avengers/Captain America

movies would work out fairly well."

"What about

Star Wars

?" Mags asked.

"In what viewing order? Release? Chronological?

Machete

?" I said grinning at her. "That would work out at one movie a night, where we could slip

Rogue One

in the same night as

A New Hope

, as a one-time double-feature."

"What a bout

Solo

?" she asked.

"What about it? I'm not a fan. I started watching it once and turned it off after about fifteen minutes. I never went back. The trailer - rightly or wrongly - always gave me vibes from the

Firefly

episode where they used a fuckin'

starship

- well, spaceship - to rob a

train

. I guess I didn't want to have my worst fears confirmed, so I didn't really want to go back to it.

"I've only seen

Rogue One

once, but I've always wanted to see it again."

"And

Star Trek

?" she asked.

"Much as I like the franchise, the movies are so hit-or-miss.

One

is considered boring, but I liked it enough, don't love it, though.

Two

,

Three

and

Four

work well as its own trilogy.

Five

was an absolute trainwreck. They should have taken Shatner's SAG card away after that butchery. As Guy Fleegman might put it, 'Didn't he even

watch

the show?' I know he got to direct it because Nimoy did

Three

and

Four

, but ugh!!

"I took my then-girlfriend to see

Five

at a midnight showing, opening night. The audience was minimal. Walking out of the theater that night, I was convinced that I'd never get laid again."

Mags giggled at that admission. "It would have served you right!"

I gave her a side-eye raised eyebrow. "No, it wouldn't have!" I said in my most repressive tone.

"Much as most people like to hate on

Insurrection

and

Nemesis

, I don't hate them. I just think they're

meh

, though.

"

Generations

was an odd duck. They had such craptastic lighting on the bridge set in every scene. I can never get past it. Even back then, I had the impression that the producer was so used to working with videotape that he didn't know how to light a scene on film.

"Then Kirk got a bridge dropped on him."

After our brief deliberation, Mags decided that we'd do the

Star Wars

marathon, in chronological order.

We watched

The Phantom Menace

sitting together on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table, Mags sitting slouched beside me, leaning comfortably against my side.

* * * * *

Movie Night:

The Phantom Menace

After Annie-boy saves the known-universe by accidentally blowing up the control ship with one shot - who puts their main reactor in the Flight Ops bay? - along with one Hell of a series of secondary explosions, caught Palps' attention, had the queen making bedroom-eyes at him, and got his ridiculous little rat-tail cut, we called it a night.

One often overlooked thing in the movie's favor was

finally

getting to see Jedi fighting

cooperatively

. Although Jinn

deserved

to get skewered after not only letting Maul split Kenobi away from him, but not waiting to regroup with Kenobi before resuming the fight.

* * * * *

I stopped outside Mags's bedroom with her, giving her a quick hug and a kiss to the forehead before sending her into her room with a quick swat to the ass.

"Sleep tight, Kiddo," I said. "See you, first thing."

Day 2: Saturday

Unusual for me, I set my alarm to get me up early, before the crack of dawn. I knocked on Mags's bedroom door, then stuck my head into the room.

"Time to get up, Kiddo!" I said. "I want you to finally watch the sunrise from my deck!"

Sleepily, she said, "

Now

? In the

morning

? We have all week to do this!"

"Morning is usually when sunrises occur," I said. "You've always said you liked the sunrise pictures I'd text everyone. You've never been here early enough for it. Now's your big chance to see it all, in person, in real time."

* * * * *

When I got out of bed, I'd pulled on some sweatpants and a tee. Now I stood on the deck, waiting for

Little Miss Sleepyhead

to put in an appearance, looking down at my phone, when I heard some movement behind me as Mags stepped down onto the deck with me.

"Brrr... it's cold out here," she said, fairly loudly. "Geez... I thought it was supposed to be July. It is everywhere else."

"Shhh..." I admonished gently. "Keep your voice down, please. I don't want to bother the neighbors so early. They're all good about limiting noise and letting the neighbors know ahead of time when they

expect

noise, so it's only fair to reciprocate.

"Besides," I went on, "you'd be amazed at how far voices can carry on still mornings like this. I hear people talking in the other building" - I waved my arm out to the building off to one side on the other pier, maybe a hundred and fifty yards across the marina's water-gap - "all the time. I can only occasionally make out their words, but you know that

someone

is talking."

I turned to finally look at her and got my first surprise of her visit. She was standing there in just a tank top and panties.

I raised an eyebrow. "Laundry day? No clean clothes?" I said with a quiet laugh, grinning. "No wonder you're cold!"

I reached out and placed my hands on her arms, rubbing them to get the blood flowing. "This ought to warm you up a bit."

"You never

told

me it would be this cold," she replied in a lightly accusing tone.

"You never

asked

and it never occurred to me to mention it to you."

She frowned at me.

"My app says there's still ten minutes to notional sunrise," I said as I waved a hand toward the brightest patch on the horizon, herald of the sun's imminent arrival.

"Want some coffee, Mags?"

"Desperately!" she replied with an actual shiver.

"OK. Want me to bring out a blanket to throw over your shoulders? There's the fuzzy one on the back of the sofa."

"No," she replied. "At least not yet. I'll let you know if I need one."

"OK," I said, then stepped past her back into the unit.

I had one of those single-cup Keurig coffeemakers. It was a house-warming gift from my brother and sister-in-law when they first visited me here after the move-in.

When they were on their way that day, they called ahead, said they were getting coffee and bagels and wondered what I wanted. I'd said I was fine - I had instant on hand.

That sad revelation, to those who are coffee drinkers, caused them to radically reevaluate my fitness as a member of

Homo Sap.

They immediately diverted their drive to stop at a nearby mall to buy me the thing.

I always thought they seemed kind of silly, but it turned out to be the best present I'd gotten in years. It was something I would

never

have considered buying for myself.

Now that I have one, I use it all the time.

* * * * *

I re-emerged onto the deck to find her sitting in one of the two swivel captain's chair bar stools with her feet up on the rail under the little bistro table I had out there between them.

I could hear her quietly chanting "

Movin' on up! To the East Side!

" as I held out a glass mug.

I'm a sucker for glass mugs. Especially handle-less mugs with a metal handle/holder. These were just inexpensive all-glass mugs and I used them for almost everything.

"Thank you! The life you've saved may have been your own!" she said with a bit of a giggle.

I shot her a raised eyebrow at her comment.

"The place is nice," I said, "above average for the units I looked at during my condo-hunt, but the only thing that rates as really

spectacular

about it is the virtually unobstructed water view toward the east-by-southeast.

"That's really why I bought it. The view. And the fact that any new construction that might ruin that view would need to fill in the sound beforehand. That would make any project of that sort effectively cost-prohibitive.

"And... we're not on New York's upper East Side, either. Although I

will

admit that I did wind up paying a small, but not insignificant, premium for buying on the building endcap. That gives my deck a high degree of privacy. None of the other units in the complex have a direct view of any the endcap decks, although the others on the end, here, are easily close enough to hear what's going on, if you're not quiet."

Without taking her eyes off the sun as it peeped over the far edge of the world, she said with a slight smile, "We're on the east side of North America, so, technically, it still applies."

She began to sip her coffee, keeping her gaze on the horizon.

Even though it was July, she was right, the air here was still surprisingly chill before sunrise. A fact that I wasn't aware of either until the first summer night I tried to sleep out on the deck and discovered ­- to my utter disgust - that I still needed a blanket.

I stood over her, standing beside her stool for a while as I began sipping my own coffee.

I flinched and almost dropped my mug when I felt her hand rest on my hip.

She noticed my reaction and pulled her hand away immediately, turning up to me in apology. "Sorry, Joey," she said, "I had a bit of a flashback to some trips where I'd reach for Max like that all the time. Even at home. I'm sorry, it became a bit of a reflex on my part."

"Don't sweat it, Kiddo," I said with a laugh. "I don't mind, I just wasn't expecting it and you surprised me, is all.

"There are certainly worse habits to develop," I finished, smiling at her.

We both returned to watching the sunrise, although I did kind of sidle a step or so closer to the other stool.

A quiet slurp drew my attention back to Mags as she sat there, watching the blazing red sky-ball paint the widely scattered clouds with fire.

"I like how the dew seems to boil off once the sun begins warming it on the sheet steel," she murmured quietly, waving toward the wispy ghosts of the dew which had collected overnight on the thin sheet metal cap that ran the length of the wall along its top. My unit had what was evidently called a 'pocket-balcony' with a solid wall enclosing it, not just a railed fence along its outer edge, like those of the vast majority of the units.

I looked down at her when she spoke. The light was improving quite a bit. Distractingly, I noticed that she was getting a bit nipply in the slightly chill air.

Clearly, she wasn't wearing a bra.

Her legs were still pretty nice, stretched out like that, too.

I continued looking at her for a minute, drinking in her appearance.

"Do you always run around the house semi-naked?" I asked.

She snorted. "I'm not semi-naked. I'm fully, if minimally, dressed. Be glad I put this much on. Do

you

always get dressed when you're home? I don't."

"OK, you got me there. I

don't

always dress when I'm home."

"How 'not-dressed?'" she asked, looking up at me, genuinely curious.

"If I was being honest, I'd answer that question with 'completely.' When the weather is warm enough." I waved out over the marina and sound, as if saying 'like right now.'

"Not sure if I ought to be honest, at the moment, given the audience," I added.

Mags raised an eyebrow along with a rather speculative-sounding "Hmm..." in reply.

She then snorted lightly, grinned into her mug, and said "Same here."