Descending Star

SOL DUC RIVER

Edythe popped her head out from under the bed sheet, gray-blue eyes alight, and frowned with irritation. "Ugh," she said, "my Benjamin, it's the awful Quileute boy."

Ben slid out from under the sheet and planted his bare heels on the floor. "He has a name." He wriggled into his shorts, saying, "And I thought you liked him."

"He's fairly tolerable. Unlike some disreputable friends of yours. Do I have to dress?"

"I'm not inviting him to bed."

She laughed and suggested, "You should make him wait outside, while we make love for a few more hours."

Ben hopped off the bed, glanced at the alarm clock, and groaned. Sunday and ridiculously early. Jacob had timed this social call impeccably. He must have watched Charlie depart with his fishing gear, and he had swooped right in to ring the doorbell before Ben could drag himself out of bed for his morning jog.

Edythe watched him dig for his running shoes and fretted, "You don't need those, my love. Get rid of the puppydog and come back to bed."

He grinned. "You drive a hard bargain. Tell me, did I sleep at all last night?"

"Not much," she admitted with satisfaction, "but that's neither here nor there."

The doorbell rang again.

"Hold on!" he bellowed at the stairwell, and he went on cursing under his breath as he laced up his shoes. He said to Edythe, "Friends are too much work."

"True," she agreed, "too true."

"Today's the day I'm going to try to jog all the way to your house. I'll need the full day to pull it off. Might as well make an early start." He'd been girding himself mentally for the challenge since Friday. Physically, he felt ready. He'd been working up toward it all summer.

"This plan of yours is crazy," Edythe complained. "It's a twenty-two mile round trip. It's virtually a marathon."

"The last four miles are the killers. You should get dressed, too. You're coming with me, I hope."

"Like I can run twenty-two miles," she complained.

He had a good laugh at that. She, who sometimes ran to Alaska, just to break the tedium.

She leaned across the bed and caressed his bare back with warm, supple hands. "Besides," she added huskily, "I just don't see the point. No one's there. Least of all me. I'm here. Day and night."

He said, with quiet insistence and resolve, "There doesn't have to be a point. I just want to do it. I've set your house as a goal all summer. A milestone that will signify my full recovery."

She considered this and conceded, "I can see that. I suppose. But you are recovered, so in fact the milestone is merely symbolic."

She would talk him out of it, if he let her. He quietly asked, "Where would Man be, without his symbols?"

She took her hands off his back, and he waited for her rejoinder. He heard none.

"Fine, then, I'll come with you," she amended, "but I won't enjoy it." She slipped out of bed, deliciously grumpy, and looked for something to wear.

Ben listened to every creak in his legs as he descended the stairs, over the course of which the doorbell rang two more times.

He opened the door, scowled at Jacob, and nodded at the Volkswagen. "That thing needs a new muffler. It woke me up from a half mile away." Had Edythe announced Jacob's arrival, or had he inferred as much from the telltale roar of his jalopy of a car? Ben could no longer properly recall. He only hoped that Edythe would make herself scarce and stay upstairs for the duration of the visit.