Act of God

said, “You want anything more to eat?”
    “Un-unh. Stuffed.”
    “Let me get up a minute, throw away the trash.”
    “Do you have to?”
    “Unless you want bees.”
    “But this is so nice.”
    “And it will be again. Two minutes.”
    Nancy lifted her head, and I put my hands under it, lowering it gently to the comforter. “Thank you, John.”
    I gathered up the remains of two paper plates, a pear, an apple, two turkey and swiss croissants, and two bagels, one blueberry, the other sesame. Leaving the plastic cups and the jug of champagne and orange juice, I took the rest to the green trash can already overflowing like a sluggish volcano onto the ground around it. A little after noon, there were only ten or twelve thousand people on the Boston side of the river, maybe half as many across it on the narrower Cambridge bank. By seven p.m. the numbers would swell to over five hundred thousand to hear the Boston Pops annual concert and watch the accompanying fireworks display.
    By the time I’d gotten back to Nancy, I’d seen both a pet rabbit and a tiny black pig—I looked at it three times, a pig—on leashes, walked slowly like show animals by their proud owners. A couple of dogs wrestled around the bushes by the lagoon, but otherwise the crowd was festive not restive, no trouble simmering anywhere I could tell.
    Nancy said, “What kept you?”
    I sat down just behind her head. She was wearing a pink halter and white tennis shorts, the sun bringing out the freckles on her shoulders the way it already had the ones across her nose. She had amber sunglasses that reflected the light, so I couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or closed, but I’d have bet on closed.
    “It was a minute-thirty, tops.”
    “You lie, John Francis Cuddy.”
    I thought briefly about Abraham Rivkind, the man who never lied, but I hadn’t been there to find his body, so he still seemed more a problem to me than a part of real life. “You’re beautiful, Nancy Meagher.”
    “What?” The sunglasses came off, the eyes wide open, looking back at me upside down.
    “I said you’re beautiful. I would have used your middle name, too, but it occurred to me I don’t know it.”
    She said, “That’s because I never use it,” but I had the feeling she wanted to say something else.
    I used the pads of my index, middle, and ring fingers to rub circles lightly in the scalp above her ears. “How come?”
    “How come I never use it?”
    “Yes. It isn’t on your diplomas or bar admission, and I’ve never seen your driver’s license.”
    “Because it’s a funny name.”
    “Tell me.”
    “I’m embarrassed.”
    " Then I really want you to tell me.”
    “Why, so you’ll make fun of me?”
    “Yes.”
    “Run up and down the river, yelling it to people, who’ll point at me and laugh?”
    “Only the beginning.”
    Nancy brought her right hand up to mine, running her nails along the veins on the back. “I like the way you say that.”
    “Me, too.”
    “John, I... we’ve been close for a while now, but I’ve never felt closer to anyone than I have this last week with you.”
    “Even though I was in New Jersey for part of it?”
    “Especially because ofthat. You being gone for a while after we had that talk cinched it.”
    “Now I feel like a horse.”
    The nails bit in a little. “A stallion.”
    “You’ll turn my head.”
    “Seriously, John.”
    “Okay. Serious.”
    “This past week, I felt as though we crossed some kind of line that had been there, ever since I met you. A line I thought we’d cross by making love the first time, but didn’t”
    “I know what you mean.”
    Nancy nodded with her eyelids. “But how to phrase it exactly, but... you never told me I was beautiful before.”
    “Now I don’t know what you mean.”
    “In the past, you’ve given me plenty of reason to think you find me attractive, and I’ve been paid a lot of compliments over the years, but they’ve been... qualified?”
    “ ‘Smart -looking,’ ‘striking’…”
    “I even had one date in college tell me I was ‘amazingly photogenic.’ ”
    “Like he was interested in you as album art.”
    “Or the way the other guys would nod and elbow each other in the ribs when he took my picture out of his wallet at the bar.”
    “I don’t think I’d do that.”
    “I know you wouldn’t. It’s just that... well, if you’re just pretty, you lose that as you get older. You lose a lot of things, but never—”
    “Somebody thinking