RainStorm

about Midori.
    Well, maybe that's what home would always be to me--the
    place I'd miss when I had to move on. Love seemed like that, too.
    Because the woman I loved was the one I couldn't have.
    What had most defined Tokyo for me, I realized after Kwai
    Chung, was that it had always made me feel like there was something
    there, something I might find that would fulfill me, some answer
    to a question I couldn't quite pose. Whatever that thing was,
    though, if it existed at all, it had always eluded me, frustrated me.
    It took without giving back.
    But I realized now that the thing's elusiveness didn't mean I
    should stop seeking it. Life after Kwai Chung felt like a reprieve, a
    second chance. What a waste, not to make something of that.
    I wasn't sure how much longer I would stay in Rio. But I was
    equally unsure of where else I would go. I was like a kite suddenly
    cut loose from in its line: for the moment exhilaratingly free, yet certain now to lose the wind that had borne it aloft and plummet back
    to earth.
    I needed to find that line again. But I didn't know where to
    reach for it.
    There was Naomi, of course. Sometimes I thought about going
    to see her. But I never did. Maybe she was getting over the way
    things had ended between us. Maybe she "was moving on. I didn't
    want to interfere with any of that. Most of all, I didn't want an
    association with me to be the thing that got her hurt, or worse
    than hurt.
    Still, there were nights when I would lie in bed, listening to De
    Mais Ninguem, the song that had been playing in Scenarium the
    night I had gone to see her, or listening to some of the other music
    she had played in her apartment while we made love there, and
    the thought of how near she was would be almost unbearable.
    I thought of Delilah, too. I wondered how things had turned
    out for her. I wondered how much of what she had told me had
    been true. I asked myself inane "what if" questions. I found myself
    wanting to believe her, wanting to believe that something was
    there, or could have been there, and I found this reaction weak and
    somewhat foolish.
    Yeah, but look at Dox. He surprised you.
    Yeah, he did. But not enough to reverse my whole view of human
    nature.
    I'd been back for about two months when I found a message on
    one of my bulletin boards. The message said, "I'm vacationing in a
    wonderful city. Every morning I swim at the most famous beach
    there. The older beach, the one further north. I wish you could
    join me."
    It was the bulletin board I had been using with Delilah, password
    Peninsula. No one else knew of it.
    I stared at that message for a long time. Then, without even being conscious of a decision having been made, I started packing
    a bag.
    That night I checked into the Copacabana Palace Hotel, Rio's
    grandest, positioned on its eponymous beach. I took an ocean-view
    room on the fifth floor. I had brought along a pair of binoculars-- not quite the quality of the Zeiss model that I had employed at
    Kwai Chung, but good enough for gazing at the ocean. Or the
    beach.
    I slept poorly. At sunup I started watching. At ten o'clock, she
    showed.
    She was wearing a dark thong bikini, navy, almost midnight blue.
    I decided it would have been a crime for her to wear anything else.
    She swam for twenty minutes, then lay down on a towel in the
    sun. She seemed to be alone, but the beach was filling up. I had no
    way of really knowing.
    I told myself that she had no reason to try to set me up. And that
    was true. But the funny thing was, I just didn't care. For the moment,
    I didn't even care how she knew where, or almost where, to
    find me.
    I pulled on a bathing suit and a hotel robe and walked out to the
    beach. The sun was beating down hot from overhead, and I
    squinted against the glare coming off the ocean and the sand. I put
    the robe down next to her and sat on it.
    "Is this spot taken?" I asked.
    She opened her eyes. They were bluer than I had ever seen
    them, taking on some of the hues of the sea and sky.
    She smiled and sat up and looked at me for a long moment.
    Then she said, "You got my message."
    I nodded. "It was a surprise. Pleasant surprise."
    "You want to know how I found you."
    She was beautiful. She was just . . . beautiful. I said, "I want to
    know how you've been."
    She didn't say a word. She just looked into my eyes, leaned in,
    and kissed me. The taste of her, the feel of her mouth, the fact of
    her presence, it was all like a waking dream.
    I pulled back and