Shadowfires

magazine to be
sure it was fully loaded. Switching off both safeties, she took the
thirty-two into the bathroom and put it on the deep blue tile at the
edge of the sunken tub, beside the champagne and chocolate.
    Andy Williams was singing “ Moon River.”
    Wincing, she stepped into the hot bath and settled down until the
water had slipped most of the way up the slopes of her breasts. It
stung at first. Then she became accustomed to the temperature, and
the heat was good, penetrating to her bones and finally dispelling
the chill that had plagued her ever since Eric had dashed in front of
the truck almost seven and a half hours ago.
    She nibbled at the candy, taking only a few shavings from the edge
of the piece. She let them melt slowly on her tongue.
    She tried not to think. She tried to concentrate on just the
mindless pleasure of a good hot steep. Just drift. Just be .
    She leaned back in the tub, savoring the taste of chocolate,
relishing the scent of jasmine in the rising steam.
    After a couple of minutes, she opened her eyes and poured a glass
of champagne from the ice-cold bottle. The crisp taste was a perfect
complement to the lingering trace of chocolate and to the voice of
Sinatra crooning the nostalgic and sweetly melancholy lines of “It
Was a Very Good Year.”
    For Rachael, this relaxing ritual was an important part of the
day, perhaps the most important. Sometimes she nibbled at a
small wedge of sharp cheese instead of chocolate and sipped a single
glass of chardonnay instead of champagne. Sometimes it was an
extremely cold bottle of dark beer-Heineken or Beck's-and a handful of the special plump peanuts that were sold by an expensive nut shop in Costa Mesa. Whatever her choice of the day, she consumed it with care and slow delight, in tiny bites and small sips, relishing every nuance of taste and scent and texture.
    She was a “present-focused” person.
    Benny Shadway, the man Eric had thought was Rachael's lover, said there were basically four types of people: past-, present-, future-, and omni-focused. Those focused primarily on the future had little interest in the past or present. They were often worriers, peering toward tomorrow to see what crisis or insoluble problem might be hurtling toward them-although some were shiftless dreamers rather than worriers, always looking ahead because they were unreasonably certain they were due for great good fortune of one kind or another. Some were also workaholics, dedicated achievers who believed that the future and opportunity were the same thing.
    Eric had been such a one, forever brooding about and eagerly
anticipating new challenges and conquests. He had been utterly bored
with the past and impatient with the snail's pace at which the present sometimes crept by.
    A present-focused person, on the other hand, expended most of his
energy and interest in the joys and tribulations of the moment. Some
present-focused types were merely sluggards, too lazy to prepare for
tomorrow or even to contemplate it. Strokes of bad luck often caught
them unaware, for they had difficulty accepting the possibility that
the pleasantness of the moment might not go on forever. And when they
found themselves mired in misfortune, they usually fell into ruinous
despair, for they were incapable of embarking upon a course of action
that would, at some point in the future, free them from their
troubles. However, another type of present-focused person was the
hard worker who could involve himself in the task at hand with a
single-mindedness that made for splendid efficiency and
craftsmanship. A first-rate cabinetmaker, for example, had to be a
present-focused person, one who did not look forward impatiently to
the final assembly and completion of a piece of furniture but who
directed his attention entirely and lovingly to the meticulous
shaping and finishing of each rung and arm of a chair, to each drawer
face and knob and doorframe of a china hutch, taking his greatest
satisfaction in the process of creation rather than in the
culmination of the process.
    Present-focused people, according to Benny, are more likely to
find obvious solutions to problems than are other people, for they
are not preoccupied with either what was or what might come to pass
but only with what is . They are also the people most
sensuously connected with the physical realities of life-therefore
the most perceptive in some ways-and they most likely have more sheer