The Night Crew

put on it,’’ she said.
    ‘‘That’d be good.’’
    She kept the ice packs in the refrigerator, and went to get one while Harper disappeared into the bathroom. She stood outside the door with the ice pack and said, ‘‘Okay?’’
    Harper opened the door. He’d pulled his golf shirt over his head, and turned around to show her his back. He looked like he’d been scourged, long fiery rips running down his back. ‘‘Not so good,’’ he said.
    ‘‘You must’ve run into some thorn trees up there.’’ She walked around him to the medicine cabinet, found some antiseptic cream. ‘‘C’mon, I’ll put some of this stuff on.’’
    He sat shirtless in a kitchen chair, while she pulled a desk lamp around, focused it on his back. Some of the scratches were deep, but none was still bleeding; he also showed a scrape on his shoulder and a large red-blue bruise on his forearm.
    She dabbed on the antiseptic cream and he flinched and said, ‘‘Ow,’’ and ‘‘Is there a sliver in there?’’
    She touched the spot again and he flinched and she said, ‘‘Maybe. I’m gonna have to wipe this off.’’
    ‘‘Well, take it easy.’’
    ‘‘Hey, I’m doing the best I can.’’
    She wiped the cream away with a Kleenex, spotted a broken thorn—and then, further down his back, three more of them. ‘‘Sit still,’’ she said. ‘‘I need tweezers.’’
    The thorns took a while, but she got them all, and layered on the antiseptic cream. ‘‘You’ll make a mess out of a shirt,’’ she said.
    ‘‘I’ve got a couple of old t-shirts,’’ he said. He stood up, turned around once in his tracks, stretched, flexed, testing his back, and said, ‘‘I’m gonna be a little sore in the morning.’’
    Anna could suddenly smell him, sweat and some kind of musky deodorant and blood, maybe, a salty smell; and realized that she was standing very close to a large half-naked man in her kitchen, and that patching up his back might have broken down a wall a little before she’d intended.
    Harper picked up the sudden change of atmosphere and laughed, lightly, and said, ‘‘Suddenly got a little close in here.’’
    ‘‘Yeah.’’ She flushed.
    She reached over to pick up the first-aid cream and he caught her arm and said, ‘‘So . . . could you kiss me once to make it feel better?’’
    ‘‘Well . . .’’
    He kissed her very easily, and she kissed back, again, just a little out of her control, for that extra half-second that she hadn’t intended. She pulled away and said, ‘‘Oh, boy,’’ and Harper said, ‘‘Maybe I better get that t-shirt.’’
    The t-shirt put a little distance between them, but not much: at least, she thought, there wasn’t so much skin around. He brought a kitchen chair into the hallway, next to the piano, and said, ‘‘You were gonna play a Satie for me.’’
    ‘‘It’s late . . .’’
    ‘‘I can’t lie down until my back dries up a little,’’ he said.
    So she played for him: the delicate, familiar, simple little ‘‘First Gymnopedie.’’ The final chords hung in the hall, and when they died, she said, ‘‘There. Like it?’’
    He bobbed his head: ‘‘Yeah.’’
    Sticky silence.
    ‘‘I don’t suppose you’d want to come sit on my lap for a minute, over on the couch,’’ he said.
    ‘‘Maybe just for a minute,’’ she said. So they necked for a while, and he was careful with his hands; held on tight, but didn’t presume; or not too much.
    ‘‘You don’t presume,’’ she said, after a while. ‘‘Too much.’’
    ‘‘I’m a subtle guy; I’ve got you figured out, and not presuming is my way of worming myself into your confidence. Then, just when you’re looking the other way, bang!’’
    ‘‘Could have picked a better word,’’ she said.
    ‘‘Hmm . . .’’ Harper’s father had worked at a bank for forty years, he said, just high enough up to get a golf club membership back when that was done. His mother had been a housewife and a better golfer than her husband. Harper had taken the game up early, gone to college on a golf scholarship and was ‘‘last man at UCLA.’’
    ‘‘Didn’t get along with the coach,’’ he said. ‘‘Got along with his wife, though.’’
    ‘‘Ah.’’
    ‘‘The coach and his pals convinced me I’d never make the tour,’’ he said. ‘‘I was taking the law enforcement sequence because that was the easiest one to fit around the golf. The next thing I know, I’m working for