Choke by Stuart Woods Page A

passed for dressing for dinner in Key West.
    “Work, work, work,” Chuck said.
    “Teaching tennis is work?” she snorted.
    “That’s what everybody thinks,” Chuck replied. “If your work is somebody else’s sport, then it’s not work. Actually, I put in five or six hours of instruction a day, in the hot sun, on my feet, every week of my life.”
    “Poor baby,” she said. “What’s your idea of recreation?”
    Chuck looked her up and down. “You haven’t had enough to drink for me to tell you.”
    She laughed heartily and handed him her glass. “I guess I’d better get to work if I want to find out.”
    “I was at a cocktail party in Palm Beach once,” he said, “and I was talking to a famous writer, a novelist; his name escapes me at the moment. A woman came up to him and told him how much she enjoyed his books, then she asked him what he did for a living! It was like, his books were so much fun to read that writing them couldn’t possibly be work.”
    “Okay, okay, I concede your point,” she laughed. “You work hard for a living, even if it is on a tennis court.”
    “That’s better,” he said, taking her empty glass. “Now you deserve another drink.” He glanced toward the parking lot in time to see the Turk making a slow U-turn on his scooter. Good; now the man had seen him with another woman. “So,” he said to Meg, “you been living aboard for a while?”
    “Nearly a year. Tell you the truth, when Dan suggested the trip, I didn’t think I’d last two weeks. But it grows on you—
if
you can get used to living in a fiberglass coffin and taking showers sitting down.”
    “Seems to me I’ve seen you take a shower or two standing up,” he said.
    She looked blank for a moment. “Oh, you mean in the cockpit. Sure, I’d rather do it that way, even if …”
    “Even if you draw a crowd?” he asked. “You do, you know. Half of Key West Bight seems to amble by when you’re hosing yourself down.”
    “Well, what the hell,” she laughed. “I’m not going to let a lot of gawkers crowd me.”
    “You’re accustomed to gawkers, I imagine.”
    She blushed. “My share, I guess. If you spend most of your life in a bikini …”
    “Half in a bikini.”
    “Are you objecting?”
    “Not in the least. I consider you part of the view from my boat.” He put the steaks on the grill. “How do you like your meat?”
    “Are you being vulgar?” she asked archly.
    “Sorry, your steak?”
    “Medium.”
    “Me too; that makes dinner simpler. Hang on, I’d better go below and put the rice on to cook.” He did that, and when he came back on deck, she was turning over the steaks. “They smell wonderful,” she said.
    He leaned over and sniffed behind her ear. “So do you,” he said. As he straightened up, he saw the Turk sitting at waterside in the Raw Bar, eating conch fritters. He kissed Meg on the neck for the Turk’s benefit. Well, not
entirely
for the Turk’s benefit.
    “You keep doing that, and we’ll never get to the steaks,” she said.
    He stepped away to make himself another drink. “I’ll back off until after dessert.”
    “What’s for dessert?”
    He was tempted to tell her
she
was for dessert, but he thought better of it. “Ice cream,” he replied.
    “On a boat?”
    “This
boat has a freezer,” he said.
    “What kind of ice cream?”
    “It’s a surprise.”
    “I love surprises,” she said.
    “Stick around,” he replied.
    He rolled over and reached for the ice cream, then fed her a spoonful.
    “Mmmm,” she said, “macadamia brittle, my favorite.”
    “I knew it would be,” he said.
    “How could you know that?”
    He shrugged. “You just look like a macadamia brittle kind of woman to me.” He
liked
this girl.
Thank God she’s married,
he thought.
I could get into serious trouble here.
    She plumped up the pillows and sat up in the double berth, bumping her head. “Ouch,” she said.
    “Forget you’re on a boat?” “I’m unaccustomed to this much