“The Knocking Over of the Trophy”

III

Scott buzzed up the flight of stairs. He knocked on the wooden panel door, paced like a lion in a cage, and took a deep breath. Someone had managed to push up the glass window at the top of the previous landing. This allowed the late spring breeze to cool the humid interior of the building.

The door of hickory thudded back.

Scott turned.

Lily grinned readily—and showed her white incisors of china.

Scott stuttered some I’s.

Lily spoke in a reedy voice. “Calm down,” she said. “I won’t go away.”

Scott had not even phoned Lily for fear of Bert’s seeing him on the phone screen. Yet, from Lily’s behaviour, Scott felt as if she and himself had engaged in the most intimate of conversations—prior to Scott’s arrival. That emotion made Scott very uneasy.

Scott said, “I wanted to talk to you and Bert.”

“Come in,” Lily lipped.

Scott wavered, then stepped onto the wooden slats of the apartment.

The polished boards of the floor glistened under the sunbeams coming from the left. The low ceiling slanted as though part of a gambrel roof. A scent of wood shavings, in turn, permeated the environs.

Scott rotated toward Lily. “Where’s Bert?”

“He’s not here,” Lily said. Behind her, she shut the door of deep brown.

“I better go.”

“Wait!” Lily implored, seizing Scott’s forearm.

Lily’s palm felt like the sole of a baby’s foot, except that it was larger.

Scott’s heart raced like a rolling drum.

Gentle as the frills on her white blouse, Lily tugged Scott toward the futon of an oakwood loveseat. Suddenly, she threw him onto the skin-of-zebra print.

“What the hell?” Scott said.

Lily straddled Scott’s blue jeans, which were washed in extra-hot water.

My jeans might as well be a saddle! Scott said to himself.

Lily wrapped her arms around Scott.

Scott tried to get up from the skin-of-zebra futon.