LIVING ON DREAMS WHEN THERE'S POPCICLES

Photo by Janosch Lino on Unsplash

I could never wear a burqa. I’m claustrophobic. But Jocelyn could certainly use some restraint. She glides down the seventy-three steps to the beach on a piece of cardboard, saying I needn’t worry she’ll get hurt because she was raised in Wisconsin and knows how to sled anywhere with anything—garbage can lid, hubcap, plastic-covered notebook. Me and inclines, she’s says, get along fine. But how she sleds in California wearing a thong and a min-bra that makes her appear nude to the naked eye is a mystery Stephen Hawking would find perplexing. I still don’t understand the physics of surfing or the Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance either, but I know they are useful, so I accept them.

On the other hand, I’m agoraphobic. Hence the new house. No beach cottage had the requisite space. Now, it’s too crowded with the three of us living in 4400 square feet. Jocelyn is allegedly my cousin, an impossibility I’ve computed on my calculator as I’m thirty years older than she is, and my only uncle was killed in Vietnam a year before I was born. I suspect Henri is screwing her because he never says anything about her beachwear and a real father-figure would tsk-tsk.

You need a companion to draw you out, Henri said the day he brought her from LAX airport. Immediately I suspected he had grown weary of my dyspareunia, something the doctor said was psychological in origin. Maybe the same disorder that causes my painful intercourse also causes his obliviousness to Jocelyn’s Bohemian fashion choices. I’ve begged him to get help and given him a book on male impotency. I bought it on Amazon.

I also have an allergy to coconuts and realized yesterday that Jocelyn almost killed me with a kiwi coconut daiquiri. If I hadn’t seen her blending the ingredients, she might have gotten away with murder. I declined the concoction and suggested she and Henri take their drinks out to the patio and sit in the sun. Play a game of dominoes. Listen to the seagulls squabble over something dead or half-eaten in the sand. They chose Scrabble over dominoes. I heard Jocelyn squeal when she made a seven-letter word even though I closed the sliding glass doors. While they tallied their scores, I called Chastain Construction LLC.

I’ve a five hundred foot cliff and only wooden steps going down to my staggeringly-priced beach front. I need something newer and more aesthetically pleasing. Cement steps would be perfect. Preferably straight down with no landing between flights. A retaining wall? Certainly. No, no steps down to the sand. Just a look-out deck and a protective wall in case the tide gets high. Let me give you my debit card number.

I suggested Henri and Jocelyn stay in L.A. during construction. It will be dusty, noisy, and...they readily agreed, and packed straight away. I wanted to tell them I bought discount Disneyland tickets for them, but they’d left before I could get to my desk and back. I checked her room. She didn’t take her thong, but she did take the red bustiere she bought at Victoria’s Secret. I never believed there was a secret attached to anything made of red lace with black satin bows.

As I hoped, the workmen arrived on schedule and worked diligently until noon. I blended the margaritas, and suggested they take them to the patio. Mr. Chastain was a typical working-class Santa Monica man. Attractive, muscular, and tanned, who used the hand lotion I kept at the kitchen sink. Cherry Blossom scented. By five thirty, all the workmen had left except him. If you’ve a mind for an ocean dip, I told him, I have a dipping thong you could use.

California has wonderful construction weather. Everything gets hard quickly. And in four days I could walk from the patio to the edge of the view-friendly retaining wall without fear of falling. The two ramps leading to the stairs had a stroll-friendly gradient. But the stairs! They had a marvelously steep slope, but it wasn’t ominous looking. Jocelyn would insist she could navigate it in any case.

I learned much that summer. To cure claustrophobia, I had only to walk outside. To cure agoraphobia, I had only to drink margaritas. To cure dyspareunia I had only to use another of Jocelyn’s Victoria’s Secret products: a colorless, greaseless, odorless lotion that, according to Chastain, could lube the gears of a semi engine. I asked for a demonstration.

"You see what it says on the label," he’d said afterwards in his confident construction way, "this stuff’s got polymers in it. That means it takes very little force to keep the pistons moving even when they get hot because Dreamy Desire overcomes resistance. No friction. Smooth operation." Did Victoria know that secret? Perhaps her people had been in construction or the automotive industry.

It didn’t matter. I added Chastain’s information to my stock of knowledge. What it meant was, if the bottom of Jocelyn’s cardboard was smeared with sex jelly, the pressure of her body would accelerate her make-shift sled a hundred fold and transform it into a speeding bullet. What it meant was, there was a secret Henri would never know. Jocelyn was destined to go down to the sea with starship speed and I was destined to overcome the sum of all my middle-aged fears and my allergy to coconuts with one phone call to a family law attorney.