Page 113 of Our Last Resort

“Oh, hi,” she says.

Gabriel says hi back. Sabrina stops. Her voice shakes a bit, but in Gabriel’s presence, she seems to relax. Once again, they’re chatting. About the desert, the heat, the hotel. Mindless things.

“Listen,” Gabriel says, then hesitates. He doesn’t know what he’s trying to ask, or how to ask it. In the end, he settles for: “Is everything okay? Are you okay?”

Sabrina looks at him as though it’s been months since anyone has asked her that question.

“I’m…fine,” she says. “My husband—he’s under a lot of stress. I get on his nerves sometimes.” She gives a forced chuckle, runs her hand over her already-smooth hair. “Wives and husbands, you know?”

Gabriel nods.

He knows.

“If you need anything,” he says. “Just…I’m here. My sister and I, we’re staying in suite twenty-nine.”

Sabrina’s hand drops from her hair.

“Your sister?”

“Yes. I’m here with her.”

“The woman you’re with, that’s your sister?”

Gabriel confirms. He doesn’t explain. Doesn’t say,Well, not really. She’s my…something. We grew up together.

Something like electricity travels between him and Sabrina.

It gives him a kind of courage he hasn’t felt in nearly a decade.

“Hey,” he says. “Do you maybe want to…sit with me, or something? We have a patio. It’s nice and quiet.”

Sabrina doesn’t point out that all the suites have patios, and that they’re all nice and quiet.

She nods.

“Hold on,” I say. “You really said this? ‘Sit with me, or something’?”

It’s a detail, I know, but it feels important to me. Something about the credibility—can I imagine those words coming out of Gabriel’s mouth?

Actually, yes.

I’ve been on enough dates to know this is not what quality flirting sounds like. And Gabriel? I don’t think he ever was a smooth talker.

He cringes.

“I know. But it worked.”

Sabrina follows him back to our suite. Gabriel speed-walks past our beds, which are made, thank god—housekeeping came while we were away. For a second, the whole affair looks sordid. But then, those two are on the patio, and everything seems to click into place.

Meanwhile, I’m leaving the pool and heading into the desert, water and crackers in hand, to rescue a coyote.

“So,” Sabrina says, taking one of the two chairs, waiting for Gabriel to settle on the other. “Where are you visiting from?”

He tells her about Seattle. He’s free not to explain why he moved there; it’s clear she doesn’t recognize him. In fact, he finds that Sabrina Brenner is a blank canvas on which he can repaint himself. In her eyes, he can be whoever he wants.

It feels so good. So freeing.

Sabrina asks him questions, and he answers. “What do you do?” He tells her about the Roman Empire. It is an extraordinary kind of bliss, telling a beautiful woman about the Roman Empire. “How did you get into that?” He tells her about books, about the internet, about films. “How’s Seattle? I’ve never been.” He tells her about the weather, how he actually likes rain. Not everyone understands liking the rain, but Sabrina does.

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