"Carl had thought she was a brunette upon
first sighting her: by that time she was tanned and had taken to wearing
mannish apparel more suited to life in the wild. He thought that she must have
come from Argentina, an Aphrodite of the Gauchos, and was surprised and
delighted to discover her origins. Paul was less enthusiastic, curt with her
puckish observations and flirtatious nature, and regularly annoyed by her
clothing choices. Whenever they gathered, she would roll her eyes at Carl to
indicate that she was, yet again, in trouble.
‘It’s not as if we’re an item,’ she
moaned over rum punch one night at a beachfront bar. ‘It’s just that he assumes
I’m part of his equipment for this hike, and that that gives him some kind of
ownership rights.’ Carl leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees, rotating
his drink in its glass.
‘Ditch him,’ he said. ‘Quit. Tell him
you’d rather drink paint than go up-country with him.’ He watched her luminous
blue eyes staring at the moon’s track along the waves, her dark locks tousled
from too much booze and dancing. She turned her sun-kissed face to him and
smiled a smile that warmed him forever..."
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