A Shoot on Martha's Vineyard Read Online Free

to the far barrier beach, where the very last of the day’s swimmers and tanners were packing up and heading home.
    I took more than a sip of my own drink (perfectly pre-pared, as usual: vodka and chilled glasses from the freezer, a splash of vermouth spilled into each glass, swirled, then tossed out; two green olives into my glass, two black ones into Zee’s, and Luksusowa to the brim).
    â€œYou can probably have a lot of fun finding out,” I said. “And when Joshua is a little older, he can watch your reruns on the VCR.”
    â€œI can see the headlines now,” said Zee, waving a languid arm. “Humble island housewife transformed into glamorous cinema queen, but Academy Award winner never forgets her simple island roots.” She sipped some more, then gave me her dazzling smile. “Really, what do you think?”
    â€œAs one who’s ogled women since puberty, I bow to none as an expert on good-looking women, so you can take it from me that you’re at least a ten in any man’s book. And I’ve never known a woman who wasn’t an actress part of the time. If that’s what it takes to make a star, you’ve got it made.”
    She reached out her strong brown arm and took my hand in hers. “I’ve got it made right here.”
    We were on our balcony, and Joshua, after his long day on the beach, was snoozing down below in our bedroom. The window was open, and we took turns running downstairs to make sure that he was okay. We were still in the stage where we worried that he was dying when he cried or that he was dead when he was quiet. Like all beginning parents, we were amateurs at the job, and like all amateurs, we used up a lot of worry-energy to no useful end.
    I liked having Zee’s hand in mine. I liked being married to her, and having Joshua making us three. I didn’t want to do anything to unbalance us.
    One of the things I liked about our marriage was that it was stuck together without any coercion of any kind. There was no “We have to stay together because we said we would” or “You owe me” or “You promised me you’d love me” stuff or, now, any “Think of the children” stuff, either, even though we had said we’d stick together, and we did owe each other more than we could say, and we did love each other and, now, we did have Joshua to think about.
    Basically Zee and I were married because we wanted to be married, and for no other reason.
    I wondered why I was thinking such thoughts, and suspected that it was because of two things: the first was a sort of restlessness that had come over Zee since Joshua had made his appearance. Her usual confidence and independence were occasionally less pronounced, occasionally more; her normal fearlessness was sometimes replaced by an uneasiness that I’d not seen in her before, and at other times she became almost fierce.
    A postpartum transformation of some kind? I didn’t know. Maybe she saw the same things in me, and all that either of us was seeing was the fretting of new parents who didn’t really know how to do their job and were worried that they were doing it wrong.
    The second thing bothering me was more easily identified. It was Drew Mondry.
    Him, Tarzan; Zee, Jane.
    They even looked like Tarzan and Jane. Both were sun-tanned and spectacularly made, with his blond hair and brilliant blue eyes contrasting well indeed with her dark eyes and long, blue-black hair. Golden Tarz; bronze Jane.
    And there was that little charged current that had run between them this morning.
    May I call you Zee? I’ll phone you later.
    But why shouldn’t there be electricity between them? She was a great beauty who left only blind men unscathed, and he was a handsome man with two bright eyes. And didn’t I still eyeball female beauties while married to Zee? What was so different about Drew Mondry being fascinated by Zee and her being interested in him?
    Or