SETH IN VENICE 
Send by Bird 
(496 words)


At LAX, Seth watched as the girl stood and reached for her backpack
overhead across the aisle.

Callipygian.  The word resonated with Greek ideals of beauty, and it
resonated in Seth's head.  Normally, he disliked this new style, the
low-rise, butt-revealing pants.  Dan Ackroyd as a refrigerator repair
man on SNL back in the 70s when Seth stayed up that late. Kids, he
scoffed.

This girl was different. For 3,000 miles, he had barely noticed her, one
empty seat away on the aisle.  But as they neared LA, Seth had felt
himself growing lighter, younger, his East coast heaviness and
inhibitions diffusing like wisps of cloud.  Now he stared: strip of
white satin thong, band of exposed flesh, thin cotton sweatpants
clinging to the perfect roundness of her bottom, the tattoo faint
beneath the fabric but unmistakable: an arrow-pierced, deep red heart
and below it, the words Bad Girl.

"I've got a rental car. Need a lift?" he said.

"Cool. I'm Ricki."

"Where are you headed?"

"Venice," she said, "You?"

"The Getty," but suddenly the prospects of long afternoons alone in a
museum seemed dull, deadly dull.

*		*		*		*

"There must be some mistake," Seth lied to the Avis woman.  "I reserved
a convertible."  It took an extra ten minutes and it cost, but soon they
were in the red Mustang, her blond hair flowing in the breeze.  He
clicked on the radio.  Arrow 93.  "Rikki don't lose that number. . ."

"That for me?"

"Yeah, Steely Dan."

"Right.  My dad listens to him."

Seth, felt old, crushed.

"Maybe we could. . . ." Seth said as she stepped from the car near the
beach.

"That's sweet," she laughed and without turning walked away, waving a
hand.

You could have a change of heart, Seth muttered to himself, his own
heart aching.

*		*		*		*

"Could you do something about the gray?" Seth asked the stylist.  She
understood.  She darkened his hair, wax his eyebrows, showed him how to
smooth creams into his face.  Hours.  Seth offered up his Amex card, and
looked in the mirror at a man twenty years younger.

*		*		*		*

For more than a week, he wandered the beach, the bike path, the
boardwalk, searching the faces.  Sometimes he thought he saw her, but
no.  He tried others  pick-ups were not so difficult now  but when he
asked, "Have you been a bad girl," the response was disappointingly
literal.

Now he sat on a bench by the boardwalk, tired, his Times open to the
arts page.  A rollerblader half-pirouetted to a stop and landed beside
him.

"Hey, I thought it was you.  Gee, I'm sorry I blew you off like that."

Seth's heart raced.  He glanced down at the paper.  A famous German
painter was in town.  In the photo, he did not look well.

May as well try rather than die wondering.  "Ricki, you were a bad
girl."

She pressed closer, rested her hand on his thigh, her mouth at his ear. 
"I know," she purred. "Very bad."