After a while she asked, "What business ya in?"
"I'm sort of retired," he explained, finding her very charming and refreshing to talk to. "I had a modest income a while ago. I invested wisely, or prudently at least, and the interest has built up into quite a fortune by now."
"Really," she said.
They walked down the beach, hand in hand.
Five nights later he got out of bed when she fell asleep. He dressed and walked despondently down to the lobby. This was not it, not it at all. God, but her conversation was absolutely impossible. He couldn't stay with her another minute.
His problem was still unsolved. He wanted to get back to work, he wanted company, he wanted life again. As he came into the lobby, the woman of the first night passed by him again. She looked at him as she came, and smiled as she passed.
That, he thought, is a lovely woman. He stared at her back. How old would you say she is? Late twenties, not a day over thirty. Yet with a serenity in the eyes, in the smile somehow, that gives the impression of lifetimes of living. Yet not a day over thirty, surely no older than that.
That, he thought, is what I need. A woman like that to sleep with and, yes, to be with, even to talk with. She would not be like the one upstairs. But, he thought, one does not buy a woman like that. One marries her. Somehow, without knowing, he knew that.
And why not?