Allison also wore a black bikini, slightly more concealing than Kelly’s. The bikini flattered Allison’s voluptuous body. While I suspected that she naturally had a very fair complexion, all of the skin I could see had a slight tan.
Everyone swam for a while. Peter fixed burgers on the grill. After dinner, everyone had drinks and we talked. The conversation that evening was largely about Allison, Kurt, Bree, and Peter getting to know us and us them. Kelly and I each told the other what we did and a bit about our background.
Peter was somewhat reserved. His voice used a narrow range of pitches and was never raised. He seemed to choose his words carefully. However, Peter could be very funny when he chose to be. We learned that he was executive director of a non-profit company that raised funds for arts organizations in the area. Bree was also low key. She had a very soft voice. When she talked, she gave the impression that she knew what she was talking about and carefully distinguished between fact and assumption of hypothesis. Bree was an economics professor at the large, local state university.
Kurt was an architect. While I did not know him previously, I was aware of his firm. They had reputation as young up-and-comers. They had designed several major projects in the region over the last several years. Their designs were innovative if not somewhat edgy. Although Kurt was very pleasant, he seemed to usually let Allison speak for them.
Allison was high energy and very outgoing. She had an opinion or comment on almost everything, but managed to do that in a way that was not offensive or overbearing. Allison, we learned, was a visual artist. While she “dabbled” in several media, her commercial work was primary oil or water color painting. She regularly showed in one of the city’s top galleries and sold several works per year. A substantial part of her income came from “stroking wealthy egocentrics.” Allison was, it seemed, the go-to person in town if you wanted your portrait painted.
The evening broke up a little after ten. It had been a very pleasant evening and I was very favorably impressed by our new neighbors. Peter came up to us just before we left.
“Allison, Kurt, Bree, and I have been having these Friday pool parties, weather permitting, almost every Friday for a couple of years. We hope that you’ll continue to join us. Unless you hear otherwise, you can assume that we’ll be here every Friday night roughly May through September. We hope that you will both become regulars.”
“Thank you Peter,” Kelly replied. “That’s very nice. We’ll be pleased to join you as much as possible.”
Kelly and I talked once we got home. Kelly shared my favorable impression of our neighbors and said that she looked forward to next Friday.
The Friday evening pool parties did become a weekly event. They always followed more-or-less the same pattern: everyone swam or Peter strung up a water volleyball net, then dinner, then drinks and free-flowing intelligent conversation. The topics ranged from politics (all six of us shared broadly similar views) to local events to books or the arts to sports to what had happened to one of us at work. They were very enjoyable evenings. While everyone drank, no one got really drunk.