🔒 Portrait.

Flash fiction.

Members sunbathe around the pool at Palm Springs Tennis Club, California, circa 1970. (Photo by Slim Aarons/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Jesse tasted like a rental car, one that someone had smoked in. It was endearing, but it was impossible to put into words why it was endearing. Like a lot about him, it simply was.

Jesse had an air of desert kitsch about…