Masques

by J N Williamson

  “Well, I’m . . . I’m glad.” He smiled. Warm, sensitive smile. “I didn’t see anybody with you.”

  “You’ve been watching me?”

  “Yes, I have,” he admitted. “You’re a . . . very striking woman. I couldn’t help noticing you. Hope you’re not offended.”

  “At being called striking?” She smiled up at him. “That was a compliment, right?”

  “Absolutely,” he nodded. “You’re really very attractive.” So are you, she thought. Tall. Good build (but not the overdeveloped beach boy type). Neat, casual clothes. No slash-neck cable-knit shirts or jock jeans. And that sensitive smile! “How long have you been watching me?” she asked. “Long enough to see you deal with those three creeps,” he said. “They all seemed to get the message.”

  She grinned impishly. “You must think I’m hostile.”

  “Not at all. Just careful. And you have to be in a place like this. Most of these guys are on the hustle. That’s all they’re here for.”

  “And what are you here for?”

  “Same reason you are, I guess. To meet someone worthwile.”

  “And what makes you think I’m worthwhile?”

  “If you were just another beach bunny you’d be long gone by now. With one of those three guys. Simple, huh?”

  She put out a hand. “My name’s Elise Malcolm.”

  “Hi,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’m Philip Gregory.”

  “Want to buy me another drink?”

  “Sure do,” he said, “but not here. This place makes me edgy. Can’t we go somewhere quieter—get to know each other?”

  “Don’t see why not,” she said. “But we’ll never do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Know each other. Does anyone ever really know anyone else?”

  And she stared into his dark eyes.

  They took his car, an immaculate white 911-T Porsche, and she liked the way he drove—with courtesy and control. To her mind, he handled the Porsche the way a man should handle a woman.

  He took her to Carmen’s on Pico. The perfect choice. A dark corner booth. Spanish guitars. Candlelight. Good wine.

  “So,” he said, leaning back in the booth. “Tell me about yourself. First, I want to know what a classy lady like you—”

  “—is doing at a pickup bar like Fast Eddie’s, right?”

  He nodded.

  “I live near there, and I just didn’t feel like a long drive. I’ve been lonesome. I thought maybe I’d get lucky.”

  He flashed his warm smile. “And did you?”

  “Give me time to find out.” She returned his smile. “But I do love your eyes!”

  “Windows of the soul, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  He leaned toward her. “Do you really mean it, about my eyes?”

  “I never say anything I don’t mean.”

  “A toast,” he said. “To honesty.”

  They clicked glasses, sipping the wine.

  “I want to know all about you,” he said. “Red-haired women are supposed to be mysterious.”

  “Really?” She grinned. “Well, the red hair came from Daddy. He was a scientist. A truly fine one. Along with my hair, I also inherited his passion for botany.”

  “Plants?”

  “Right. I crossbreed them—like some people do Arabian horses. Daddy taught me a lot. He was a brilliant man. And very kind.”

  “Sounds as if you were close?”

  She raised her eyes to his. “He took my virginity when I was fifteen.”

  Philip Gregory pressed back against the leather booth, staring at her.

  She lowered her eyes. “I’ve shocked you. I’m sorry.”

  “No—it’s just that . . .”

  “I know. Incest is sick stuff. People don’t like to talk about it or even think about it. But it happens sometimes.”

  He was silent as she continued.

  “I guess it was my fault as much as Daddy’s. I was trying out my budding feminine charms on him. Just to see what kind of power I could exert over a man. A lot of young daughters do that, consciously or unconsciously. They tease their fathers. And . . . it just happened.”

  He sipped his wine, then looked up at her. “How long did you . . . I mean, did it . . . continue?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, it didn’t continue. Once it happened we both knew it was wrong. It stopped right there.”

  “And what about your mother? Did she know?”

  “My mother died when I was eight, back in Ohio. That’s where I’m from. Cleveland. Moved out here with my father when I was ten. He never remarried.”

  “I see.”

  “In Daddy’s case that old saying applies—the one about being married to your work.” The soft candlelight was reflected in her eyes. “When he died two years ago I suddenly realized that I had been, too. Married, I mean. Both of us—married to botany.” She smiled. “Then, after he was gone. I began looking for what I’d missed.”

  “At Fast Eddie’s?”

  “There—and a dozen other places. You never know when you’ll meet someone who is—as you said—worthwhile.”

  “Do I qualify?”

  “In some ways, yes, or I wouldn’t be here with you. In other ways . . . I’m not sure yet. How could I be?”

  “Meaning you need to know more about me?”

  “Right. Anyway, it’s your turn to talk.”

  He had the waiter (who looked like an overaged matador) bring more wine before he began telling her about himself. Drifting guitar music from three strolling players accompanied his words. She couldn’t help thinking how romantic it all was.

  “I grew up in Berkeley. My father worked as a conductor on a cable car in San Francisco. Used to give me free rides. Mom stayed home to take care of me and my two little sisters. I’m a college grad—with a Master’s in psychology from the University of California.”

  “Is that your profession?”

  “My profession is gambling.”

  A strained silence between them.

  “Now you’re shocked,” he said with a grin.

  “Not really. Just surprised.”

  “I tried going into psychology. Even had my own office for awhile. But I made more money off the tables in Vegas than I ever did as a practicing psychologist.”

  “Gamblers always lose,” she said.

  “Not always. With me it’s only sometimes. And I win a lot more often than I lose. Maybe I’m the exception that proves the rule.”

  “Well, maybe you are at that,” she said. “What about marriage? I mean, were you . . . are you?”

  “I was—almost. But I called it off at the last minute. Walked away from the lady when I realized I didn’t actually love her. At least not enough to marry her. That was three years ago.”

  “And since?”

  He shrugged. “Since then I’ve been involved once or twice. But nothing heavy.”

  They finished the wine.

  “Hungry?” he asked her. “They have excellent food here. I particularly recommend the Steak Hemingway. That is, if you like steak.”

  “Right now I’d like a breast of turkey sandwich on two thick slices of pumpernickel.”

  He frowned. “I’m sure they don’t—”

  “Not here,” she said. “My place. At the beach. I have some turkey in the fridge. In a ziplock bag. Real fresh. How about it?”

  “I say to hell with Steak Hemingway.” And he pressed her warm hand.

  At Fast Eddie’s they switched to her Mercedes convertible, leaving his 911-T in the lot.

  “No use taking both cars,” she told him. “I can drive you back here later.”

  “Suits me,” he said, sliding into the red leather passenger’s seat.

  “I can put the top up if it’s too windy for you.”

  “No, I like open cars. You can smell the ocean.”

  “Ah,” she smiled. “We have something in common.”

  “Open cars?”

 
“The ocean. I love it, too. That’s why I live down here. To be near it. It’s so alive”

  And she accelerated the black Mercedes smoothly onto Pacific Coast Highway, smiling into the wind.

  They were sitting in front of the fireplace with Segovia on the stereo (a night for Spanish guitars!) when he kissed her, taking her easily into his arms, fitting her body to his. The kiss was fierce, deep-mouthed.

  She eased back from him. “Hey, let the lady breathe, okay?”

  “Sure,” he grinned. “The night’s still young.”

  He glanced at the large oil portrait of a long-faced somber man over the fireplace. “Who’s that?”

  “The original mad botanist,” she said lightly. “Professor Herbert Ludlow Malcolm, my father.” Elise stood up, walked over to the painting. She trailed her fingers along its gold frame. “Daddy had some pretty radical ideas about plant life.”

  “Stern-looking old gentleman.”

  “Well . . . he took life very seriously,” she said. “I guess I inherited that from him, too.”

  “You’re sure a lot prettier than he was.”

  “Time to feed our tummies,” she said. “Turkey in a ziplock, remember?”

  “Whatever you say,” he nodded.

  “You are hungry?”

  “Famished. But not necessarily for cold turkey.”

  “I’ll let that one pass,” she grinned. “Sandwich. Yes or no?”

  “Yes.”

  He followed her into the kitchen, separated by a long counter-bar from the main living area. He sat down on a chrome bar stool, watching her fix the sandwiches.

  “Know anything about botany?” she asked him.

  “Only what I learned in junior high. And I can’t remember much of that. To me, a plant is a plant is a plant.”

  Elise was slicing a loaf of dark bread. “Plants are like people,” she told him. “Each has its own personality.”

  “I’ve heard about a rose screaming when you cut it,” he said. “But that’s a bit far-fetched.”

  “Not at all,” she declared. “It’s fact. Plants do have feelings. They respond to good or bad treatment. Even as a little girl I could feel their vibrations.”

  “I’m into vibrations,” he said. “And I like the ones you put out.”

  She ignored this, arranging slices of turkey on their plates. “Daddy believed that plants could be developed far beyond what is perceived to be their present stage. He was always experimenting with them. When he died, he left me his notes. I’ve been carrying on his work. I think he would be proud of what I’ve accomplished.”

  She finished the food preparation, handed him his plate. “Turkey on pumpernickel. Fresh tomatoes. And some sliced papaya for dessert.”

  “Looks great.”

  “Let’s eat in the greenhouse,” she said. “I’ll show you what I’ve been talking about.”

  They left the beach house and walked across a flagstone patio into a large beamed-glass building.

  He whistled as the door clicked shut behind them. “Wow. This place cost a pretty penny!”

  “Daddy left me a lot of pennies,” she said.

  The building was huge, much larger than he’d expected. An odorous riot of jungled growth stretched away from him in leaf-choked rows of midnight blues, deep purples, veined greens, brooding yellows. Colors were muted in the dim glow of overhead lights and the leafy rows lost themselves in shadow at the far end of the vast structure.

  He loosened his collar. The odors were oppressive, suffocating—and the temperature was uncomfortably high. He felt sweat beads forming on his forehead and upper lip.

  “I have to keep it warm in here,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll survive,” he said.

  “Put your plate down. I want to show you around.”

  “Okay, lady, but just remember, I am famished. And I’m not much for exotic plant lore. Keep the lecture brief and pithy.”

  “I promise not to bore you.” And she kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  She led him along one of the vine-and-leaf-tangled rows, talking animatedly. “There are up to half a million different plant species in the world. I have only a few hundred of them here, all classified according to their evolutionary development.” She paused, turned to face him. “Did you know that plants are very sexual, that they bear sperm and eggs?”

  “I do now,” he said.

  “They can be very exciting. Some are bisexual, having both stamens and pistils.”

  “Real swingers.”

  She looked angry. “You’re making fun of me.”

  He shook his head. “Not really. I know you’re heavy into all this leaf and stem jazz. It’s just that I’m not goofy over plants. Is that so terrible?”

  She smiled, relaxing. “I guess I am a little intense,” she admitted. “But the more time you spend with plants—as you feed them, care for them—the more you learn to respect them. There’s . . . real communication.”

  “To each his own,” said Philip Gregory.

  “The species along this row are all western herb plants—

  Squawroot . . . Fireweed . . . St. John’s Wort . . . Prairie Flax . . . In the Old West the Indians used them as medicines and as healing remedies for—”

  “Hey!” He interrupted her flow of words. “You’ve just broken your promise. About not boring me.”

  “Sorry,” she said softly. “I really came out here to show you Herbie.”

  “What’s Herbie?”

  “The end product of my crossbreeding. Herbie was Mother’s special name for Daddy. She always called him that.”

  “Why don’t we just forget Daddy?” he said, reaching out to gather her into his arms. “Let’s concentrate on us” And he kissed her, forcing her head back.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Hey, c’mon, quit playing games. I know you want me. So I’m yours.” He cupped a hand under her chin, looking into her eyes. “And you’re mine”

  Elise twisted away, pushing at his chest with both hands. “Stop it! I don’t belong to you, or to anyone else!”

  “Look, you invited me to your pad, and not just to show me some lousy plants.” His tone was steely. “Now, do we proceed with things right here, on the floor, or do we go back inside to a comfortable bed? You call it, lady.”

  Her eyes flashed. “Do you actually think I’d let a gambler violate my body? Oh, you come on so smooth, easy talking, pretending to be so sensitive—but the truth is you’re no different than all the others. On the hustle. Out to make a score. You don’t give a damn about anybody but yourself.”

  “Who else should I give a damn about?”

  He grabbed her, gripping her firmly by both shoulders. His face was hard, jaw muscles rigid. “You can have it easy or you can have it rough. Which will it be?”

  “Herbie!” she called. “Now! Take him now!”

  “You crazy bitch, what the hell are you—”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. A thick, leafy root snaked around his right leg, jerking him backward, away from her, with terrific force.

  He struck the floor as three other spiny root-tentacles coiled around his body. One, encircling his neck, began to tighten. He clawed at it, gasping, choking, tearing his nails against its prickly barked surface.

  He was dragged rapidly along the floor toward a corner of the greenhouse. Something tall and dark and fleshy lived there, in the gloom, pulsating, quivering . . . A sickening chemical stench filled the air.

  “He’s yours,” said Elise. “Enjoy him.”

  She closed the soundproof door behind her and walked across the patio into the house, not looking back.

  Elise sat cross-legged on the tatami mat, looking up at the portrait of her father above the fireplace . . .

  It was too bad that Philip Gregory had turned out to be like all the rest of them. She really thought, at first, that he might be different, might be someone she could relate to, someone to share her life, to ease the pain of her isol
ated existence.

  When she was a little girl her Daddy had quoted a line from a book written in 1851: “Trust not a man’s words, if you please.” And he’d been right, the author of that book. No man could be trusted. They were all corrupt. All foul and predatory.

  She was glad that she had given her virginity to Daddy. As a special gift. It was only proper that he had made a woman of her. He’d been so gentle and sweet. No other man had treated her that way.

  And, she was certain, ever would.

  Elise Malcolm sat very still now, listening to the ocean. To the surf coming in, going out . . . saying what it so often said . . .

  “Pretty,” it whispered to her.

  “Bright,” it said.

  And, over and over: “Lonely . . . Lonely . . . Lonely . . .”

  Long After Ecclesiastes

  Ray Bradbury

  A few decades ago, book lovers spent uncounted enjoyable, silly hours trying to compile lists of the indispensable reads—books which, if one were dumped unceremoniously on a desert island, would keep one sane, even civilized. Being young, silly, a would-be writer and relatively civilized—the terms are not necessarily mutually exclusive—my version of the game had the old Doubleday Complete Sherlock Holmes at the head of the list.

  Even now, I wouldn’t remove Holmes and Watson, but I think the list might begin with The Stories of Ray Bradbury (Alfred A. Knopf, 1981). My guess is that your editor is merely one of the few who would admit it, one of the great many who would put the collection there. Is anything, really, finer?

  In his introduction to Stories, which he named “Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle,” Bradbury observed that everyone “needs someone higher, wiser, older to tell us . . . what we’re doing is all right.” His commitment to Masques told publisher John Maclay and me just that; and who knows what influence it had upon the others here assembled? A suspicion: I think it told them the same thing about us.

  If “influencing” other wordsmiths means even unconscious emulation, however, I doubt that Ray Bradbury has influenced all that many authors; because imitating him is, I think, unthinkable. Like imitating Bill Russell or Larry Bird; Cole Porter; Shakespeare; Oscar Levant; Ella Fitzgerald; James Thurber. Yet in one way, writers who read Ray at his best are nearly bound to be influenced. His work is so overflowing with ideas that, inevitably, caught up in a Bradbury yarn or poem, the urge to tell a story one’s own way—one’s own idea-sparked connection—becomes inevitable.