Upstairs in his room, Jeff switched on the television set but turned the volume all the way down. He left the room lights off. The place was cast in a gray-green light, pale and ghostly, that flickered and changed. He stripped to his underwear and took five bills from his wallet and set them on the corner of the bed nearest the door. After locking the wallet in his suitcase, he sat leaning against the pillows, staring at the silent television.
She tapped lightly on the door a few minutes later. Jeff let her in. She stayed by him while he locked the door, and when he turned, she pressed herself expertly against his body, her fingers dancing on his arms.
"I'm alone, honey," she whispered like a little girl. "Can I be with you for a while?"
They swayed together briefly, and Jeff ran his hands down her back. He led her into the room and sat on the bed as she stood and looked around. She noticed the money at once. Jeff nodded, and she put the cash in her pocketbook, which she then set on a side table.
"Spooky," she said in a hushed voice. "It's so spooky in here." But she smiled to show she liked it.
"Take off your shoes," Jeff said. "Are your legs bare?"
Lorna removed her open-toed high heels. The wrap dress, cinched around her waist, parted easily as she took off her tights and tossed them onto her pocket book. Then she fumbled with the front of the dress, as if to rearrange it, carefully flashing more of her legs. She contrived to open it more above, too, revealing cleavage and a sheer bra.
Jeff held one hand out, low, almost at knee level. She stepped forward so that her leg filled his grip. He touched her for a few seconds, then let go and stood up.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm a cop."
"Oh, no."
"I'm going to have to arrest you."
"I knew it. Oh, please."
"Hands up, against the wall, spread your legs."
She did as he said.
"Oh, please," she whimpered effectively. "I'll do whatever you want ... anything."
"Sorry
He went up close behind the young woman and searched her, running his hands down her arms even though her dress was sleeveless. Down along her sides to her hips. Then up her legs, the backs of her thighs, slowly under the dress. Lorna made her body tremble and began to breathe quickly through her mouth, so that he could hear it. She let her head hang down between her upraised arms. Her buttocks tensed as his hands slid under the flimsy panties she wore and snaked around to the front. He leaned over her, his knees up against the backs of hers, and she gasped as he probed between her legs. She was open, moist, ready. He kept one hand there and brought the other up to the top of her dress, testing the texture of that silky excuse for a bra, pulling it down, and ex posing her breasts. She made little cries in her throat. Her whole body moved to his touch.
"Please ... anything ..."
Cries of pain and pleasure. Her hips rocked on one of his hands, her breasts thrust against the other. He was almost ready, and he slipped off his underpants. Then he pulled her dress up over her ass and removed her panties.
"Please, please," she begged.
"I have to arrest you."
"No, no, sir ... just teach me a lesson."
Jeff grabbed her hair, firmly but not roughly, and turned her around. She kept her eyes tightly shut, knowing that's how he would want them. He opened her dress completely and sucked one breast, then the other, and he held the nipple between his teeth, biting it carefully to make her moan. Finally, he brought her to her knees, so that she could take him the rest of the way.
"I'll have to remember that," Lorna said later, as she was about to leave. "It's different, and fun."
Jeffs face tightened. He said nothing, but he was annoyed. She had to open her mouth and blab something like that. He should have carried it through all the way, showing her out the door with a gruff warning, like a stern cop, before she got around to talking. But he hadn't, and now she'd gone and ruined the whole thing, destroying the illusion.
"I'll be around tomorrow night, if you are," she said.
"So long." Jeff rolled over on the bed, away from her, like a child sulking and wanting to be left alone.
"Yeah, okay, so long." Lorna made a face, turned, and walked out of the room, thinking, They're not all assholes; it only seems that way.
When the door clicked shut, Jeff lit a cigarette. He turned up the volume on the television and sat for a while at the foot of the bed, watching David Letterman and Jamie Lee Curtis talk about her body.
CHAPTER NINE
Jeff woke up a little after one. He didn't feel as bad as he had expected, just sleepy. After a long shower, he pulled back the drapes, and the room filled with sunshine. Another hot, cloudless day, apparently. He called his office again and was pleased to hear that Callie had no news of any importance to pass along.
He dressed and ate a light late lunch in the hotel restaurant. Then he took a drive to Union Carbide and cruised around the massive complex. He felt slightly ridiculous, but thought he should at least see what the place looked like, in case there was any mention of it over dinner. Sean had brought up the subject once or twice the night before, but Jeff had put him off with a few boring comments of a technical nature.
It was nearly three o'clock when he parked downtown in Danbury. He had just realized he was low on money. He found a bank that honored his California cash card, then wandered around for a while, and finally entered that same cocktail lounge for a cold beer. The place was quiet, dead, at this time of day. He sat at the end of the bar, enjoying the cool darkness.
The beer was good, settling him. How strange to have so much free time on his hands, and to be doing so much drinking! Two luxuries he hardly ever enjoyed in California. He told himself that he looked forward to getting home and back to work. The time would be eaten up then, as it always was, consumed in great, easily digested chunks. That's the way life should go. If you sat around too long, you'd go crazy ... wouldn't you?
But, at the same time, he knew it would be different now. Everything was changed by the fact that he'd seen Georgianne. The question was: Changed how? It was absurd to think of anything beyond the simple pleasure of this reunion. When he returned to Los Angeles, it would be over. Georgianne would slip back into the past. Finis.
Jeff couldn't accept that. This reunion was a way of saying A, and a favorite old chess maxim had it that if you say A, you must say B.... His real problem was to figure out what B was. Of course, the obvious solution would be for Sean to pack up and bow out gracefully.
Did he really think that? He lit a cigarette and smiled at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He had a weird grin on his face, and he kind of liked it because it was so new and unusual. Well? Yes, it was a crazy idea, and one that probably had no real chance at all. But why throw it out? Why not enjoy it for a while, as a purely theoretical possibility? She could fall in love with him, she could decide to break with Sean. That kind of thing did happen. Every day.
Jeff was sure he and Georgianne could be very good for each other. He was in a rut at work, and she could get him out of it, help him enjoy life again. By the same token, she was in a kind of rut too, a suburban stupor. He didn't sense any edge in her life. She deserved better. So did he. If nothing else, this trip east had given him a new determination to improve the way he lived, to transform his life. He had the financial means and, now, the desire. They were both still in their thirties; it wasn't too late yet.
The second beer was even more soothing, and Jeff relaxed into his daydream. Oh, he knew it would almost certainly come to nothing, but it was so damn pleasant to think about ... he couldn't let it go. It wasn't new. It had come to him many times over the years. But now, finally, he had seen her and touched her, and that made the dream half real.
He left the lounge just before five and drove back to the hotel. After he brushed his teeth again and changed, he made his way to Foxrock. Georgianne came out the front door and walked across the lawn to greet him.
"I'm a little early."
"Not at all," she replied, kissing him lightly on the cheek. "You could have come anytime this afternoon, you know. Sean probably has a drink ready for you."
This was to be a relaxed at-home evening. Georgianne looked casual for it, but gorgeous. She wore a pair of white shorts, snug but not too tight, and a madras shirt with the tails tied across her bare, flat midriff.
"You look terrific," Jeff said as they walked to the house. "I love the shirt."
"I knew you would. That's why I put it on."
"Really?"
"Sure. Don't you remember how popular madras shirts and jackets were back in high school?"
"Yeah, of course."
He was immensely pleased that she had dressed for him, and that she had chosen something from the memories they shared. No matter what she says or does, he thought, it turns out even better than I could hope.
They found Sean in the kitchen, a tray of ice cubes in one hand. He wore sandals, jeans, and a Mets T-shirt.
"Hello, hello," he welcomed Jeff merrily. "What'll you have for openers?"
"Uh ... well ... what're you drinking?"
"Harp lager, good and cold."
"I'll join you."
"Right you are." Sean went to the refrigerator. "Honey, what about you?"
"Can I have a white wine spritzer?" Georgianne asked.
"Certainly, certainly."
Jeff showed no reaction, but the image of the hooker's asking for the same drink at his hotel the previous night flashed briefly through his mind.
"Ah, that's good," Jeff said after sipping the can of beer. He knew it had been bought specially for him, for this occasion; surely Sean couldn't afford to drink Harp all the time. He took it as another sign of the man's insecurity.
Georgianne had things to do in the kitchen and suggested that Sean give Jeff a quick tour of the property. They went out the back door, onto a flagstone patio. The Corcorans had just over an acre of land, with some fine old trees. Sean had put up a split-rail fence around the front and two sides. The back gave way to tall grass, briers, and a gradual downhill slope. They had a vegetable garden, flower beds, and a modest grapevine.
The house itself was a gambrel, with cedar siding that had weathered to an attractive silvery gray. Inside, the post-and-beam construction created an old, country feeling, solid and homey, rural but not of the wilderness. They had an ornate soapstone wood stove.
The cellar comprised a small cold-storage room for food and a large main area that contained the laundry appliances and Sean's workshop. Jeff had never seen so many tools. Not even his father, who had been a professional carpenter, had owned this many.
"Don't ask me if I need them all," Sean said, as if reading Jeffs thoughts. "When you build a house yourself you tend to accumulate all sorts of things."
"I'm impressed."
"Ah, well. I've come to the conclusion that a house is really just a big inventory of things That need to be repaired, changed, adjusted, or refinished. You keep doing them, one after another, but the list never gets any smaller."
Jeff smiled. "The rigors of ownership." His fiveroom condominium was elegantly furnished, but decidedly uncluttered.
"Exactly," Sean said, leading the way back upstairs.
"I love it." Jeff pronounced his verdict as they went through the kitchen.
"Thanks," Georgianne said, smiling. "So do I."
Fresh cans of beer in hand, Sean and Jeff went outside to sit on the patio. The Adirondack chairs were comfortable and looked recently painted. Jeff was going to say something about them, but decided not to-he didn't want to hear that Sean had made them himself.
They chatted about the winters, summer vacations, the Mets and the Dodgers, cars and computers. Sean didn't like computers, and on his home ground he was less reserved about saying so than he had been the previous evening. Jeff didn't bother arguing. He found it amusing and rather pathetic. He had the luxury of being on the cutting edge of technology. In the cellar, Jeff had seen a huge display of tools, but they were the old tools, the tools of the past. Still useful, of course, but undeniably quaint, as far as he was concerned. Sean struck him as one of those people whose idea of common sense is to go back to some simpler, earlier way of life. The only technology needed to accomplish this was H. G. Wells's time machine. Jeff could smile at this without being aware of the irony.
"You must come jogging with me," Sean said, re turning from the kitchen with more beer. 'I go out early in the morning. It's beautiful."
'No way," Jeff replied, setting the full can of lager next to the one he hadn't yet finished.
They heard a car stop in front of the house. A door slammed shut, and the car drove away. A minute later Georgianne came out to the patio with a teenager in tow.
"Jeff," she said, "I'd like you to meet our daughter, Bonnie." Her voice was proud, her smile radiant. "Bonnie, this is Mr. Lisker, a friend of mine from grammar school and high school."
"Jeffll do fine," he said, standing. His heart hammered in his chest, and he was afraid his face had changed color. "Hi. How are you?"
"Hi. Pleased to meet you."
The girl smiled shyly. She was stunning. She was an inch or so taller than her mother and she had her father's darker hair, but otherwise Bonnie Corcoran fulfilled in almost every way the twenty-year-old image of Georgianne in Jeff's mind. Breasts perky and girlish beneath a thin T-shirt, obviously no bra. Legs long and slender in tight designer jeans, a compact but definitely female ass that Jeff could hardly bear to look at. Most of all, the face and eyes, so like her mother's. Jeff had to make an effort not to stare at Bonnie, but he ached inside.
Can I have some wine?" Bonnie asked her father.
"All right," Sean said. Then, to Georgianne, "Water it down a bit for her, would you, hon?"
The women went inside.
"Did Georgianne tell me that Bonnie's about to graduate from high school?"
"That's right," Sean said. "And she's only seventeen."
"She's a beautiful girl."
"The price is more or less constant terror," Sean said. "You think it'll get better as a child gets older, but it doesn't. Just the opposite."
"I can imagine."
"Bonnie looks like any other teenager, and she is, in most respects, but God gave her a great brain. She's highly motivated and she seems to know exactly what she wants to do. Her SATs were fantastic."
"That's great," Jeff said. "Where is she going to school in September?"
"Harvard."
"Wow!"
"And they're paying just about everything, which is just as well, since I couldn't."
"What does she want to study?"
"Molecular biology." Sean had a helpless expression on his face. "She can tell you about it; I can't. My knowledge of biology is limited to giving electricshock treatment to dead frogs."
Jeff laughed. "Me too."
The four of them ate at a large redwood picnic table on the patio. The food was simply prepared but excellent. Cold shrimp, which they dipped in a spicy sauce, was followed by a platter of soft-shell crabs and a spinach salad with mushrooms and hot pieces of crispy bacon. For dessert they had chunks of watermelon that had spent the afternoon soaking in iced vodka.
Throughout the meal, Jeff and Georgianne took turns telling old high school stories. It was a kind of mutual self-indulgence, but Sean and Bonnie seemed to find it entertaining. Afterward, they sat back and relaxed. Then Georgianne went inside to prepare the coffee, and Sean followed her to mix some vodka-and-tonics.
"So...you're going to be an Ivy Leaguer in the fall," Jeff said to Bonnie. The girl nodded, smiling shyly again. "You'll like Boston, Cambridge-well, Cambridge might as well be a part of Boston," Jeff continued. "I've been there a couple of times."
Bonnie nodded her head enthusiastically. We went up for my interview, and we walked all around Harvard afterward. I really liked the look of it, but we didn't see much of the city. Cambridge was nice."
"You'll like it," he repeated.
There w
as a brief silence between them. Jeff felt he should say something more; he wanted to talk to the girl, but the words wouldn't come. Bonnie had a way of looking directly at him, open, almost expectant, and it had an effect on him. Jeff realized, amazingly, disturbingly, that he was unsure of himself. Was this what he had been like with Georgianne, years ago? Suddenly, it was hard to tell. The past and the present had merged into a moment of confusion.
"Mom says you live in L.A."
"Outside the city," Jeff said. "But close by. Just a short drive on the freeway."
"What's it like?"
"Like any other city," Jeff replied promptly, grateful that Bonnie had taken the lead. "But the state of mind is different. I don't think anyone has figured out what that is, yet."
Bonnie laughed, another trivial gesture that sent waves of delicious sensation through Jeff.
"That's just my residual New England prejudice," he added. "I really like L.A., and I wouldn't live anywhere else."
"I'd like to do my graduate work in California," Bonnie said. "Unless I end up liking Harvard so much I can't bear to leave it."
"Well, you certainly-"
"Are we in graduate school already?" Sean asked, returning with two tall glasses. "Here you are, Jeff."
"Thanks."
It was a strong drink, and Jeff wondered if Sean was trying to get him drunk. Not that he cared. He was annoyed with Sean anyhow. The conversation with Bonnie had just been getting off the ground, and now Sean had killed it. Jeff wanted to talk with the girl, but it was impossible with her father sitting in on every word. It didn't matter at all that Jeff really had very little to say to Bonnie. He had enjoyed being alone in her company, and now the spell was broken. There would probably never be another opportunity.
Perhaps it was that feeling of annoyance, in combination with the alcohol, that got him in the trouble that followed. Whatever the reason, by the time the coffee arrived, Jeff had agreed to accompany Sean to the Gorge at seven o'clock the next morning. They would jog together. It was madness, and Jeff didn't know why he'd been so foolish. The Gorge was a park, a stretch of countryside that jutted into Foxrock. Sean jogged there every morning. Jeff smoked and had no desire even to try running, but Sean talked, wheedled, dared him into it, convincing him that the Gorge was beautiful to see and promising that they'd mostly just walk anyway.
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