by Alice Adams
Seen from the air, at dawn, even Acapulco was beautiful: the lovely white curve of coast, the pink-tinged new tall hotels.
“Actually it’s a cesspool, one of the ugliest places in the world,” Harry muttered to Eliza as they landed, as she unclenched her stiff fingers from the sides of the seat.
They went through customs easily; no one would search Harry’s voluminous and overweight pale leather fitted suitcase, or Eliza’s overnight bag, which she had pulled together in the ten minutes allowed her by Harry between departing from the Kennerlies’ party and going to the airport.
And then, outside the baggage room, Harry left her to stand in the palmy sultry day—to wonder why and where she was—while he went off to see about renting a car.
Returned, “It’s the only car available,” he said disconsolately. It was a long maroon Cadillac, whose young Mexican driver was uniformed in beige.
Having imagined a Fiat, or a VW, Eliza wondered just what he had wanted. Later she asked, “What kind of car do you usually drive?” “Uh—I have several. Mostly English.” “Oh.”
• • •
Sometimes, during that drive to Ixtapanejo (a name that she never learned to spell), Eliza slept, and then at intervals she woke to find herself in the midst of improbably towering palm trees, of forests of palm. Passing tiny huts of plaster or brick, roofs thatched or made of crude tile, sometimes with crude porches instead of a front wall. She tried then, and totally failed, to imagine the lives in those houses.
This was the same effort that her sister Daria made, driving among the poor of Southern Europe, in the outskirts of Naples or Rome—an imaginative effort that nearly broke her.
They were sitting on a balcony—their own, small and private—overlooking some tropical abundance of flowers, of greenery, and the wide white beach, the sea and an extraordinary pink-to-mackerel sunset. Sitting with long drinks, having spent the afternoon in the clear green warmish water, on the beach, having bathed, having made love.
Harry was saying, “It’s too gorgeously romantic, isn’t it? No one would believe it for a minute. It’s like those travelogues when we were kids, remember? No, you’re too young. ‘And so we say farewell’—they used to end like that, always with improbable sunsets.”
Eliza had just understood that he was again writing, seeing a movie of his own.
“On the other hand,” he went on, “why not? Why not an old-fashioned extravaganza, Janet Gaynor watching Fredric March as he goes off to drown in the sunset—why not?” And he stared morosely at the actual sunset before them, perhaps not seeing it.
Eliza was thinking, I am drowned in sensation, I may never surface. And she smiled vaguely, exhaustedly.
Viewed analytically (which was not, at the moment, how she was viewing it), what was astonishing about their making love was Harry’s apparent total disregard for his own pleasure. Eliza had never known anything like it, such a minute and loving attention to her body. Inexperienced in that way, and concerned for him, she held back, until from somewhere she heard him say, “Go on—I can feel everything that you feel—”
Now Harry reached and took her hand—was this a part of his movie? He said, “You’re a lovely woman.” And he sighed. “If I had any sense at all, I’d marry you tomorrow.”
She bridled a little at that—of course. “You assume that I want to get married?”
He looked at her. “Actually not. You’re an original, I can tell. A sort of zaftig Jane Fonda, or Kim Novak with brains.” He laughed. “You see? I can’t even cast you, much less marry you.” And then again he sighed. “Anyway, I only marry mean thin women, ones who will get old and look a lot like Judith Anderson.”
Breakfast was a buffet: a beautiful array of fresh fruits, pineapples and mangoes and melons and bananas. Fresh warm moist tortillas and cold bacon.
And the dining room was open to the tropical luxuriance that surrounded it, the palms and bougainvillaea, the fresh new morning breeze from far out at sea.
Harry was saying, “It’s interesting—when women really hate you, they refuse to divorce you. Ever noticed? You’d think they’d welcome a settlement. I’m honestly not mean about money. Good riddance, you’d think they’d say. But no, I’ll never let you go—that’s what they say. Eliza, what would you do if you could do anything you wanted?”
“I’d write really good poetry.” Saying this, Eliza noted that she had not said it to anyone before, and she thought, How odd, I hardly know him—and she smiled at that.
“Really.” He stared across the table at her, with those pale and intense blue eyes, as she imagined, or sensed, that he was imagining a movie about a woman poet. Jane Fonda?
And then, pointing to somewhere behind her back, to the gigantic screen of palms, he said, “Look! there’s a macaw—a real one!”
Around noon, as they sat beneath the small round circular thatched roof, thus sheltered from the overwhelming sun, Harry decided, or said, that actually, really, they should get married. “The point is that I like you,” he said violently to Eliza. “You’re nice. Intelligent. Original. You’re kind, or so far you seem to be a kind woman.”
Mildly embarrassed, she laughed. “Sometimes I am,” she said.
He wasn’t really listening to what she said, and it occurred to Eliza that this was to be another movie. (The Proposal? Marriage?)
“I’ve never been married to a woman I liked,” said Harry. “Isn’t that terrible? Christ, it would be marvelous.”
Earlier they had been swimming in the clear warm mild green surf. A converted Californian, Harry was adept at taking waves; some instinct informed him of the precise moment in the rise and breaking of a wave when he should plunge into it, swim and then let himself be hurled toward the shore. Eliza at first watched nervously; his shoulders were thin, and what he did looked dangerous, and sometimes there were long moments before he surfaced. Then she understood that he was an expert, and she stopped watching and swam, and swam and swam, thinking hazily of Maine, of hot days, swimming there.
And she was thinking less of Harry’s notions of marriage than of the fact that she was terribly hungry.
They lunched adventurously in a shack on the beach in which a Mexican family served lobster and clams, broiled red snapper, all garlicky—marvelous. Cold beer.
Harry had begun to talk about a town in Italy where he owned (or did not own: this was unclear) a large house. Ravello.
“You’d be crazy about it,” he said. “You know, the Amalfi coast. But up in the hills above. The views—terraces of olive trees. The wine. In fact, Beat the Devil was shot there, remember?”
She remembered Peter Lorre, John Huston—she thought Gina Lollobrigida—whoever. Not views, or a town.
“Well, anyway,” he told her, “you’ll love it there. I’ve never had an Italian honeymoon, have you?”
(Italian Honeymoon?)
After lunch they swam again, they lay in the sun, moved on to shade. They went back to their room and made love and slept and made love again.
It was absolutely incredible, all of it. Eliza literally could not credit what was happening, in the luxuriantly blooming, green-flowing, impossibly beautiful place.
At some moment—perhaps it was the next day while Eliza was watching the sunset: she was alone, Harry on some violent and unexplained impulse having summoned a taxi and gone into the small town—at that moment an idea entered her mind, or, rather, a sentence: Well, why not—why not marry Harry? And she smiled, because it sounded as silly as it was improbable. But that silly sentence, having been spoken within her brain, stayed there, and from time to time she heard its echo.
Harry came back, running into the room, seeming to have run down all the steps from the entranceway; he was carrying a large and curiously wrapped package, apparently not heavy. He threw it lightly onto the bed, toward Eliza, who had come in from the terrace at the sound of his footsteps.
“Open it, it’s your first present from me!” He was breathless and perspiring; he put his hand
s on his narrow hips, leaning back and watching her, so visibly pleased with himself, and with her.
She undid a clumsy knot, pulled back paper, and there were half a dozen bright shades of cotton: crisp long dresses, all pleated and laced. A butterfly swarm of dresses.
Unreasonably moved, Eliza said, “Harry—” It seemed suddenly odd to use his name. “These are wonderful, I love them.”
He had been watching her closely, and now he spoke seriously. “You’re better at giving things, aren’t you? Receiving makes you just a little nervous? Well, no matter. You’ll learn.”
She put on a yellow dress, with white insets of lace across her now brown breasts. Barefoot and laughing, they went up to the bar for their pre-dinner margaritas.
“This vogue for the realistic film can’t last, you know? God knows what’s next, some sort of nostalgia, probably. And then if things get really bad we’ll go back to romance, the extravagant escape. And then, baby, I’ll be right there—there first, with the most romantic, most extravagant film they’ve ever seen.” Harry gestured into the starry air.
The bar was an open platform, set out from the main part of the hotel. Eliza and Harry were in adjoining chairs near the railing, overlooking the sea—looking out into the star-feathered night. They were holding hands. (Why should they not marry?)
At dinner, in the dining room, they did not talk about marriage, or, really, about movies. They had two bottles of wine; they observed the other guests, they talked and laughed a lot.
The hotel’s owner-manager, Otto, was a pale and cadaverous German, perpetually worried. “Do you know who he looks like?” Harry asked. “Like Alec Guinness playing the German owner of a Mexican resort hotel.”
Perfect.
Marrying Harry, really, would be no less sensible than coming to Mexico with him—a then unknown man, Eliza dreamily thought. It was about noon on the next day, on the beach—their last day. Money, houses in Connecticut and Italy and southern California. No more stupid jobs and worries about paying schools and dentists and department stores. No more frightening trips to unemployment. Great sex. And Harry was a genuinely nice man, intelligent and kind, a man for whom by then she felt a genuine affection. Much nicer than the men with whom she had been “in love.” Why, after all, did people marry?
A morning of swimming and sun, and then they were again beneath the small thatched shelter. Harry had put a towel across his thin knees, which were reddening dangerously. He yawned, and said, “Tell me more about your mother, and your sister. Josephine and Daria? I do want to know, and it will be a good lesson in listening for me.”
Eliza found that mildly irritating, but dutifully she began with Josephine, listing her books, enumerating awards—her fame. Her three husbands. And then Daria: her beauty, her delicacy. Her marriage last August to Smith Worthington, the wedding, the trip to Europe, the worrying, sad letters—but then her pregnancy, and their projected move to Woodside this coming summer, after the baby was born.
Harry’s eyes were closed. In repose, his facial muscles slack, the lines on either side of his face were deeper, as though from suffering. Was it possible that Eliza had just noticed those dark furrows? After all, they hardly knew each other. Of herself, she observed, somewhat curiously, that she was relieved by his apparent inattention; in some way she had not wanted to tell him about Josephine and Daria.
But he opened his eyes, and at once he was totally in focus, in control. He said, “I think you worry too much about your sister. She may be delicate and vulnerable, but how can you protect her?” And, as Eliza was digesting that, he went on: “You have no idea how your voice changes, going from your mother to your sister. From stiff to warm. Your mother really scared you, a long time back?”
Eliza could not believe that she had said all that; he had understood too much. It was a sort of invasion. (But was that a good reason not to marry someone, that he understood you too well? It may well be, from time to time she thought.)
Their last sunset was the most fantastic, most gorgeous one of all: violently ragged mackerel clouds adorned the sky, which slowly, majestically darkened to purple, then faded to a pale and delicate lavender, in which suddenly faint stars appeared, like flowers.
“You’re the kindest, most interesting woman I’ve ever met,” Harry said. “All your tastes are lovely. We must get married. Think what a great time we could have.”
She did think of it. She said, “Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe we should. Get married,” and she laughed a little breathlessly.
He reached and grasped her neck, pulling her toward him; they kissed, and then he laughed. “A Sudden Marriage,” he said. “How about that? Starting just as we did, at that silly pretentious party at your friends’ house. The Kennedys. Kennerlies? And then coming here. But I’m absolutely serious. Are you?”
She looked at him. They were at the bar, again seated near the railing, near the sky. She said yes.
They had a glorious night of celebration—wine and laughing and love.
The next morning, at breakfast, and as they came back to the room to pack, Harry’s mood was still festive—exuberant: he was whistling dance tunes from his youth: “Tuxedo Junction,” “Little Brown Jug” and “Someone Exactly Like You.” And then he sang, in a funny hoarse tremolo, “I dreamed of two blue orchids, two beautiful blue orchids last night—”
Whereas Eliza was tense, grasped by her familiar pre-flying panic. This time, she thought, of course they were going to crash. Just when her life had settled—just when, as Smith, her brother-in-law, would put it, she was becoming “appropriate.” She was not supposed to marry a kind and loving, intelligent man, who was also extremely rich. Of course the plane will crash.
On the plane Eliza had several vodkas, which helped. The air was clear and blue, was beautiful! And below was the beautiful blue sea, the smooth Pacific.
Harry was talking excitedly about his movie—one of his movies. “And then in Italy,” he said, “the fantastic honeymoon. Driving through Umbria in a Bentley, in the spring. As I see it, we marry in a month or so? Do you want more children? No? good. I can get everything squared away by May. There are red flowers all over the hillsides then. My favorite restaurant is in a town called Todi. It’s called The Umbria, in fact. You’ll love it.”
He seemed now not to be talking about a movie at all but about an actual marriage—theirs. And in a vague but excited way Eliza was able to see it—to share, as it were, his vision.
She saw them on the terrace of a restaurant, looking out to a distance of Umbrian hills, gently sloped and terraced—to fields of tiny flowers, yellow and red. The clarity with which she saw this was remarkable, as she had never been to Italy.
And they are married. Happy. Rich, and safe. (Appropriate.)
But Eliza and Harry did not marry, and the only fantasy to be realized, ever, was Harry’s movie.
What happened at first was a literal drift apart. Suddenly Harry had to be on location in Morocco, and Eliza, because of Catherine’s school (and really because she couldn’t afford it; she could neither pay for such a trip nor bring herself to ask him for the money), Eliza could not join him there. Weeks passed, with impassioned transatlantic calls, and then a frantic weekend rendezvous in New York, which did not go well.
9 / Bad News
from All Over
Always, on the every other Tuesdays that were unemployment days, Eliza woke up too early. Her nerves were raw, and her mind apprehensive, darkly polluted by fears and stained with elusive bad dreams. Fears and guilts, her demons without names, with only tattered and sooty shapes. She tried to go back to sleep—eyes closed, body forced to relax; and she failed.
Instead, her uncontrolled imagination explored the vivid murky alleys in the vicinity of Third and Bryant, near the unemployment building, a giant cube of pale green peeling plaster. Seedy bars, menacing loiterers. It was as though all the mounting violence of the city centered there, in her mind, although she knew this to be untrue.
Rec
ognizing that she was not going back to sleep, she opened her eyes and tried to name or to sort out her fears. One, she was afraid of being mugged—knifed, beaten, hurt. And two, she was afraid of losing the money. Losing it to a mugger—or, a less violent, more guilty fear, she could be denied the payment. Some faceless person behind the counter could decide that she did not deserve unemployment money (was this her own view?), would know that she had not seriously looked for work. They would think that she did not need the money, would take Miriam’s view of her, that she was rich.
But she was not rich, she did need the money. And her fears were disproportionate; she knew that.
She knew, too, that she had always overreacted to everything; very likely she always would. Wasn’t poetry itself an overreaction to experience?
She got out of bed and, dressing, she dropped things. Her jeans zipper stuck.
At breakfast she was cross with Catherine, who banged out of the house.
And then, in the paper, Eliza read:
The body of a young black woman, who had been shot in the head at close range, was discovered this morning by early strollers on Ocean Beach. Darryl Evans, 36, and Horace Crane, both of Lincoln Way, came upon the corpse, which was half buried in the sand across from Playland-at-the-Beach. The victim was described as being in her late teens or early twenties, very dark complexion …
Trembling, Eliza dialed Miriam’s number; also, of course, Miriam’s mother’s number. Busy, busy. Busy for twenty minutes.
Panicked, Eliza telephoned Kathleen at the hospital office.
“Kathleen, it’s Eliza, did you read in the paper—is Miriam there?”
“No, she’s not, and yes, I did read it. Of course it could be her. Dumb black bitch, always messing around. I’ve told her—”