Late in the Season

by Felice Picano

  “You mean I’ll drip on everything?”

  “I’ll get you something to wear.” He took the slicker from her and hung it in the smaller of the two bathrooms. He thought he’d find something for her to change into, but what? Everything he owned was far too big; Dan’s clothing was even larger. Wait! What about those tan corduroys that boy had left here last summer? Dan’s little friend.

  He found the pants in the guest room closet, shook them out, sized them up. When he returned to the foyer, she had found the mop and was mopping up the floor.

  “It looked so bright in here, from my place,” she said, still explaining. “I don’t know. So hospitable. You’re sure I’m not intruding?”

  “It’s all the candles,” he explained. “Dan buys them by the gross. Here, these are clean. I don’t know who they belong to. Change and come warm up by the fire.”

  “You mean I can stay?”

  He suddenly felt as though he were in a Pinter play where the delivery boy stops by, has a cup of tea, and doesn’t leave for thirty years.

  “Go change,” he said, pointing to the guest room. “I’ll get you something warm to drink.”

  Even the corduroys were too large, he saw when she came out; they hung on her, but she’d belted them tightly around her small waist, and they looked sort of charming, like rather thick harem bloomers.

  “I won’t forget this,” she said.

  He handed her a hot rum toddy he’d made. She sipped at it cautiously.

  “Not too fast,” he warned. “It’s strong.”

  He led her into the big room and offered her his seat, but she remained standing by the fireplace, looking around, warming her legs, sipping her drink. Her hair was in one thick, long braid tonight. It glowed in the candle- and firelight. Her skin was so clear and bright it was like the skin on a pale-colored plum at its August ripest.

  “I’m so glad you weren’t working or anything,” she said, then squatted down on the floor between the fireplace and where he sat. “I would have hated myself for interrupting you.”

  “Too much noise to work,” he said. She certainly made herself at home quickly enough. Dear Abby, he thought, my neighbor’s daughter came to visit me one stormy night and now she won’t go home. What should I do to let her know I don’t want her living here? Signed, Polite but perplexed. “You were there alone?” he asked to make conversation.

  “Two days,” she said. “I’m staying all week.” Then she giggled. “If I can make it. Last night I was frightened because it was so incredibly quiet here with no cars and only the surf. Tonight I was scared because it was so stormy. I guess I’m just not a pioneer woman type, am I?”

  Her voice was amazingly like her brother’s, though higher pitched, even when she spoke low, like now. The way she rushed at her words at the beginning of a sentence, then slowed down at the end, was like him. How her a’s were broad, not at all like a New Yorker’s, more like a New Englander’s. The facial resemblance was strong too, the clear-cut nose, the deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, the large forehead. The bottom half differed, however. Jerry’s face was square, almost too square. His chin almost too wide, dimpled twice. His lips, especially his lower lip, were large too, as though to fill in all that space. Not hers. Her face, her chin were nicely pointed. Her mouth was small, fitting the smaller oval of her face, the smaller nose.

  “I suppose you have the right to know why I’m out here all alone,” she suddenly announced in a deeper voice, as though imitating someone older: her mother?

  The last thing Jonathan wanted was the confessions of a frightened teenaged girl. “That’s not necessary,” he said, as calmly as possible.

  Her gray eyes opened wide; he could see they were flecked with different colors: blue, gold, brown. Then she lowered them to gaze at the steaming mug in her lap.

  “I guess you’re right. It’s not necessary.”

  “You’re Sally,” he said.

  “Stevie!” She looked up. “It’s really Stephanie, but somehow they began calling me ‘Stevie’ and it stuck. I wasn’t a tomboy.”

  That explained the confusion. Dan always thought the reference Paula Locke made to Stevie was to another, younger brother: one unseen, and thus even more desirable than the deliciously known Jerry.

  “And you’re Jonathan Lash, the famous composer,” she said.

  “Hardly famous.”

  “More famous than anyone else I’ve ever met.” Her eyes searched the room. Looking for signs of his fame? The scrolled honors, the autographed photos? “You know,” she said, “I’m such a jerk sometimes. Here I am talking as though I were across the street or something, and your lover is probably trying to get to sleep.”

  “He’s not here. He’s in London, directing some films for the BBC.”

  Her eyebrows rose and fell; he read this as surprise, and/or being impressed.

  “And no,” he went on, “you aren’t interrupting me at all. No intrusion. No bother. I’m sort of glad to have company.”

  “I tried playing solitaire,” she said, then bit her upper lip, and fell silent, looking down at her mug.

  Conversation lapsed. The rain still thundered overhead, lightning frequently brightened up behind the curtained windows, unpredictably, now on one side of the large room, now another; the fire settled, crackled, popped.

  “May I tell you”—she suddenly looked up at him, as though begging, and embarrassed to be doing so—“may I tell you why I’m out here alone? I’d like to.”

  Jonathan didn’t know how to respond. Good Lord, no! he thought, but nodded yes.

  “I was supposed to be in college yesterday. Second year. I’m supposed to get engaged next month to a boy I’ve been seeing. And I don’t want to. Isn’t that strange? I don’t want to go back to school, and I don’t want to get married. I’m having a crisis. It’s all very adolescent and typical of me that it’s happening now, at eighteen, instead of when I was thirteen, like everyone else. An identity crisis, I suppose it’s called. So I came out here to be alone, to think, to make some clear-headed decisions about my life.”

  She sighed and sat back when she was done, relieved at having gotten it out.

  The last part made up for the first part, which he hadn’t at all wanted to hear. At least she was doing it independently, and didn’t want his help.

  “I see,” he said.

  “Well, I haven’t done any of it,” she said. “All I’ve done is read a mystery, lie in the sun, get tan, and then get scared and act like some kind of screwball tonight.”

  Jonathan suspected that was someone else talking for her: her parents, her teachers.

  “The week isn’t up yet,” he said.

  She smiled. “You’re right! It isn’t, is it? Why am I already admitting defeat?”

  “Five more days left,” he said.

  “Sunny ones, I hope.” Then, “You see, I was right to barge in here the way I did. I feel better already. An objective outsider is always best in these matters. Rose was right about that. I can’t tell you how gloomy and damp it was over there. It’s so nice here,” she added, slung over a hassock now, and turned to look at the fire.

  Well, that was easy, he thought. No complete confessions and suffering stories faced him now. He’d said exactly the right words to forestall them.

  “I really love fires,” she said. “They seem to have lives of their own, don’t they?”

  He looked at the fire. Underneath the two logs was a silver red white ashy furnace, as glitzy as a gay theme party decorated on the idea of Dante’s Inferno. But it was lovely here, fitting.

  He wanted to ask her questions: about Jerry, about her parents, her boyfriend, her school, her life. Dan would. Dan would never forgive him if he didn’t use this opportunity. If Dan were here, he’d be pumping her for every shred of information, every detail of the Lockes’ life that he’d wondered about in the seven years they’d been neighbors in Sea Mist. But Jonathan couldn’t bring himself even to begin.

  She yawned, stifled i
t, looked back at him apologetically, began to say something, then yawned again and shook her head, as though to clear it.

  “The rum,” he suggested. “Tired?”

  “I didn’t think I was,” she said.

  “Want to go to bed?” he said, and immediately regretted it.

  She seemed to hear no implications in the offer. She only yawned again, like a sleepy child. “I can just lie down here by the fire. Don’t trouble yourself.”

  “We have a guest room.” Then, as she was beginning to doze against the hassock, he leaned toward her, touched her shoulder. She barely responded. So he helped her up, and along the corridor.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said sleepily, as he led her into the guest room. Jonathan felt as he did with Artie and Ken, Dan’s boys, whenever they’d stayed up too late, and had to be put to bed.

  “There are some old pajamas in here,” he said, opening the bureau drawer. A candle was burning in a dish on the night table next to the bed. “Don’t forget to blow it out,” he reminded her.

  “Can I keep it on?” she asked. And now she really reminded him of the boys. “In case I wake up in the night.”

  “Sure. ’Night.”

  “Thanks. Thanks for taking in an orphan of the storm,” she said, and waved weakly at him, a movement that was stopped in mid-gesture by a huge yawn.

  He went back into the living room and decided to put on another few logs, to take the dampness out of the house. Then he made another rum toddy for himself, and finally sat down, drink in hand, cigarettes handy, to read that biography he’d brought out in June and still had not gotten to.

  Oddly, he felt he could concentrate better now: even feel content. The rain was no less fierce, the thunder and lightning only a bit less tempestuous. Yet he did feel content. Was it knowing someone else was in the house with him? Often, after he and Dan had gone to bed and made love, and Dan had fallen asleep, he’d got-ten dressed again and come out here to work, or to read, or just to sit out on the lounge chairs on the deck, hear-ing the ocean, looking up at the starry skies, thinking. It always felt better being awake this late, knowing someone else was sleeping.

  He had to laugh when he thought what the consequences would be if her parents—especially Lady Bracknell—knew where their daughter was sleeping tonight.

  What a pretty girl she was, though: nothing artificially pretty about her. Refreshing too, as youth was supposed to be for those older.

  He felt much older now: almost as though he were her parent. Her mood swings were really extraordinary—from tears to placidity in a few minutes, from vivacity to exhaustion in another minute, from seeming indifference and poise to girlish confidentiality. Perhaps that really was what changed as one aged: one’s moods evened out more. One had longer stretches of each—days of contentment, weeks of boredom, months of depression, years of satisfaction. He might use these sudden changes of temperament of Stevie’s in a song or two in Lady and the Falcon, to display Fiammetta’s youthfulness. She was only sixteen or so in the story, wasn’t she? All those quattrocento girls married early.

  The biography sat in his lap with a weight that was in itself a reproach. But he didn’t even open it. He was thinking about Fiammetta in Florence, and how her music would be more youthful, more truthful now.

  Chapter Six

  At first she thought she was in the berth of a large ocean liner, sailing in the middle of the Mediterranean. The sky, through the gauzy curtains on three sides, was an intense, cloudless blue. Even with the curtains closed, the room was so bright she had to close her eyes again.

  When she opened them she knew where she was—the guest bedroom of the lovers’ house. She remembered last night, and how she’d arrived here, but she didn’t recall anything of what had happened after her arrival; she had been so relieved, so suddenly exhausted. She vaguely remembered that one lover was away in Europe, and that the other had been surprised, reserved, helpful yet distant from her, however cordial.

  She wondered if he were up yet. She had to get up. She couldn’t just lie here. Not with that sky, that sun! She had to get up, whether he was awake or not.

  The corduroys she’d worn last night were on the table next to the bed, along with a gutted candle in a dish.

  What a nice room this was. The curtains, once pulled, revealed the rich wine-colored carpeting, a half wall of closets in rosewood, built in with shelves, stereo equipment, a color television, even a little pull-out desk or vanity with its own telephone. The other door led to a bathroom—sleek, contemporary in its fixtures and accessories, very no-nonsense in brown and beige, complementing the decor of the bedroom. And outside—well, with the curtains opened all around, the bedroom seemed to float on a little wooden deck, in the middle of a wood—a hidden little cove, a private place for sitting, sunning, even for making love in the afternoon.

  She pulled on her T-shirt and the corduroys and stepped out onto the deck. The sun was hot, so strong it had burnt the rain off the leaves, dried off the decking. Under the bushes the dark wet ground steamed as though in a tropical jungle. She realized this was the direction of her family’s house, which she could just make out through the foliage. Were there other little hidden terraces like this one? she wondered. She thought she had seen the entire house last summer at the lovers’ party. Wouldn’t this be a lovely spot to sun in.

  Back in the bedroom, she left a glass door open to air out the room. Then she found her sneakers and sweatshirt and peeked out into the corridor. It was empty: one door at the end open a few inches; that must be the lovers’ bedroom. He must be awake.

  But there was no one in the kitchen, or dining room—an area surrounded on two sides with glass, a raised skylight overhead, garden on one side, the ocean view on the other—nor was there anyone in the large central room where they’d sat and talked last night. The place seemed far larger than she remembered.

  She found her slicker still hanging in the little bathroom off the foyer. Next to the fireplace, her denims were hung, dry. She changed into them, then went around opening up curtains and doors to air out the slightly dense, nutty odor of the dead fireplace. Outside the living area was a three-quarters surrounding deck that dropped a level to a lower, larger deck, from which in turn, paths led to the beach. Even the white sand looked hot and dry.

  Back inside, she crept down the hallway to the last door and opened it a few inches more.

  Jonathan was still sleeping. His room was steaming hot. He’d pulled off most of his bedclothes already. He was rolled over on one side, away from her, the sheets twisted around his body. She whispered his name, hoping he would be awake enough to hear. No reaction. She tried again, a bit louder, trying to thank him and to tell him she was going now.

  He was sound asleep. Well, she couldn’t remain here all day waiting for him to wake up. She’d come back and thank him later.

  The room was too hot. Like the one she’d slept in, it faced east, though more southerly. It too had its private deck, but this one opened onto the ocean. She slid open the glass door, hoping it wouldn’t make noise. It didn’t. Then she slid open the door opposite. That was better, cooler. He’d sleep more comfortably now.

  She closed the bedroom door, exactly as she had found it, and left the house. With its doors open, its curtains flapping in the wind, it reminded her somehow of a house in a Fellini movie she’d once seen.

  Almost back at her family’s house, she had an idea—she would change into cooler clothing and make Jona-than some coffee. He didn’t usually sleep late, she re-called. He’d been awake yesterday morning before her, already composing on the oceanside deck, when she’d wandered out. And in previous summers, the lovers were ordinarily up early: on their deck, on the beach, going into the little village for groceries, the mail, a morning newspaper.

  Problem number one was that there was no coffee in her kitchen. Her mother must have packed it away and carried it into the city. And she did so want coffee. Only one solution: she would go into the village and buy a ca
n. Inside her family’s house, she went around opening windows and doors to the bright hot day. How different it looked after last night’s terrors. How tiny and shoddy and crowded with old beach furniture, after the lovers’ house. How shy the little fireplace seemed; how inadequate the hurricane lamp on the table; how sad the deck of playing cards still spread out in mid-game next to the paperback mystery. The whole place looked apologetic; as though it had failed her and knew it. “Dear old place,” she said aloud, forgiving it, reminding herself that after all, it was her parents’ house, and how much could she really expect from it?

  “’Bye,” she said, when she left to head toward the village, as though someone were in the house to answer. After only a few steps, she stopped. Wait a minute. The lovers must have coffee in their house. She’d make it there.

  Their house still seemed empty, although it was cooler now. She found coffee all right—more of it than she knew what to do with. Plastic containers of coffee were stacked up in the corner of a counter, each type carefully marked in felt tip ink: Mocha Java, French Blend, African Koola, Colombian, Brazilian. Problem number two was that all of them were whole coffee beans and had to be ground to be used. She located the grinder, plugged it into a wall socket, and prayed she wasn’t doing something wrong. It worked. Fine. Now for a coffeepot. She was in and out of cabinets before she noticed—on the counter, naturally, where she’d passed it a dozen times—the large Chemex drip coffeemaker. Now to select a blend. Several of them sounded fine, but as she was used to already canned blends, she wasn’t certain which was which. How about the French Blend? That sounded like a morning coffee to her, with its intimations of repasts at café tables surrounded by trees pinkly in bloom, and accompanied by a little tray of brioches and jams. She ground the coffee, boiled the water, poured the blend into the filter, added the water, wishing something here had instructions, so she could know if she were doing it right.

  It was easy to guess men worked in this kitchen; it was so technical, so up-to-date with its hanging graduated copper bowls, its various measuring cups lined up, its stacks of plastic containers, its blenders, juicers, toasters, and broilers. A little army of knives of all shapes and sizes greeted her with military cleanliness in one corner. At the opposite end of the counter were a more frolicsome grouping of utensils—potato parers and slotted spoons, and a variety of wooden, steel, and plastic implements only half of which she’d ever seen before. All of them in order, all of them visible. It reminded her of her father’s workshop at home.