by Anne Weale
She had swum four lengths and was leaning against the side at the shallow end, breathing hard but not panting, when a young man as blond as she, but with a deep golden tan, came whistling along the path through the shrubbery which surrounded the pool.
Seeing the two girls, he grinned and said, 'Hi!'
'Hi!' they both echoed.
She wished she were standing in deeper water which would conceal her size from him. Because, like James Gardiner but in a different way, the young man was one of the beautiful people; those exceptional human beings who, whether by nature or self-discipline, had lithe, graceful, fat-free bodies which made them appear like gods compared with lesser mortals.
This young man was a Norse god. His Scandinavian ancestry was as clear to see as Mr Antonio's Italian extraction. Long ago, in the dawn of history, Vikings with his hair and eyes had ravaged the northern coasts of Europe. But ten centuries had transmuted the ferocious energy of his sea-roving ancestors into the smiling friendliness of an ail-American college boy who looked as if he worked off his aggression in athletics.
'I'm Skip Newman. And you're Emily and Summer, but which is which?' he asked, probably having been told their names by Mrs Hardy.
'I'm Emily.'
She climbed out of the water by the steps at the deep end. Because of her tutor's insistence that she must only sunbathe for short periods in the early morning and late afternoon, never—at least at this stage—in the hot middle hours of the day, her thin body was now the very palest shade of toast, with darker patches which, close to, could be seen to be freckles.
'Glad to know you, Emily.' He offered a hand which, compared with her bony little paw, looked as large as a baseball catcher's mitt. 'I hear you want to be drown-proofed.'
'Drown-proofed?'
'That's what it's called. Even kids too young to swim properly can be drown-proofed. It means teaching them how to stay afloat if they fall in or maybe get pushed in. I'll show you.'
He stripped off his sweat-shirt, untied and toed off his sneakers and finally unzipped and shed his chinos. Under them, he was wearing a pair of long-length stretch trunks, patterned with once-vivid flowers, which outlined his powerfully-developed thigh muscles.
There was also a lot of muscle on his upper body. The area round his navel was flat and hard. Summer, who wasn't accustomed to seeing semi-nude males, couldn't help but notice the bulge at his crotch. She wondered how old he was. James had called him 'the boy'. There was nothing boyish about Skip Newman's body, but his face had a youthful openness which suggested he wasn't more than nineteen or twenty. A little younger than herself, but probably light years ahead in his knowledge of the opposite sex.
While he and Emily were holding their faces under water at the shallow end, she seized the opportunity to leave the pool and put on her beach wrap.
Suddenly he looked up and noticed her sitting on a chaise, watching them.
'Hey, how about you, Summer?' he called. 'Are you drown-proof?'
'Oh, Summer's a super swimmer. She can dive, too,' Emily informed him.
'So will you, pretty soon... Freckles.' As he tacked on the nickname, he feinted a punch at her chin.
It was the kind of big-brother playfulness which neither of the girls had ever experienced. Summer could tell that Emily liked it very much. If she were to see a lot of Skip, it could lead to a serious attack of real-life hero-worship. She was at the age for a passionate yet asexual crush.
And I'm at the age—past it!—for a real love affair, Summer thought wistfully. She wondered how many pounds she would have to lose before men began to see her as a woman, not a neuter.
Yet, come to think of it, Hal Cochran hadn't treated her as if she were completely unattractive. She could almost believe he had stayed on after the main meeting in order to make her acquaintance.
No, that was deluding herself. The real reason he had hung about while the three new members were being briefed was probably that he didn't want to go home to an empty house and couldn't go to a bar for fear of being tempted to have a beer.
If they knew he was dieting, his friends would rib him, try to make him weaken. Non-dieters and those without weight problems were seldom helpful towards fat people. They said things like, 'Oh, come on, one won't hurt you, not understanding that a fat person couldn't stop at one beer, one cookie, one chocolate.
Presently she heard Skip say, 'Okay, that's enough for today. We'll do some more tomorrow: right?'
'Right!' The child's enthusiastic assent carried clearly to where Summer was sitting.
'I think you should come out now, Emily,' she called to her.
'Oh, must I? Already?'
Skip said, 'Yeah, out you go. I'm going to have a quick swim and then I have work to do.' He gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the steps before propelling himself, with a lazy back-stroke, in the direction of the spring-board.
Emily pattered along the deck, leaving a trail of wet footprints, to fetch her towel and drape it round her like a shawl. She watched admiringly as Skip grasped the board and pulled himself out of the water with effortless ease, his muscles bunching and rippling under the amber-satin skin. He stood on the end of the board, bouncing lightly for a moment or two before launching himself in an arc which took him down into the crystalline depths.
They watched him swimming along the bottom to surface at the shallow end and then surge back the way he had come with a fast racing crawl.
Emily's curls were plastered to her skull in a sleek dark red cap. Her wet lashes were sticking together. Her eyes were wide with admiration.
'Wow!' she murmured reverently.
Mrs Antonio appeared, bringing orange juice for Emily, diet soda for Summer and beer for Skip. Also on the tray were two apples and a small Chinese bowl containing carrot sticks, pieces of celery and sprigs of cauliflower. These were Summer's mid-morning nibbles, prepared for her by Mrs Hardy who had studied the Personal Program book and was doing her best to help her to abide by its directions.
'So how d'you like living in America?' Skip asked, as he joined them.
'We love it,' said Emily. 'What is Skip short for?'
'My real name is Ames. But that's also my father's name and his father's name, so I've always been called Skip. How come you never learned to swim before?'
'We didn't have a swimming pool in England.'
'Not everyone has a pool here. They don't teach you to swim at school in Britain?'
'I've never been to school because I have asthma. Summer teaches me.'
He glanced at the older girl. She could see he was puzzled by this arrangement.
'Is pool-care your regular work, or are you a student doing it part-time?' she asked him.
'I'm at USF. During term I only look after a few pools. In the vacations, when my married sister has her kids home from school, I take over the pools she normally looks after. It's a family business, run by Dad and my elder brother. We all help out, including Mom. It was my sister who was here last week.'
'What are you studying at college?'
'American history. Are you a graduate?'
She shook her head. 'I had two terms at college but then I had to leave for family reasons.'
'That's tough... or maybe not so tough,' he amended. 'I guess there are a lot of graduates who wouldn't mind teaching Freckles here, in this set-up.' His nod at Emily was followed by a movement of the head which included the house and the pool.
'I'm sure there are,' she agreed. 'I'm very lucky to have a nice pupil and these splendid working conditions.'
The only fly in the ointment is my employer, she thought to herself.
Skip's thoughts must have turned in the same direction as the next thing he said was, 'There's an article about Mr Gardiner in Newsweek this week. Have you seen it?'
'No, we haven't.'
'It's about him and Steven Jobs, the guy behind Apple computers. Newsweek calls them 'The Young Lions of Electronics' '. It's really a comparison of their business methods and their li
fe-styles.
When he had finished his beer, Skip said, 'See you tomorrow,' and walked off towards the pool-house which, screened by a hedge of oleanders, housed the heating plant which kept the pool at eighty degrees and that in the jacuzzi at over a hundred degrees.
Mindful of James's disapproval of late rising, Summer had taken advantage of the time change to institute a new regime. They now had breakfast at seven forty-five and, from eight-fifteen, spent the next two hours out of doors, either in the pool or beside it. After their mid-morning snack, at eleven, they went to the library, there to work until lunch at one o'clock.
The library at Baile del Sol was quite different from that at Cranmere. It was much smaller in size, and most of the books on the shelves had been published within the past fifteen years. They reflected the wide-ranging interests of the man who now owned the house. Every aspect of science was represented, as was art, history and philosophy. Serious biographies and memoirs filled two long shelves, and few parts of the world were not covered by the travel books. Even—and this had surprised her—poetry had a place. But the only novelists to be found were two writers of detection stories; an Englishwoman, Ruth Rendell, and an American, Lawrence Sanders.
Every afternoon they took the car and went exploring. Not the Cadillac, because that belonged to Mary Hardy. It had been her husband's and, after selling their house, it had pleased her to keep it as a memento of their life together.
She had confided to Summer that, like the Antonios, she was not obliged to work for her living but had found being a widow of leisure less satisfactory than her life as James's housekeeper. When he was absent, her duties were light. When he was there, she enjoyed the short spasms of greater activity.
The car for Summer's use was a small Ford Fiesta and the large six-car garage also contained a Lincoln Convertible which James drove when in Florida.
The afternoon after meeting Skip, they set out for Lido Key, first heading south on US41 and then, before reaching downtown Sarasota, turning right at the road to the causeway which led to the Keys.
Mrs Hardy had come with them. As they passed the entrance to Bird Key, she told them it was an enclave of expensive houses. A little farther on, the wide straight John Ringling Boulevard crossed tiny Coon Key before arriving at St Armand's Key.
This was Mrs Hardy's favourite shopping place and they dropped her off before driving on to Lido Key where Summer parked the car and they went for a walk on the beach.
Many other people were walking there, including an Amish family whose old-fashioned costumes contrasted oddly with the scanty resort clothes worn by other strollers and shell-hunters.
Summer was impatient to get hold of a copy of Newsweek and read the piece about James. It might hold the answer to some of her queries about him.
Indeed, she would have preferred to spend the afternoon looking round the shops with Mrs Hardy. But she knew that both she and Emily would benefit more from a walk beside the sunlit ocean.
The beach was a long one, with most of the people on it congregated on the central stretch. As they walked north, the people thinned out and the drifts of shells thickened and yielded more interesting specimens.
'If there isn't one at home, we must get ourselves a book on shells which will help us to identify them,' said Emily.
After less than a fortnight in Florida, already she spoke of Baile del Sol as home, Summer noticed. It was amazing how quickly and easily she had adapted to a dramatic change in her environment.
Summer felt equally at home in the beautiful house on Bay Shore Road. In every room, she felt that her father might have stood where she was standing, looking out at the views she was seeing. She had a strong, comforting sense of his presence.
At the same time she was continually and uncomfortably aware of the man to whom the house belonged. This did not make for peace of mind.
It was not long before the shops closed when they returned to collect Mrs Hardy. They had no trouble finding a parking place close to St Armand's Circle, a ring of speciality shops in an attractively landscaped setting. They had arranged to meet her outside Jacobson's, one of the larger stores. On the way there, Summer found a drug store where she bought a copy of Newsweek and Vogue. It might be a long time before she could buy herself some nicer clothes. Meanwhile, there was no harm in starting to study the unknown worlds of beauty and fashion. Looking at pictures of well-dressed women would be an added incentive to slim.
Mrs Hardy's major purchase that afternoon had been a painted canvas and wools. It turned out that she was a keen needlepointer.
'There's an excellent shop here called Fleece & Floss,' she said, when she discovered that Summer had also done needlepoint.
'Who was St Armand?' asked the ever-curious Emily, as they returned to the car together,
'He was the Frenchman who was the first person to live here,' the housekeeper told her. 'He bought the Key in 1893. They say he paid twenty-one dollars and seventy-one cents for it. Can you imagine what it must be worth today? Millions! Then, in 1917, John Ringling bought it for development. He's said to have had circus elephants hauling timbers to build the causeway. But after the stock-market crash and the depression of the 'Twenties and 'Thirties, the construction stopped and didn't resume until the 'Fifties.'
Back at the house, Emily wanted to swim with her arm-bands before the sun left the pool. Mrs Hardy joined her. Twice a week, she went to an aerobic dance class at the YMCA. For her age, she had a trim figure.
Summer did not swim that evening. She lay on a chaise-longue, reading the article about 'The Young Lions of Electronics'.
Steven Jobs was of little interest to her. She skimmed the parts about him, scanning the paragraphs for every reference to James.
Jobs is the adopted son of Paul and Clara Jobs. Gardiner's origins are unknown, she read. He has always shunned personal publicity. Nothing is known of his life before he graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Next came Harvard Business School where his dean predicted an outstanding future for him.
Jobs lives in Los Gatos, California, not far from Cupertino, a small town transformed by the company he founded, the article continued.
Gardiner is known to have three houses: a Spanish-style house in Florida, a weekend cottage in Nantucket, and a penthouse in St James's Tower, an élite block of apartments between Manhattan's exclusive Beekman Place and Sutton Place.
An ex-vegetarian, Jobs has been quoted as saying that shopping for, preparing and eating food takes more energy than the resulting meal generates. Gardiner is a gourmet who delights in fine wines and culinary delicacies. He is rumored to fuel his phenomenal mental and physical energy with Royal Beluga fresh caviare and Dom Ruinart champagne.
Further on, after a résumé of Jobs' private life, she read: Not long ago, Gardiner paid the London coin dealers, Spink & Son Ltd., £13,000 for a silver head of Tetradrachm from Rhodes dating from about 360 B.C. tie then commissioned a leading New York City jeweler, Nicola Bulgari, to design a pendant setting for the coin. Who was or will be the recipient of this costly bauble is a well-guarded secret.
Although both men have the looks and charisma to be successful with women without the added attraction of their wealth and power, neither has playboy inclinations.
In James Gardiner's private life the keyword is private. Some acquaintances—his close friends are as close-mouthed about him as intimates of Britain's Royal Family are about Queen Elizabeth II—claim that he is a workaholic with no time for personal relationships. Also, Gardiner is on record as despising the permissive manners and morals of the 'Seventies, both sexually and in other spheres.
Close observers of his life over the past five years claim that he has twice been involved in serious if not permanent relationships with women. At one time he was frequently seen at the theater in parties which included Sofia Damaskinos, the six-foot-tall, elegant, Greek-born journalist who was sent to interview him by Paris Match. The interview was never filed and soon after Damaskinos moved to
Manhattan, saying she had fallen in love with the city.
Another name linked with his—
At this point her concentration on the article was broken by the arrival of the Antonios, coming for their evening dip in the jacuzzi and pausing on the way to talk to her.
At her second Weight Watchers meeting, Summer weighed five pounds less than the week before. When her loss was applauded by the other members, she felt a glow of achievement she had never experienced before.
After the meeting, Hal Cochran walked to her car with her.
'Did you find it difficult to stay on programme?' he asked her.
'No, not at all. In fact, I've been eating more this week than when I was dieting on my own. I haven't had breakfast in years—I was never hungry in the morning. But now that I have to eat one of the choices on the programme, I don't feel as hungry later.'
'That's exactly my experience. I used to go to work on a few cups of coffee and not eat till mid-morning when I'd have a hamburger or something. Eleanor says that most overweight people skip breakfast. It's half their trouble.'
'What kind of work do you do, Hal?'
'I'm in the construction business... building condos for all the people who want a place in the sun. Say, instead of standing around, why don't we have coffee someplace? You don't have to be home right away, do you?'
'I shouldn't be too late. If I'm not back when they expect me, they may start to worry.'
'Why not call them? Say you're having coffee with another Weight Watcher and you'll be half an hour later?'
'Yes, I could do that,' she agreed.
The fact that he had suggested it, and added a time limit, allayed her qualms about accepting his invitation. After all, she didn't know anything about him except that he had a pleasant manner and a sense of humour. But some very unpleasant people could possess those attributes.