Sutherland

by Karen Trailor Thomas

  “You’re in trouble,” Harley said later as they ate donuts and coffee on a section of unoccupied lawn.

  “Nah. She’s so busy it’ll all get lost and maybe I will, too. What are you up to today? What goes on at this shindig?”

  Harley stuffed the last of a glazed donut into his mouth and took his time answering. “It’s already going on. Hi, how ya been, what ‘cha doin’, my how you’ve grown. It starts out like that, then somewhere along the way somebody gets drunk and says too much or too little, and somebody else gets pissed, and then we’re into the heart of Sutherland territory. By Sunday night, the real fireworks will be anticlimactic.”

  “So what do you do?” Jennalee prodded, his elusiveness unsettling her.

  “Practice. And stay out of the way.”

  “Can you get one of the bikes? We could go for a ride.”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you ride?”

  “Not anymore.”

  His tone had such a finality that Jennalee went no further. She brushed crumbs from her lap and stood up when he did. “I’ll see you later,” he said and she watched him stride away.

  She remained fixed until he was out of sight, then hurried after him, slipping behind corners to follow him to his room, where she saw Garth push the motorcycle out the door. Harley stood to one side and they spoke briefly before Garth hit the starter. He alone caught Jennalee looking—Harley had gone inside—and she froze when he rode up the lane, then cut across the lawn to her. “How about a ride?” he said, gunning the engine in a slow rhythmic pulse.

  Jennalee ran a hand back through her hair and looked out toward the hills. She could hear her mother telling her no, herself telling her no, but he kept gunning the bike and she felt that familiar quickening. “Okay,” she said and climbed on. “But let’s go somewhere else.”

  “Name it.”

  “Turn right onto the main road, go about six miles, then make a left.”

  They put on the required helmets and he settled back against her, pulling her arms around him and pushing her hand to his crotch. She could feel him growing there, and when his hand left hers, she didn’t retreat. At this he kicked the bike into gear. They loped easy through the grounds and she presented a studied aloofness to Sutherland glances, savoring both the promise and danger of her assignation.

  Six miles of Garth Laidlaw’s erection set her squirming, and when his hand reached back to her thigh, she opened to him as far as was possible on the narrow seat. She leaned forward to give directions and he followed, guiding the motorcycle with only his right hand.

  Jennalee led him to a forgotten shed she used with the Malvern boys. They’d made a sex nest of sorts: old blankets, empty beer cans, potato chip bags, and used condoms scattered about. As soon as they were inside, Garth was at her and she didn’t resist. “We need to use something,” she reminded him as he pulled off her tank top and kneaded her breasts. He kept at her until she added, “I insist.”

  He pulled away, face flushed, extracted a condom from his pocket, applied it, then stripped away her clothes. He took a long look at her before pushing down his jeans and all but knocking her to the floor. He was inside her in seconds, pumping as his fingers dug into her hips. She felt herself rising, her own urgency pushing forward, but then he was coming, slamming at her, and everything within her retreated. Afterward she lay with her arms wrapped around him, rubbing his back while trying to feel something beyond a sense of abandonment.

  “You are one good fuck,” he said as he raised up off her. He gave her a slow thrust before pulling out and holding the condom up to her. “Full load,” he said, grinning before tossing it into a corner.

  She reached up to run her hand over his chest, reminding herself how handsome he was, more so than Howard who she’d once thought the ultimate. And this was a man, not some high school boy; this was cock, not some puny penis dangling beneath gym shorts. This guy had a load. She liked the sound of that and she sat up and tossed her hair back.

  “What’re you after?” he asked and she smiled as she saw herself queen again. She parted her legs and ran her tongue along her upper lip.

  “All right,” he said and he eased her back, pulled her legs up over his shoulders, and dove in. As his tongue brought her along, she told herself over and over that this was a man, her man, and he was doing her like she’d commanded. When her climax arrived she cried out, so grand the release.

  “I sure had you wrong,” Garth said when he sat up. He wiped his arm across his mouth. “You know what you’re doing.”

  Jennalee said nothing. She gave him a half-smile and allowed a sigh of satisfaction. “You get enough?” Garth asked.

  She said, “For now.”

  He was up then, zipping his jeans. “Want to go get a Coke?” she asked as she dressed. “How about we hit the McDonald’s?”

  “I need to get back,” Garth replied. “I told my dad I’d help him with his bike. It started crapping out on the ride up and we’ve got to get it fixed before we start back. Maybe later.”

  “Sure. No problem.” On the ride back, Jennalee clung to him but he felt taut now, unresponsive.

  Chapter 5

  Earl Laidlaw already had his tools out when Garth and Jennalee arrived back at the room. The smallest of Noel Sutherland’s sons had escaped his room to stand nearby as Earl strewed parts, tools, and oily rags about the walk. When Phyllis Sutherland’s sharp voice pierced the morning, the child disappeared inside.

  Garth slipped an arm around Jennalee’s waist as she slid off the motorcycle and handed him the half-shell. “Dad, this is Lee,” he said to Earl, who looked up, nodded, and went back to his wrenches. Garth squeezed Jennalee and said, “Great ride,” before turning his attention to his father.

  Jennalee wasn’t sure what to do next and so stayed on, perching finally on the Kawasaki to watch the work. When Garth removed his shirt, she knew it was as much for her as for relief from the heat because he stood there, face to the sky, while she followed the dark stripe of hair down to his jeans. She sighed and rearranged herself on the bike, straddling it now, leaning forward as if on a racetrack. She twisted the silent throttle, worked clutch and brake, and then the door opened and out stepped Harley with his violin case.

  He glanced at her so briefly she knew he knew, and she hated him for that, for whatever radar he possessed plus the green oversized shirt he now wore beneath the white pinstripe vest. He said nothing to his brother or father, did not even look their way, and she watched him head toward the bluff.

  She climbed off the Kawasaki and walked over to the motorcycle where Garth crouched beside his father. When she came up close, he reached for her ankle, squeezed it, then ran his hand up her thigh, all without diverting his attention from repairs. Jennalee placed a hand on his shoulder.

  Lizann Laidlaw emerged at that moment in a white Spandex bathing suit that revealed an ample though shapely body. Even Jennalee was taken with the enormous breasts, shoulder straps settled into deep grooves. “I’ll be at the pool,” Lizann told the men, who did not respond, and she pushed by carrying a small bag and bath towel. She gave Jennalee a smile and nod as she passed.

  Harley looks like her, Jennalee realized, that same oval face, except his got thrown out of proportion because of that hair. And the smile, same soft, inviting smile. He had her coloring, too, fair where Garth and his father were ruddy, almost earth-toned. Not a tan, Jennalee decided, not that smooth, oiled look she’d seen on the beach, but a barren kind of thing, dry as desert.

  When Jennalee heard the Bach sonata, she couldn’t remain still. She kept her eye on Garth and the trim back leading down to those jeans, but once the music began drifting down the bluff, she started to fidget. After circling the Harley—motorcycle, not boy—enough times for Earl to look up in annoyance, she told Garth she’d see him later and turned away.

  She stood at the foot of the bluff for some time before deciding her next move, then ran along the winding path, avoiding Sutherlands who now seemed to
clog the place. She hid behind a plot of shrubbery on the main patio to locate her parents.

  Gerald was at the desk on the phone and, after some searching, she found Jane now with the silver-haired woman in aqua who still flapped and fussed. Jane gesticulated equally, as if they were planning some massive troop movement through the lobby.

  Once inside, Jennalee clung to guests, worming her way to the living quarters and her room, where she grabbed her portable keyboard and backtracked with equal caution. Only Wesley saw her and offered his usual shy grin.

  She walked slowly now, again at the edge of the lane, and as she climbed the bluff, she found herself suddenly reluctant and sat partway up, keyboard across her knees. She reminded herself she did what she wanted when she wanted, but still suffered recalling Harley’s knowing look.

  It occurred to her then to go back down and leave him to his practice. She could surprise her parents and pitch in on some hotel chore to earn enough points to maybe derail her mother’s pending admonishment for the night away from her bed. She got so far as to rise, but then Harley started into the Spring sonata and she crumbled. She sat with the keyboard again on her knees and began to play.

  She didn’t turn the keyboard on because she didn’t want to intrude, but the piece almost hurt, it was that good, especially the adagio which she had some time ago declared the most beautiful of all Beethoven’s works. Mr. Mendel had once confided the same thought, and also that he’d left instructions in his will for it to be played at his funeral, just the adagio. Jennalee had pushed away the idea at the time, unable to consider Mr. Mendel ever dying, but with time had come to want the same for herself.

  Fingering the keys, she alone heard her accompaniment and she stroked with an ever lighter touch until there was finally no more than knowledgeable hovering. When the piece ended, she couldn’t go to Harley and congratulate him as she wanted, couldn’t even silently applaud. She could only remain, hands stilled on the keys, waiting for him to begin again.

  He did much of the Elgar, went several times through the Bach, and then the Kreutzer, and for this Jennalee played along. She almost turned on the keyboard, she knew he’d like it if she joined him, but she remained silent and, when she heard the motorcycle’s engine crackle to life below, she shut her eyes.

  It was like some kind of push-me-pull-you, a Dr. Doolittle world sprung up around her, motorcycle and violin locked in an awful competition, and she stopped her playing and clutched her keyboard to her chest. She was like that when Harley found her minutes later. He didn’t say anything, he simply looked until she opened her eyes.

  “How long have you been staring at me?” she demanded.

  “Just a couple seconds. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Interrupt what?”

  “Whatever that is,” he said. “Some kind of meditation is my guess.” He pulled his violin case to his chest, shut his eyes, and hugged it. After a moment he opened one eye. “Nope. Maybe without the case.”

  “I was having a bad moment, if you must know,” Jennalee said, lowering the keyboard to her knees.

  “The music?”

  “Everything.”

  He sat beside her. “Is it over now?”

  She shrugged and, after a long pause, told him she thought his Spring beautiful. “My teacher has it in his will to have the adagio played at his funeral.”

  “I’ve got the Missa Solemnis in mine,” Harley offered and Jennalee began to laugh. “Now it’s over,” he added as she kept laughing. He took her keyboard, turned it on, and handed it back to her. “Please.” When she didn’t begin, he simply waited, which annoyed her, because she wanted him to ask about Garth, needed him to ask.

  “I haven’t played in five months,” she finally offered.

  He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, rocked back then forward. “How do you do that?” he asked, not looking at her. “I mean, how do you not play?”

  “Sometimes there are bigger issues.”

  “Like what?”

  Suddenly they all seemed so small. “Life,” she said. “You know, pressures and stuff.”

  “Ah, pressures, yes. Do this, don’t do that, why not this, why on earth that, and my personal favorite direct from the lips of Earl Laidlaw, ‘What in the fuck are you doing?’”

  Jennalee took a long moment to stand Earl Laidlaw up against Gerald Preece. It unsettled her enough to reroute the conversation. “So you’ve never stopped?” she asked.

  Harley shook his head. “It’s like breathing, not optional.”

  “That’s what it sounds like,” she replied, “breathing, life giving.”

  “But you can’t play for me?”

  “Not right now, okay?”

  “Okay. I’m heading back down.” He stood and offered a hand, which she took. As they walked down the hill, the motorcycle was mercifully quiet.

  She wasn’t sure why he followed her into the lobby, she was simply glad he did because her mother was waiting, Sutherlands having thinned enough for her to stake out the door and pounce the second her daughter entered. “Jennalee,” Jane called.

  She turned to Harley as if her worst secret had been rung through the town. “I hate that name,” she told him.

  Then her mother was at her, grabbing her arm and glaring at Harley, who had his violin case under one arm and was nodding at someone across the lobby.

  “You are coming with me, young lady. Mr. Laidlaw, my daughter will be busy for the rest of the day.”

  She yanked at Jennalee, who yanked back. “Mother!” she howled, grabbing Harley’s arm for support.

  “It’s okay,” Harley said. “I’m meeting my cousin. We always get out of here for a while. Maybe I’ll see you later.”

  Jane Preece glared at him.

  “Maybe,” he repeated before slipping away.

  Jane firmed her grasp and pulled her daughter toward the living quarters. Gerald Preece missed the entire moment, lost to his Hotel-Motel program, which had begun to offer File Not Found whenever he tried to call up a Sutherland reservation. Sweat began to accumulate and, though he had an urgent need for the bathroom, he remained at his keyboard, determined to locate the problem.

  “How dumb do you think we are?” Jane Preece demanded as soon as she had closed the living quarter’s door behind her. Jennalee retreated to the long gray sectional sofa. “Do you really think you can stay out all night and not be discovered? Do you? Do you think we’re oblivious to what you’re up to?”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “That’s it?” Jane barked. “Nothing happened? You think going off in the night with some stranger is nothing happening? And you walk back in the next morning as if all’s right with the world because nothing happened?”

  “Nothing did.”

  “And tell me why I’m supposed to believe that. You sneak out and meet some boy, stay out the entire night, and tell me nothing happened between you? Then what were you doing and where were you?”

  Jennalee went silent. She’d been here before, not the staying out all night but encountering her mother’s radar coming at her full force yet off target. She thought of Garth down between her legs and shook her head. “Harley is just a nice boy,” she said. “We have music in common and we were up on the bluff. I heard him playing and went up to listen. We fell asleep.”

  “You fell asleep.”

  “Yes.” Jennalee hated it when the truth did no good. She sighed. “It’s the truth, but I can’t make you believe it so believe what you want. I give up.”

  “You give up? You? I’m the one who should be giving up. I can’t get anywhere with you anymore, you do nothing but mope, you disappear every chance you get, and now you go off all night with a boy. Well, it’s over as of right now. You are going to spend your afternoon helping out around here and tonight when they have their big dinner, you’re going to be doing whatever is necessary and I don’t want any backtalk or attitude. Do you understand?”

  “Does Dad know about last night?”r />
  Jane fingered her wedding ring. “No,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to upset him. All these guests have him under a lot of pressure and you know that’s not good. We need to give him all the help we can. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  * * * *

  Witherspoon Caterers arrived mid-afternoon to begin dinner preparations and Jennalee, who’d been pushing tables into place in the Oak Room with Jane and Wesley, was offered by her mother to assist in whatever capacity needed. Jennalee knew the Witherspoon twins from school, both seniors—Andrea, blond and popular, and Donna, blond and unpopular who compensated for life outside the inner circle by stringing along the Malvern boys. She had suffered with Jennalee’s arrival and it was she, in fact, who had coined the San Francisco Slut nickname.

  Benita Witherspoon, a compact middle-aged woman, also blond, welcomed Jennalee into her temporary employ and set her spreading tablecloths, arranging chairs and centerpieces while the Witherspoon girls did likewise, Jane Preece on the periphery.

  Donna wore tight jeans and a T-shirt, but Jennalee took heart that mealtime would see her uniformed and serving. In the meantime the two avoided each other, their occasional run-ins accompanied by discreet name calling. Benita and Jane missed these exchanges, as they were consumed with fussing over flowers and service for one hundred forty-three guests. At one point Benita remarked to Jane how well the three girls got on.

  “I’m glad Jennalee can help out,” Jane said. “It’s quite a job you have.”

  “But it makes my year,” Benita confided, beaming. “The rest of the time is peanuts compared to this, you know, weddings, birthdays, all the usual, then every Fourth of July it just explodes.” She clapped her hands. “It absolutely saves me.”

  “Do they all chip in?” Jan asked.

  “Oh, no.” Benita leaned in to share the confidence. “The rich ones pay for it all. Prescott Sutherland, surely you’ve heard of him, mining or something. He died two years ago, but his money lives on, so to speak. His wife Marian runs it now, makes all the arrangements, chooses the food, everything right down to how to stock the bar, and it’s all paid from a corporate account, Sutherland Metals in San Francisco. I think the actual mining is somewhere in Southern California, though, out in the desert.”