Aside from the Roadrunners, no one really seemed to have enjoyed the volleyball games. Not the other players, all of whom, like Lowell, seemed to be participating out of obligation, and not the onlookers, who, judging from overheard conversations, were only waiting for the tournament to end so they could go back into the pool and continue swimming. He didn’t know why The Reata would sponsor such an event if no one got any fun out of it, but he had a sneaking suspicion that this result had been known ahead of time and was intentional.
The Roadrunners’ victory still did not put an end to the proceedings. Rockne got down from his lifeguard’s chair and procured a plain brown box from the snack bar. “It’s time for the awards ceremony!” he announced. There were groans from people waiting to get back in the pool and loud cheers from the Roadrunners, emerging from the water. The activities coordinator placed the box down on the cement at the edge of the pool, withdrawing a bright gold statuette of a man with upraised arms holding a volleyball and standing atop a tall Doric column. “The winner’s trophy!” he proclaimed. “On behalf of The Reata, I present this to the winning team of our tournament, the Roadrunners! Will the captain of the winning team please step forward!”
The speakers around the pool area, which had been silent throughout the tournament, blared with a triumphant fanfare as rough backslaps and pats on the ass propelled Blodgett forward. He punched the man nearest him in a manner which, under the guise of camaraderie, was clearly meant to hurt, then strode forward, grinning arrogantly. “Thank you!” he said loudly. “This would probably mean more if we had some real competition, but we’ll take our wins where we can get them!”
Holding the trophy high, Blodgett returned to his team amid whoops, hollers and laughs of derision.
“Just a minute, there, Mr. Blodgett,” the activities coordinator advised. “I think you’re due for another trip up here.” He reached into the box, pulling out one more gold trophy: a naked flexing strongman standing atop a square block.
And sporting an erection.
“Player of the day!” he announced. “Mr. Blodgett!”
Once again, the big man walked up to accept his prize. This time he said nothing, only emitted a series of apelike grunts that baffled the rest of the crowd but sent the other Roadrunners into gales of laughter. He banged his two trophies together as though they were beer steins at a toast, then returned to his team. Rachel had turned her body in such a way that Blodgett and his teammates could see neither her front nor back, only her side.
“We have one more trophy to give out, our booby prize as it were, presented to the worst player of the tournament!” The activities coordinator grinned and set his sights on Lowell, who suddenly knew what was coming. “Loser of the day is—” He paused for effect. “Mr. Thurman!”
“Thank you, thank you,” Lowell said, raising his hands in a parody of false modesty. There were some scattered claps and a lot of puzzled looks from the crowd, and loud obnoxious jeers from the Roadrunners’ quarter.
He accepted the prize good-naturedly, though he was not at all sure that was the spirit in which it was intended. Still, he felt bad, for his team if not for himself, and he wondered how he had allowed that to happen. He was not one of those people who defined himself in relation to a group, who allowed himself to be a cog in the machine. He was definitely not a team player. In fact, for most of his life, he had assiduously avoided joining teams or clubs or organizations, preferring to engage in more solitary, individualistic pursuits. But somehow he had gotten roped into this tournament and against his will and without knowing it had become emotionally invested in the Cactus Wrens. Lowell glanced over at his teammates, saw pained expressions of sympathy, embarrassment and encouragement, and he gave them a wan smile as he walked back to his family.
He looked down at the statuette in his hand.
It was a miniature version of himself.
Lowell nearly stopped in his tracks. His mouth was suddenly dry. He looked up at Rachel, saw a perplexed look on her face, then glanced back at the activities coordinator, who was smirking. Using his finger to trace the contours of the small silver face, he saw a caricature of the visage that was reflected back to him each morning from the bathroom mirror. He couldn’t immediately process all of the implications here. One thing he knew was that it had been determined ahead of time that he would be the tournament’s designated loser, although how far ahead it was impossible to say. How long did it take to etch a face on a trophy?
And was this supposed to be some sort of joke or a warning?
The pool was opened again, the tournament officially over, and the gathered crowd separated, the Roadrunners heading off somewhere together with Rockne, their wives and their families, other people wandering out of the gate to another part of the resort, swimmers of all ages returning gratefully to the water. Rachel had already claimed a small table and series of lounge chairs with her bag and several towels.
Lowell sat down heavily on one of the lounge chairs, placing the trophy on the ground next to him. Ryan put a tender hand on his drooping shoulder, and he found that extremely touching. “Don’t worry, Daddy,” he said seriously. “It’s just a game.”
Lowell smiled. “Come here.” He hugged his son, and it felt good. For some reason he had stopped hugging the boys as they approached puberty—embarrassment on both their parts, he supposed—but it was nice to once again feel the warmth of his son in his arms, and he flashed back to when the boys were little and he had picked them up and carried them around and given them piggyback rides and hugged them for no reason whatsoever. Time passed too quickly, he thought, and he wished he could go back in time and do it all over again. Not to change anything, just to once again experience it.
“You weren’t even the worst player,” Curtis said angrily. “Your whole team sucked. You were the best one on there. You should’ve been on that other team—”
“No,” he said, smiling. “I’m glad I was on the team I was.”
“That was the guy, wasn’t it?” Ryan asked. “The guy who stole our room.”
“Yeah.” Lowell looked at Rachel. Her face was tight and unsmiling.
“And I saw that other jerk who yelled at us in the parking lot,” Owen said.
“They were all jerks,” Lowell told them. “But don’t let it ruin your afternoon. It’s all over now. Have some fun.”
David walked up, having found them in the crowd, and Rachel told the twins that, yes, they could swim with David on the other side of the pool if they wanted, but they had to stay out of trouble and had to take Ryan along.
“That’s okay,” Ryan said. “I’ll stay with you. I don’t really want to swim right now anyway.” He clambered on to an adjacent lounge chair and stretched out, pulling the back up a little so he could watch the people in the pool.
“What about the car?” Rachel asked. “Any news?”
“They’re getting a battery from Tucson. It’s supposed to be in sometime this afternoon.” Lowell sighed. “This is some vacation, isn’t it?”
Rachel smiled. “I’ll thank my sister when we get back.”
“I think it’s a great vacation,” Ryan said.
Lowell chuckled, messed up Ryan’s hair. “Well, I’m glad someone’s having a good time.”
For dinner, they opted for room service, finding it preferable to order off the highly inflated menu and eat in their suite rather than venture out to the Saguaro Room or the Grille.
Look! I’m on my period!
The boys had hot dogs and hamburgers in their bedroom while watching reruns of The Simpsons. He and Rachel ate in the sitting area with the national news on. There was a lot to say, a lot to talk about, but they ate in silence, not wanting to say anything that the kids might be able to hear, or perhaps afraid discussion of their fears and feelings might grant them solidity.
Tomorrow was still up in the air. Once again, they’d been planning to drive to Tucson, but the concierge still hadn’t called by five, and when Lowell attempted to dial h
is desk, all he got was a recording asking him to leave a message. He did so. Twice. Once shortly after five and once at a quarter to six. But neither of his calls were returned, and he resigned himself to finding out about the battery in the morning.
He had a hunch they were going to be spending another happy day stuck at The Reata.
The boys wanted to attend the resort’s “dive-in movie,” and after they checked it out, Lowell and Rachel reluctantly agreed to let them go. There were numerous families gathered by the big pool, a lot of little kids splashing happily in the water, teenagers and a few adults floating on rafts. They’d shut off the waterfall, and in its place a screen had been lowered on which the movie would be projected. Free popcorn was being offered at the snack bar.
“It looks safe enough,” Lowell admitted.
“You take care of Ryan,” Rachel ordered as the boys started to walk away, looking for David.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Curtis promised.
“And come straight back to the room afterward. Straight back.” She looked at her watch. “It’s a five-minute walk. The movie ends at nine thirty. If you’re not in by nine forty, we’re coming after you.”
“Okay, Mom. Jeez.”
They were making a mistake, Lowell thought. Something weird was going to happen. They’d show a porno movie instead of a Disney film. Or Rockne would come by to organize everyone into water wrestling teams. But he and Rachel had no choice. To huddle in their room, hiding, waiting for daylight, was conceding defeat, was letting them win.
Them?
Who was them?
He didn’t know.
The message light was blinking on the phone when they returned to their suite, and Lowell checked the voice mail instantly, hoping to hear that the battery had arrived and been installed, that his car was working fine and ready to go. But that was not the message that had been left.
“Mr. Thurman.” He recognized the voice of the activities coordinator in his coach mode once again. “I just want to let you know that tomorrow is Sunday, and The Reata is offering nondenominational church services in the amphitheater. Our beautiful sunrise service begins at six a.m.” There was a pause. “It is suggested that all Cactus Wrens attend. And pray like there’s no tomorrow.” A chuckle. “You need all the help you can get.”
We’re going to need all the help we can get. That’s what Rand Black had said, and for a brief wild moment Lowell thought the two were connected, part of some vast conspiracy, that maybe he was the subject of a new reality show where an unsuspecting man was placed in a resort populated by people trying to freak him out. But then reason reasserted itself and he shut that line of thinking down before it grew to global conspiracy proportions.
“What is it?” Rachel asked as he hung up the phone.
“They have a . . . church service,” he said distractedly. “A sunrise service at the amphitheater.”
He frowned. Amphitheater? He didn’t remember any amphitheater. “Do you—” he started to ask, but she was way ahead of him.
“I didn’t see an amphitheater.” Already she was opening up the Welcome pack and looking at the map. She spread it out on the table, then glanced up at him, bewildered. “Right here,” she said. “Behind the tennis courts.”
“It wasn’t there before,” he said quietly.
“Maybe it was. Maybe we just didn’t notice it.”
“No.”
They almost talked then. There were no kids around, so they could be open and honest, speak candidly with each other. But something kept them from it, both of them, and she put away the Welcome pack, and he turned on the television, and they settled down to watch a movie as though everything were fine.
Twenty-one
Gloria and Ralph celebrated victory with the rest of the Roadrunners, having dinner at the Starlight Pavilion and then drinks at the Winner’s Circle.
The Pavilion was amazing. Located in The Reata’s main building above the lobby on a hidden second floor, it had a glass ceiling that opened onto the starry night—hence the name—and a menu more exotic and extensive even than the Saguaro Room. A pianist played soft jazz on a small stage, and while Gloria didn’t recognize him, she had the feeling he was someone. Although many of the Roadrunners ate together at a couple of the larger tables, she and Ralph, along with a few other couples, opted for privacy and sat at smaller booths in quieter corners of the room.
If there was one thing she found less than satisfying about their association with the Roadrunners, it was . . . well, the people. Most of them were a little crude for her taste, a trifle too loud and obnoxious. Of course, that was to be expected for a sporting team, and if membership in the elite crowd required fraternization with some less than desirable companions, then so be it. But she would have much preferred an older, quieter, more staid group of individuals.
At the Winner’s Circle, the party really got started, with raucous music blaring from unseen speakers, loud drinking games being played at the bar, and wild dancing from some of the younger women. She began to think that elite crowd or no elite crowd, status was not worth putting up with this. A chained waiter handed her a gin and tonic before Ralph could bring her one from the bar, and she gulped it down, feeling the effects almost immediately. She had a moment of clarity when she realized that they should not be here, that this was all a mistake, that they had been recruited under false pretenses and should be back alone in their room right now. Then another waiter came by, took her empty glass and replaced it with a martini.
She didn’t want it, but she drank it anyway.
The tone of the party changed as the evening wore on, became less victory celebration and more saturnalia. Several of the women—including old Dana Peters from the Springerville Historical Society—were suddenly topless, and across the lounge a group of men had stripped down to their skivvies. Someone had somehow removed all clothing from the waiters and servers chained to the post, and Mr. Blodgett and Mr. Snagg were forcing one young Hispanic waitress to urinate in a wine glass.
Gloria grimaced. This wasn’t the way they should be spending their vacation.
This was wrong.
She thought of that writer they’d met at the Saguaro Room—
Get out.
—and wished they had followed his advice.
The party antics escalated. A dog had gotten in, and it ran around the lounge barking and tripping people. Two fat men, drunk and laughing, were relaying mugs of beer from the bar and dumping them into the sunken portion of the room in an effort to create a beer swimming pool.
Gloria wasn’t sure exactly when she and Ralph became separated—the alcohol made everything a little foggy—but all of a sudden she was alone with an empty glass, and he was on the other side of the pole with two nubile half-naked young women, one of whom had an arm on his shoulder and a breast in his face. Anger flared within her, white hot and burning. It had been many years since she’d had any use for his wrinkled old cock, but it was her wrinkled old cock and she wasn’t going to let any underage implanted floozy anywhere near it.
She started across the floor toward him but tripped over something she couldn’t even see. A tall cruel-looking man laughed at her and dribbled the last of his drink on her head as he walked away. She got to her feet, furious, ready to take on that insensitive jerk, but there’d been a sea change in the room, a shift of mood and focus, and it left her feeling off-balance, not only physically but mentally. She turned around woozily, trying to figure out what had changed.
It was the activities coordinator.
He was standing near the center of the round room, in front of the post, all of the chained workers huddled together behind the wooden pole. The Roadrunners and their spouses gathered around in a semicircle, falling into silence as the obnoxious music mercifully faded. Where are the children? she wondered. Didn’t some of them have children? She didn’t like the fact that they weren’t here.
Get out.
The activities coordinator was dressed strangely, she
saw now, in some kind of dirty cowboy costume rather than his usual elegant suit. “Hail!” he cried.
Most of the other people seemed as confused as she did, but Mr. Blodgett shouted “Hail!” and the rest of them followed suit.
“Hail!”
There was a buzz going through the crowd, whisperings passed from person to person that she couldn’t seem to focus on, couldn’t seem to hear. She looked around, trying to find Ralph, but he had disappeared.
“Let us give thanks,” the activities coordinator intoned. “We have prevailed in tournament play against our lessers. Let us demonstrate our gratitude and appreciation to The Reata by presenting an offering in hopes that our good fortune may continue.”
By this time, the Roadrunners were murmuring their assent, like the call-and-response of a church meeting. The activities coordinator would say something and they would reply in unison, though she could not seem to make out what either side said. Somewhere along the line, she became aware of the fact that most of the crowd’s attention was on her. Her head felt big, heavy, floppy. She tried to walk away but instead fell into a chair, and it suddenly occurred to her that she wasn’t drunk, she’d been drugged.
“Ralph!” she tried to call, but the sound that came out of her mouth was a goofy hiccupped syllable, and several of the people immediately around her giggled.
The activities coordinator was moving toward her while everyone else seemed to be stepping back and away. Even in her altered state, she understood that she was being offered as some sort of sacrifice, and with a grim resignation that was totally unlike her decided that that made sense since she was probably the oldest person in the room and closest to death anyway.
From behind the post, the chained servants untangled themselves and emerged, stepping slowly and in sync. They were still naked but adorned with paint or makeup that made them look like Indians. Each of them carried a hatchet.
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