John D. MacDonald
Page 17
It’s funny about him. He’s a wonderful dancer. It’s maybe like it would be dancing with a big cat. He doesn’t talk at all, and he leads very strong, so it’s easy to follow him even when he’s doing very fancy things you’ve never done before. The lights were kind of dim in the big room. I knew we probably looked special the way we were dancing together. I hoped Paul would look at us once in a while. His dancing! I suppose it was just fine ’way back when he was in college, but it certainly is old-fashioned. About the only thing he doesn’t do is pump your arm up and down and count out loud.
It was real magic, dancing like that. The way he’d swoop and the little touches of him. It made me feel all prickly all over and like I couldn’t get breath enough, or get close enough to him. At first it was just exciting, making me feel awful sexy, but when it went on and on and on, it turned into like a kind of torture. It was like pain or something. When he danced me out onto the terrace, I felt almost the way you do when you’re about to faint. I wanted him to take me out of the light, out there in the darkness where there was grass. I wanted to scream at him. It would have been the quickest thing that ever happened. And then I knew that he was doing it on purpose. I knew he was torturing me. Because he kept doing things and then stopping. I didn’t want him to know how hard I was breathing, but I couldn’t stop it.
I sort of half saw when Paul and Judy went down onto the dock. And ’way in the back of my mind I was thinking how that was. He’d probably forced himself on her. And then he could go back to the city and go to one of those stupid lunches of his and say, real casual, that he had a nice chat with Judy Jonah that week end. I bet he would bore her ears right off her head. Because what could he talk about to her? When he tries to talk about something besides his job he gets into a lot of deep-sounding stuff about life and things and I don’t think he knows half the time what he’s trying to say. It’s a kind of showing off, because he happens to know big words. What would a person like him know about life? He’s in that office all day, and when he comes home he wants to sit like a stuffed dummy and read books. There isn’t any life in him or any fun.
When the records ended Gilman Hayes backed away from me and gave a kind of funny jerky bow and said, “Good night. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.” I could have killed him dead right there where he stood. Leaving me in that condition. I said good night and I went right by him and went to my room. I almost forgot to say good night to Wilma.
I got in the room and I wanted to pace up and down like a tigress or something, and chew my nails right down to the hilt. Then I realized that Paul would be coming back to the room soon. I got ready for bed and ready for him quickly. He came in and, thank God, he didn’t want to chatter. When the light was out, I started pretending, even though Wilma has told me it’s a childish game. I pretended I was alone on a cruise and this was my stateroom. And I’d met a man during the day. He looked just like Gil Hayes except he was dark, and he had manners like that nice Wallace Dorn. And now we were together, and there was nothing provincial about either one of us.
It was hard to make the game work because I’m so used to Paul and used to the way he goes about things. But I pretended hard and it made it a lot better and a sort of crazy thing happened. When, toward the end, I sort of lost my hold on the pretending, when everything goes kind of crazy anyway, I had the ridiculous idea that it was Wilma there with me. Nothing could be sillier than that, I guess.
Just as I was going to sleep I thought that Paul hadn’t kissed me even once, but I was too darn tired to even wonder about it. He can do what he pleases. I needed him and he was there and that was that. He had no kick coming. Not after the way he’d leered at me when we first got there. Wilma says he has a pedestrian mind. You’d know that just to look at him.
Paul was snoring when I woke up. I got out of bed quickly. It was a wonderful day and I felt just divine, just perfectly and wonderfully alive. It was warm and sunny, so after I showered, I got right into my new swimsuit. It’s one piece, a funny olivy green with a texture like velvet and no shoulder straps. I wore my robe over it and went out to breakfast on the terrace. Everybody got whisky sours first. Or rum sours, if you wanted. I think that’s a perfectly marvelous idea. I love that sour taste in the morning, and it’s so gay to get a little edge before you even eat your eggs. I wished Paul would sleep all day. I wished he’d sleep until it was time to go home. Gilman Hayes was in his swimsuit too. I looked at his hand and wrist in the sun. It surprised me to see his fingernails. Little bits of things, nibbled ’way down, so the pads of his fingers sort of curl up over them. His hand looked strong and square and brown in the sun, and there was a gold watch strap around his heavy wrist, and the sun-bleached hair curled over the gold of the strap.
I was just leaving when Paul came shuffling out. Steve and Noel Hess were sitting talking together. Wilma was down on the dock with Judy. I heard Wilma laugh. I went down and swam and then Gilman Hayes got on the water skis. Later he showed me how. He was very strong. I was clumsy at first, but I have natural good balance, and my legs are husky, so I was able to do it pretty well with him teaching me. I guess it was after the skiing that I noticed how Paul was drinking a lot. I looked at him and his eyes didn’t seem to work together quite the way they usually do. And his voice was blurry. Noel was drinking a lot too, which sort of astonished me. I never saw her drink before.
Paul didn’t really get messy drunk until the croquet game. Then he was awful. For a time I was sort of ashamed of him, and then I felt good about it. He’d certainly lost his chance to ever say anything to me again about drinking. I never made such a spectacle of myself as that. We were all drinking, but Paul was the worst. I certainly wasn’t going to lower myself by helping him.
Later on it turned out it was Judy who helped him. If he could remember it, I thought he’d have a nice story for one of those silly lunch things. Judy Jonah put me to bed, boys.
After I ate I suddenly felt terribly sleepy. I went into our room like a mouse. The last thing I wanted to do was wake him up. I was real pooped, but he made such gargling snoring noises, I couldn’t drop off. I remembered seeing Steve and Noel go across the lake in a boat. It had sort of surprised me, but I guess if she was provincial, Wilma wouldn’t have her around. And it didn’t look like Steve would be back. I tried his door and it wasn’t locked, so I stretched out in there on his bed. It had been made up. Alcohol does sort of let you down, and then the best thing to do is sleep for a while, and when you wake up you’re as good as new, usually.
I slept about an hour and then I went down on the dock. I got some more sun. The party had turned sleepy, but I guessed it would pick up again when it got dark. When the sun got too low, I put my robe back on and went on up to the house. Randy was sitting on the dock staring at the lake. And one boat was still gone. I wondered if he was a little sore. But he certainly had no cause to get sore, not the way he acts with Wilma. I guess Noel doesn’t do anything about that, because it is a pretty good job for Randy, and he doesn’t have to work very hard for his money.
I did little dance steps as I went across the terrace so that the hem of my robe swirled. Gee, I felt wonderful. Life had kind of opened up. Like going down an alley for a long time and then coming out into a park. Sometimes a person gets a feeling of how things are going to be in the future. And I just knew that Paul wasn’t going to be in my future. It was funny, I was almost feeling sorry for him, the way I was going to leave him behind. Like something you outgrow, or you decide the style isn’t right for you or something, and you hang it in the back of the closet and then one day you give it away and feel just a little bit sad about giving it away.
Wilma always says you’ve got to be objective about yourself. Look at yourself kind of cold. I looked, but I couldn’t find anything about me that I really didn’t like. I know that’s kind of awful to say. It sounds conceited. But Mary Gort had come one hell of a long way, brother, and she was going to go a long way further, too. And travel light while she was at it.
It got real gay again, like I knew it was going to. It was Saturday night, wasn’t it? I like the feel of Saturday nights. There was a buffet thing, where you could fill your own plate, and Paul was still sleeping off his drunk. That was fine by me. Noel was wonderful. Gee, she’d always been so quiet. She got real gay and funny and wonderful, just laughing all the time and making cracks and staying as close to Steve as she could. Steve is nice enough, but golly, even in flat heels I can stare him right straight in the eye, and that does nothing for me, but nothing. Men like that make me feel like some kind of a horse, but she’s little enough for him. We ate and drank and then did some swimming. I had to go to the room and put my suit back on. And when I turned out the bathroom light and went back through the dark bedroom, Paul had to say, “Mavis?” and know what time it was. I told him I hoped he felt dreadful. He certainly sounded as if he did.
My suit was still damp and unpleasant. We drank on the dock under the floodlights and swam some and it was hardly cold at all. Of course we had some antifreeze, but I mean there wasn’t any of that wind that makes you feel cold.
I guess it was Wilma that said swimming felt better without suits on. That was a fine idea. Randy wasn’t swimming anyway, but of those who were, Judy and Wallace Dorn were the only ones who said they’d keep their suits on. Steve went up to the switch box. Then he played a joke on us by turning the lights back on again. He’s a riot sometimes. He kills me.
Wilma was certainly right about the swimming being better. It made you feel free and crazy and wonderful and naughty and bold. We horsed around, playing tag around the end of the docks and stuff like that. The water sort of slides by you, and it was just a little bit warmer than the air right on top. If you went down a little bit, though, it got real icy. It was all dark and mixed up. Gosh, you couldn’t tell who was getting fresh with you, but I didn’t care a bit. I kept thinking that it was just the sort of thing that stuffy old Paul would look down his long nose at. He doesn’t want anybody having any fun, especially me. I wished he’d come out.
I got kind of tired and I floated for a long time. I was close to the dock. I kept my eyes kind of squinty, blurring all the stars. Then I saw somebody on the dock right near me, and I could tell from how skinny he was it was Randy. He was looking down at me. That was the first time I felt even a little bit creepy about not having anything on, but he certainly couldn’t see much. Not by starlight. Then I saw him lift something. One of those water skis, and it looked for a minute like he was going to hit me with it or something. I guess he was going to splash somebody.
“Hey!” I said, and he made a funny little grunting noise to himself.
“Mavis?” he said. And he put the ski down.
I realized I hadn’t heard Wilma laughing or talking in quite a while. I called her. She didn’t answer. I wondered if she’d gone up to the house without telling anybody she was leaving.
It’s funny how alarms go off in your head. All of a sudden, as Gil started to call her too, I just knew something was wrong. I just knew it. And all of a sudden the water was cold. Awful cold. And all the stars didn’t look friendly any more. They looked cold too. “Wilma!” I yelled. “Wilma!”
“All at once,” Steve said, and his voice was shaky. “Now!”
“Wilma!” we yelled. The night didn’t care. The stars didn’t give a damn. Our voices came back from the mountains. All faint and haunted and horrible.
“Wilma!”
Chapter Sixteen
(GILMAN HAYES—AFTERWARD)
SHE HAD those big books of reproductions. I had put on a shirt she had given me, and some comfortable ragged khaki shorts from the old days. I sat and turned the pages. Dufy, Rouault, Utrillo. What do they say? The honored dead. They leave patterns behind them. They couldn’t even draw. I drew every leaf and it went up on the cork board. Sister Elizabeth said it was pretty. There was something the matter with one of Sister Elizabeth’s eyes. It didn’t look at you. The other kids made jokes. They said it was the eye that looked at God.
It was dawn and I turned meaningless pages.
One eye looked at God and you couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but her arms were warm. Her clothes smelled musty and sweaty when she held me close. I was her favorite, so I didn’t mind being held that way.
She was holding me and I was laughing silently against the mustiness that day. When she held me away so suddenly, I barely had a chance to make a crying face again.
He’d held me out in the air over the bricks ’way down there. Then he pulled me back and dropped me and hurt my head and slapped me and turned his back on me, leaning on the railing. I was crying. I reached down with both hands and I grabbed his ankles and snatched and lifted as hard as I could. I knew I had to do it fast and hard and strong, because if it didn’t happen to him, he would slap me again.
“Aaaaaaaa!” he cried on the way down.
I was looking down when they came out. I was watching, way down there, the blood running in a little river down a place between two of the bricks, and he was like he was lying down to see it closer and better, his eyes right near the little river. Sometimes when it was after a rain, they would let us race toothpicks in the gutter. I never cared if I won or not. I like to watch it
Sister Elizabeth said it was a dreadful shock to me. She held me close. She smelled funny. I said he was trying to show me how he could walk on the railing. What happened was I was off balance. I did not see him go down, because I was staggering back. That would have been a good part of it. I did not know how many times he went over in the air. And that would have been a good thing to know.
It’s odd that I should sort of forget that I’m different and it was Wilma who made me remember it all over again. I guess I never did really forget. It’s more that I didn’t use it. If you’re different, it’s something to be used, or it’s wasted. I only used it in little ways. Like that night in the park and hearing them, and creeping close through the bushes, creeping so close to them I could have reached out and touched them. They were like animals. I hit them both, and it was funny I only had to hit him once, but I had to hit her three times. I had been planning to do something humorous with them. Something to make you laugh. But I felt tired and I had forgotten what it was, so I left them there. It wasn’t even in the paper. So what good was it?
Wilma saw the importance of me. She brought it out. So that people pointed at me, and tried to talk to me, and even said sir.
I could do the pictures very quickly, and they were four hundred dollars for each one at first and then six hundred and fifty. And now one thousand. But Evis gets one third of that. I don’t see what he does that he should get one third. I ask him and he says things about the high rental area of the gallery and the cost of packing and shipping and things like that.
It’s important. One of them, I did this: I took the tubes. I squirted the raw colors into my hands. Then I made a washing motion with my hands, then smeared the canvas. The first time I had done too much of the washing motion. It came out gray, for some reason. So the next time I did it not so much and the colors stayed bright and raw and smeared. Then I turned the canvas around and around until it looked like something. Then with black and a little brush I made it look more like what it looked like. That one took a long time to dry, I remember.
Now I wish I could ask Wilma why she did it. There are a lot of things in the world that make you do other things. And people are always watching and thinking, and you can only guess what the real reasons are, because they all have their own.
She talked so long.
They were down there on the dock in the lights, swimming, and the lights were not on where we were. Our legs were over the bank and we sat on the clipped neat green grass, our hips touching, our thighs touching, like friends.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“It was a bet, darling. I’ve been telling you and telling you. You’re sweet sometimes, but really you are terribly dense. Why did we bet? Because there was an argument, that’s why. A stuffy and self-important man. One of those cocktail-party arguments. He said that, in the mass, the people have taste and perception. He said you can’t kid them. My answer, of course, is that the public consists of slobs who like what they are told to like. He was a tiny bit drunk. Drunk enough to bet me one thousand dollars that I couldn’t pick somebody off the street and turn him into an artist. Or at least what the public would consider an artist. I looked around. I thought it would be more amusing if I could find somebody pretty. And there you were, dear, behind that counter, wearing your silly little hat and positively reeking of sex. With Steve Winsan’s fees and the money I’ve spent on you, dear, it has cost me nearly seven thousand to win one. But it has been delightful, really. So I’m just telling you that the party is over. That’s all.”
“But the critics…”
Her voice got harder. “The critics worth a damn said you’re a farce, and you are. The sheep went along with the big fad. They didn’t understand those globs because nobody can, and because they couldn’t understand them, they said they were good—pushed in the right direction by Steve, of course. And that created a stir and the stir meant more publicity and that meant more sales, and I got my thousand dollars over a month ago. My God, I couldn’t let you try to draw things, objects, anything recognizable. Your work would be infantile.”
“But you told me… Wilma, you said I’m different. You said I should be…”