Precipice

by Tom Savage

  With the ingrained practicality of the rich, Kay wondered just what this was going to cost. She wasn’t sure how much to offer. The girl was obviously well-off: nobody flew to St. Thomas, even in off-season August, and took a room here at Bolongo Bay Beach Club unless they had a few bucks. Kay was a member of the club, entitled to all privileges of pool and dining room, chaises and tennis courts and all the rest. If her dues were any indication, she could well imagine what they asked for a room with a balcony overlooking the bay. But then again, Kay also knew that someone else had paid for the girl’s vacation. She would never have even entertained the notion of offering the girl employment if it hadn’t been for the conversation she’d overheard at lunch the day before. . . .

  There had only been a few people dining on the small, split-level deck above the pool. There were not many rooms in the hotel, and hardly any of the club members came to the beach on weekdays. Most of them, unlike Kay, had jobs.

  She and the girl had caught each other’s eye and smiled politely as the girl was seated at the very next table. Kay considered, briefly, inviting the girl to join her. The girl was a painter and Kay was a collector: they could pass the time discussing art. But just as Kay was about to make her move, a tall, blond young man in a black T-shirt and Speedo bikini arrived at the girl’s table.

  “Hello again,” he said. “May I?” He looked down at the empty chair across from the girl.

  She glanced up, startled but apparently not annoyed by the intrusion. “Sure—Bob, was it? I’m sorry, I—”

  “Yeah, Bob,” he said, lowering his lanky frame into the offered seat. “The only other guest in the hotel, it seems. Unless you count those two.” He jerked a thumb at a young honeymoon couple who sat entwined a few tables away, and he and the girl laughed. “They’re not very sociable, except with each other. Everyone else around here is about a hundred years old.” He looked over at Kay and grinned charmingly. “Hi!”

  “Hello,” Kay said, smiling, before looking back down at her menu. A hundred years old, eh? Cheeky sonofabitch. Kay was forty-five, and just beginning to take the arrogance of youth personally.

  “You’re Diana,” he continued, turning his grin back to the girl. “The other day you said that you graduated from Yale or some such place three years ago—”

  “Harvard.” She laughed. “Four years ago.”

  “—and you’re a painter. What—other than the fact that every view on this island looks like it should have a calendar hanging under it—brings you to St. Thomas?”

  The girl did not answer him immediately, Kay noticed. She merely shrugged one of those “beats-the-hell-out-of-me” shrugs.

  “My mom’s idea,” she said at last. “Her treat, actually. I’d never be able to afford this by myself.”

  “Ah,” Bob replied. “And why did she send you here?”

  The girl smiled. “Oh, the usual. I’ve just come through . . a bad time. A man.”

  “Oh.” This was not part of Bob’s plan. “Divorce?”

  “Sort of,” the girl said, her smile widening. “He refused to get one.”

  Bob, his hopes obviously renewed, leaned forward. “Well, men aren’t all that bad. Take me, for instance. I’m here for a few more days, and—”

  “Look,” she said, fixing him with a level, no-nonsense gaze. “I don’t want to seem rude, but could we just have lunch?” Then she disarmed her words with a light laugh.

  Kay smiled to herself. Smooth move, Diana, she thought. Polite but firm. Just as my mother taught me. We have Similar Backgrounds. Excellent. Kay couldn’t fault Bob for trying. She looked over, then, with pretended indifference. He was handsome—well built and tanned and engaging. Rich, too, she guessed. About the girl’s age, perhaps twenty-five. Hell, if she, Kay, were twenty years younger, she’d be delighted by such attention. The girl must still be hurting from the married man to so flatly refuse such a specimen. This, for some reason, made her seem all the more interesting to Kay.

  Most young men, Kay reflected, would have taken the girl’s refusal as a cue to try harder, to waste more time attempting to force their unwanted erections, so to speak, upon her. Bob, to his credit, conceded with grace.

  “Okay, lunch,” he said, grinning. “On me. I insist. Then I’m out of your life.”

  They ordered then, and made polite conversation. Later, just as Kay was finishing her own repast and preparing to return to the chaise longue, she overheard the most interesting part of their dialogue.

  “So,” Bob said between bites of a club sandwich, “when do you go back to—wherever?”

  “New York,” the girl replied. “I’m here another week, then . . .” She trailed off, gazing out at the view.

  “Hmm. Not looking forward to the real world?”

  The girl shook her head slightly, still watching the bay beyond the pool.

  “Hell,” she sighed, “I wish I didn’t have to go back at all. Not yet, anyway. If I could find some kind of job and a place to live, I wouldn’t mind staying here for a while. . . .”

  At that moment, it seemed to Kay, the girl looked briefly over at her and smiled. Then she resumed her contemplation of the distant waves.

  Kay rose and walked past their table and out onto the beach, the seed of an idea already planted in her mind.

  Now, remembering the girl’s words from the day before, Kay sat up on the chaise and steeled herself. How difficult could it be? The girl had wished for a job and a place to live. If she’d been serious in her wish, she’d get it. If not, so what? I can always get somebody else. With this resolve, Kay stood up and walked slowly down the beach toward the lone figure at the easel.

  The girl noticed her approach. When it became obvious that the woman was coming up to her, she paused at the end of a brushstroke and turned to face her. Nice-looking, she thought. Mid-forties, maybe a little younger. Good figure. Sensible black one-piece bathing suit. And that hair! Bright, shimmering red, in a soft halo around her face. And, of course, the milky, freckled skin to go with it. She reached up to her own hair, currently dark brown, and once again pushed it out of her face. . . .

  Kay arrived before the younger woman and presented her best how-do-you-do smile.

  “Hello,” she said. “Mind if I have a look?”

  The girl regarded her for a moment, then shrugged and stepped aside from the easel.

  It was the water in front of them, and over in the right corner was the edge of the point that jutted out from the end of the beach. The colors were right: the many shades of blue and the verdant tangle of seaside foliage. The vivid, glinting white of the sand. But there was something odd about the picture, Kay thought. It was much too—she searched for a word—controlled? No, meticulous. More meticulous than she had come to expect of watercolor studies on rough canvas. If an artist wanted all those distinct edges—the careful detail in water, sky, and land—he or she would normally choose a different medium. Oil or, at the very least, acrylic. It was pretty enough, if that was any criterion. Competently executed, but not—no, decidedly not the work of a professional. The girl was a talented amateur. Besides, there was something else about it that was—what?

  The sudden laugh startled her.

  “What’s wrong with this picture?” the girl intoned, adding with her grave delivery the unmistakable quotation marks. She grinned.

  Kay looked up into the lovely face and smiled her vague embarrassment. “I was just wondering—”

  The younger woman nodded.”

  “Clouds,” she said.

  The word hung there between them for a moment before its import registered on Kay. She glanced at the watercolor, then up at the perfectly clear blue sky, then back.

  Clouds.

  She had filled the sky with them. And not just any clouds, Kay noticed. Not the happy white cotton patches or pale streaks of cirrus that could be regarded as artistic license, prettification. Oh, no. The huge cumulus mass dominated the painting, crouching angrily above the subdued, overcast water. How very odd, Ka
y thought. The girl had taken a beautiful, sunny seascape and rendered it dark and shadowy. Ominous: that was the word. Why, it almost looked like the backdrop for a particularly depressing Wagnerian opera. . . .

  The young woman was smiling, apparently appreciative of Kay’s uncomfortable reaction. She put down the brush and stuck out her left hand.

  “Diana,” she said. “Diana Meissen.”

  Kay reached out instinctively with her right hand. Oh, dear, there was really no way to shake properly. She took the girl’s hand rather uncomfortably and gave it a brief squeeze.

  “Kay Belden—Prescott! I beg your pardon, Ms. Meissen. You see, Belden was my first married name. I’m a widow. I’ve recently remarried, and I’m still getting used to . . . oh, well, Kay Prescott. Please call me Kay.”

  She trailed off lamely. Why on earth had she done that? Great, Kay! Your Freudian slip is showing. What a dumb, knee-jerk sort of thing to do! It wasn’t just her embarrassment at meeting strangers; it was this girl.

  If there had been an awkward moment, the young woman didn’t seem to have noticed.

  “Call me Diana,” she said. “As you can see, I’m what you might call an interpretive artist.”

  The two women regarded the watercolor, laughing.

  “Well, Kay drawled, “it’s a very interesting interpretation.”

  “The Pessimism school: that’s what my art teacher called it. I’m the opposite of an Idealist; you know, those painters who can take anything and make it look like a Hallmark card. I take a beautiful day and make it look like, I don’t know . .

  “Tristan und Isolde?” Kay suggested. “Why do you do that, do you suppose?”

  The girl grinned. “You sound like my analyst.”

  “You’re right.” Kay replied. “Sorry. I guess you just express yourself in dark tones. There’s no law against it. You obviously like art that makes a statement.”

  They laughed together again.

  “I suppose,” the girl said. “You know that painting The Scream? It’s one of my favorites. That little figure in the foreground with its mouth wide open, lost in that vast, oppressive landscape. That incredible sense of alienation, of absolute, cosmic terror.”

  “Ah, yes,” Kay said, nodding. “Mucha.”

  The girl glanced up sharply. Then, slowly, she smiled.

  “Actually, it’s Munch,” she said, not unkindly. After a moment’s pause, she added, “But I guess you know that.”

  Whatever doubts Kay might have been feeling disappeared in that moment. Perhaps, she thought, this is the right one, after all. She laughed.

  “They taught you well at Harvard,” she said. “And I do not mean about artists.”

  The girl’s eyes widened momentarily. “How on earth—oh, yes! Lunch yesterday. You were at the next table. Were you eavesdropping, Kay?”

  No dissembling, Kay thought. Not with this one. Just get to the point.

  “Yes,” she admitted with what she hoped was a disarming smile. “A little. Enough to hear you say something that was very interesting to me. It may be of interest to both of us.”

  They stood there, the painting between them, each taking the measure of the other. Somewhere above their heads a pelican, swooping toward the water in search of prey, began to sound its hunting cry. The girl looked up, squinting against the sun, to see the bird fly down, down, closing in with gathering speed on some already sighted, unsuspecting target. Splash. The graceful white missile crashed into a wave and stabbed its head beneath the surface. The head came up an instant later, flashing silver from its long, sharp beak. With another guttural shriek and a flapping of wings, it zoomed up and away in wet, white triumph. She watched it disappear and turned back to the woman facing her.

  “You’ve been watching me for three days,” she said. “Now that I’ve passed your little test, or whatever it was, perhaps you’d like to tell me what this is all about.”

  Kay blinked. All right, she thought. Score one for you, young lady. She put on her warmest, friendliest smile.

  “It’s about a drink,” she said, gesturing toward her shady chaise longue up the beach. “A few minutes of your time. I have a proposition for you. It’s about my daughter, Lisa. And my husband. And Cliffhanger. Let’s get out of this sun. I’ll help you carry your things—”

  “Excuse me,” the girl interjected. “What did you say about a cliffhanger?”

  Kay grinned as she picked up the paintbox. “Not a cliffhanger. Just Cliffhanger. It’s the name of my house. I’ll explain. Come along, Diana. You may want to hear my offer.”

  The girl smiled to herself as she picked up the pad and the easel and followed the woman up the beach.

  The two women lay side by side under the palm tree. They were sipping rum punches, and Kay was smoking a cigarette.

  “I’m looking for a companion,” she said, exhaling a stream of mentholated smoke and flicking the ash of her Virginia Slim into the sand. “A sort of au pair, I guess. Kind of a secretary. Not exactly a governess. The last girl who held the position referred to herself as a production assistant. Dear Sandra, such a peculiar sense of humor. I think she had dreams of being in the movies, poor thing. Well, she’s gone now.”

  The young woman looked over at her. “Hollywood?”

  Kay laughed and reached for her drink. “Hardly that! She was not what one could call a pretty sight. But she was forever reading those horrible fan mags, you know, from the checkout counter at Woolworth’s. Debra Winger Having Tom Selleck’s Baby. Madonna Kidnapped By Aliens. She was with us nearly two years, and she insisted on discussing these things at the dinner table. I thought I’d go mad.”

  “So you fired her.”

  “Oh, no,” Kay said. “Nothing like that. I had no real complaint about her. She seemed to like her room at Cliffhanger—room and board, incidentally, plus salary—and she was obviously fond of Lisa. I assumed everything was fine. Well, never assume. One day about a week ago she came to me and said she was leaving. Just like that. It was rather odd, actually. She said she’d had some sort of windfall, come into a lot of money. I wasn’t aware of any rich relatives lurking in the background; she never spoke of a family. Well, good luck to her.”

  The younger woman shrugged and gazed out over the water.

  “So,” she said after a while. “Room. Board. A salary—how much, by the way?”

  Kay told her. She did not tell her that it was twice as much as she had been paying Sandra.

  “Hmm,” the girl replied. “Very nice. I would be your daughter’s companion—”

  “Yes.”

  “—and your secretary?”

  “Sort of. Not much, really. Social engagements. Help out with the odd party. A little correspondence. What did they tell us in school—I’m a Vassar girl, by the way—‘light typing’? In my day we learned steno, but I don’t expect that of you.”

  “Then you won’t be disappointed,” the girl replied.

  They laughed again. Kay rolled over on her side and faced the younger woman.

  “I like you, Diana. I’d a feeling I would. It’s so nice to talk to an intelligent girl, one who isn’t simply rattling off movie gossip. You’re not particularly passionate about art, are you? I mean, I hope I haven’t just traded Debra Winger for Edvard Munch. . . .”

  “You haven’t traded anything for anything. Not yet, anyway. I haven’t agreed—”

  “Of course,” Kay said. “Tell me, were you serious yesterday when you told that young man about wanting to stay?”

  The girl was silent for a moment. She took a sip of her drink, weighing several things in her mind. At last she said, “Yes, I think perhaps I was.”

  Kay studied her face. “Was it that bad?”

  “What?”

  “The man. Darling, we’re girls here. Men can be the creeps of all time, especially the ones who turn out to be married. I learned that at Vassar, don’t you know. Was he just awful?”

  The girl turned slowly to confront her. “Yes, he was—is—awful. A
nd I feel more strongly about him than I’ve ever felt about anyone else.”

  “Oh, dear,” Kay said. “Well, you’re not running back to New York, are you? No chance with him, I suppose?”

  For the second time that afternoon, Kay was surprised by the girl’s sudden laughter.

  “By that you mean, am I going to go flying off at a moment’s notice and leave you searching for another au pair? No. If I agree to take the job, I’ll take it. As for—the man, well, I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

  “Yes,” Kay said. “Well, it’s none of my business. I hope it all works out for you. In the meantime—”

  “In the meantime,” the girl said, “tell me about Lisa.”

  The shadows of the late afternoon lengthened, and the shimmering heat rising from the fine white sand began to disperse. The breeze from the sea came steadily to shore, washing gently over the two women who were now the sole occupants of the beach. The rustling in the fronds above their heads; the steady, muffled roll of the breakers; the occasional shrill cry of the gulls. And over all, the soft sound of Kay’s voice.

  “We moved to St. Thomas when Lisa was six. She was born in the States, but she’s practically a native Virgin Islander. Fred, my first husband, was a lawyer, and he got a job offer with a firm down here. He’s gone now. Five years ago. He was flying over to Puerto Rico. A business trip. Well, Lisa looks like her father, and she got her red hair and green eyes from both of us, and she has his brains, thank God! The three of us had such a wonderful time together at Cliffhanger.”

  “Cliffhanger,” the girl echoed.

  Kay laughed. “Oh, wait till you see it! It really is the most gorgeous house in the world. Anyway, three years ago I met Adam Prescott, who’d just arrived here. He was kind and attentive and wouldn’t take no for an answer. You know the type: rich playboy-dash-sportsman, spectacularly handsome, divorced, et cetera. We were thrown together, actually, by a well-meaning friend of mine who’s a bit of a yenta. You’ll meet Trish, I expect. She’s a doll. So, Reader, I married him, as Charlotte Bronte once observed. He moved in with us at Cliffhanger, and the last three years have been a damn sight better than the time right after Fred was . . . anyway, Adam has a sailboat, and I’m active with the local Arts Council. I also play bridge two nights a week. People on this island give a lot of parties, and we’re expected to give them, too.