by Tom Savage
“That’s where Sandra of Hollywood came in. I realized that with Adam and me out and about so much, Lisa was spending too much time home alone. She has her little friends from school, of course, but even so . . I advertised locally. ‘Young woman, responsible, educated, suitable,’ tra la la. You should have seen some of the responses I got! An inordinate number of the young people on this island—I don’t mean natives, we’re talking Statesiders—well, we used to call them hippies, but I guess I’m dating myself. Anyway, I settled on Sandra, and she and her lifetime subscription to People magazine joined the menage. Now I need someone to replace her, and I can’t bring myself to run another ad. I shudder to think, right? Then, the other day I saw you here on the beach, painting. I said to myself, ‘Now, there’s a presentable young lady with a decent background.’ So, there you have it. Fade to Black, as Sandra would undoubtedly say.”
She looked over at the younger woman, trying to gauge whether it was working. Hard to tell, really. The girl lay on her chaise, casually playing with the straw in her drink. At last she raised her eyes to Kay.
“Adam Prescott,” she said slowly, as if trying the name on for size.
Kay forged ahead. “Oh, he’s great! I wonder where our lives would be without him. He’s so very capable, you know, as some men are. I’m very fond of him. My life now is extremely pleasant.”
The younger woman nodded, thinking that it didn’t sound very much like love. . . .
Kay leaned forward.
“Doesn’t sound much like love, does it?” she said, startling the girl, causing a deep red flush to suffuse her face. “Well, my dear, it is. I—I love him. Not the same as Fred, of course, but I suppose we only get one Fred in a lifetime.” She stopped suddenly, watching the other woman. “Why am I going on like this? I barely know you, and here I am—I don’t seem to mind at all talking to you about my most—”
They regarded each other.
Kay smiled and said, “I’d like it very much, Diana, if you could take my offer. Even if it’s just on a trial basis. You’ll think about it, won’t you?”
There was a long pause as each woman assessed the situation. Kay had no way of knowing what the girl was thinking. The girl sat in silence for a while, looking down at the backs of her hands as they rested on the arms of her chaise. Kay noticed the glint of sunlight on the tiny, pale hairs of her forearm. Odd, she thought. Brunettes are forever bleaching or dyeing or otherwise lightening their hair, but this girl seems, for some reason, to have gone the other way. . . .
The girl spoke suddenly, drawing Kay’s focus from her dark hair to her face.
“Okay, how about this: why don’t you have me over to your house? I’d like to meet Lisa and see how she and I feel about each other before I commit us both to anything. I’m here at Bolongo for another six days. Any day is fine with me.”
“Good,” Kay said. “How about dinner tomorrow night?”
The girl considered this. Then she said, “Fine.”
It was arranged. Six o’clock the following evening. Directions to the house. Dress casual. Dinner at seven.
The sun was beginning to disappear when Kay finally left the young woman and took off for home to tell Adam and Lisa the wonderful news.
“Good-bye, Diana,” she called back as she went. “I’m glad I finally got up the courage to approach you. See you tomorrow.”
The young woman watched as Kay strode up the beach, past the pool and out of sight. Then she nodded to herself.
Yes. It was apparently going to be easier than she’d expected.
Much easier. . . .
TWO
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7
HE WAS THINKING about the plan. He always felt this rush of exultation in the time, the days and weeks, just before. Soon, he thought. Soon. . . .
The water glistened ahead of him and sparkled in his wake. The crisp, clean breeze whipped through his white-gold hair. He was rolling smoothly across the surface of the Atlantic. Stretching his massive frame luxuriously to its full, towering height, the wheel grasped firmly in his powerful hands, he looked up at the gulls circling above: stark white against blue. This was freedom; perfect, suspended, unquestioned. This regal isolation, where only he was God, away from the prying eyes and probing questions of mortals. Heaven. Only him, alone.
“Hey, Adam! How about another brew?”
Well, not exactly alone. The wild, abandoned feeling was swept away, Paradise lost, in the boiling white foam behind.
He turned his face from the gorgeous horizon to confront the prosaic, eminently negligible visage of Stuart Harriman. Or what was visible of it, at any rate: the round, pink, woodchuck face was currently graced by dark sunglasses and a streak of Noskote on the bulbous pug snout. The neck, as thick as the bald head, disappeared inside a floral island shirt of screaming red, yellow, and green. He was holding up a frosted can in his thick, sausage-link fingers. God, he was ugly!
“No, thanks,” Adam growled, forcing himself to smile. Stu Harriman was Kay’s bridge partner—his entree into Adam’s domain. Kay had insisted that Adam take Stu and his wife, Brenda—another beauty!—for what she called a “spin.” He glanced over at Mrs. Harriman, sitting in the stern with his young mate, Kyle. She, of course, was sipping daintily from a can of Diet Coke, smiling at Kyle, at Adam, at the water, at everything. The woman never stopped smiling. Her industrial-sized muumuu matched her husband’s shirt. Looking from one to the other of them, Adam decided that the husband was slightly better looking than the wife.
They came about, and Kyle jumped up to secure the sail for the new tack. The boom had swung to starboard, missing Stu’s head by inches. Watching the man duck, Adam smiled grimly to himself.
“Oooh!” squealed Brenda.
“Damn near got me that time!” squealed her husband. Kyle caught Adam’s eye, grinned, and, as usual, said nothing. He sat next to the dreadful Brenda, calmly smoking one of his inevitable cigarettes. He was a quiet young man, strong and efficient. A perfect mate, really. Adam was glad to have him aboard. His former assistant, Greg, had been a chatterer. Well, don’t think about that, Adam cautioned himself. This was Kyle’s sixth week living and working on the boat, and he was quite an improvement on Greg. In every way.
Adam took the sloop out at least twice a week. Day sails. He was always home in time for dinner; Kay insisted on that. But now, after nearly three years, he still looked forward to being alone, but for a mate, out on the water. Of course, Kay frequently tagged along. She enjoyed sailing, being out on the ocean with him, and she had taken a great liking to Kyle. She’d even invited him to dinner at the house several times. She’d never cared for the vociferous Greg, whose language, more often than not, had bespoken his profession as a man of the sea.
The Kay had been her wedding gift to him. He, in turn, had paid for their three-month honeymoon in Europe. The cost, he figured, had been about the same. All those museums and cathedrals and opera houses. Skiing in Gstaad, exploring the Greek islands, walking all over every major city and tiny village on the continent—the woman’s energy was limitless. Well, he reflected, it had actually been rather fun. . .
He checked his Rado—another present from the bountiful Kay. Three-thirty. Time to think about turning back. He could shower and change at the clubhouse and be home by six, as instructed. A guest for dinner. A nice young artist, Kay had told him, whom she’d run into at Bolongo. A new companion for Lisa.
He smiled.
That last one, what was her name? Sandra. Sandy. Like the dog in the funnies. Arf, to say the least. And all that crap about the movies! Adam had little use for films. Eastwood was okay. Schwarzenegger. Chuck Norris. The rest of them could all go take a flying leap.
The plan . .
He gripped the wheel, trying to suppress another rising thrill of exhilaration. When that didn’t work, he forced himself to concentrate on the present. The Harrimans. Oh, God!
Adam sighed: time to head back. He turned to his young mate.
“Pr
epare to come about,” he called.
Kyle immediately threw his cigarette overboard and snapped to attention.
Adam liked that.
“But my dear! I mean, who is she?”
“Oh, Trish, don’t carry on so. She’s a perfectly nice young woman.”
“You’re taking her into your house, Kay. Putting her with Lisa. Shouldn’t you ask for references or something? You don’t know a thing about her.”
“What’s to know? Really, Trish, give me a little credit here. She’s staying at Bolongo. The vacation is a gift from her mother. She’s an artist. From New York. She went to Harvard, for Heaven’s sake! She’s One Of Us.”
Patricia Manning settled her ultrathin model’s body more comfortably on the white wrought-iron patio chair, ran red-lacquered, two-inch nails querulously through her short black hair, and fixed her friend with a look that all but shouted her wisdom in these matters. When she finally came up with a suitably devastating retort, she enunciated each word slowly and carefully, as if she were addressing the town bellringer.
“Darling, Lizzie Borden was One Of Us, and I’ve no doubt she went to all the right schoolsl”
Kay turned from the low gray driftwood fence that ran along the edge of the cliff next to the house and confronted the other woman.
“Lizzie Borden was middle-class at best,” she announced. “Besides, it was never proved that she did anything in the first place!”
Trish rolled her impeccably mascaraed eyes and reached up with a bangled hand to play distractedly with the gold pendant on her modest bosom.
“I’ll be sure to tell that to the police,” she sighed, “when they exhume your remains.” She fell back against the chair, the Great Friend who had Done Her Duty.
“You do that, darling,” Kay replied, turning back to the view.
The cliff on which the house was situated jutted out into space, surrounded on three sides by a seemingly endless expanse of ocean. Off to the right, past the large resort hotel on the next point, the capital city of Charlotte Amalie rose dramatically out of the harbor. The tiny distant buildings were mere dots and smudges of white and pastel tones, red- and silver-roofed, against a field of vivid emerald green. The greatest concentration of hazy shapes was in the downtown shopping area, just at the water’s edge. From there the spots of color thinned, fanning out in all directions: west, toward the airport; east, toward the less-populated “country” outside the city limits; and upward, toward the top of Signal Hill, the island’s highest point, looming majestically some fifteen hundred feet above the exact center of the waterfront town, a bright green silhouette against the azure sky. The mountain dominated all: a huge, benevolent giant placed there by God to watch over and protect the little city crouching at its feet.
That’s what Kay always imagined it to be, regarding it from this remote perspective. The sight of the city—far away across the harbor, yet oddly close at hand—never failed to instill in her a feeling of security, especially in the two years she’d lived here as a widow, alone with her daughter. However isolated this house was above the sheer, hundred-foot drop to jagged rocks and churning sea, she need only look over at the town to know that she shared this magic isle with fifty thousand others, not to mention the constant stream of tourists.
Kay and her friend turned at the same time, their attention drawn by the pretty twelve-year-old girl who came out of the house through the sliding glass doors from the living room. The child ran lightly across the redwood deck that hung, invisibly supported, over the void, and jumped down the two steps to the flagstone patio. She rushed up, breathless, to the two women.
“Is she here yet?” she cried, unable to contain her excitement at the prospect of new friendship.
Kay laughed and dropped her arm over the girl’s shoulders.
“Not yet, darling. In about an hour. Whatever happened to ‘hello’?”
“Sorry. Hullo, Mommy. Hullo, Aunt Trish.”
“Really, Lisa,” her mother admonished. ‘You’d think you didn’t have anyone in the world who cared about you! You have me, in case you’ve forgotten. And Aunt Trish. And your dad.”
Lisa made a face.
“You mean Adam,” she said. “He’s not my dad. And you guys are never around much, anyway.”
“Lisa!”
“Well, it’s true,” the child insisted.
Trish, her languor instantly forgotten, assessed this new situation and found it too tense for her liking.
“Just look at the pair of you!” she gushed in her very best Auntie Mame. “All that incredible red hair! The last time I saw that hair, it was on Piper Laurie.”
They both knew the answer to that one. In perfect unison, mother and daughter supplied the punch line.
“What was she doing with our hair?”
They laughed. Trish, not to be outdone, winked lasciviously.
“Making love,” she murmured. “With Paul Newman, if memory serves.”
Kay clamped her hands over Lisa’s ears in mock horror. “Trish! Not in front of the child!”
Lisa shrugged the hands away and grinned up at them.
“Who’s Piper Laurie?” she asked.
Trish reached over and patted the girl’s milk-white, freckled face.
“A beautiful movie star,” she said. “Almost as beautiful as you.”
Lisa giggled.
“Oh, God!” Kay cried. “More movie stars. We’re all beginning to sound like Sandra!”
She smiled, first at her friend and then at her daughter. She leaned down and kissed the child’s flaming red hair, the gift from both her parents.
The patio outside the clubhouse was shaped like the prow of a ship cutting proudly through the sand, ringed by incongruous midocean palms and sea-grape trees. There was even a mast rising up, flying all the usual nautical flags. The cars in the parking lot formed a multicolored, metallic wake. The building itself was the cabin of the imaginary vessel. Adam shook his head in disgust. Jesus, he thought. The S.S. Wishful Thinking.
He strode into the lobby of the club and looked around. Fairly crowded for a weekday. If the building was a phony craft, this was its phony crew. Overweight, middle-aged men and women lounging on luxurious couches among marble-topped coffee tables and potted bonsai trees. Wicker ceiling fans rotating lazily above, gently stirring the conditioned air. Sailing togs everywhere—striped, boat-necked jerseys, gum-soled decktop shoes, braided white skipper’s caps. One face-lifted, siliconed hag even sported a pinafore over her all-too-revealing string bikini. They lay back in plush comfort, conversing softly, clinking the ice in their tall frosted glasses. Home are the rich, bored, drunken sailors, home from the sea. Ha! The closest any of these losers ever got to a yacht was this yacht club! A schooner, as far as they were concerned, was something you served beer in.
There were smiles and waves from every part of the room. Oh, sure. If they couldn’t be sailors, they could at least pretend to know one. Adam gave them all a general smile and wave as he made his way toward the hallway that led to the changing rooms. He just wanted to get out of this haven for rich, white wannabe yachtsmen as quickly as possible. He’d kept his distance from them as much as he could, but Kay was a joiner: the bridge club, the arts club, the beach club, the yacht club. Many of these creatures were her friends, and they assumed—mistakenly—that they were his friends as well. Adam prided himself on his ability to make people like him, even as he despised them. These people weren’t sailors: the real sailors were out sailing, for God’s sake, not posing in the clubhouse with Bloody Marys in their fists.
Two bikini-clad young women—the only young ones in the place—passed by him on their way out to the beach, smiling and giggling together as they caught his attention. He swiveled to watch their receding forms as they went out onto the deck. With a long, appreciative sigh, he turned his eyes away.
As he crossed the room he noticed the Harrimans, who’d arrived from the beach ahead of him, plunking their overstuffed bodies down on an overstuff
ed sofa and calling for drinkie-poos. Brenda’s expression: drinkie-poos. He waved good-bye to them and headed for the showers.
He almost made it. As he passed the last couch, he saw Jack Breen rise from his place between Nancy Breen, his wife, and Barbara Conroy, his alleged mistress, and barge toward him.
“Adam Prescott, you old spotted dog!” he bellowed in his hearty, alcoholic basso. “Back from the briny? Beautiful out there today, eh? Goddamn baby’s ass! How’s that new mate of yours working out?”
Adam steeled himself for inevitable boredom and grinned. “Just fine, Jack. Thank you for introducing us.”
The man winked. “Least I could do, matey. Didn’t want to see you in drydock after that other one took off. Whozis—Greg. Ever find out what happened to him?”
“Uh, no,” Adam replied, leaning slightly backward to avoid the hot breath: beer and onion dip. “He just seems to have disappeared. You know how these young guys are—probably signed up with some pretty headed down the island chain. He mentioned that he’d like to see more of this part of the world.”
Jack nodded, jabbing Adam a little too hard in the ribs. “There’s probably a woman in it somewhere. Some heiress with a big boat, lookin’ for a strapping lad to play captain. Oh, to be young again, eh?”
“Yeah,” Adam said. “That sounds about right. I wouldn’t doubt it, knowing Greg.”
“Can I stand you to a beer?” Jack boomed, shoving his mug a little too close to Adam’s face.
“No, thanks. Got to get home.” Adam patted Jack’s shoulder, a little too hard, and moved on.
“See ya, mate,” Jack shouted after him. “Say hello to Kay for me!” He plunked himself back down between his wife and his very close friend and reached for the dip.