The taxi was a twenty-year-old sky-blue Cadillac with ivory upholstery, driven by a middle-aged woman with harlequin sunglasses. Paul's arm lay across the back seat, not touching Althea's shoulder, but so close he might almost touch it. While they made small talk about his trip, he was acutely aware of the space between them. Leaning back against the roomy seat, he let himself be tossed by the rumbling motion of the car, but never quite against her.
He paid the driver, and the majestic Cadillac drove away. He sighed with delight at the house and the view. "My estimation of you rises, Althea," he said. "How did you find this place?"
"It found me. I took it sight unseen."
"You were lucky."
"I know."
Paul set down his canvas bag discreetly on the porch, not yet knowing where he should leave it. Noticing the gesture, Althea began to relax. For all his bravado, he's as nervous as I, she thought. "Let me show you around," she offered, as if she were the owner about to display the treasures of her home to her guest. She anticipated pointing out the house's secrets she had discovered, as proud of them as if they were of her own devising.
She no longer felt at a disadvantage as she had last May, when Paul had invited her for tea in his rooftop garden. She hadn't been able to resist the comparison between his penthouse with its river and city views and her dark studio apartment. The discrepancy was painful. She hadn't wanted him to see her place. Now the thought that she would have to return to that studio apartment occurred to her, but she buried it. No use to dwell on that, she told herself. While she could, she'd make the most of her rented wealth.
"You see, the porch leads up to the deck, and both share the view of the Sound," she pointed out. "The porch leads into the living room, and the deck has doors to the bedroom.”
She led him inside. They entered the living room. She showed him the long table and the row of windows behind it overlooking the Sound. "You can watch the sun set over the water as you eat dinner. Some mornings I've seen pheasants on the lawn. And here in the kitchen, the window over the sink communicates with the deck, so that you can hand dishes in and out. But you can only exit through the living room or the bedroom. Down this corridor—watch your head! Oops!"
Paul let out an oath, rubbing his forehead where he'd hit the lintel over the doorway. "My only criticism so far—the doorway's too low."
"I know. It's just barely over my head. I'm sorry I didn't warn you in time. Are you all right?"
"I guess so."
"Let me see." His forehead was hot under her fingertips. "It's swelling up."
"Oh, but your fingers are cool. Ministering hands."
He laid his hand on hers, flattening it like a compress over his forehead. They stood still, not speaking. Minutes passed. She couldn't bring herself to look at his face. Instead she gazed at the ground. Taking her hand by the wrist, he drew it across his cheek and over his mouth. He kissed her open palm, and then he released her.
Her hand fell to her side. She still felt the moist, soft imprint of his kiss.
"I'm better already," Paul claimed. "Althea?"
"Yes?"
He paused, as if he thought better of what he'd been about to say. "Show me the rest of the house," he requested instead.
She led him through the thoughtful design of the layout, pointed out the third door to the outside, leading from the corridor to a sheltered patio out back. She showed him the views from all the windows, the clever shelves, cabinets, closets, and the built-in furniture. She said, "What I love about this house is that everything is planned with the conviction that what is economical and useful ought also to be beautiful."
He agreed. They had come to the end of the tour. He noticed without comment that there was only one bedroom, with a single, large bed. Did he really want to sleep there with her? he wondered. He had also observed that the built-in couches in the living room had foam mattresses, which could be made into beds. Perhaps he would begin the night there and, later, creep into her room. Imagining the scenario, he grew so absorbed that he was startled by a gust of wind when she opened one of the double doors from the bedroom. He followed her onto the deck. With a bang, the wind blew the door shut after them. The wind flapped the towels hanging from the clothesline next to the house and rustled through the thickets of bayberry bushes that descended the hillside. He felt himself being drawn to her, as if he were a blade of grass blown by the wind and helpless to withstand it. He was caressed by sensations he longed to yield to.
Standing in front of Paul, Althea watched the reeds in the marsh below swept by the wind—an endless ripple, an unbreaking wave—and thought of how the wind can only be seen in what it moves. She heard the distant crash of the surf on the rocks and the bells of the buoys as they were struck by the forces of wind and rocking waters.
She heard Paul's voice next to her ear. "Althea in her island kingdom." She turned to him, the sun in her eyes. "So you invited me here because you were lonely?" he went on.
"I invited you on an impulse when I found out you were free."
"Are you often impulsive?"
"Almost never."
"No? I thought not."
Feeling exposed, she stifled the urge to contradict herself. Why defend myself against the truth? she thought.
"So you've been working hard?" Paul asked. "You've been painting?"
She nodded, grateful for his having changed the subject.
"Where are your paintings?"
"Behind the blue screen in the living room. I usually don't show anyone work-in-progress."
She saw a smile stretch his face and prepared herself to respond to his banter. "Don't worry, I'll respect your wishes," he said.
She was deflated by his response. She actually wanted him to question her about her paintings, while she continued to put him off, flirting with his curiosity until she had roused it to fever pitch, just as, a few minutes before, inside the house, she had roused his ardor. In fact, she was so proud of her paintings that she was secretly dying to show them to him, despite her fear that, if she showed them now, she wouldn't be able to finish them.
Since she was not yet able to envision them in their finished state, she feared she would be too susceptible to influence from any viewer's ideas of what that would be. She worried that such viewers' expectations would contaminate her ability to see her paintings as they ought to become. She believed that as an Idea her paintings already existed, and it was up to her to discover this existence and create it in the flesh of paint and canvas. No one else could help her. This was her mission alone.
Still, it would have been fun, she thought wistfully, to have had Paul's curiosity to play with, but she couldn't bring herself to ask for it after she'd discouraged him so easily. Lost in her thoughts, she noticed that he had sat down on the deck's built-in bench, his eyelids were drooping, and he was yawning.
"Lie down if you want. It's all right with me," she said.
"Maybe I will."
"Only, if you have a concussion, you ought not to sleep," she remembered. "How's your head?"
"It barely hurts at all. I'm just tired. If you don't mind, I'll move that aluminum chair onto the lawn, and stretch out in the sun."
"Please, do as you like. I want you to feel at home. I'll be happy to paint anyway."
She still hoped he would ask her about her paintings, but he simply got up and did as he had suggested, while silently she berated herself for thinking that she could get a response with such a feeble attempt. She watched him as he folded the chair and carried it out to the lawn, aligned it with the descending sun, and set it up, lowering the back until it resembled a cot with a latticed support and two aluminum arms. These simple actions, she thought, look lovely when he performs them.
Without any self-consciousness he lay down and closed his eyes. Seeing him slumber so easily, she grew calm and then reflective. Inside the house, behind her screen, she lightly tapped her brush against a glass jar of turpentine and set to work. For minutes at a time, she was abl
e to forget his startling presence asleep on her front lawn. She congratulated herself on her self-possession. She had proved to herself at least that having him as visitor would not prevent her from working. Perhaps it's for the best, she thought, that I keep my paintings separate from him.
She had not yet heard him stir when she put her paints away and went out to the porch. The chair was still on the lawn, but it was empty. He was nowhere in sight. For an instant she was seized by a spasm of fear: he'd left her, he was gone. She called his name in the waning afternoon, her voice carrying a note of panic. She walked all around the house without finding him. Returning to the front yard, she thought, I might as well put the chair up. She was annoyed, but resigned. Yet before she folded the chair, she saw him emerging from the thicket of bushes that sloped down the hill from the edge of the lawn. The glare of the western sun was behind him, and she shielded her eyes with her hand.
"Where were you? Didn't you hear me calling?" she asked and immediately afterwards was ashamed of herself.
He ignored her second question to answer the first. "I've been gathering blackberries. There are plenty more, but I didn't have a container with me."
He sounded too pleased with himself to be annoyed with her. As he climbed the lawn, she saw that he had made a pouch of his tee-shirt to hold the berries. She glimpsed several inches of sleek torso and forced herself not to stare. "Would you like some? They're warm and sweet." He popped one into his mouth as he spoke.
"Your lips are purple, and your shirt is stained."
"I'm all scratched up, too."
"Poor Paul, are you hurt?" For the moment, she didn't care how silly she sounded.
He smiled, shaking his head. "Here, have a berry."
"And you're sunburned," she continued. "That's quite a lot for your first day."
She ate from his hand. The tiny globes of the fruit burst against her teeth. She sucked the juice from his fingertips. Yet she was afraid. She had been celibate for so long.
She recovered herself. They seemed to lean into each other as they both ate the berries until they were all gone. Her lips were as stained as his. "We'll gather more," she promised. "Did you sleep well? Are you rested?"
She hated her unimaginative conversation, but what she was saying wasn't important, she thought. It was only words filling up the space until their bodies, coming together, obliterated it. But she wanted to prolong the approach, and so she pulled away from him.
"I got carried away, too," he said in response to her unspoken thoughts. "You're so beautiful, with your skin and hair turned all to gold. Don't be sad. We should rejoice at being here together, make the most of it." His eyes challenged her, electric blue.
He had come out of the blackberry bushes and found her framed by the yard and the house. He saw her face drawn by vertical worry lines from nose to mouth and between the eyes. She'll end up getting hurt, he thought, but she must already know that. He had an impulse to slip away, but, believing it was unworthy of him, he suppressed it. He could sense her attraction to him as strongly as if it were an aura. It flattered him, and he felt himself responding. Why not give her what she wants? he thought, considering how pleasant it is when desire and duty coincide.
"What shall we do now?" he appealed to her.
She suggested a swim at a secluded beach with the backdrop of sunset behind them. "If we go by bike, we'll get there just in time."
"I'll follow you."
They cycled out to the West Road and climbed a hill crowned by the white steeple of a church. The road fell and rose, winding past houses, fields with horses, ponds, and overgrown orchards. Eventually, she guided him onto a dirt road cobbled with sea smooth stones, which ended abruptly at the top of a cliff. There they parked their bikes and followed the path down to a beach in a cove ringed by boulders.
They were alone on the beach. The tide had recently turned, and was coming in. "It's smoothest now," said Althea. Smiling, she abruptly stripped and, without hesitating, ran over the stones into the water. He followed her, a newcomer taking his time. She was a flash past the breaking surf when he submerged. She hadn't watched him enter the water without his clothes. She floated on her back, eyes shut and face up to the sky, whose color deepened as the sun lowered.
Before she noticed him, she felt his touch on her toes. She raised her head and lowered her legs to see him treading water. Like seaweed his wet hair clasped his head. A single drop of water hung from each earlobe like a transparent pearl. Moisture fretted his eyelashes. He shook his head, the water flew. The sun slipped into the cloudless horizon. At her eye level, across the raised pattern of water diamonds, she watched it disappear, watched all the gold leaving the sky to soft pink, more floral than atmospheric, that reflected back on the rocking surface of the sea. She backstroked. He dived under her. They touched again, and she broke away into a crawl.
She didn't swim too far, for she was out much deeper than she could stand, near the edge of the cove, where the surf spilled and roared on a rockier coast. He followed behind her. She faced him, and, tentative, reached out to touch him. To her dripping fingers his arm was both warm and cool. She felt his tightening tendons and between them she found his pulse.
She drew herself across him, and shivered, shrinking at letting herself be found so open. Their mouths met, they were swayed and splashed, and they had to separate before they sank. In his embrace she was malleable, and she came back to him.
When he held her, she remembered that he was a dancer, for he was full of grace, and his touch was a blessing. But the water temperature was too brisk for bliss. They both felt a sudden chill and decided it was time to get out. Swimming against the undertow, they let the rising tide wash them in. A group of middle-aged people who had arrived on the beach in their absence were starting a bonfire. While the group talked loudly among themselves, drank beer, and watched the flames catch, Paul and Althea dried off and wordlessly put on their clothes in the flickering shadow of a rock fifty yards away. Giggling like naughty children surprised by grown-ups, they walked arm in arm up the path in the cliff to retrieve their bikes.
When they reached the paved road, the sky was still light, but the bushes at either side of the road appeared black. The spokes of the bicycle wheels blurred in motion, and then, as they stopped for a truck at the foot of the hill, resolved into separate radii. The sunburnt arm of the driver bent out the window. He was transporting a load of bricks. Althea saw that his hand, resting on the door where the paint was scraped and rusting, was missing part of the forefinger below its second joint. A signet ring flashed on the adjacent knuckle. The truck turned.
Althea looked at Paul, at his long fingers curved over the handlebars and the smooth backs of his hands. She nodded to him that she was going on. He passed her easily as she was climbing the hill. She watched him reach the crest ahead of her, then lost sight of him, only to catch another glimpse of him from the top, as he rounded the bend below, with no hands holding. When she arrived at the house, he was waiting to greet her, his breathing as shallow as if he'd strolled. She dismounted and leaned her bike against the side of the house, next to his. When she let go of the bike, he was there to embrace her. He nuzzled her neck, tickling her with his nose. His skin was cold, his hair lank and damp, smelling of the sea. She held him close, her eyes shut, and kissed him. His mouth tasted of salt. Her knees weakened, and she went limp, leaning against him.
"I know you want me." His voice sounded strangely thick, exultant. His breath fell warm and ragged on her ear. Instantly, she tensed, and struggled to free herself as if she were being strangled. Why had he said that? she wondered. She resisted him for sounding so sure of her.
"Don't take me for granted," she said sharply.
"Why fight so hard against your desire?"
"I'm afraid of what I want."
"How serious you are. Are you always so serious?"
She didn't answer, but she let him take her in his arms. "There, that's better," he said. "Don't turn away from me. I wa
nt you so much."
From Althea's eyes, a graveness arrowed to Paul. Her fingers were hesitant and familiar, tracing the vines of his veins. Her mouth left invisible prints on his sunburnt flesh, called up a sob from his throat to surprise him. Through the glass doors of the bedroom, the night was dark enough to reveal the blinking arc of the Montauk lighthouse across Long Island Sound. Althea, seeing it, was reminded that it was the easternmost tip of New York State. With the flash of light came her thought of the City miles and miles away, of their two lives there, now joining among country splendors, and of a look passed in March that ripened on an island in August.
Chapter 3
Light spliced the bed in two. Althea awoke to find herself in sun and Paul beside her in shadow, still asleep. She was astounded to see him, not because she had forgotten about him, but because he seemed so alien and beautiful in her bed. He would never belong to her. Like the house, he had been lent to her, for a time.
She watched him sleep. As the morning light wobbled and spread through the room, she noticed the deepness of her tan contrasted with the whiteness of the sheet, and realized that the sun had aged her skin as it darkened. I'm twenty-six, she thought, and how old is Paul? Maybe close to thirty. She considered how she might paint when old and as blind as Monet, but Paul's performances were numbered. She felt a pang for him. Somehow the thought of his fleeting art made her desire for him seem more poignant.
She wondered if he would wake to regret her. She was almost afraid to greet him when he yawned, stretched, and blinked open his short-lashed, startling blue eyes. Instinctively, she held her breath, waiting for him to speak.
He acted as if he wasn't surprised to find himself in her bed. "Good morning, Althea. It's nice to see you." He touched the tip of her nose. The vague, pleasant words were in a tone that seemed to Althea full of promise which evaporated as soon as she tried to grasp what it meant. He smiled, and she smiled back. She exhaled a sigh of relief: the first hurdle was already crossed.
Fall Love Page 3