To See You Again

by Alice Adams

  Which would, of course, have been ours if I had got out my dollars a little sooner.

  “Well, Jesus,” David said to me. “Why didn’t you—Oh Christ!” For at that moment she did it again, right in front of us: put in more paper money and pulled the lever and caused a deluge of silver dollars, all banging against each other.

  David was so angry that for a moment I thought he was going to hit me. His face was pale and swollen, almost ugly, his eyes wildly large and dark; for a flicker of an instant I was reminded of his look in moments of sexual passion, but this was rage, pure fury.

  Instead of hitting me (or maybe in order not to) he mumbled something: I’m sorry—I hate you—I’ll see you later? I honestly do not know which of those things he said; he turned away and walked off, a small neat man, going fast, I had no idea where.

  I stood there, I watched the woman in purple, the cause of our trouble, as she shoved in a couple of dollars more, which did not pay off. Then she scooped up all her loot into an old cracked brown leather bag. She turned and looked at me as though she, and not I, had been abandoned (well, perhaps she was, years back) and then she too was gone.

  In a blind way I headed toward where I thought the pool was, but I found only more rooms full of machines, for which, at that moment, I had no stomach. In one of them the light was jarringly bright—in fact there were spotlights all over—and I saw huge cameras. It was a movie set; they were actually making a movie, at that very instant, in Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. I recognized the star, in his canvas chair; it was Omar Sharif, anyone would have known him, with those big black sulky eyes. I had never liked him much, and it occurred to me then that he and David looked a little alike, although Sharif is larger and older than David, and I thought, in passing, how odd, to fall in love with a man who looks like a movie star you don’t really like.

  I did not find the swimming pool, and I walked faster until sheer luck or something landed me in front of the elevators. Nowhere to go but back up to the fantasy tower, where I realized that I rather expected David would be. Maybe to apologize, or maybe to say what an unlucky person I was for him; why didn’t I leave?

  I was answering that last accusation; in my mind I was saying to David, Well, what was I supposed to do, knock that woman down?—as I opened the door to an empty and unmade room.

  Sunlight strained through a chink between the draperies, but I did not want to open them; I did not want to see (again—ever) that network of concrete filagree, so precariously stuck together, nor the acres of casinos just beyond. I did not want to see Las Vegas again, not ever.

  That knowledge came over me with the force of cold water, a wave, and in the neutral temperature of that room I shivered for a moment, standing there perfectly still, and resolute. Then, suddenly galvanized, I rushed into motion. I pushed everything barely folded into my canvas bag (my “backpack”); for a moment I stared at my slightly awry image in the mirror, but decided to do nothing about how I looked, no effort at order.

  I was thinking that David might come in at any moment, for whatever reason. Or someone might stop me, leaving the hotel with my suitcase. Or, worst, I might not have enough money for air fare. Right then I decided to go home by Greyhound; there was a chance that David could have been at the airport, but he would never go by bus; I could not say why but I was absolutely sure of that. I hoped I had enough money for the bus.

  My heart had risen to the top of my chest and it beat there violently, so that it was hard to breathe. But I made it from the room to the elevator without meeting David in the hall, and he was not, of course, in the elevator, going down.

  Despite trembling legs and a displaced heart I got across the lobby; probably, actually, I was not the first person to leave that place, in that condition. Also I guessed that my suitcase could have looked like an oversized handbag, if anyone wondered.

  A bellboy handed me into a waiting taxi, and I had to say “Greyhound” twice before the driver understood; I was having trouble with my voice, and probably that is an uncommon destination from Caesar’s Palace. As we flashed past those miles of casinos (the bus station was a long way off, worse luck) I thought, I knew, that I should have left a note for David, but I was really running scared, and besides, what could I have said, beyond something dumb about neither of us being quite the person the other one thought, which he had undoubtedly figured out on his own. What can you say to a person who really likes it in Las Vegas—who thinks it’s real?

  My first piece of luck: there was a bus just leaving for Reno, where I would have to change for San Francisco. The long way home. It was also more expensive than the more direct way, through Bakersfield, would be, and I had just enough money, in fact three dollars over (the three that I did not put into that machine, which must have meant something). I could have a hamburger in Reno. I bought my ticket and I got on, just in time.

  The bus lurched into motion, out of the station, and onto a freeway where there were casinos all over the place. Again. But fairly soon we were past all that, and heading out into the desert.

  I settled down for a fairly long trip, maybe boring, maybe in some ways a little frightening, so much desert. But from then on I was going to be all right, I thought.

  At the Beach

  The very old couple, of whom everyone at the beach is so highly aware, seem themselves to notice no one else at all. Tall and thin, she almost as tall as he, they are probably somewhere in their eighties. They walk rather slowly, and can be seen, from time to time, to stop and rest, staring out to sea, or to some private distance of their own. Their postures, always, are arrestingly, regally erect; it is this that catches so much attention, as well as their general air of distinction, and of what is either disdain or a total lack of interest in other people.

  Their clothes are the whitest at the beach; in the ferocious Mexican sun of that resort they both wear large hats, hers lacy, his a classic panama.

  They look like movie stars, or even royalty, and for all anyone knows they are, deposed monarchs from one of the smaller European countries, world-wanderers.

  Because there is not much to do at that resort, almost nothing but walking and swimming, reading or whatever social activities one can devise, most people stay for fairly short periods of time. Also, it is relatively expensive. The Chicago people, who have come as a group, will be there for exactly ten days. The couple who have the room just next door to that of the distinguished old couple will be there for only a week—a week literally stolen, since he is married to someone else, in Santa Barbara, and is supposed to be at a sales conference, in Puerto Rico.

  But the old people seem to have been there forever, and the others imagine that they will stay on and on, at least for the length of the winter.

  And while everyone else can be seen, from time to time, to wonder what to do next—the Chicago people, apparently committed to unity of action, were heard arguing in the dining room over whether, or when, to rent a boat for deep-sea fishing—the two old people have a clear, unwavering schedule of their own. After breakfast, to which they come in quite late, as they do to all meals, they sit out on their small porch for a couple of hours. The girl in the room next door, who is named Amanda Evers, is passionately curious about them, and she tries to look through the filagree of concrete that separates the two porches. But she discovers nothing. (She is in fact too curious about too many people; her lover, Richard Paxton, has told her so. Curiosity contributes to the general confusion of her life.)

  The old man reads his newspapers, a Mexico City News that he has delivered to his table each morning, at breakfast, and sometimes he seems to be writing letters—or perhaps he keeps a journal? The woman does not read the paper; she seems to be doing nothing at all—a thing that Amanda, who is restlessly energetic, cannot imagine. (Amanda manages a travel agency, in Santa Cruz, California; she often considers other careers.)

  • • •

  The arrival of the elderly couple, down at the beach, at almost precisely noon each day, is muc
h noticed; it is when they look, perhaps, most splendid. In trim dark bathing suits, over which they both wear white shirts, in their hats and large dark glasses, advancing on their ancient legs, they are as elegant as tropical birds—and a striking contrast to everyone else on the beach, many of whom wear bright colors. One woman in the Chicago group has a pea-green caftan that literally hurts Amanda’s eyes.

  The old people sit each day under the same small thatched shelter, a little apart from the others, at the end of the line. After a while they will rise and begin one of their long, deliberate walks, the length of the beach and back. Then, returned to their shelter, in a slow and careful way they divest themselves of the shirts, the hats and glasses; they walk down to the edge of the water, and slowly, majestically, they enter the lapping small green waves. After a not quite total immersion they return to the shelter, to rest. Even in such apparent repose, however, they both have a look of great attentiveness. They seem highly conscious of each moment, and very likely they are.

  They take lunch quite late, and always, of course, alone, at one of the small restaurants down the beach. They are seen to chatter away to each other, and to eat rather little. But no one can ever overhear what they are saying, nor would anyone dare address them. Her accent, however, is recognizably “foreign”; his is English, probably—giving further credence to the theory that they are royalty, deposed.

  And that notion is not entirely incorrect: those people are named Carlotta and Travis Farquhar, and once, if not royal, they were famous: Carlotta, originally Polish, as an actress, and Travis, a Scot, as an astronomer; an asteroid has his name. They both, simultaneously, reached their heights of achievement about forty years ago; since then, not entirely by choice, they have eased themselves into retirement. In Travis’s case, what was then called a nervous breakdown took two years from his life; coming out of it, he was, or felt himself to be, too far behind, in terms of research. He could still teach, of course, but he tired of that, fairly early on. And Carlotta, who took care of him during those years, had never been truly dedicated to the stage; later she was happy enough to yield her place to younger actresses, or so she said.

  They never had children, always traveled a lot.

  One ostensible reason for the high cost of this resort is its extraordinary natural beauty—a beauty that most people seem to take some note of on arrival, and then, curiously, to forget.

  The hotel is built on the downward slope of a hill above the beach, from which one faces a very large cove of bright, often glassy-green water. Far out across that water, at the mouth of the cove, there are two widely spaced but rather similarly shaped promontories of land; both slope gently down to the water, like great dark obedient beasts. Delicately feathered trees are silhouetted out there, at sunsets, which are almost always brilliant and violent, or in the first pale light of early mornings.

  The beach, a wide white ribbon, encircles the cove; above the sand is the powerful, encroaching, mysterious green jungle—impenetrable, probably dangerous. It marks the start of a mountain range that extends almost to Mexico City.

  The skies are nearly always clear and blue and pale, and the air is warm—subtle, moist, insinuating. Getting off the plane, their first night, still in her northern California clothes,Amanda gasped with pleasure at that tropical air and the smell of flowers that even at the airport hung in the slight evening breeze. “Oh, feel the air, it’s so lovely,” she cried out to Richard, by which she meant: Our time here will be lovely. But then she forgot about the air, or stopped thinking about it.

  Richard is usually foremost in Amanda’s mind and consciousness; he is a difficult lover (although she has reflected that all her lovers have been difficult, in one way or another). Her obsession with Richard is so anxiety-ridden that she cannot sort out those emotions; indeed, it is hard for her to imagine love without anxiety. Richard is not only married, in an explosive off-and-on way, but he is exceptionally handsome, a golden southern California boy; he is spoiled, rather moody and seemingly fond of his moods—he has put in some time at Esalen. He is five years younger than she, which is not supposed to matter, but somehow, sometimes it does.

  At this resort, though, he seems exceptionally cheery and calm. Before breakfast he runs on the beach, two lengths, and he has announced that the sand is superior. Amanda, whose discovery this place has been, is more than relieved; she is delighted. They swim far out into the cove together, in the clear warm green water; sometimes, looking down, they can see small stray brightly colored fish. At lunch they drink the excellent Mexican beer, and eat fresh garlicky seafood. They shower and sleep, they make love. They swim again, and shower again, and head up to the bar, which is cantilevered out into the open, starry, flowery night; they drink margaritas, toasting each other and the lovely, perfect place.

  And the next day they repeat the pattern.

  Perhaps for that reason, Richard’s relatively “good mood,” Amanda’s attention wanders from him more than usual, and she finds herself acutely aware of the elderly, possibly royal couple next door: how long have they been married, she wonders. And who are they?

  “You could ask them for autographs,” Richard suggests. “Then you’d know.”

  It is just past noon. From their beach chairs Amanda and Richard are watching as the Farquhars slowly rise and start out on their walk, watching the slow progress of those erect, high, narrow bodies, on their thin brown wrinkled legs.

  Choosing to ignore Richard’s facetiousness (he enjoys teasing her), Amanda asks him, “Will your hair be white, do you think?”

  He frowns a little. “Not any time soon, I hope.” And then, as though taking her earlier question seriously, he says, “Why don’t you ask those people to have a drink with us, if you really want to know something about them?”

  “Oh, well. I really don’t think so.” Amanda says this calmly, but inwardly she has quailed at the very idea; of course it would have to be the other way around, the older people would have to ask them for a drink, which of course they never will do—but oh! if they should. To be with those people, to know them at all, Amanda feels, would itself confer distinction; in their presence one would find peace.

  And then, as she contemplates the two tall, erect figures that gradually grow smaller, walking down the very white beach, slowly, near the bright green-blue water, for a moment Amanda’s consciousness blurs; from behind closed eyelids she has a sudden vision of herself without Richard, without the chaos of his presence in her life: she sees herself in some new and calmer phase, even released from her frenetic occupation. She is running a bookstore, perhaps. There is one for sale in Aptos, a town next door to Santa Cruz but smaller and quieter, by far.

  Opening her eyes, as though she had been asleep, she shakes her head, and drowsily, rather impersonally, she speaks to Richard: “It’s so restful here, isn’t it.”

  “Well, that’s one thing we came for, I thought. Leave our old problems behind?” He grins in a familiar, challenging way; they both know what “problems” he means, and her usual fondness for discussing them.

  But this time she does not take him up. “It’s so beautiful. I could stay here forever” is all she says.

  If the Farquhars are objects of Amanda’s admiring curiosity, the Chicago group inspires opposite emotions: she finds them noisy, obtrusive, in their too bright clothes. One of them, a heavily mustached young man, even smokes a cigar, all the time, which you can smell all over the beach. Their loud, quite unself-conscious voices dominate the dining room or the bar when they are present—as they seemingly always are, and always together. Amanda cannot imagine herself, with or without Richard, as a part of any group at all.

  “Wouldn’t it be great if they’d leave before we do,” she whispers to Richard.

  “They look pretty settled in,” he observes.

  “That’s probably how they’d look anywhere. Do you realize that there’re actually only six of them? I just counted. They seem more like ten or twelve people.”

  R
ichard laughs. Her ability to amuse him is a thing that Amanda counts on; it almost makes up, she feels, for being older and less beautiful than he is, although by most standards she is pretty enough (which she sometimes forgets), in a thin, rather original way, with her heavy dark hair, narrow face and large pale-gray eyes.

  Another object of Amanda’s wayward curiosity is the hotel’s manager, or manageress: a large blond strong-looking woman, who is unfailingly cheerful. A big happy woman, she walks about in old soft white pants and a blue work shirt. She is called, by everyone, Lisa, and she seems to have neither a last name nor a history; her accent, in English, is vaguely Central European. She also speaks German and Spanish, fluently.

  She and the Farquhars appear to know each other, and this too, of course, draws Amanda’s attention. Lisa is, in fact, the only person to whom the Farquhars are ever seen to speak.

  Amanda wonders how Lisa happened to come to Mexico, and if she has ever been married. Mainly, though, she would like to know the secret of such level cheerfulness: how can Lisa cope with the whole hotel, the guests and the help, and answer everyone’s questions and still smile like that? Her own work has taught Amanda more than a little about the irritations of travel.

  In fact, Amanda is wrong about the people from Chicago: there are seven of them, not six, although she may have counted when one of them was missing. And they are not quite as homogeneous as, to Amanda, they appear. At least one of them, a recent widow, Natalie Barnes, is quite out of sorts with the rest. It was good of them to ask her along, without Herbert, but they all make too much noise, and she knows them well enough by now to have tired of all their jokes and stories. Besides, her skin is getting too old for all this sun.

  Natalie, like Amanda, like everyone there, is fascinated by the Farquhars—especially that woman’s skin, which is remarkable, so fine and smooth and white. Natalie wishes she knew what kind of sun block that woman uses.