"Easy, girl," he said. "I'm even a little low on moral fiber tonight."
"You and your moral fiber," she said, smiling. Her voice was low, husky.
"Well, a man with practically no character like me has to be careful what he gets mixed up in because if he doesn't, the next thing he knows, there he is, all mixed up."
"You're funny," Irene said.
"Maybe we'd better leave," he suggested, "before I become a total laughingstock." She turned away, her face clouding.
"What's the matter, kiddo?" Gary said.
"Don't call me kiddo."
"I don't mean anything by it. I call everybody kiddo."
"Save it for everybody, I'm sensitive about my age--with you."
The voice was the voice of Irene--but the words were the words of a woman. He kissed her again lightly, on the forehead. Then, as a protective gesture, he reached for the bottle. "Another slug?"
She smiled suddenly. "Don't mind if I do." Her teeth gleamed white.
The bottle glugged quietly four times before he recorked it. He stuck it upright in the sand beside the robe and then lay back, clasping his hands behind his head. Irene bent over him. She put her hands on each side of his face, holding his head steady between them, then brought her lips close to his. "Don't you dare duck," she whispered. Then, soft and gentle as the caress of a butterfly's wings, she kissed him again and again.
Suddenly, almost angrily, he pushed her away. "Take it easy, Irene. What do you think I am? Gibraltar?" He got to his feet. "I shin ... I think we'd better get going." That was a danger sign: the blurring of his speech.
She rose to stand in front of him. "All right, Gary. But there was something I wanted to tell you."
"After we get in the car," he said. It was time to start sobering up. Another minute of that and he'd have ... Well, another minute. Anyway, the thing was to get some coffee at the nearest place.
"I want to tell you now," Irene insisted.
"All right. Tell me, then, and let's get out of here."
"It's about--about Erica," she said.
In that instant he was drunk. "Never you mind about Erica," he said. "Just leave Erica out of this. I'll take care of myself and Erica'll take care of herself. S'none of my business about Erica." He reached out and caught Irene's shoulders. "Y'hear? Erica goes her way. I go mine. Everybody's free as a bird." He shook his head vigorously. "At least birds can fly. Everybody flies but Heaslip." He looked down at her. "What's the matter, Honey? Are you crying?"
She shook her head, her face turned away.
"Aw, Honey. You shouldn't cry. You're too pretty to cry." He caught her face in his hands. "Look at those tears. Don't cry, Reenie."
"I'm not crying, Gary."
"That's a pretty good reasonable facshi ... Facsimile, though." He bent down and kissed her, again and again. Then his hands moved from her face, lightly touching the nape of her neck where the dark hair fell in profusion. He drew her closer. His fingers bit into her shoulders and slipped downward on her back. She pressed tight against him. He felt her full, soft breasts crushed against his chest.
His hands moved over her body, searching out the forms of her belly and her thighs, while his tongue probed her mouth.
Slowly, very slowly, they sank to the sand, their lips still glued together ...
XV
ERICA LEDBITTER
Suddenly, in mid flight of the steps leading into Parker's Hotel, Erica Ledbitter came to a dead halt. "Wait, Ivan," she said.
Carter stopped and turned to look back down at her. "What's the trouble?"
"Do we have to do this?" she said.
He dropped the suitcase on the step beside him. "Now what?"
"It--it seems so cheap, sneaking into hotels like this." "Who's sneaking?" he demanded. "Now stop making a fuss in the street and let's get in and get registered." He picked up the suitcase and continued up without a glance back. After a moment Erica followed.
He was already at the desk, and the clerk had turned the register for him to sign, when she came in.
The clerk said, "Good evening, Mrs. Hoffman. It's been some time since we've seen you and the doctor." He turned back to Ivan. "You'll want to go right up, won't you?" Ivan nodded. A sleepy, uniformed youth dragged himself from behind potted greenery and laid slack hands on Ivan's suitcase.
They followed the boy to the elevator, which seemed exhausted from its years of self-service. In the room the bellhop made gestures indicating bustling activity. Ivan gave him a dollar, whereupon he vanished. Erica went over and stared out the window at the empty night.
When, at length, she turned around, Ivan was sitting in the single armchair, his head lolled back against the cushion. He looked drained of all vitality.
He said, "Erica, what on earth is the matter?" Not in anger; wearily.
She turned back to the window without answering.
"Look, my dear," he said, "we have to get to the bottom of this sometime. Let's do it now, shall we?"
"There's nothing to get to the bottom of, Ivan. I just decided that I was too hasty that day on the boat."
"I know. We're all a little hasty sometimes. But you'd better turn around when you say it. It might have more meaning." He got up from the chair and stretched. "Well, if that's all it is, let's go to bed."
"All right," Without turning she unbuttoned the front of her dress, stepped out of it and went to the closet to drape it on a hanger. She knew he was watching her. It made her uneasy, but there was no way out now. She reached up beneath her half-slip and pulled down her panty. Next she unhooked her bra and shrugged it from her shoulders. Her arm held across her swaying breasts, she went into the bath and rinsed the bra and panty.
A few moments later she emerged, still wearing the half-slip, her arms crossed so that her hands touched her hunched shoulders.
In her absence Ivan had removed his shirt. He had then reseated himself in the chair. He watched her quizzically as she sat down on the edge of the double bed. At last he said, "All right, Baby, tell me all about it."
She felt herself beginning to go long seconds before it happened. She buried her face in her hands. "I can't, Ivan. I just can't."
Ivan came to sit beside her on the bed. He put his arm about her naked shoulders. "It's all right, Sweetheart," he told her. "You don't have to. Just tell me what the trouble is. Maybe I can help."
She shook off his arm. "Please don't touch me, Ivan. Not right now."
"All right, Baby." He went back to the chair. "I'd like to understand what's happening, though. First you tell me you will never sleep with me again. Then, tonight, you ask me to take you to a hotel. What's the trouble?"
"I don't want to talk about it, Ivan."
"Yes, you do, Baby."
"You'll only pry it out of me, I suppose, if I don't tell you; but I just don't want to talk about it--Come to bed, Ivan."
"No," Ivan said. "This is one thing I'm not prying for kicks. Obviously it's something you really need to talk about and I guess there isn't anyone else around but me. You'd better tell me."
Then it came, a blend of tears and fact. The trip to New York. The way she had felt she must avoid Gary while she was still seeing Ivan. The breakup with Ivan on the boat. The ride home from the Coast Guard station. The evening in the playroom. And the thing that Irene had told her.
"Well," Ivan said, when she had finished. "Isn't Lor the little minx, though. What a conniving wench that girl is." He grinned at Erica. "I guess you'd like to check out of here and go home now, wouldn't you?"
Erica nodded. She had never expected understanding from Ivan. Yet now, there it was. Perhaps it was just exhaustion after the operation during the day, but it seemed more and more as though some major change had taken place in Ivan's personality. He was--different.
He came over and stroked her head gently. "All right, Baby. "Get dressed and we'll go home. That's the best thing all round, isn't it?"
That night was the closest Erica ever came to being in love with Ivan Ca
rter.
IVAN CARTER
As Ivan Carter pulled into the garage after letting Erica out, he saw the stationwagon was missing. He glanced at his watch. It was only minutes after midnight.
For a few moments he sat behind the wheel, tasting the full savor of his physical exhaustion and thinking, for the first time in a long while, about himself.
He decided that he did not feel bad about the operation. It had been a good operation. He was sorry that the man had died; angry the plasma had not arrived in time. But the operation had been, somehow, totally impersonal. He had never seen the man conscious and in health. He was not so much a patient as a problem. And Ivan Carter had solved the problem.
For a few seconds, there at first, he had been afraid to go ahead. Dr. Puhn had watched him as he washed his hands, as he came to the synthesized operating table, as he hesitated, hands poised over the array of instruments.
In those few moments, Ivan had frantically reviewed what he had read in Leafer's "Cranial Surgery" during the automobile trip. Then, because he had to, Ivan had reached for the instruments. After that he was a spectator, watching his hands at work in a dazed amaze.
He had done a good job. Puhn had said so. He knew so himself. It was a great thing to be able to tell yourself. He said it aloud in the darkness of the garage. He said, "Ivan Carter, you're a darned good surgeon."
Let Reingold write his shabby criticisms to the editor of Thoracic Surgery. Supposing Reingold had been asked to operate this afternoon? How would he have made out? Ivan flexed his hands on the wheel of the Jaguar. It was a good feeling to have. It made you feel complete again.
He walked slowly toward the house. The light was still on in Lor's room. He remembered what she had said in the pantryway when he had returned from the waterworks: "What happened? ... Well, I guess you did the best anyone could expect." What a thing to say!
He tried to remember what it had been like before Lor inherited the money? Odd! He couldn't remember at all. Maybe it was exhaustion. It didn't seem like much when you were actually operating. You seemed to be standing there, making little movements with knives and probes. But something dragged you to the depths of fatigue. The tension, maybe. Your adrenals stepped up your pulse. The concentration tired you. And the man had died. Your fault or not, you hated to have his life torn from your hands just when you had recovered it.
Ivan sat down by the grape arbor and stared up at his wife's window. What was she doing up there? Had she really had an affair with Heaslip? Not that you hadn't done as much for her. You hadn't even pretended much about Erica. You had wanted her to know about Erica--as though Erica were a means of vengeance against Dolores.
What new witch's brew was she boiling up there; what new act of emasculation for her husband?
He threw his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it, got to his feet and started toward the house. Let her try and emasculate her way out of this!
He marched through the pantryway and into the front hall. Up the broad staircase he went, turning at the landing, then along the gallery to Dolores' room. He pushed the door open and walked in. She was still fully dressed, sitting before her desk, the eternal checkbook open before her.
"Get up," he said.
"Ivan, you're drunk."
"No, my dear. I'm not drunk. Get up."
"I have no intention--"
He reached down, caught her arms and pulled her to her feet.
"Now," he said, "what is it you had no intention of doing?"
She said, nothing. A flush came into her face.
"Get undressed," he said.
"If you think you can order me about like your cheap little mistress--"
"That," Ivan said, "will be all of that. Are you going to get undressed?"
She shook her head.
"In that case, I will undress you." He took his right hand from her arm, caught at the V-bosom of her dress--and ripped!
Dress, slip and bra tore with an angry sound.
He caught her panty by the waistband, and with one quick yank tore it from her body. He picked her up, kicking frenziedly, and threw her on the bed.
There, with all the passion and the anger that was in him, he had her.
XVI
IRENE CARTER
Irene Carter awoke next morning she was shocked to find the world's axis inclined as it had always been. The morning sun gave the same clear light. The blue chenille counterpane upon the bed was still blue chenille, still a counterpane. When she stood before the mirror, the face and figure reflected were unchanged. And yet, it was a tremendous thing no longer to be a virgin. Some visible expression ought somewhere to exist.
Even her thoughts were unaltered. The great change which had come upon her did not interfere with her recollection that, moored by the seawall where she had left it, was the outboard once belonging to Bob Solomon; today she would ask Gary to go over the motor to see whether it could be salvaged. If it could, then she and Erica ... Erica!
Erica would hate her, now; now that she had become a woman with Gary. Erica had hated her yesterday, when she had told the older girl what her mother had said about Gary. She had seen the hate come on Erica's face out there in the boat. Erica hadn't said a word after that. And when they reached the seawall she had gone on into the house without speaking.
Now there would be something else for which Erica would hate her. But, on the other hand, no one need ever tell Erica.
The whole thing, last night, had been so different from what she had expected. There had been no pain--only a great, tense excitement going on and on, getting tighter and tighter, but that had somehow fizzled out at the end.
But even that, which should have been the climactic moment in her life, had less significance than the things he said afterward in the station wagon.
He had said, "Irene, that shouldn't have happened."
"Gary! Why not?"
"It shouldn't have happened because you're not in love with me and I'm not with you. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't got drunk."
She had tried to interrupt, but he kept words coming as though their pressure might stave off some impending disaster.
"Look, Irene, I'm in love with Erica. You may not believe that, because you may think that if I were I couldn't do what I did with you tonight. I can't explain why to you. Part of the reason it happened, part of the reason I was drunk was because I was very angry with Erica. A little while ago I thought I hated her. Well, I don't. I don't hate her at all. I don't know why she did the thing that made me mad, but there had to be some reason for it. I didn't--do that with you just because of being mad at Erica. Don't think I did. You're very beautiful. You're a lovely woman, and I'm not sure I wouldn't have done it even if I weren't drunk.
"I'm not very good at telling this kind of thing, but love sort of comes in two different kinds. Sometimes they're hard to distinguish. One is sort of sexual and the other is--well, I guess you could call it personal.
"Sometimes they're mixed together. Sometimes you have both kinds for one person. But, at the beginning, when you haven't had much experience with love, you get to mistake the sexual kind for the personal kind.
"The thing that happened to us tonight was the first kind. I know you thought it was something else. I know you've been thinking that for quite a while--ever since the night I found you crying in the cabin of the Ivalor. That isn't so, though. When you're young--well, I guess it would take a psychologist to make it clear--but you have something called inhibitions about sex. They make you hide your sexy thoughts from yourself. You dress up those sexy thoughts in something to hide them. You make yourself think that they're really the other kind of love--personal love.
"There's nothing wrong with sexual love. It happens to everyone--so it can't be bad. But it isn't the same as personal love--and it doesn't last the way personal love does.
"I can't explain to you about that second kind. You can only recognize it after you've felt it. But it's a lot different, and you don't feel it now--"
>
"How can you tell?" she had said. "How do you know how I feel about you?"
"I know, girl. And you'll know, too, later on. Some people never know. But you'll know." He tossed away his cigarette and immediately lit another.
"What happened tonight is pretty important in your life. It's not a bad thing. You don't need ever to be ashamed of it, although you may someday want to hide it from somebody. So you'll just hide it, without being ashamed of it. It's not bad--but it's not the thing that you're looking for.
"For anybody else this might be the worst time to tell them; not more than an hour after it happened. But for you it's not the wrong time. You learned one thing tonight. Now you're learning another. You're learning it now because you're grown up enough to take it and understand it--insofar as you can understand a thing like that without actual experience.
"I guess that's all I've got to say, except that this isn't going to happen again. Never again. I'm not going to speak, to you again except as Miss Carter. You're not going to come out to the garage anymore, and I'm not going to drive you anywhere alone anymore. Once you make up your mind to accept it, you won't feel bad about this. And I guess a good time for you to begin not to feel bad is right now.
"We're going home now."
He had started the car, and backed it swiftly across the sand. They hadn't spoken another word until they reached the house. Then he said, "Good night, Irene," as he let her out of the car, by the front door. "And remember everything I told you."
She remembered it now, standing in front of the mirror, looking for the changes which were not there. She remembered it all.
Then she showered, dressed quickly at always, and went downstairs. In the hall she looked at the telephone on the stand, started info the diningroom, then turned and went back to the phone. She picked it up. After a moment she said, "Hello, Mrs. St. George? Is Ellis there ...?"
AUGUST HENNLER
The only reason August Hennler came to work that morning was because the habit of going to work was ingrained in him--and because he had no other place to go. All during the night he had tried to reach Evelyn at Mother Gaines, in Hyannis. But the older woman insisted she was not there. He decided it was only an evasion, a refusal to talk to him. Where else could she have gone?
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