Hale's Point

by Patricia Ryan

  Tucker took his seat on the toilet lid again. “Yeah. She was like a surrogate mom to me. I couldn’t leave without seeing her. So instead of hitching to La Guardia, I hitched to the train station—”

  “Hitched?”

  “And took the train into New York. She’s got this co-op on Central Park West—the San Remo. The doorman wouldn’t let me up.”

  Phil gave him a sideways sneer, his eyes scanning Tucker from head to toe. “Can’t imagine why.”

  “I know I need a haircut.”

  Phil expelled a gust of laughter. “It’d be quicker to list the things you don’t need than what you do. You don’t need… God, I don’t know. Elevator shoes! There. You don’t need elevator shoes. You could live without them. What you do need, as soon as possible, is a decent haircut, some decent clothes, a decent pair of shoes—”

  Tucker chuckled. “Where have I heard that before?” He frowned, pretending to search his memory. “Those words, they’re so familiar. ‘Get a haircut, get some decent clothes, what are you, an animal in the zoo?’” He smacked his head as if the light bulb had just gone off. “Oh, I remember! It was your father, that’s right! Standing on the front porch screaming at you with all the neighbors listening, and you giving him the finger and slamming the car door.”

  Tucker’s legs felt too long for the little bathroom; they kept bumping into things made out of porcelain. He lifted the bad one with both hands and crossed it over the good one, then leaned back and tried to get comfortable, but it was a lost cause.

  “Did I really give him the finger?” Phil laughed disbelievingly, although Tucker suspected his friend remembered the incident just as clearly as he did. “What a punk I was! I’m the one that should have been sent to military school.” He opened one of Harley’s eyelids, then closed it. “So the doorman, exercising superb judgment, wouldn’t let you up.”

  “Yeah, but he buzzed her and she came down.” He smiled, remembering. “She’s… Well, she’s older. I hadn’t really expected that. But still beautiful. She’s so great, you know? She’s just great. As soon as I saw her, I realized how much I had missed her. When she saw me, she said, ‘Good morning, Tucker. How nice that you’re not dead. You may take me to breakfast.’”

  “I’m all choked up. You realize this is supposed to be leading up to the Jag, which is the only part I really care about.”

  “So at breakfast I told her I wanted to buy a car to drive back to Alaska, and she said what kind, and I flashed on this hood ornament up in my room and said Jaguar, and she drove me to a dealer, and he had a black XJR-S right on the lot, and I bought it,” he said, all in one breath.

  Phil frowned as he patted Harley’s forehead with the washcloth. “Now, when you say you just bought it… People don’t just buy cars on impulse like that, especially not expensive cars. You’ve got to arrange for financing, there’s paperwork—”

  “I don’t finance anything.” Tucker explained. “I don’t owe money. I wrote him a check, and he’ll take care of the paperwork and plates and stuff by tomorrow, he said.” He shrugged. “It’s a done deal.”

  Phil stared at him. “You wrote him a check. You’ve got, like, a zillion dollars sitting around in a checking account just in case you suddenly get the urge to buy a—”

  “I did have to make a phone call to transfer the funds. This is very bad form of you, you know. We never discuss money in Hale’s Point.”

  “We do it all the time in Brentwood.”

  “You live in Hale’s Point now, buddy. You’re coming up in the world.”

  “And you, you who are lecturing me on decorum, live in… Elk something?”

  “Moose Pass. Near Moose Pass.”

  “In a two-room cabin in the woods. That you built yourself from trees.”

  “The logs came from trees, yes. But it’s really one room and a kind of a lean-to on the side, there.”

  “Is there enough room in the lean-to for the Jag?”

  “No, I’ve got to keep the Jeep in there to keep the snow off it.”

  Incredulous outrage flared in Phil’s eyes. “Is it me? Am I nuts? Because, you’ll have to excuse me, but I’m having a really, really hard time picturing that exquisite, magnificent piece of British engineering covered in snow out in front of some two-room—strike that, one-room-plus-a-lean-to-for-the-Jeep hovel that you made yourself out of trees! In the middle of the woods! In Elk, excuse me, near Elk Pass, Alaska, for God’s sake—”

  “Moose. Moose Pass.”

  “Moose, elk…” He shrugged wearily. “The point is, I am very serious about this trade, and I want you to give it every—”

  “What trade?”

  “My house for your Jag. Remember?” He turned back to Harley, and Tucker could no longer see his expression.

  “Right.” Phil’s oddball sense of humor was one thing about him that hadn’t changed over the years. It had always amused him to propose some ludicrous idea, hammer away at it until everyone believed he was serious, and then laugh at their gullibility. Tucker rose and put on his sunglasses. “My turn for a break now.”

  Tucker retrieved his Camels from the glove box of the Jag and smoked two while he sat on the stone wall staring out at the Sound. That kid from next door, Jamie Tilton, was walking along the water’s edge with the au pair and his little sister. He turned and saw Tucker, then shielded his eyes and peered first toward the west, then toward the jetty to the east. Probably looking for Harley; she would be due for her afternoon run about now. He looked again toward Tucker, frowning as if trying to make up his mind about something. Whether to come up and ask him where Harley was? Tucker made his mind up for him by stubbing out his cigarette and going back in the house.

  He walked into the bathroom as Phil withdrew the thermometer from Harley’s mouth. He looked up at Tucker and smiled. “Chicken’s done. What’ll we have with it?”

  “Man, you are one twisted—”

  “It’s 102.2 and dropping,” Phil announced triumphantly.

  “All right!”

  Harley moaned and her head rolled to the side.

  Phil said, “Let’s get her back into bed.”

  Tucker moved the fan into the bedroom and went to the linen closet to fetch a bath sheet. When he returned to the bathroom, Phil had Harley out of the tub and on her feet, although she was still insensible. His arms supported her against him and her head rested on his chest, as if they were dancing. Now that she was vertical, her nudity seemed more… nude, more sexual, especially in contrast with the fully clothed Phil. She still inspired Tucker’s protective instinct, but now another, more fundamental instinct, as well. Tucker wished it were his arms embracing that warm, wet skin; his shoulder on which her head reclined. He felt a painful stab of jealousy toward his friend, but swallowed it down, composing his features into a neutral mask.

  “You want to dry her off a little?” Phil said.

  Tucker scrubbed the bath sheet over her back and legs in a cursory way. He would have loved to linger over the task, particularly as regards that small, firm bottom, but without the good Dr. Zelin in attendance, and with Harley’s full knowledge and approval. He wrapped the bath sheet around her, and Phil carried her into the bedroom, laid her on her side on the bed, unwrapped her, and pulled the sheet up.

  As he was doing this, Tucker happened to notice Harley’s clothes in a jumble on the floor where Phil had tossed them, and he did a double take. On top of the pile, the last item removed, was a pair of black-and-white zebra-print string-bikini panties. He smiled. Zebra-print panties. Who woulda thunk it?

  Phil said, “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “I said, keep sponging her off until she’s down to about a hundred degrees. I’ll leave you this thermometer. Take her temperature every half hour and call me if it goes up even a little.” He went back to the bathroom for his bag and snapped it closed.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “You don’t need me here anymore. She’s out of the woods
. As soon as she can sit up and drink, start forcing fluids on her. She cooled off fast, so I think it’s unlikely there’s any kind of irreparable damage to the body tissues.” Tucker sighed with relief. “Unlikely, but not impossible. Brain tissue is particularly susceptible to those high temperatures. When she can get out of bed, watch for signs of ataxia.”

  “Ataxia.”

  “Vertigo, disorientation. Call me if she can’t stand by herself or walk. After she’s been awake for a while, that is. At first, of course, she’ll be disoriented. I’ll stop by tomorrow to check on her.” He slapped Tucker on the arm and headed out of the room. “I’ll find my way out. You stay with her.”

  “You’re a good friend, Phil. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  From the doorway, Phil said, “You can thank me by getting a haircut.”

  Grinning, Tucker extended his right arm, the middle finger raised.

  Turning away, Phil said, “He should have sent you to military school. Would have served you right, you punk.”

  Chapter 5

  HARLEY OPENED HER EYES. It was night. A dim lamp shone in the corner where Tucker sat reading a book. She was in his bed. She couldn’t remember why, but she knew there was a good reason. It was very quiet, the only sound the soft white noise of the fan.

  Even with the breeze from the fan, it was warm in the room. Tucker wore a pair of baggy olive-drab shorts and nothing else. His legs were crossed, the bad one over the good. There was a small movement, a rustle, as he turned the page. She could see the concentration in his face, the little frown lines between his eyebrows.

  She wanted to ask him what he was reading. “Tucker,” she said, but her mouth was dry, and it came out as a parched whisper.

  He looked toward her, his eyes lighting when he saw that she was awake. He put down the book and uncrossed his legs by lifting one off the other with both hands. She could see his chest clearly now, the muscles hard and smooth on one side, torn by savage wounds on the other. The magnitude of his injuries suddenly struck her; the burden of living with them day after day.

  She closed her eyes and began to drift, but his touch woke her up again. He sat on the bed next to her, pulled the sheet up, and tucked it around her shoulders.

  “Not yet,” he said softly. “You can sleep in a minute, I promise.” His voice sounded raspier than ever. He was tired.

  He lifted her into a sitting position, one long arm curled around her while the other poured water from a pitcher into a glass. She liked the feel of his arm against her bare back, his skin cool against hers. She could feel his muscles tense to support her weight.

  He brought the glass to her lips and she drank, then he eased her back down again. She tried to remember what it was she had wanted to ask him when she had said his name…. His name… it had always struck her as odd….

  She said, “Tucker—that’s a funny name.”

  He leaned over her, his arms flanking her on either side. For a few seconds he just looked at her, faint amusement in his eyes, then he smoothed some stray hairs off her face and pressed a wet cloth to her forehead and cheeks. “It’s an old family name on my father’s side. Saxon. It means a tailor— a tucker of cloth.”

  He picked something up off the night table, fiddled with it, and aimed it at her mouth, saying, “Under the tongue.” While he held the thermometer in place, he said, “Harley’s kind of a funny name, too.” There came a beep. He withdrew the thermometer and said, “Down to 101 on the nose. Were you named after a relative?”

  Harley tried to shake her head no, but it made everything start to reel. “A motorcycle,” was all she managed to say before oblivion reclaimed her.

  ***

  “What happened to my clothes?”

  Tucker opened his eyes. The room was yellow with sunlight. Harley sat up in bed, holding the sheet to her chest. Her color seemed normal, her hair was in delicious golden disarray, and she looked angry.

  He wanted to laugh, but he knew that would probably be a mistake. He pried himself out of the chair in which he had fallen asleep, every bone in his sorry body complaining. The book he had been reading—Kerouac’s On the Road—tumbled off his lap onto the floor.

  “I said, what happened to my clothes?”

  He pointed to the pile in the corner, zebra panties et al. “The’re right there.”

  She glanced at the pile and then glared at him. She looked like a scruffy, mean little cat. “Who took off my clothes?” she asked more pointedly.

  Tucker came to stand over her. She noted his state of undress—he still wore shorts and nothing else—and pulled her sheet up higher. He said, “Dr. Philip Zelin, M.D., of the Stony Brook University Medical Center Department of Internal Medicine, took off your clothes.”

  She squinted, as if trying to remember. “You weren’t here?”

  He poured her a glass of water. “Little hair of the dog?”

  “You aren’t answering me.”

  “That’s a bad habit of mine. You’ve called me on it before.”

  “That’s still not an answer.”

  “Here, drink this.”

  Her lower lip jutted and her eyes glittered ferociously. “Why aren’t you answering me?”

  He sat on the bed and she squirmed away from him. “Because you are so very, very beautiful when you’re angry. Drink.”

  “What is that?”

  “Straight vodka. I’ve been pouring it down your throat for days.”

  She swatted at him. “Get away from me!”

  “First drink this. It’s water.”

  She took the glass with the hand that wasn’t holding up the sheet, but it shook, so Tucker steadied it while she drank.

  “Excellent.” he purred demonically. “My plan is working perfectly.” He traded the glass for the thermometer. “Open up the hangar, here comes the airplane.”

  “That never worked with me.”

  “No? And I had such hopes for that one.” He popped it in— beep—and popped it out. “Congratulations, Miss… What’s your last name, anyway?”

  “Sayers. Ms. Sayers.”

  “Ms. Sayers, you are, at long last, normal. Except, of course, for being named after a motorcycle.”

  Harley allowed Tucker to help her stumble up the stairs to her room, wrapped in the sheet, but then shooed him away, preferring to wash and dress unassisted—a challenging task. She was confused and uncoordinated, aware that she had been sick, but fuzzy on the details.

  It was almost noon before she sat down to Tucker’s offering of toast and ice water at the umbrella-shielded table on the patio, only to find she had no stomach for the toast. It was cooler than the day before, and overcast. She wore crisp cotton—a sleeveless pink shirt and white shorts—and her usual ponytail.

  She pushed away her plate. “How did you know I was named after a motorcycle?”

  He reached across the table to pour some more water for her. “You told me. At about 3:00 a.m. You don’t remember?”

  She shook her head. “About 3:00 a.m.? Was I awake all night?”

  “No, you were mostly pretty much out of it.”

  “But you were awake.”

  “Yeah, up to a point. I remember the sun rising, so I guess it was past dawn by the time I conked out. I do know you were down below a hundred by that time.”

  “I had a fever? Was I sick?”

  “Heatstroke.”

  She groaned and nodded. “Of course. I’m so stupid.”

  “You did keep mumbling something to that effect.” He pointed to the toast. “You’re not going to eat that?” She shook her head, and he picked up a slice and took a bite.

  She was pensive for a few moments. “You sat up all night with me. You took care of me. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” he said with a full mouth.

  “And I’m sorry for being so creepy when I first woke up.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable.”

  “Did you see me naked?”

  He sighed, and this time he wait
ed until he had swallowed before speaking. “Yes.”

  She felt heat flood her cheeks. “How can you just say yes like that? You should lie to protect my feelings!”

  His eyes widened and he laughed. “You want me to lie to you?”

  “Of course! There’s such a thing as being too honest, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know anything of the kind. I don’t lie.” He took another piece of toast.

  “Ever?”

  “Not if I can avoid it.”

  “Well, try to avoid avoiding it with me sometimes.” she said. “Try giving me the answer I want to hear, just to keep me happy.”

  “I don’t want to keep you happy.”

  “You don’t—”

  “You’re magnificent when you’re angry.”

  “Good. This is your lucky morning, then, because there’s something I’m really—” She reined herself in, not wanting to come off as shrewish, especially after the scene at the pool the night before last. “Angry may be too strong a word. Something I’m curious about.”

  “Shoot.” He popped the last of the toast in his mouth and dusted his hands.

  “How come you just sneaked away yesterday morning with no word at all? I thought you’d left, that you’d gone for good.”

  “Did you miss me?”

  Yes. “No.”

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “You could have left a note.”

  “I don’t leave notes. I’m bad about things like that.”

  “I’ll bet you’re not very good at saying goodbye, either. I mean, I just get that feeling.”

  He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and shook it. “You’re right, I’m not.”

  “Are you going to smoke?”

  “We’re outside. I thought that wasn’t a problem.”

  “It’s just that I feel a little woozy. It’s all right. Enjoy your cigarette, I’ll go inside.” She started to rise.

  He quickly replaced the pack and reached out an arm. “Stay. Please.” She sat again, and he said, “I have a question for you, too. I don’t understand why you went out in the heat yesterday and pushed yourself till you dropped. I mean, you were out way too long, you drank way too little. You know better—you’re a smart woman. What were you thinking of?”