“Can I try the water skis this time? Can I?” Dink demanded. “Judge tried them and he fell off every time.”
“That’s no crime. Your father fell off too.”
“That’s because he was a little crocked,” Judge said.
Jane whirled to face him. “Judson Wyant! What a way to talk!”
“Well, it was true, wasn’t it? If a thing is true, is it wrong to say it? Is it?”
“Now run along. Don’t bother me, and remember, don’t bother your father until he’s had his second cup of coffee. Turn on the sprinklers, Judge. I don’t think the sun is high enough yet to scorch the grass.”
They went off, with Dink insisting hotly that she’d be able to stand up on the water skis and ride fine, just like mother did.
Summer camp started for both of them on the fifth of July and lasted until the twenty-first of August. A week from today they’d be driving the kids to camp. Their two small trunks were in the utility room, filled with the items listed on the camp literature. Just one more week to endure the restless energy of the little monsters. That Laura Corban was lucky. She got hers off early, and was able to park them with relatives at that. I guess we seem to have a sort of inhuman attitude toward kids these days. Then, it isn’t like it was generations ago. Gadgets do everything now. Kids had chores then, and knew the importance of those chores. Chores, these days, are just make-work, and the kids know it and resent it if you start to pile on needless work. Thank God they at least keep their rooms picked up now. That was more than a moral victory. And they weren’t really bratty, like Sue’s kids. Always demanding the center of attention, screaming and throwing tantrums, so that you actually hated to go over to their house, it could be so embarrassing and so exhausting.
She sang in her small true voice as she measured the coffee. She decided it would be too hot and buggy on the terrace, so she set the table in the nook. It was odd how the memory of the quarrel would drift across her mind, like a small cloud cutting out the sunlight. And then she would remember how it had all ended, and the cloud would be gone. Certainly there was nothing to fear from poor little Laura Corban. In a way she was quite pathetic. It must be wearing, married to that dull man. She guessed that if she were married to Ellis Corban, she’d get a little on that weird side too.
She turned, smiling, when she recognized Fletch’s step. But her smile faded a bit when she saw how he was dressed.
“ ’Morning, darling. You going to the office today?”
“There’s a report I want to finish before the Monday meeting. It will be quiet down there this morning.”
“Will it take you long?”
He sat down and unfolded the morning paper she had put at his place. “Not too long, I hope. Why?”
“It looks like another of those days. I thought we might go out to the lake. Dolly was disappointed that we didn’t come out last weekend.”
“Oh, Christ! I get sick of being patronized by Hank Dimbrough.”
She felt her cheeks flush at the sharp tone of his voice. But, recognizing his morning mood, she compressed her lips and turned back to the stove. She heard the hard snap as he pulled the folds out of the morning paper, and then he mumbled something about “… and his goddamn Chris-Craft.”
Despite her warning, the children came roaring in before he had touched his first cup of coffee. He said good morning to them in a dangerously level voice.
Dink said, “Today can I try the water skis? Can I? Judge tried them last time and Dotty Dimbrough does it and she’s only ten and I’m eleven.”
Judge started to say something and then changed his mind. Fletcher looked at them and Jane saw the expression on his face and saw both the children instinctively move back a half step and stand closer together.
Fletcher folded his paper and laid it down. “In the first place, it is considered common courtesy to respond in kind when someone says good morning to you. In the second place, don’t come through the house like a herd of buffalo. In the third place, if we should go to the lake, which is highly doubtful, and if there should be any water skiing, neither of you is going to do any. Is that clear? Now go to your rooms.”
The children left silently. Jane heard Dink’s muffled sob as she went through the door.
“Aw, Fletch!” Jane said in a tone the children couldn’t overhear. “That was awfully rough, darling.”
“They need a good lesson in manners, those two.”
“Not that kind of a lesson.”
He stared at her. “Just what kind of a lesson do you have in mind?”
“Well … fairness, at least. I mean they’ve been up for hours and they’ve been terribly quiet and good, and I told them about going to the lake to take their minds off going to that pool again.”
“They’re not going to that pool.”
“What would you like them to do? Stay nicely in their rooms all day? You want to give them sleeping pills? Darn it, Fletch, be reasonable.”
“Do you want them to get polio?”
“Now you’re trying to get difficult.”
He finished his cup of coffee and stood up. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Don’t you want your second cup?”
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “No thanks. See you.”
He went out and she watched from the living room window while he backed the car out. He turned down the street without waving or looking back. The small cloud had drifted into the center of her mind, and the world was darkened. She hoped he would be contrite enough to phone. And suddenly she became more angry than when he had been the most unpleasant. Just exactly what sort of a little king did he think he was? She walked quickly to the phone before she could change her mind. She phoned Martha Rogers and said, “Martha, dear? Jane. It looks like another stinker of a day and Fletch has gone to the office with the car. I can’t phone him there because it’s Saturday and the switchboard doesn’t work. How about you and I and the three kids going out to call on Dolly Dimbrough and taking a dip in the lake? I can leave a note for Fletch. Hud has to work on Saturdays, doesn’t he?”
“Hey, not so fast, woman! Are you sure the Dimbroughs won’t have company?”
“What if they do? It’s a big lake.”
“Well … then okay. I’ll put beer in that cooler thing. It will take me twenty minutes to get ready and get over there. But let’s not sponge lunch. They’ve got a good little restaurant up there this year, you know.”
Jane hurried and told the children. They cheered up at once and scrambled to get suits and towels. She opened her own drawer and hesitated over the new suit, then decided to take it, as a gesture of defiance. It was made of two scant panels for front and back, and laced up the sides with black. She put it, and sun lotion and dark glasses and cigarettes and a towel, in her beach bag.
Martha Rogers honked in front and the children ran out to get in. Just as she was closing the door Jane heard the phone start to ring. She stood still for a moment and bit her lip. Then she slammed the door a bit harder than necessary and walked down to the car with her head high.
The three children were in the back. Martha’s girl was named Joanna and she was twelve. She and Dink started whispering and giggling at once, while Judge maintained an aloof and haughty male calm.
Martha Rogers said, “Jane Wyant, how on earth do you do it? In that play suit you look about eighteen.”
“A clean life, kid. Gawd, is that lake going to taste good.”
Lake Vernon was only eighteen miles north of town. The last three miles were over a narrow, winding dirt road. It was a small pretty lake surrounded by gentle hills. There were about twenty-five camps ringing the lake and the one belonging to the Dimbroughs was the most impressive. Before the war Hank Dimbrough had been the owner of a rather small automobile agency. During the war he had branched out into machine tools, and later into scrap. The standard word around Minidoka was, “Ole Hank made himself a pile, boy.” He still maintained the agency, but he was seldom there.
> They went down the drive and Martha said, “Good! No strangers.”
They piled out and hammered on the door. The cars were there, but there was no response. They went around the camp and down to the big dock that extended out into the lake. Tanned forms were prone and supine on the weathered boards. Children splashed around in the shallows. Far out on the blue water a slim girl was being towed on the water skis.
Jane firmly fought her sensation of guilt and disloyalty. She said, “Hi there, suckers. You would have a place so close to the city.”
Hank lifted his long narrow head, shaded his eyes and said, “By God, it’s a mirage. I was just thinking about a tall beautiful blonde and there she is. And don’t move anybody, or it’ll go away.”
Dolly sat up and said, “Darlings! We love you. What a tan you’ve got, Martha! Hello, Joanna, Judge, Dink. You kids go on up to the house and change so you can get in the water. Have a cocktail, darlings, before you change.”
They went down to the dock. There were two strange young men, very husky and very young men, with surprising poise for their age. Hank said, “My lambs, we have here some talent from State University. Footballers. My nefoo is running the boat, trying to dunk his intended in the drink out there. He brought these two mammoths here on a house visit. They all go to work on a road job next week to keep muscular during the off season. Boys, Mrs. Rogers and Mrs. Wyant. Martha and Jane, to keep it formal. Girls, the big one is Steve Lincoln, and the bigger one is Sam Rice.”
The one named Sam Rice was truly vast. He had startling shoulders and he narrowed down to cowhand hips. His legs were long and lithe and powerful. He had a small-boy grin, butch-cut brown hair, and he looked at Jane with such bold and uncompromising admiration and speculation that she was annoyed to feel herself blush.
She said, knowing she was babbling to cover her confusion, “Do you boys drink too? I thought they kept you on rules or something.”
“Gee,” said Sam Rice, not taking his eyes from her, “we drink and we dance and tell jokes and laugh like anything. Actually, Mrs. Wyant, this is a break in training. I’m working up to big black cigars.”
“He’s our pet wolf,” Steve Lincoln said proudly. Lincoln was dark, and built like a piece of road machinery. “Don’t even talk to him, Mrs. Wyant. He’s what they call disarming.”
Still without taking his eyes from Jane, Sam Rice jabbed suddenly at Steve’s face, his palm open. Steve whooped and went sprawling off the dock to send up a geyser of water, most of which landed on Martha.
Both boys were immediately apologetic. Steve climbed puffing out of the lake and tried to dab at Martha with a towel. Just then the big fast boat came swinging back by the dock. Jane remembered Hank’s nephew as an overgrown boy named Dick something. He waved at them. The girl on the skis released the tow bar and came skimming toward the shallow water. She had timed it beautifully. When she was in a foot of water she lost all momentum and the skis sank under her weight.
She was a dark, vital-looking girl, a bit too heavy in the hips and legs. She slung the skis up onto the dock and said, “Yow, my legs. He kept hitting our own wake at an angle. Who’s next? You go next, Steve.”
She came up on the dock and was introduced. Dick brought the boat back and stood up and tossed the tow bar to Steve. He said, “Yell when the rope is just about taut, hambone.”
“You just drive your little boat, sonny,” Steve bellowed.
Steve sat on the end of the dock, braced and ready. He yelled as the rope came taut, and Dick gunned the boat. Steve went down onto his heels on the skis and wobbled dangerously, then came up triumphantly, skimming fast over the water. He cut expertly out of the wake, waved back at the dock.
Dolly Dimbrough said, “Jane, Sam Rice would be real competition for you. He’s good on the darn things.”
“Hey!” Sam Rice said. “You know how?”
“She’s good at everything, darn it,” Dolly said. “Me, I haven’t stood up on the damn things yet.”
“Go change, then,” Sam said, “and we’ll have some fun.”
Jane, on impulse, gave him a lofty eyebrow. “Change, my dear boy? Whatever for? I’ll change when I go swimming. When I ski, I don’t swim.”
She saw the clear, bright, competitive look in his eye and knew at once that this boy who was ten, or eleven, or twelve years younger than she took the same quick joy in contest as she did. He turned away from her and said, “Hank, you said you had another set of skis and a rope and tow bar?”
“Over in the pump house, son. Only watch that woman. She’ll try to drown you.”
Sam Rice got the other pair of skis. Steve had been spilled far out in the lake. He got back up onto the skis again from deep water. Jane, watching him, felt the exciting thudding of her heart. She drained the chill cocktail from a paper cup and accepted half of a refill. Martha Rogers had gone up to change. Jane watched her children in the water. Judge wallowed along in happy puppy fashion. Already Dink was developing a crisp, clean crawl.
As the big boat came booming back Steve Lincoln swung wide to pick up speed and let go of the tow bar as he came opposite the boat. He went around in a wide curve, edging the heavy skis, and ended at the end of the dock just in time to turn with heavy grace and plant his hips on the edge. He grinned at the involuntary applause.
Sam signaled Dick in with the boat and explained that he was going to tow two this time. Dick’s girl got in the boat with him. Sam fastened the two ropes at the two corners of the transom and tugged them tight. Jane sat on the end of the dock and worked her bare feet into the rubber harness. Sam sat beside her and handed her a tow bar and put his own skis on.
“Are there any special rules?” Jane asked sweetly.
“Dick and Deena will be the judges. Okay, kids? The award to the fanciest performance, and a bath to the loser.”
“Hope you brought your soap,” Jane said.
“I love that overconfidence, Mrs. Wyant. After I dunk you I’ll have no more respect and I can call you Jane.”
“Let’s roll!” Dick yelled, and the big boat moved slowly away from the dock, the exhaust burbling powerfully. Jane gave Sam Rice a quick grin. Slowly the rope tautened.
“Yo!” Sam roared and the big motor blasted and the boat lifted up onto its step and Jane leaned back, crouching against the hard yank on her arms. And then they were both skimming out, side by side. The sense of great speed was exhilarating. The hard wind flattened the white play suit against the lines of her body. In a very short time the speed boat was up to full speed. Jane worked the skis to test the fit of the rubber bindings, veered out to her right away from Sam, crouched and jumped the wake slapping the skis hard. The wind fluttered the short flared pant legs of the play suit.
She smiled over at Sam. She saw him laugh but could not hear the sound. She saw him shorten the tow rope, then cut across the wake toward her. She sensed that he was going to try to grab her tow rope ahead of her bar. She cut sharply in toward him, lifting her bar high. He gave a quick startled look, and ducked barely in time and she rode far out on the side where he had been, laughing over at him. Their ropes were now crossed. She shortened her rope a bit, nodded at him, and swung in. They performed the same maneuver and then again, taking turns passing under the other’s rope, and it became a sort of a dance rather than a competition. They rode side by side. She put the tow bar behind her neck, rode with her hands on her hips. He did the same, then worked the bar down to the small of his back, his body through the triangle of bar and rope. She laughed aloud and did the same and worked the bar down to the backs of her knees, leaned back against it, feeling a little chill of fear as she realized that if she spilled in that position, it might ruin her legs forever. She laughed over at him as he did the same. His face was changing, the bones looked more prominent, ridges of muscle standing out on his jaw.
They had made a wide sweep of the lake and they were heading back toward the dock. They both slid the tow bars up and held them normally. She laughed at him again and pointed
down at her feet and kicked off one ski as they passed the dock. She saw him do the same and then look over at her. She crouched and balanced carefully and worked her foot out of the bindings. She had never tried this before, but she had wondered if she could do it. She balanced with one foot ahead and one foot behind the rubber bindings. The ski veered dangerously and she caught herself just in time. She stood on the balls of her feet and then, with infinite caution, turned slowly until she could set her heels down again, her feet reversed on the skis, the tow bar behind her. She slid her right foot down and wedged it into the bindings, then slowly raised her left foot behind her, hooked her heel over the middle of the tow bar, let go with both hands and rode that way for five seconds, backwards, on one ski, her arms outstretched, bent forward from the waist, before she felt herself going. She hit the water hard, plunging down into green depths, then surfacing, shaking the water out of her eyes, bruised and breathless from the impact. She swam over to the single ski. The boat turned in the distance and she saw it coming back toward her at full speed. It was towing Sam Rice. His position was awkward. He was on one ski and tentatively bracing his free foot in the water. The rigid foot sent up a high gout of spray. And then she gasped as she saw him put more and more of the weight on his free foot and kick off the other ski. The tremendous water resistance slowed the big boat. Yet he rode that way, at a perilous angle, skiing on his bare feet. She had heard of it, but had never seen it done. The strain made the muscles across his back stand out like hard cables. As he went by, his face was a mask of strain and then, fifty feet from her he overcompensated for the drag and fell backward.
He came up and she heard his hard laugh and he came over to her, swimming powerfully.
He grinned at her. “One ski, no skis. How about us?”
“Exhibitionists, Sam. That’s what we are. Who won?”
“We both dunked. I can’t do what you did, God, that was lovely!”
“And I can’t do what you just did, Sam.”
“All that takes is brute strength and awkwardness, Jane. Dick is going to collect the skis we left all over the lake. You’re quite a gal. You ought to get yourself a job down at Cypress Gardens. I call it a draw.”
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