Rita called the priest from the airport on Sunday morning to thank him for all his help.
“It will be so wonderful down there in the sun. We’re all looking forward to it.”
“All?”
“Brian and the kiddies and I.”
“I thought the kids were staying with Kate.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that to her.” A tone of voice that implied that the second honeymoon was an adolescent fantasy which no one had taken seriously. “Besides, Brian won’t have much time for the kiddies in the next six months. So I think it’s only fair to give him a chance to enjoy them now.”
Too much intimacy, the priest thought. She’s lost her nerve.
And I’ve lost them.
Stranger
She was almost too thin. Maybe naturally slender, more likely underweight. Worry, perhaps. There was anxiety in her dark brown eyes. None of his business. He’d already had enough trouble with lovely, lonely women for a couple of lifetimes.
Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She walked with the confident grace that hinted at professional training, well aware that her form-fitting black swimming suit revealed a superb figure, however much a few extra pounds might have marginally improved it.
He forced himself to look away. He had not come for romance, nor for a vacation, but for a lecture at the university. A Sunday afternoon under the sun was not intended to exorcise the middle-western cold but rather to give him time to finish the talk. Virtuously he put a red pencil mark through an obscure paragraph of his text.
The pool was in a grass courtyard formed by a newer horseshoe-shaped ring of motel rooms, each with a sliding-glass door opening on the lawn. The room was more expensive than it should have been; there was no view save of the line of pink bungalows across the canal. He was willing to pay his hosts’ money for it because he assumed it would be more private than a fashionable resort; and privacy was what he wanted this hot Sunday afternoon. The management had gone out of its way to correct for the poor view. The court was filled with flowering plants and citrus trees. The sweet smell of blossoms assaulted his sinuses. It made him look at the girl again.
Twenty-seven or twenty-eight probably, no rings on her fingers. Not a native. Her pale skin would have tanned quickly if she were. Why stay at this obscure if comfortable hotel by the canal away from the lights of the city? She had come from a room directly across the courtyard from his. What was she doing here?
Virtue yielded to curiosity. She was in a poolside chair next to the canal, sufficiently far away to indicate that she desired no conversation with him. The old couple at the other end were the only other ones at the pool. She wanted to be alone. She slid the straps of her suit off her shoulders, anointed herself with oil, and settled back to read. What do mysterious strangers read?
He went back to his paper. It had to be good. There would be just enough skeptical and influential people to make trouble if he should fumble. The tone of the paper was far too pompous.
The easiest way to find out what she was reading was to swim by her in the pool. Besides, he needed to cool off. He noted that she did not even look up when he dove into the pool—I could have been an Olympic diver, young woman, do you realize that?
He peeked quickly at the books as he swam by her. Sense and Sensibility? Were the other paperbacks next to her also Jane Austen? Who reads Jane Austen at the side of the swimming pool on a Sunday afternoon? Was she part of the university? No. If she were, she would be reading Kurt Vonnegut or John Gardner.
She wasn’t all that beautiful, he told himself as he climbed out of the pool, hurt that she seemed unaware of his existence. Just the typically well-engineered young American woman. The country was filled with such types—curly brown hair, standard measurements, nice legs, muscles firmed as was fashionable now by Nautilus or some equivalent torture machine, fine wrinkles around the eyes. But why such fear in those eyes?
None of his business at all, he insisted mentally as he wrapped a towel around himself and relaxed in his chair. Perfectly ordinary woman, even if she did read Jane Austen and even if her breasts were lovely.
“Why do men always check out a woman’s breasts?” Monica had demanded.
“We’re programmed to do so,” he had replied promptly. “By evolution or, if you want, by God. It keeps the species going.”
“It’s embarrassing to women.”
“If men ever lost interest in women’s breasts, humankind would not last a generation.”
“That’s bestial.”
He had given up on the argument. Later he would give up on Monica. The cost of making his contribution to the continuation of humankind with her would have been too high. Maybe with anyone. Maybe he was not suited for mating.
He pried his eyes away from the breasts of the girl at the side of the pool. He had played knight errant rescuing troubled damsels once too often. There were more important things which had to be done in his life. Even it if were the time for another romantic fling, it would have to be with someone sensible and down to earth. No more great adventures.
She put the straps back on her shoulders, stood at the edge of the pool for a breathtaking moment, then dove gracefully into the water. All right, she had a good kick. All-American girl. Still, she and her problems were none of his business. He excised another ponderous paragraph.
He didn’t count the number of lengths she swam. So, she’s in good condition, too. She climbed out of the pool, shook her curly brown hair, and wrapped a towel around her shoulders. Actually it was quite an excellent body. The first twinge of desire embarrassed him. Back to the paper, this time seriously. Poolside pickups were for teenagers. Why did she seem so preoccupied? Of what was she afraid? Marvelous shoulders, too …
The sun was scorching hot. Not a leaf in the palm trees moved. The only sound was the hum of traffic on the highway the other side of the motel. Sunday didn’t seem right without The New York Times. He was thirsty … a beer … no, not in this state on Sunday. He walked to the Pepsi machine at the other end of the pool. She was wearing large sunglasses, reading again, absorbed in the problems of tough-minded Ninteenth Century. Was the worried frown for their problems or hers? He warned his imagination to put her swimsuit back on. He had work to do.
She had certainly given no sign of awareness of his presence. He was not, after all, that unpresentable. Damn … he was too old to be thinking like a high-school sophomore.
A large white cabin cruiser, thirty feet at least, eased into the pier beneath the motel. Skillful seamanship. The Dora May. Who was Dora May? He was glad of the distraction. There were two men on the boat, one white-haired, slight, unshaven, the other much younger, big, noisy. A former pro-football player going slightly to seed in the business world?
There was conversation on the patio next to the dock. He could hear it but not see the participants. A successful fishing expedition. Hooray for them. The big man was called Tony.
Tony came up the steps, beer can in hand, dirty white windbreaker over his trunks. He put the beer can on a table near the young woman and plunged like a comic porpoise into the pool, splashing water dangerously close to the morrow’s precious paper. The girl with the brown hair ignored Tony just as definitively as she had ignored him.
Tony managed only a few lengths before he was back to the security of his beer can. Then he saw her. He stood watching her like a critic in an art museum, tenderly evaluating a masterpiece, untroubled by any doubts that the masterpiece wanted to be evaluated. He sat on the chair next to her. They were too far away for him to hear Tony’s soft, persuasive words. The girl paid no attention to him. Once she shook her head decisively. Tony took her hand. The low intense tone of his voice just barely carried to the other end of the pool.
He felt his fingers tighten on the red pencil. Neither the girl nor Tony cared about his presence. The old couple was gone. It was still none of his business. Tony must have considerable success with women. The girl withdrew her hand, picked up her purse, suntan oil,
and books, and walked calmly back to her room across the pool. The Christian princess coolly walking away from the overawed barbarian. From the rear she was just as attractive as from the front—still a little too thin, though.
Tony tossed his beer can in a trash container and returned to the Dora May, shaking his head in disbelief. The heavens were being told that such an astonishing event didn’t happen often.
All would have been well if it had not been for the look of pain in the girl’s eyes when she walked by him. He put aside his paper and furiously attacked the waters of the pool. While he swam, she appeared in a short white robe to hang her swimming suit on a table by the sliding door of her room. Extremely nice legs. He imagined how smooth they would be to touch, how soft to stroke. Intolerable fantasy. He abandoned his backstroke for a fierce crawl.
He didn’t like air-conditioning in resorts. Why come to a warm place only to cool off? But he shut the sliding door of his room, drew the blinds, and turned the air-conditioning on full blast. Just to make sure of himself, he locked the door. By four o’clock, he had revised half the talk and thought of those pain-racked eyes and slender white legs no more than he had lamented a Sunday afternoon without The New York Times.
The problem was loneliness. He had resolved after his foolish adventure with Monica had collapsed into low comedy that he must work on his career for several years before risking involvement again. He would stay away from lovely women who needed help. It worked. In the year and a half he had finished one book, got well into another, and published four major papers. If you kept busy enough, you hardly noticed the wrenching vacancy in your life. Not having someone with whom to share your achievements was much worse than not having someone with whom to share your bed.
You lost yourself when you began to be tender to someone else. You only realized the pleasures of such a loss when you didn’t have them. Most of the time you could pretend the loneliness wasn’t there by keeping busy. It caught up with you occasionally like someone had hit you in the head with a brick. Sunday afternoons at almost-empty resort motels turned out to be very lonely situations. He should have known better.
So you went to bed and slept heavily. Then you dressed for supper and took only one covert look at the drawn drapes of her room on your way to the dining room. Was she, too, killing the pain of loneliness by sleeping? How did he know it was loneliness which caused her pain? Empty resort motels on Sunday afternoons were only a danger if you had a hyperactive imagination.
The motel had been elegant and exclusive once, probably in the forties just after the war when its location between the highway and the canal was thought to be desirable. It had faded, but the nearness of the university had saved it from collapse. The dining room was impeccably clean, the Cuban hostess and waitresses neat and prim, the flowers on each white tablecloth fresh. The prices of the meals left no doubt the old girl was still a paragon of respectability. He chose the indoor dining room because it was empty. The older couples on the patio in the fading light of day would make him feel sad. He turned to the second half of his paper. The clean, cool air of the dining room was a reassuring contrast to the steamy poolside.
He did not look up from his paper until the young Cuban girl brought him his salad. His poolside companion was sitting only two tables away, dressed in an expensively simple white dress, her hair carefully combed, her makeup precise. She still seemed unaware of his existence. The eyes were still anxious, the brow still frowning. Her chin was propped up by delicate fingers. What was on her mind? He felt a quick rush of desire, then returned to the final pages of his paper.
She came to his table with the main course, speaking only after she was already seated. “Do you mind if I join you for supper? Our friend from this afternoon is in the bar, and I would like to have him think I made other arrangements.”
He felt as if his boat had just gone over the edge of a waterfall—an elegantly scented waterfall at that. “Be my guest,” he stumbled.
There were freckles on her nose up close, an imperfection which made her even more attractive. There was one more button open on her dress than was necessary. He restrained his urge to stare. She was old-fashioned enough to be wearing a bra, even if it was something less than opaque. He had to finish the paper, he told himself, banishing the spasm of pleasure which a quick thought of undressing her produced.
“A lecture at the university?” she asked. A light pleasant voice. Again, standard American-girl voice with only faint hints of something more mysterious. So she had been watching him this afternoon as closely as he had been watching her. Damn women, they were so much better at it than men.
“I’ve got to get it revised tonight,” he said apologetically, pulling his boat back up the waterfall and avoiding her eyes. He preferred the previous pain to the laughter which was lurking there now.
“I won’t distract you,” she said softly, and began to eat the sole which the Cuban girl had brought to the table.
He munched on his roast beef and continued to make red pencil marks until Tony showed up. A lot more beer had followed the contents of the can discarded at poolside.
“Honey, you could do a lot better than this creep,” he began ingratiatingly.
“Please,” the girl said. There was terror in her eyes, more terror than a pig like Tony justified. There was something wrong with this whole scene.
“Why don’t you go away, little fella?” Presumably Tony was talking to him. In a fair fight Tony would smash him to pieces. Of course, he had no intention of letting it become a fair fight. He hoped Tony would not make it too difficult. He did not want to kill him. He looked around the room. Three witnesses: the girl (probably unreliable) and the two Cubans (intelligent but frightened on the witness stand). It had to be clear beyond any doubt that Tony struck the first couple of blows. The university wouldn’t appreciate the publicity at all.
“You’d better go away, Tony,” he said firmly, his eyes locking hard on Tony’s eyes. “The woman has made her wishes known. There’s no accounting for taste.”
Tony muttered a few obscenities about the two of them and slunk back to the patio bar outside. He mentally sighed with relief. The look had worked on other occasions. No reason to let the girl know he had been scared.
“You frightened him away.” Her smile was soft and warm with affection. For a moment he thought of her naked body in bed with him. Then he quickly banished the lovely image. “If I could frighten him off, he scares easily.”
The girl was certainly sensitive to signals. She was silent until he finished his meal, signed the check, and picked up his paper. “Thank you very much.” She rose with him. “If we just go out the door together…”
They did. The humid air was like a solid wall. The glare of the sun made them both squint. The Dora May was no longer at the pier. Tony had withdrawn from the scene of his defeat. She thanked him again as he entered the inside corridor to his room. He smiled. “Any time.” She would be very good in bed, shy and modest at first and then a real challenge.… He had to go over the paper again.
The light was not on in her room across the courtyard. He turned off his air conditioner, opened the drapes and the sliding-glass door, and with a Coke in one hand and the protective red pencil in the other, he lay on the bed in his shorts, working through the manuscript for the final time. He did not look out the door once.
It was a few minutes to ten when he finished. As he turned on the TV he permitted himself a glance across the courtyard. Orange lights like Chinese lanterns around the swimming pool. The bushes created grotesque shadows. The pool glowed invitingly. Only one other room seemed occupied … hers, of course. The door was open, the thin sun drapes were stirring in the night breeze. He turned off the TV and strode out onto the soft, wet grass. The air was cool, too cool to be crossing the lawn in your shorts, but to hell with it. The scent of flowers seemed to scream at him.
She was sitting at a table, her back to the window, writing rapidly with a maroon-colored pen. A sheaf of paper
s was at her elbow. So she was left-handed. Her thin nightdress was cut low in the back. His heart did a slow, lazy spin. Her thin shoulder blades moving in rhythm with the pen looked weak and vulnerable. He could almost feel the back of her neck. The door was wide open in invitation, the translucent curtains heightening the mystery of the invitation.
It was the curtains, fragile cloth that they were, which stopped him. It was all too easy. Beautiful women like her, however lonely, do not offer themselves that easily to strange men on a Sunday evening at a resort motel. Was Tony part of the stage setting? Or was he a helpful accident? The woman had troubles. That was too bad, but he wanted untroubled women for the rest of his life.
Still he hesitated. A strap had fallen off her ivory shoulder. A man might touch and caress and kiss that shoulder for the rest of his life and never grow weary of it. He knew that she was his for the taking—no, his for the asking—and might be for the rest of his life if he wanted her that long. Demanding lust and tender affection fought within his soul. Tenderness won. He would take care of her always, just as he had done in the restaurant.
He told himself that the emotions he was feeling were nothing more than shallow lust. Might they not, however, mature into love? Love sufficient to bind him to her for a half century? She seemed to be the sort of woman who would wear well in every respect, did she not?
How could anyone live with the same woman for a half century?
You think too much, Monica had told him. Maybe I do. I was capable of action once, Monica. No, he had not said that. He had told no one about that era in his life.
I’m thinking now. I’m thinking about spending my life with a woman I don’t know. That’s a crazy thought.
The bed near the desk where she was furiously scribbling had been slept in. Her afternoon nap? As lonely as his? Her sleep tonight would be equally lonely. He turned around and with unaccountably sinking heart walked back to his own room. It was surprisingly easy to go to sleep. He found no need to explain intellectually why he had refused the invitation.
All About Women Page 34