Butterflies in Heat (29 page)

"No more than you are," she said. "Let's face it. You consider yourself old ."

A look of alarm crossed his face. He reached for sunglasses. The savage glare of the sun was too much for him.

"I'm always thinking I'm old," she went on. "But isn't
it
stupid?"

"In your case, very," he said.

"I don't feel old."

"And why should you?" he asked.

"The world when
it
looks at me makes me feel old."

"I'm the world," he said, "and I'm looking at you. And age is the last thought on my mind." He lay back and closed his eyes. The sunglasses were providing a shield against reality for him. But then on their glass a film of his fleeting youth, speeding life started flashing before him. Opening his eyes wide, he still couldn't get rid of those pictures.

"I often wonder what it's going to be like when I'm older," she said. "I know I'm pretty good looking right now. But what will happen in a few years?"

He grabbed some of her beer and drank thirstily from the mug.

"I see those older women up on the mainland panting after young studs," she continued, oblivious to his rising agitation. "And the way they're treated in return. Those bastards like to make the old gals not only pick up the tabs, but crawl while they're doing it."

Her haunting eyes were staring at him, but he lay back on the mat—hoping to become indistinguishable in the white glare.

"I sit by the pool day after day, feeling the world passing me by," she said.

Her entire conversation was unbearable to him.
It
was he who was feeling the world passing by, but he didn't want to be reminded. He hoped to find escape with her, not this torture.

"I see myself getting old at Sacre-Coeur, sharing a cold brother-sister relationship with Ralph," she said.

He swallowed hard. That prospect did not entice him either. "After thirty in life, one starts taking the leavings," he said. After he'd said it, he didn't know if he really meant it.
It
was something to say.

"But are the leavings all that bad?" she asked, sitting up and staring intently at him with her large eyes.

He didn't say anything at first. Had he insulted her? He wasn't sure what she was asking ... and why. "I guess I've automatically given in to the world's retiring me while I'm in my prime. Never thought I'd have much chance fighting back."

"But you've got most of your life facing you," she said, still intent with her gaze. "Of course, you can't go on playing chicken to a lot of youth-starved perverts."

For some reason, this statement angered him.
It
was an anger directed not so much at her, but at his increasing frustration in life. "Yeah," he said, "well, just what is waiting for me?"

"You can be yourself for a change and find out what that's all about."

Before he could reply, or even think about that, Ralph was at the poolside, slowly sipping a glass of Scotch. "Hope I'm interrupting something."

Anne was angry and wasn't trying to conceal it. She was also acting guilty. "I see my philandering husband has finally returned home for his supper."

Ralph's eyes were on fire. "My neglected wife seems to be doing okay for herself." He eyed Numie, softening his glare

"Hi."

"Good to see you," Numie said, covering himself better with his towel.

In one quick plunge, Anne cast her towel aside and was back in the pool, swimming deep this time and emerging at the other end. "Come and join me, Ralph," she called. "We've both seen you nude before."

"Forget it!" Ralph called back. "She's really into this nudity thing." Then, remembering, he added, "Guess you are, too, up to a point."

"It doesn't bother me," Numie said. "I used to think we learn it from our parents. But that's not true. My mama had sex with her clothes on."

Ralph sat down on a chair near Numie. "I saw my mother naked—or partially naked—only once. She didn't know I was home, and she came barging out of her bedroom into the living room, her bathrobe swinging open. I saw her breasts before she spotted me. She actually screamed. Can you imagine?"

"Why?" Numie asked, genuinely puzzled.

"Then she said the strangest thing. She told me if my father ever found out about this, he'd beat me to within an inch of my life. What had I done? I was just sitting there."

Numie was enjoying this confidence, yet at the same time he was resenting Ralph. He felt he had been building a mood with Anne. Now it was ruined. Ralph brought out the bitch in her.

Dripping wet, Anne was beside them.

Ralph turned and gave her a hostile look. "Dammit," he said, "put some clothes on.
If
you could see how disgusting you look."

Numie winced.

"Disgusting to you, maybe," Anne retorted. "Numie told me I have a very lovely body." Reluctantly, she reached for her towel, wrapping it around herself again.

Ralph stared at Numie.

Numie didn't say anything, but lay back, closing his eyes, not wanting to get involved in a triangle, but moving deeper and deeper into it. When he opened his eyes again, he looked at Anne. She was drying her hair and itching for a fight.

Seeing she had Numie's attention, she said, "When Ralph and I got married, I don't think he'd ever seen a woman completely nude before."

"What I'd seen or hadn't seen was none of your damn business," Ralph said, finishing his drink.

Anne was persistent, the same way she'd been about Lola. "After a few weeks, I got Ralph to playa little game with me. He didn't want to, guess I forced the issue."

"As you're inclined to do from time to time," Ralph said sarcastically.

"I thought I could break down his disgust at looking at the female body," she said. "We started watching television, and getting our dinner, completely nude. But the experiment never worked. To this day, Ralph can't look at me without repugnance showing in his face." With this she dropped the towel, letting it cascade to the ground. Before both men, she was completely naked.

Numie was seeking some excuse to leave, but couldn't find one. Once again he felt trapped, the way he was with Leonora and Joan. Ralph and Anne actually wanted him here.

"You even forced me to touch you," Ralph accused, practically spitting out his words.

"Since when does a wife have to force her husband to touch her?"

"It
wasn't to be that kind of marriage," Ralph countered.

"That's for damn sure," Anne agreed. She turned to Numie. "Ralph did try, I must say. We had a few experiments, but they were disastrous."

"I don't care to have my sexual inadequacies discussed in public," Ralph said, picking up his empty glass.

Wistfully, and very unrealistically, Numie was still hoping for a late reprieve from this conversation.

"I'm sure Numie knows more about you sexually than I ever will," Anne said.

"Cut it out," Numie said. She was really making him angry.

At first she seemed surprised that he'd reprimanded her. Somehow she'd been counting on his support. Then, looking at both men in front of her, she added, almost under her
breath,
"If
only Nick were alive."

Impulsively, Ralph crashed his empty glass on the bricks around the pool. "NickI" he shouted.
"If
I hear his name one more time ... just one more time. I've warned you"

Numie got up. To hell with both of them. He was leaving for more peaceful oases.

"Just a minute," Ralph called to him, grabbing Numie by the shoulder. "Did she tell you about her precious Nick?"

Numie turned back, glaring. "I think she might have mentioned him," he said.

"I
bet
she mentioned him," Ralph charged. "The love of her life. Let me tell you about the love of her life."

Numie tried to break away, but Ralph held him firmly.

"If
you tell that awful lie," Anne shouted. "I'll take something and strike you. Don't listen to him, Numie. It's a lie. "

He sensed her rising panic.

She put her hands to her mouth and started running from the pool. "It's a lie! A lie!"

Again, Numie tried to leave, but Ralph practically pushed him into a chair. "Hey, cut
it
out, man," Numie said. "I'd better go help her."

"She doesn't need your help," Ralph said. "That great love, that Nick, was a fantasy. Sure, she was married to a Nick. A cheap hood from Brooklyn."

"Come on," Numie urged, "I'm not into life histories."

Ralph totally ignored him. "Leonora and I found out all anyone needed to know about Nick. Even Anne broke down one night and told us what he did to her, the love of her life."

"Listen, I've already told you, I don't want to hear it." Numie settled back, shutting his eyes, as
if
that would blot out Ralph. "I long ago learned, and you should know
it
by now, don't take people's illusions away."

"But I'm always being unfavorably compared to that gangster," Ralph protested.

"Let her keep the memory," Numie said. "It's probably all she has."

Ralph got up and walked around to the other side of the pool. He put his hands on a railing and looked into the
deepening shadows of the garden. His voice was tired when he spoke.
"Love of her life
one night brought three guys home with him when they had an apartment in the Bronx."

Numie smiled forlornly. Somehow he knew the end of the story. He was deeply sorry for Anne, sorry she'd never really had anything.

"Then this Nick stripped nude right in front of everybody," Ralph continued. "Knocked hell out of Anne, and demanded she blow him. When she refused, he kicked her in the belly."

Numie was experiencing Anne's pain.

"She was pregnant," Ralph said, "and that led to a miscarriage. Even though she was screaming with pain, he fucked her while the other guys watched, then held her down while they took turns."

The memory of catching Lisa in bed with her lover flashed through Numie's mind. That was his emotional outrage. Anne had known worse.

Ralph's hands dropped to his side, and he looked up to the still blazing sun. "That's Nick! That's the love of her life!"

The afternoon was slowly fading, the sun sinking. The lights in the pool and around the patio were turned on. In a robe, Numie was thinking Sacre-Coeurwas much like a stage setting. Unreal, somehow.

On his fifth Scotch for the day, Ralph joined Numie at poolside. "Sure you won't have another drink?" he asked.

"No, my limit for the day" Ralph's glass looked reassuring. "Leonora has put a limit on my booze."

"Fuck her!" Ralph said.
"I'll
get you another drink." He started to get up.

Numie motioned for him to sit down. "I don't need any more." He placed his hand on the back of his neck to massage a sudden pain. "I've got to be joining Lola at the bar."

Ralph sighed. "That's what I want to talk to you about. I think you should leave Lola."

Numie forced himself to laugh. "I think I should leave, too, but I need the bread."

The shadows were now creeping across the garden. At the top of a set of stairs, the single bulb of a Spanish lamp was turned on. A dark figure moved along the loggia.

Unbuttoning his tie, Ralph said, "This sounds crazy coming from me, but I've been thinking about settling down."

Numie was startled.

"I've spent most of my life cruising," Ralph went on, "and it's leading nowhere. I'm beginning to want something more permanent."

His drunken, yet steady, gaze was causing Numie acute discomfort.

"Like, I find myself in bed reaching over and secretly wishing someone was there"

"We all wish that," Numie said, still embarrassed to be talking this personally with Ralph.

Getting up and pacing the patio in circles, Ralph said, "Okay, so that person doesn't love me as much as I could love him. I'm aware of that, for Christ's sake. I can live with that."