Cancel All Our Vows (11 page)

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.”

“Okay, Sam. A draw.”

There was something about the vital young strength of him that made her feel absurdly girlish. She looked at him and knew that her face had shown too much and that this was not a young man with whom you turned the cards face up. He moved closer to her in the water and put a big hand on her waist and pulled her over against him. She was conscious of the way the play suit was plastered to her, of how the cold of the water had made her nipples swell, sharp against the thin wet fabric.

She put her hand on his big square wrist and tried to push his hand away. “Don’t be a damn fool, Sam. Good Lord, I’m …”

“Old enough to be my mother. I doubt that. Look, dear, a whole lake all to ourselves.”

“They’re watching us. Now stop! I mean it!”

“Jane, you’re the nicest thing I’ve seen, anywhere.”

She turned suddenly away from him, spinning in the water, moving away to tread water and stare at him with what she hoped was severity.

“Don’t get carried away. I’ve got two kids there at the dock. I don’t think you’re more than six or seven years older than my boy. Now don’t handle me. I don’t like it.”

He smiled ruefully. “That’s the hell of it, Jane. When I find what I want, it turns out I was born just a little too late. Or you came along too soon.”

“The cry of the junior wolf.”

“Come on up and I’ll show you my merit badges, honey.”

“Fool!”

“At least you’re smiling again. I like that smile. Look, this is vacation. A nice day. Nice people. A nice place. Fair warning, now. I’m after you.”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“It certainly won’t hurt me any, and I know it won’t do you any harm. A little bonus for both of us, and nobody talks, and who knows about it but you and me.”

“That’s pretty damn direct and insulting. What gets into
you kids these days? Good Lord, when I was in college nobody ever had the nerve to come right out and …”

“Don’t get yourself in a froth, dear. Pretty soon you’ll start talking about the nasty moral standards of the new generation. What’s nasty, dear? Asking for it like a civilized human being, or mooching around and trying to sneak up on it? The result is the same, but the anticipation is better. And just think how well co-ordinated we both are. Now slap my sassy face.”

“Stop grinning like an idiot. What gives you the right to talk to me as if I was cheap enough to … to play around with a college boy?”

“You did.”

“How on earth …”

“You said people were watching, Jane. That was your first reaction. So it makes me wonder what happens when we get where nobody is watching.”

“Two-bit psychology, and it’s all wrong. Now get away. Don’t touch me again. Here comes the boat.”

The boat came up and Dick took it out of gear and it rocked near them burbling softly. Deena called to them, “We decided it was a tie.”

“So did we,” Sam said. “We decided she’s going to try to ride back on my shoulders. So after she gets on my skis, pull her tow rope in, hey?”

“I am not!” Jane said in a low heated tone.

Sam gave her a look of blank amazement, and said in a low voice, “Darling, this is for the amusement of the people, not us.”

“I won’t do it,” she said.

She recovered her other ski, put it on, got herself in position in the water, ski tips elevated, Sam beside her. The boat started up and they came dripping up out of the water, skimming along as before.

Sam swooped near her and before she could move away, he grasped her tow bar. He yelled into her ear, “I’ll shorten my rope and you put one ski between mine.” He moved forward, holding onto her rope as well as his. Then he let himself back toward her and she had to slide one ski between his or be spilled. He reached back and took her tow bar and twisted it. When she knew she had to let go,
she grabbed wildly at his waist He dropped her bar and Deena reeled in the rope.

He yelled back over his shoulder, “Get on my skis.”

“I know how, dammit,” she said. She kicked her skis off, one at a time, and was standing on his skis, her feet behind his. He squatted and she held his shoulders, got on him piggyback, then worked her way up, swinging her right leg over his right shoulder first, then swinging the left leg up. She hooked her feet back around him, let go of his head and balanced there, sullenly angry at him and at herself, but smiling for the benefit of the admiring Dick and Deena. Once she was firmly balanced, Sam began to cut slowly back and forth across the wake.