Players (18 page)

“Ethan is responsible for me. He is willing to be that. He accepts.”

“Jack, it’s all right.”

“I’m in no mood to start things with Ethan right now. He accepts, whatever it is. My whole life. He is willing to be responsible.”

She realized she’d had that look on her face, briefly, gazing out at the windjammer, that dumb smile. They headed back through the woods, finding the right dirt road only after a period of some confusion, a brief disagreement over landmarks.

After the rain she sat with Ethan by the fire. At this angle, in his deep chair, he appeared to be asleep. She walked away from the light source and opened, a side door just enough to thrust her face out into the night. The force of it, the snap of damp pine, was enough to startle her. Points of bioluminescence were evident nearby, fireflies bouncing on the air, thimblefuls of abdominal light. She noted a faint odor of decomposition, bayside. When she slid the door shut her face
grew warm immediately. Awareness washed away in layers and she went back to her chair. Ethan got up just long enough to poke a log apart: rekindling and hiss.

“There’s something about your hair tonight. It’s very black and shiny. A Japanese quality. The light, the way it hits.”

“To go with my German mouth.”

“It needs a topknot.”

“What’s his name, the samurai?”

“You should try that, Ethan. A topknot. Back at the office.”

“I do sort of emit a certain feudal menace.”

He prolonged the word “feudal.” Jack came in then. He took off his sweater and tossed it over the back of a chair. He sat on the flagstone hearth that extended about four feet into the room, his gaze directed between his feet. His voice was subdued, blending suggestions of fatalism and studied weariness. He paused often to take deep breaths.

“I saw it again. Out near the car. There’s a gap in the trees. It was right there. I don’t know, two hundred yards away. It was the same one. It was pulsing. Maybe not as bright this time. Greenish. The same green. I could see from near the car right out over the bay. Blue-green light. But solid behind it. An object. The light glowed and pulsed so it was hard to tell the shape the thing was. But it was solid. I knew it. I said it to myself standing there. I was carefuler this time. Color, shape, I kept my mind on it. I said don’t move, keep it in sight. I never moved my head. I don’t remember even blinking. Then it dipped a little and glided up and further out over the bay, going south and west, getting smaller. Then the trees blocked my view and I ran down to the water and I still could see it. Just the light, bluish green, getting small, small, small. Nothing
solid. But before that it was solid. I told myself. I said it standing there. This is light from an object. There’s a thing out there.”

“A turquoise helicopter,” Ethan said.

“The way to attack this,” Pammy said, “is to make a list of all the rational possibilities. Then see what we can eliminate and what we’re left with.”

“But no problem. It’s a turquoise helicopter. Turquoise is the Maine state color.”

“That was a police helicopter.”

“Of course. No mystery whatsoever. Patrolling the bay.”

“Patrolling the bay for UFOs.”

“There’ve been sightings, I understand.”

“I don’t care,” Jack said.

“And which ties right in with the state motto.”

“Turquoise Forever,” she said.

“No, In Turquoise We Trust.”

“But that’s only one rational possibility. We have to list many. Or two at any rate. It’s the government standard.”

“A turquoise pigeon.”

“No, no, come on, has to be different.”

“A fourteen-ton turquoise pigeon breathing heavily.”

“Go right ahead,” Jack said.

“United in Truth, Justice and Turquoise.”

“E Pluribus Turquoise.”

“There’s got to be at least one other possibility,” she said. “The man here claims he saw it. It’s only right we come up with a second interpretation.”

“Saint Elmo’s fire.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m naming the bloody things. Do I have to explain them too?”

“You didn’t explain the turquoise helicopter. I knew right away what you meant.”

“It’s an electrical discharge. A phenomenon that takes place before, during or after storms. I don’t know—choose two. See, you people don’t know the references. Your early years were abortive, Pammy old kid. I could say a shirt with a Mr. B. collar. You’ve no idea, right? So-and-so’s decked out in his Mr. B. collar.”

Jack headed upstairs, reaching for his sweater as he passed the chair, carrying it crumpled, one rust-colored arm brushing the edge of each step as he ascended. It started raining again. Pammy checked a row of paperback books set on a broad shelf between the portable TV and the wall. Mystery, mystery, spy, sex, mystery. The books were old, sepia-toned inside; pages would snap cleanly. Ethan poured a drink and returned to his chair. Proceeding slowly, measuring her steps like an animated toy soldier, heel-walking, she moved to the hearth, sitting where Jack had, a possible token of remorse.

“How upset is he? Is he upset?”

“Jack’s whole life he’s been made to feel expendable.”

“Small things upset him.”

“He takes things as accusations, diminishments. Then he in turn accuses, often privately, going off to sulk. I think he condemns his surroundings as much as anything. People he sees within that frame. Some places are good, somehow. Others he feels reduced in. He gets no sense of himself, I suppose. I guess there were places all along the line, earlier. Relatives, so on. The people are blurs now.”

“Sometimes you can almost see his mind working. It darts back and forth. You can see he’s estimating away in there, working out the advantages.”

“Some people have clandestine mentalities.”

“It darts.”

“Some people are open-natured, generous and humane.”

“Us, for instance.”

“You and me,” he said.

In the middle of the night she heard the trees, that sound of wave action caused by high winds. There was someone in the living room, a fire. She got out of bed. Jack was sitting on the sofa, hands cupped behind his neck. She opened the door a bit wider and tilted her head in a certain way. Conciliation. Permission to enter his presence. He continued to grip his neck as though about to do a sit-up. She sat on the bed. When he passed, half an hour later, on his way upstairs, she was at the door. It was her instinct that touch makes anything possible. The slightest contact. She put her hand to his forearm. Barest touch. Enough, she thought, to restore their afternoon.

“Inside.”

“He’ll hear.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Jack, inside.”

“He’ll hear, I said.”

“I want you naked.”

“Forget, no, we can’t.”

“He won’t know, Jack.”

“Where will I be?”

“Jack, let’s fuck?”

“Where will I be then?”

Over the next few days she noticed that Jack’s sentences never quite ended, the last word or words opening out into a sustained noise that combined elements of suspicion, resentment and protest. This, his New York voice, with variations, effectively replaced the factual near-neutrality he’d established in his report on the UFO.

She went shopping for antiques with Ethan. Jack hadn’t wanted to come. To fill this gap she found something to laugh at everywhere, handling stoneware, flint glass with barely suppressed hysteria. Ethan, trying to respond helpfully, stretched one side of his mouth, exposing a gold tooth, and sent air down his nostrils, little sniffles of mirth. When they returned Jack was behind the counter in the kitchen, washing a glass.

“What’s in the larder?” Ethan said.

“Lard, that’s what the fuck’s in the larder—fucking lard.”

She watched Jack through binoculars come up along the path from the beach. Tree branches smudged the foreground. She lowered the glasses when he got within earshot.

“Is Mamu the bear angry?” she said.

She listened, in bed, to sounds, weak cries, coming from their room, indistinct whimpers. A car passed on the dirt road. It was getting colder but she was past the point of exercising sufficient will to get out of bed and go over to the closet, where blankets were stacked. She was ten minutes past the point, approximately.

Ethan made a mild joke about the white circles around her eyes, a result of Pammy having left her sunglasses on while lounging on the deck most of the previous afternoon. Jack chimed in. This became the theme that day. White Eyes.
Masked Marvel. Bagels … Lox. She didn’t think it was worth a whole day.

When the man at an ice cream stand asked what flavor, she said: “Escargot.” Neither Jack nor Ethan laughed. Their turn to team up.

She played tennis with Ethan. He slammed his racket against the mesh fence, refused to answer when she asked if he’d hurt his knee. Pammy was inspired to remember West Fourteenth Street, that smelly gymlike floor, the salving triviality of tap-dancing.

Ethan began using stock phrases to get laughs, the same ones over and over. “Body stocking.” “Training bra.” “Hostess Twinkies.” “Hopatcong, New Jersey.” “Starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Sabu.”

They took the long drive out to Schoodic Point. Jack sat in the back seat, making a birdlike sound, his mouth pursed slightly, upper lip twitching. On a straightaway near Ellsworth, Ethan turned from the wheel and swung his right arm in a wide arc, hitting Jack on the side of the head. “He knows I hate that sound.”

They stood on the stark granite shelving, watching surf beat straight up on impact. The sky to the east was going dark, a huge powdery stir, as of sediment. Ethan made his way down to a point nearer the sea. She couldn’t take the wind anymore. It came in stinging and wet, forcing her to adjust her stance occasionally, pit her weight against the prevailing blast. She went back up to the car. About twenty minutes later Jack followed. She could see lobster boats making for home through racks of whitecaps.

“Spray, my God.”

“Did you really see it?”

“What?” he said.

“The UFO.”

“Twice.”

“I believe you.”

“I’m going this time. I should have done it years ago. This is no life.”

“You keep saying Ethan. Ethan’s willing to be responsible for your life.”

“Not this time. I’m not saying it, notice. I didn’t even mention his name.”

Obviously she’d begun to distrust her affection for Ethan and Jack. A place was being hollowed out, an isolated site, and into it would go the shifting allegiances of the past week, the resentments surfacing daily, all the remarks tossed off, minor slights she couldn’t seem to forget, and the way they tested each other’s vulnerability, the moment-to-moment tong wars. It occurred to her that this was the secret life of their involvement. It had always been there, needing only this period of their extended proximity to reveal itself. Disloyalty, spitefulness, petulance.

She watched Ethan come up over the rail. His nylon wind-breaker seemed about to be torn from his chest. The sea was an odd color in places, though beautiful, the whitish green of apples.

It wasn’t that bad, really. Close quarters too long. That was all it was. Tong wars, my God. It wasn’t nearly that. Everybody’s involvement with everybody had a secret life. Misgivings, petty suspicions. Don’t be so dramatic, so final. It would fix itself, easily, in weeks. They were friends. She would
have them to look forward to again. Aside from the thing with Jack. That might take longer to fix.

Through wailing traffic, a summer of parched machines, she looked across Route 3 to a miniature golf course, catching glimpses of three boys walking over a small rise, shouldering their clubs. It was decided Jack would go looking for a service station, a repairman, a telephone, whichever turned out to be more accessible. Jack didn’t favor this arrangement. Jack favored tying a handkerchief to the door handle and waiting for someone to stop. He and Ethan stood behind the car, arguing. Pammy sat on the fender, eyes narrowed against random velocities, the chaos and din of heavy trucks. The boys were meticulous and solemn, measuring out hand spans, precise club lengths, clearly influenced by what they’d seen on television or at the country club. They deliberated endlessly, hunkered down like tribesmen. The course had windmills, covered bridges, all the suspect pleasures of reduced scale. Something about the hour, the late-day haze and traffic fumes, or the vehicles themselves, intervening, some trick of distance made space appear to be compacted, the boys (from Pammy’s viewpoint) isolated cleanly from the sprawl around them, the mess of house trailers, tombstones and fast-food outlets. It was near sunset, an antique light falling over the course. She felt she could watch indefinitely,
observe,
without being seen. One of the players reached for his ball, bending from the waist, mechanically, leg up, leg down, an abstract toy. She felt at ease here, fender-sitting, despite the noise and stutter-motion and crude landscape. The voices of her friends edged in at times, piping cries, small against the headlong grieving stream. She had a history of being happy in odd places.

Lyle set things out on his dresser. When the phone rang he didn’t want to answer it. He’d already fixed in his mind certain time spans. There were boundaries to observe, demarcating shades of behavior. Some faint static could disturb the delicate schedule he’d established, a closed structure of leave-taking and destination.

Driver’s license, traveler’s checks, credit cards, note pads (2), keys, wrist watch, road map, street map, ballpoint pen, wallet, U.S. dollars (4,000), Canadian dollars (75), cigarettes, matches, chewing gum.

It turned out to be Kinnear, surprisingly. Deprived of all but phonetic value, J. was no less a regulating influence, a control of sorts, providing standards of technique that Lyle was never slow to note. It was a good connection and his voice was warm and persuasive and distinctly pitched, a tone of countless small detonations, as from a stereo speaker, right there at Lyle’s ear, reasonable, so close.

“I’ve been thinking about certain aspects of your involvement, Lyle—i.e., the Exchange, our friend Marina, whatever plan or plans may be in effect. It occurred to me that you mightn’t be able to shake loose so very easily. Let me say: don’t let it reach the point where either way you turn there’s pure void, there’s sheer drop-off. You let it get too far, it will literally happen, this business about being George’s successor, with the same depressing results. Remember, George thought he was associated with money manipulators, illegal banking
combines. You have the advantage. You also have a clear way out. I don’t have to say more than that. Marina’s capable. She can get the thing to the point where either way you turn, Lyle.”