The Deceivers (10 page)

Suddenly he thought, Why in hell am I dithering around? I’ll be making mountains out of molehills. I’ll be giving this a lot of significance it doesn’t deserve. The Cables are good friends. Cindy is a good friend. And probably just as damn lonesome and just as upset as I am. That’s when you use your friends, isn’t it?

So he put on fresh slacks and moccasins and a blue golf shirt and opened a can of beer and walked to the red maple. The kitchen lights were on, but she was not in the kitchen. He hesitated a moment, and then went to her kitchen door and rapped. The door was open. Through the screen he could hear the hushed roar of the shower she was taking. In that instant he visualized her so clearly and so perfectly that he might have been staring into the shower stall rather than into that particular corner of his mind. He saw her long flanks and the secret curvings of her and the soapy freshness, the cones of abrupt breasts, and the belly’s gentle convexity and the long complex curve of her back and the wiry pyramid of pubic hair between satin thighs. In the instant of his visualization desire came to him, savage and ready, and he knew that it was not new. He knew that it had been with him for a long time, and that he had never permitted himself to accept it, to even be consciously aware of it. He thought of all the times he had looked at her, very calmly and casually
and thought, Cindy is a damn good-looking woman. There was no ordinance against making such an observation, against admiring her objectively, or enjoying being with her and talking to her. And because desire had been so long suppressed, it had a violence that startled him.

He could remember only one time in their relationship when, for a few moments, he had been stirred by something beyond friendship. It had happened last New Year’s Eve at the Timberlane Country Club, the small family club to which so many of the Crescent Ridge people belonged. They had not gone to the party with the same group as the Cables. At midnight, slightly fuzzy with drinks, after having exchanged the ritual kisses with the other women in his party, Carl had come upon Cindy in the small hallway where the nickel slot machines were. Her silver eye mask was pushed up onto her forehead, and he stopped her, and took her by the shoulders and grinned at her, weaving slightly and said, “Old Cindy. A fine new year to old Cindy.” And laid his mouth on hers, on the heat and fragrance of her heavy level lips, and felt a sudden alarming tingle of an intense awareness of her, and released her quickly and rather awkwardly and avoided her eyes and dug out a nickel and put it in the nearest machine and said foolishly, “Pull the handle, Cindy, and find out how good your luck will be in fifty-seven.”

She yanked the handle and the wheels spun and stopped at a lemon, an orange and a bar.

“That will give you a clue, Carl,” she said and walked away from him, tall in her formal gown, swaying with her slow grace, not looking back.

Now he knew that in some dark way he had managed to thrust the incident completely out of his memory, and had not thought of it again until this moment of revelation.

He knew she could not have heard his knock, and he knew that the most intelligent thing he could do would be go home. Fast. As he stood there, the shower stopped abruptly. Then he thought what good is it to run away? Hell, a man would be abnormal if he didn’t feel a yen for Cindy Cable. God knows she’s the unwilling target of enough drunks at parties. Just because I have a sudden itch, it doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it or would, God help me, ever try to do anything about it. Poor kid has enough on her mind without another clumsy pass by a balding neighbor. Smart thing to do is prove to myself that I can continue to carry on the same old relationship without giving myself away.

He knocked again and called, “Cindy!”

Her voice was remote. “Who is it?”

“Carl.”

“Oh, hi! Come in and get yourself a beer. The door isn’t hooked. I’ll be right out.”

He finished his can and threw it in the wastebasket and got a chilled bottle from the refrigerator. He stood by the sink and looked out and tried to see the red maple but he could not. There was a cup and saucer in the sink and it had been run full of water, but the pink-orange mark of the shade of lipstick she used was still on the cup. He looked at that mark and wondered why he should feel curiously touched, why it should appear helpless and pathetic and young, and why he should feel tenderness toward the mark and toward her. A very stupid reaction, considering that the smallest fleck of red on rim of glass or cup in a restaurant would disgust him.

“Hi there,” she said, coming into the kitchen.

He turned and looked at her and said, “Lady, you’ve had some sun!”

“I really got it, didn’t I? This afternoon I decided all of a sudden I wanted a swim, so I threw a suit in the car and drove way over to Pond Lake to the public camp grounds. I didn’t leave until the sun did. I lived on hot dogs and coke and jumped in the lake every time I got too hot.”

“Maybe you got too much.”

“Not me. I’ve got a hide like a rhino. Tonight it’s red, tomorrow it’s tan.”

She opened herself a beer and got a glass and they went to the booth and sat as they had the evening before. She had put on a black denim skirt with large white buttons on the slash pockets and a yellow sleeveless blouse. Her hair was casually piled on top of her head and pinned in place.

“How was Joan this evening?”

“Tired, but she seemed pretty calm.”

“You’ll be there when they operate?”

“Of course.”

“Stupid question. I guess I’m just making talk. I was going to come over and see you, but I decided I got home too late for that. I talked too much last night, Carl. I’ve felt uneasy about it all day.”

“I don’t think you did.”

“I can only claim one thing. I didn’t make the situation sound worse than it is. But I do think that talking to you
got me closer to making a decision, and I’m glad of that, and I think that because I nearly talked you to death, I do owe it to you to tell you what I’ve decided. Not really decided, but what I think I’ll decide.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to make one last college try. I’ll go along on this second honeymoon idea and I’ll wait until the time is just right and when he’s in the right mood, and then I’m going to put the cards on the table. I’m going to make a final glorious effort to make him understand how I feel and what I want out of my life and out of my marriage. And what I don’t want. And then, if I can’t get it across to him, I’m going to start thinking of breaking it up. And that will be a royal mess, I know, but not as bad as the eventual messiness of trying to make a hopeless marriage work. But I’m fool enough to think that maybe I can get through to him. He’s not a bad man, you know.”

“Sounds sensible to me.”

“And then his dear mother can refer to me as that impossible girl our Bucky was married to. A complete neurotic, my dear. And a horrible housekeeper. Bucky is well rid of her, let me tell you. My God, I can even hear her saying it. If anybody is to blame in this mess, Sarah Cable is. She didn’t want Bucky to grow up, so he never did. The first time we stayed there after our marriage, I felt like a wanton woman. I could see that she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that that girl had any right to be in her darling Bucky’s room and sleep with him. All his airplane models and his little gilt cups and his football pictures were on display. It was her little museum, devoted to Bucky. She kept popping around corners at us. One time Bucky kissed me in the hall, and when I looked over his shoulder, there she was, halfway up the stairs, looking at me with truly shocking malice. But then, very quickly, she put on her social smile and laughed her social laugh and said, ‘You young people! My lands! Bucky, dearest, there’s a hole in the elbow of that sweater. You take it off this minute and Mother will mend it.’ The inference was that I’d do much better if I’d spend less time kissing and carrying on and more time mending. So Bucky is just a little boy. He wants people to look after his clothes and his food and clean up after him and scold him when he’s bad. His job is a toy, and that airplane is a toy, and I was supposed to be another toy, but I won’t co-operate. I won’t stay put in the toy box.”

“If it doesn’t work out, what will you do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think about that later. What is there about you, mister, that gets me off on a talking jag? Don’t answer that question. It’s because I haven’t had anybody to talk to. I don’t mean what passes for conversation at the average Crescent Ridge cocktail party.”

He grinned at her and said, “I know what you mean.”

“Let’s grab some emergency beer rations and go out in the yard, Carl. Maybe it’s my burn, but it feels so hot in here.”

She turned off the kitchen lights as they went out. They stood in the darkness until their eyes adjusted to the night and then walked across to the lawn furniture. They sat on two aluminum chaise longues with plastic webbing placed at an angle to each other so that their feet were close but they were about three feet from each other, each half facing the glow of Hillton on the sky. He could see the pallor of her yellow blouse, see the glow of red against her face when she drew on her cigarette, hear the clink of glass on glass when she poured her beer. The breeze came from her direction, bringing with it a hint of perfume and soap.

They talked idly and comfortably about the school situation, about neighbors and parties and friends. It was effortless conversation, yet throughout it, like a single scarlet thread in a tapestry, he could not cease being aware of her physical presence and his desire for her.

At last she said, “Now I’m going to do my good deed and send you off to bed as requested.”

“Please can I stay up, huh? Please? None of the other guys got to go to bed this early.”

Her laugh was a low warm sound in her throat. “No back talk from you, young man. March! I think I’ll go in. Maybe I can get to sleep while I’m still cooled off. Bucky keeps trying to promote an air-conditioner for the bedroom. But I hate the horrid things, whining all night and huffing air at you that smells like it came out of a subcellar. And, knowing Bucky, I am perfectly aware that he would keep it at maximum volume. I love the summer nights, and the smell of summer coming into the room.”

They got up and she gathered up the bottles and the glass and her cigarettes and he walked her toward the back door. Ten feet from the chairs she tripped, fought for balance and fell hard. He grabbed for her, but not in time. She gave a thin wail of pain. He dropped to one knee beside her.

“Are you hurt?”

She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Darn it, darn it!
Graceful, co-ordinated Cindy. I flounder around like a ruptured elk.”

“What happened?”

“That damn sprinkler head. We can’t just use a hose. No, Bucky has to have little men come and bury pipe in the yard so we can have little booby traps sticking up all over.”

“Where do you hurt?”

“Right on the point of my chin where I cleverly chunked it against one of these damn beer bottles.” He clicked on his lighter and looked at it.

“It isn’t cut. Good thing the bottle didn’t break.”

She took his hand and he helped her up. “I just can’t seem to help being the glamorous type,” she said. She took a half step and winced and said, “Ow! The complete treatment. I must have turned my ankle too.” And she laughed, a sound of helpless annoyance.

He got on the other side of her and said, “Put your arm over my shoulders.”

“I’ll manage in a minute.”

“Go ahead. We’ll get you into the kitchen and get a look at you.”

He put his right arm around her, his hand on her supple and narrow waist. She took six limping steps to the back door. He knew he should release her. But he had the odd feeling that all this had happened before, just exactly as it was happening now. And he turned her into the circle of his arms and began to kiss her.

She stood rigid and shocked and unco-operative in his arms, not fighting him, but, whenever her lips were free, she said, “No. Please, no. Please, Carl. No.” But her reluctance, her passive resistance seemed to him to be something far away and of small importance. And, after she had stopped speaking, he felt her give a prolonged shuddering sigh, and turn to meet his mouth with hers, turn slightly in a fluid and practiced way so that their prior awkwardnesses of knees that bumped and elbows that were in the way were gone so they fitted sweetly and tightly and with a perfection. Her right arm was around his neck, her left arm around his waist, her palm and fingers firm against the muscles of his back, her mouth working against his. He had somehow anticipated, perhaps because of the difference in their ages, a girlishness about her, possibly a demureness. But this creature arched so closely against him was a mature woman, mother of two, with the humid and silky tautness of perfect health, without
sexual restraints or fears or ignorances. She seemed there, in the warm night, to open like a tropic flower so that the scents and fragrances of her were enhanced. For the space of a second he was taken aback, startled, possibly somewhat alarmed—like a petty thief who opens the stealthy drawer and sees the heavy stack of currency. But then her response aroused him further, and the night seemed to wheel around them, tilting and breathless. They lost their balance, as though the grassy earth was trying to pull them down. He staggered and caught himself and she whirled away from him and moved three steps, limping slightly, to lean against the side of the house.

He sat down on the step in front of the kitchen door. He could hear the muted galloping of his heart. She was breathing so deeply he could hear her. He could see her, not clearly, in silhouette, feet braced, head lowered, arms folded across her breasts.

“My God,” she said softly, giving it more the cadence of prayer than of curse.

He lighted two cigarettes, held one out toward her. She reached and took it from his fingers without touching him, and moved back to her former position.

“It was my fault,” he said. His voice sounded clotted and rusty and strange, as though he had not spoken aloud in weeks.

“Let’s not follow that line of conjecture, please. It’s so damned barren. Your fault, my fault. So what? I wanted you to. For many dirty sneaky shameful months, I’ve wanted to be kissed by you. Kissed for real, because I was curious. And so maybe I thought about it just enough so subconsciously you got the message. That isn’t the point. The point is how we undo it. How do you go about getting unkissed?”