“Real estate,” said another. “They’re nothing but developers.”
“The old man was in movies,” said a woman of about thirty-five in a gauzy see-through blue top. “You remember — his second wife was it — an actress? He brought her up here once, years ago.”
“Did he actually marry her?” asked the other.
At seven thirty, two hours after most of the guests had arrived, Jack appeared in the pantry. He said, “You play tennis, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“We need a fourth. I’ll lend you some shoes, a pair of shorts.”
“What about the dirty glasses?”
“Forget the glasses.”
He led me to a wing of the house with several bedrooms and bathrooms and with a separate dressing room with floor-to-ceiling shelves and drawers. This was where he and his brothers Stephen and Robert stayed, along with various visiting friends and male cousins. He opened a wardrobe; one cedar shelf was filled with laundered tennis shirts, another with perhaps twenty pairs of shorts.
“You pick something. There are running shoes in the cupboard. I’ll see you on the court.”
Quentin, Jack, and the person called Radley Smith were hitting the ball when I arrived. We played for an hour, finishing under the lights. Afterward, we sat by the dock. There was a Coca-Cola cooler, like in a store, just inside the door of the boathouse, and we helped ourselves.
“Where did you learn to play?” Quentin asked. These were the first words she addressed to me.
“At school. They’re big on hockey and football. If you’re no good, they ship you off to the community tennis club.”
“Hmm,” she turned away, gazing out toward the water and the orange sky to the west.
“You don’t play hockey?” asked Jack. “Or football?”
“I guess I’m too refined,” I said. No one laughed. The conversation turned to other matters.
“Where’s your date, Jack?” Radley Smith asked.
“He doesn’t have one,” said Quentin. “Jack’s got his eye on some farm girl he met in Merrick Bay.”
“Local talent,” said Radley Smith. “When do we meet her?”
“Never, if I can help it,” said Jack.
“You sneaking off again tonight?” asked Quentin.
“Really, what’s she like?” asked Smith.
Jack shrugged.
“Maybe Ray knows her,” said Quentin. “Maybe he can tell you all about her, Radley.”
Quentin strolled to the end of the dock, stripped off her tennis clothes, and dived into the lake. It was dusk, but I saw her skin flash against the water, and I saw the pale hollows of her body. By the time we followed her into the water, she had headed up to the house in a towel to change. I didn’t see her again until the end of the evening when I was ferrying my last load of guests back to the mainland. She had changed into a white sleeveless sundress. She was supervising the guest book, set up on the dock on a kind of lectern. When the people I was to drive across the channel finished signing, she held out the pen to me. “You might as well sign. You played tennis with us.”
| Chapter 5 |
In the days following I was invited to Providence Island often, to make up a fourth for tennis or complete a round robin. They would phone and ask me to be there at two o’clock, occasionally in the morning, and to always wear whites; that was a rule I broke only once — they wouldn’t let me on the court. Someone would be sent to pick me up from the government wharf at Merrick Bay, or I would chug over in our little outboard. A couple of times I arrived to find that there had been a change in plans; they had gone golfing or sailing, and I would return home half an hour later.
“Are you at their beck and call?” Aunt Beth would ask.
The answer to which was yes. I was glad to be away from our house: the click of my aunt’s knitting needles as she studied the crossword puzzles, her tea and bridge; my father, when he was there, reading, fiddling with the radio and railing on about the government. There was none of that kind of talk at the Millers. There was very little serious talk at all on Providence Island, mostly plans for activities and meals and who was coming and going, gossip about the members of the Bellisle Club. Everybody seemed to be having affairs.
One morning Jack took me on a boat tour of the grand houses of Bellisle. “Millionaires’ Row,” it was of course called. He stopped in front of one of the few newer places, a sprawling palace of glass and steel. A blond woman in a short terry-cloth robe appeared on the front terrace. She waved at us. “My father’s having an affair with her,” Jack said.
They were always listening to Frank Sinatra records. (I asked my father about this: “Do all your generation like Frank Sinatra?” “No,” he answered. “The man’s some kind of racketeer, isn’t he?”) They never talked about politics. Old J.D. Miller had been in the U.S. Senate and Jack’s father was already preparing to run for Congress. One day Jack would run for office.
I explained this to my father. “The Millers never talk about politics,” I said. “They don’t have to. They’re in politics.”
My father put down his book and stared at me. On the radio they were in the final act of La Bohème. “I see,” he said.
The Millers started asking me to stay — for a swim, for a glass of lemonade, sometimes for lunch. I would occasionally see Mrs. Applewood, bringing food out from the pantry or guiding old J.D. up and down the path to the dock, or on his afternoon walk around the island. He was strong, but the paths through the woods were up-and-down, rocky, and ungroomed, and he needed help there. He used a single black cane. With his other hand he held on to Mrs. Applewood, either by her shoulder or by the arm just above her elbow. Mrs. Applewood nodded to me when she passed, as though she hardly knew me, meaning to avoid embarrassing us both, I suppose. J.D.’s gnarled grip was a large claw on her arm.
One July afternoon, when the sun was high and the tennis balls fell lifeless on the baked red clay of the court, Jack, Radley, and I decided that we would go for a swim while we waited for the court and the day to cool down enough to play.
On the way to the boathouse to change, Jack took me aside. “Do you know this girl, Marjorie Applewood?”
I nodded. “I know who you mean,” I said, distancing myself.
“I met her at the start of the summer,” Jack continued. “Some god-awful party in the boonies. Her mother works here, you know, and she set it up with my mother. Big mistake, I guess. Anyway, I’ve been out there a few times to see her. You know — these farm girls.” He winked. “Now she won’t talk to me. I haven’t seen her in over a week. Maybe you can find out something about it. You know these people? That French guy who pumps gas at the Shell station, and his buddy Havelock, the bald guy? They’re friends of Marjorie’s. Maybe you could ask them, see if she’s gone away somewhere?”
For some reason I wasn’t very keen on asking around about Marjorie on Jack’s behalf.
“You could go to Ault’s store,” I said. “Marjorie works there most mornings.”
“I’ve tried that. Apparently she’s quit.”
“Why don’t you just ask her mother? She’s out here nearly every day, isn’t she?”
“I would, but the thing is, she doesn’t know about Marjorie and me. It’s kind of a secret.” He stared at me. “So, are you going to do it? Find out what’s going on for me?”
“If it’s such a secret, I better ask Marjorie myself.”
“Great.” He slapped me on the shoulder.
Suddenly