Emerald City Part 14

Josephine had elastic features that could twist and bend into more drastic expressions than most people's. Her mouth popped open. "My G.o.d!" she said, and Lucy sighed with relief at the crooked smile and flash of white teeth.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and then Josephine's low, mischievous giggle filled the night. "You'll be so rich!" She laughed softly.

"Josephine!" It sounded cheap to hear her say it.

"But come on," Josephine said, seeming puzzled by Lucy's hesitation. "The guy's a millionaire."

"I know, but ..."

"Well, admit it, for G.o.d's sake."

There was an awkward pause. Lucy felt she must say something, that it must be the right thing.

"Will you help me pull it off?" she timidly asked, and they laughed together at that.

The following weekend, Josephine dragged Lucy from one shopping mall to the next, buying bathing suits for her honeymoon. Josephine brought a tattered Glamour along, and would haul it out everywhere they went, pointing to some photo of a pouting girl in a spandex and asking the salesperson, "Have you got this one?"

In the dressing room Lucy would blush at the sight of her pale, skinny figure in the mirror. But Josephine would say, "Fantastic, couldn't be better!" and add yet another suit to the pile. Occasionally Lucy would glance at Josephine's own figure behind her in the mirror, her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s and curved hips, and think that Josephine would look far better in these bathing suits than she herself did. Later, writing to Josephine from Barbados, Lucy could not bring herself to admit that she'd been too timid to wear any of the suits they had selected. In the hotel lobby boutique she had purchased a simple one-piece, navy blue. "Sensible," Parker said, and Lucy felt a flash of joy, of relief, standing in the soaring white lobby with her new husband. He was perfect.

Lucy decides she will spend the afternoon writing Josephine a letter. It has been six years since they have spoken, and Lucy rarely thinks of her friend anymore. Yet every now and then she will pause and for an instant will remember Josephine exactly, her bawdy laugh and tangled hair, her pa.s.sion for magazines. When she thinks of Josephine, Lucy will look around her, at the gleaming piano and shelves of gla.s.s figurines if she is in her living room, at the polished floor, and for an instant she will wonder if she is in somebody else's house.

Lucy feels a shadow overhead and looks up. She is still staring at the water, but no one is swimming anymore. Parker looms overhead with his book.

"Finished already?" she asks.

"You bet," he says, rustling through the beach bag. "Whizzed through that one."

"Interesting?" Lucy asks. It isn't often that Parker looks so excited over one of his books.

"I've got lots of ideas about this," he says. "I don't agree with any of these guys, none I've read so far."

"Is that good?"

"It's good if I can come up with an argument of my own and prove it," Parker says. "We'll see." He has fished a pad of paper from the beach bag and holds it against the trunk of the palm tree, scribbling notes.

"So what will you do?"

"Keep reading," he says, preoccupied. He snaps the pad shut and wedges it into the top of his bathing suit, so that it makes a depression in his stomach. Lucy reaches up and pats him there.

Parker returns to their bungalow to get another book. Lucy wonders if he was always so animated at Yale, where as a young man he'd begun a Ph.D. in history. His father, who was grooming Parker to take over the family business, had been apoplectic. Apparently the vision of a ma.s.sive pharmaceutical company looming at his elbow added just the right frisson to Parker's endeavor, and from what Lucy has gathered, his two years at Yale were deliriously happy. He still talks about it sometimes, usually after a few drinks, hashing out his ideas for dissertation topics and reminiscing about the late-night arguments over Macaulay and Gibbon and Michelet. He has never explained why he quit with only a master's, but it is obvious. Parker is a man of creature comforts. He grew up rich, and it is hard to imagine him living any other way.

Because Parker has taken the writing pad, Lucy cannot begin her letter to Josephine. She hoists herself from her chair and stands in the sun for a moment, wavering from the exertion of standing suddenly in the heat. She stumbles to the edge of the sea and wades in, savoring the relief of the cool water as it climbs her body in stages. Then she plunges in and surfaces, staying close to sh.o.r.e to avoid the frightening waves.

The blond woman and the dark-haired man are lying on the sand. From the water Lucy watches them stand up slowly, like sleepwalkers. The man picks up their towels, and the woman begins collecting their beach things. She leans down straight-legged, so limber she does not have to bend her knees. Maybe she's a dancer, Lucy thinks.

The two begin to wander toward their bungalow, stumbling a little in the heat. The woman puts her hand on the man's neck and pulls him toward her. They stop walking and kiss. When they move again, the woman's fingers are hooked in his swimming trunks. They walk quickly now, despite the heat.

Lucy has been treading water. Now she notices that the current is wafting her gently down the beach toward the bungalows on stilts above the water. She drifts parallel with the walking couple, all the while telling herself she should begin swimming the other way. The man and woman have reached the door to their bungalow and are wiping sand from their bodies and hanging up their towels. He runs his hand over her stomach. Lucy knows she should swim back. The man draws the woman to him and opens the bungalow door with his other hand. Lucy cannot make herself swim away.

She has floated behind their bungalow now, and can see its sliding gla.s.s door through the railing that surrounds its back deck. It is too shadowy for her to see inside the room, but she thinks she can make out two figures there. She hovers, treading water. The current continues to move her, so that she is almost beyond this bungalow and on to the next. Her own is only yards away, and Parker will be reading on the deck. Lucy paddles against the current now, her eyes fixed on the gla.s.s door, trying to make out the shapes in the room.

The curtain opens. Lucy sees the blond woman standing in the doorway, her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s vividly white against her tan. She leans there for just a moment, looking over Lucy's head toward the horizon. Lucy freezes, bobbing in the water, praying the woman will not see her. Her gaze hovers on the white b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the slim flare of waist. Then, with a flash of brown arms, the curtain shuts and Lucy is alone again.

She paddles numbly toward sh.o.r.e and heaves herself onto the sand. She weaves among sunbathers and collapses into her chair. She tries to catch her breath. Her heart is thumping. The beach is very quiet, nothing moves. The palm rustles softly.

A strange, antic.i.p.atory thrill flickers up and down Lucy's spine. She watches the couple's bungalow and thinks of how, right now, in the middle of the day, the two of them are making love. To distract herself, she opens a magazine, but cannot keep from trying to imagine them. She wishes she herself adored lovemaking as she knows some people do, wishes she were daring, risque, all the things she has never been and will never be.

For a long time Lucy had believed that money came between herself and Josephine-that her friend couldn't stand her being rich. But it wasn't that. Whatever it was began one afternoon a year after she and Parker were married. Lucy was in town visiting her parents, and she and Josephine met at the same Howard Johnson's where they used to go for banana splits as kids. Rain poured down the plategla.s.s window beside the table where Lucy waited. She remembers hugging Josephine and smelling freshness and rain, seeing her vivid face grow frantic with delight.

"I want to know everything," Josephine began. She took an enormous bite of hamburger, her lipstick smearing the bun. "I can't tell a thing from your letters."

Lucy laughed. "I don't know where to start."

"Anywhere. You pick. Europe, Africa ..." She grinned over her c.o.ke. "I've started a stamp collection."

Lucy felt shy suddenly. "Well, a lot of the trips are business."

"Do you fly first cla.s.s?"

The question made Lucy uncomfortable, it was so overt. She gave a brief nod.

"So, is it like we imagined, like in the magazines?" Josephine said. "I mean, you know, do you feel like one of those girls in Vogue?"

Lucy squirmed, looking down at her tuna sandwich. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Josephine's eyes narrowed. She took another bite. There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Tell what you've been up to," Lucy said.

Josephine had a boyfriend who sold sports equipment. She was taking painting cla.s.ses at the Y. Lucy relaxed while her friend did the talking, but too soon the description ended.

"What does it look like from an airplane, when you land at night?" Josephine asked. "I always try to imagine it, how cities must look from above with all their lights blinking. Is it pretty?"

Lucy pictured herself and Parker in an airplane, both of them tired and eager to land. "Well, it's ..." she paused, wondering what Josephine wanted her to say. She longed to say the right thing, to acknowledge the beauty without dwelling on it in a way that would seem self-satisfied. "It is pretty," she said. "But you get used to it."

Sure enough, Josephine looked disappointed. "You're not eating your sandwich," she said. Then she leaned across the table and took Lucy's hand in her strong, warm grip. "Is Parker treating you right?" she asked, looking directly into Lucy's face.

Lucy drew back a little. "Sure," she said. "What makes you ask?"

"You seem"-Josephine c.o.c.ked her head-"I don't know, different. I just wondered."

Lucy hesitated. The problem was that she wasn't used to talking about airplane lights and riding first cla.s.s. With Parker she simply did them. Being with Josephine demanded another side of herself, the side that used to pore over magazines and imagine living other people's lives. Parker was practical; he would never understand that sort of thinking. She had fallen out of the habit.

Josephine's apple pie arrived, and she heaped a bite with ice cream and ate vigorously. Her jaws flexed under her wide cheekbones. "You remember," she began, speaking slowly, "how we used to imagine being rich? Do you remember that?"

Lucy nodded. She sensed from Josephine's tone that this was a last attempt to get at some basic thing. "Yes ..." she said, cautiously.

"All I'm asking is, is it actually like that?"

Lucy considered. It was true, there had been moments when she'd thought, I can't believe this is happening to me. The feeling came sometimes when she and Parker traveled, sometimes just when she looked around her own house at the fireplace and thick rugs, at the vast green lawn outside. Whenever she had that feeling, Lucy longed to tell someone. She would turn to Parker, who was usually reading, or anyone else who was there, but no one ever behaved as if anything special were happening. Soon her wonderment would begin to fade. As time went on, it came less and less often.

"I get excited," she said, speaking carefully, "but it's not like the magazines."

She could not explain. Something separated her from Josephine, for the first time in her life. Josephine seemed to feel it, too. She sighed and pushed her pie away, lighting a cigarette and looking out at the rain. "Well," she said, "at least you're happy."

It was worse each time they saw each other. Josephine married, moved into a small ramshackle house only blocks from where she grew up, and had several robust children. She continued to paint in her free time, and Lucy's only recollection of her house, which she saw once, was a huge canvas hanging on one wall: a wild a.s.semblage of red slashes and tumultuous grays. It reminded her of paintings she and Parker had seen in European museums.

Lucy remembers Josephine's soft hips and thighs, the warmth and strength of her hands. She must enjoy s.e.x, Lucy thinks, for even as a child Josephine was pa.s.sionate, romantic. She lacked Lucy's own self-consciousness, whatever it was that made her hide away the honeymoon bathing suits.

Lucy looks down the beach at the bungalow. She thinks of the couple sleeping inside, their tanned naked limbs sprawled under the twirling ceiling fan. A warm glow fills her, as though she, too, shared in their exhausted delight. The light has begun to deepen, coaxing the white sand to gold. Overhead, the palm trees make a sound like rainfall. The sun casts a pale ribbon of light across the trembling sea. Lucy looks around her tenderly, overcome by the sheer beauty of the scene. She will describe it in her letter to Josephine, for it is exactly the sort of thing Josephine will want to know.

That hour has arrived when sunbathers stretch and collect their belongings from the cooling sand. Lucy waits for Parker, who is moving down the beach. She is glad to see him.

"Happy?" Parker asks, for she is smiling. She holds out both hands for him to pull her from her chair, then kisses his ear. Parker smells of soap and aftershave. His hair is neatly combed, and he wears trousers with a loose Polynesian-style shirt. There is something jaunty in his air.

"I thought I'd go on up to the terrace and watch the sun set while you get ready," he says. "Why not let's try that fish place down the road for a change, since it's our last night."

"Perfect!" says Lucy. She collects her magazines and stuffs them in the bag. "How's the war coming?"

He shakes his head, grinning like a boy. "Super," he says.

Lucy takes a shower and rubs scented lotion over her body. She stares at the closet for a long time, trying to decide whether to wear a pantsuit or the bright Polynesian dress Parker bought her as a souvenir. She puts on the dress and looks in the mirror. Its colors are similar to those the blond woman was wearing when she arrived at the hotel. Before she can change her mind, Lucy grabs her purse and leaves the bungalow, holding her white sandals in one hand as she makes her way back across the sand to the terrace. Parker is leaning back in his chair. On the table sit two exotic-looking c.o.c.ktails, filled with pineapple pieces and small umbrellas.

"Wow," Parker says when he sees Lucy in the Polynesian dress.

She looks down, determined not to feel ashamed. Parker keeps glancing at her as he drinks. "That dress is something," he says.

After two c.o.c.ktails they leave for the restaurant. It takes a long time to reach it, and normally Lucy would have wished they'd taken a taxi. But tonight she follows the twists and curves of road with a joyous sense of adventure. A smudge of fuchsia lingers just above the sea. Already a gravel of stars fills the sky. The moon, like the Tahitian sun, shines with abnormal vehemence.

The restaurant is a thatched hut filled with the smell of broiling fish. Flowers and vines dangle from the ceiling, and there is no floor, just cool white sand. Beside the grill lie heaps of gleaming sea creatures, blue-green parrot fish with gaping mouths, tangles of lobsters and crabs.

"Reminds me a little of that place in Kenya," Parker says when they reach their table, a block of wood wedged into the sand.

"Much better!" Lucy says, for the restaurant has a thrilling, exotic atmosphere. She will mention it in her letter to Josephine. She glances down and notices her Polynesian dress, which she has forgotten she is wearing. It looks perfect here.

Parker orders champagne. Lucy can see that he feels it, too, whatever she is feeling. There is a look he gets when he is excited, a puffy, breathless look, as if something inside him were swelling against his edges. His cheeks are flushed.

"Are you thinking about the war?" she asks.

He nods, and the flush spreads farther along his cheeks.

"Tell me about it," she says, really curious.

"I'm developing a position," he says. "An argument. My own as opposed to other people's. That's what history is, just a lot of arguments."

"And you've come up with your argument by reading theirs?"

"Yup. And disagreeing."

"I see. So what will you do with it? Your argument."

"I'll prove it," says Parker. "It'll take a lot of research."

"Will you have the time?"

Running the company takes long, steady hours of work. Parker rarely has free time, except on vacation.

"That's a question," he says, looking off toward the grill. "That's a question." He adds under his breath, "I miss it."

Lucy looks up. He has never said this before.

There is a pause. Parker glances down and flicks his wedding ring against the table. Lucy looks across the restaurant, not even surprised to discover the blond woman and her lover standing at the entrance. It is as if she were expecting them. The woman adjusts the purple flower in her hair. She, too, wears a Polynesian dress.

"Parker," Lucy says suddenly, "do you think it was right for you to give it up?"

She knows she has broken some tacit code in asking this. Parker is silent. He opens his mouth to speak, but doesn't. "I don't know," he finally says.

Lucy wants to press the point, but is afraid of pushing him too far. She waits, almost holding her breath, the way one does in the presence of a squirrel or a bird that will scramble away at the slightest jolt.

"I loved history," he says. "It was exciting."

As the maitre d' leads the young couple to their table, the blond woman pauses at the grill and looks at the fish. Timidly she reaches out to press the shining scales of one.

"The funny part is," Parker says, "somehow I made a choice. I don't even know when. Only after it was made, I noticed that I just-"

"Thought differently?"

"Yes! That's right!" He seems elated that she understands. "That's what it was, I thought differently. But what bothers me ...

The man and woman sit down and hold hands. The blond hair falls in a curtain down the woman's back.

"What bothers me is ..." He can't seem to finish. One hand waves halfheartedly, trying to conjure the sentence.

"Money?" Lucy says very gently. "That somehow it was the money?"

Parker drops his hand. They look at one another in silence.

The meal is superb. Lucy and Parker linger at the restaurant a long time, long after the other couple has left. They drink a bottle of white wine and listen to the wind rattle the palm trees outside. It is as if they were afraid to go, as if, when they emerge from this den of white sand and rainbow-colored fish, a spell will break.

Finally they make their way back to the hotel. The moon has grown brittle and white overhead, and the warm wind scatters silver light across the sea. Lucy and Parker are drunk. They lean against each other for support, giggling like children as they make their way along the twisting road.

When they reach their bungalow, Lucy goes to the back deck and stands at the rail, watching the sea. She can hear Parker undressing inside, and finds that she is eager to make love tonight. The other bungalows are dark. Wind billows her dress, flooding it like a tent. Without looking away from the sea, Lucy unties the dress and lets the wind pull it from her. She stands naked, holding the dress at one corner, allowing the warm wind to engulf her.

The following year, Lucy and Parker visit Santa Barbara. They have flown there to meet with clients of Parker's, but will take several days to shop and enjoy the sun. After leaving their luggage at the hotel, they meander to a seafood restaurant at the tip of a long pier.

Lucy sits facing the ocean. Sunlight does a shrill dance on the water's surface, and she fumbles for her sungla.s.ses. She can hardly see the waitress, who asks whether they would like drinks. When the woman returns with two iced teas, Lucy glances at her and jumps. It is the blond woman from Bora Bora.

Parker is poring over his menu, squinting through his reading gla.s.ses and holding it at a distance from his face.