wafted up behind me as I slowed to a halt, but I expected that from the inefficiency of rapid deceleration. At the stop sign I checked all the gauges, including oil and water temp, which looked normal. I shifted into first, pushed the buttons to lower the windows and lit a cigarette.
“Beverly Hillbillies indeed,” I said aloud, feeling warmly about my preposterous car, the most puzzling legacy from my father, and the only one not encumbered by complex and hopelessly entangled associations.
—
I reached the tip of Oak Point as the last of the sunset had collapsed into a thin pink strip along the horizon. When I stopped at the mailbox Eddie came zinging over from Amanda’s house, barking and spinning around in circles. He seemed honestly glad to see me, or maybe was just hedging his bets.
After filling my aluminum cocktail tumbler with Absolut and crushed ice, I shook off the wrinkled khakis and oxford-cloth-shirt and went directly to the outdoor shower. There was a lot of day to wash off. It took half the tumbler and most of the hot water to even start the job. I could pound nails and set roof rafters for twelve hours and not be half as tired. It’s the mental fatigue that gets you, that clogs up the neural pathways and packs cotton behind your eyes. Proving empirically that the worst of weariness is a state of mind.
I put on a pair of clean blue jeans and a cotton shirt so threadbare you could hole it with a puff of breath and called Amanda on my rotary dial phone.
“You’re back.”
“How’d you like to come over and rot with me in the Adirondacks?”
“An original idea.”
“An invitation. Direct and unambiguous.”
“I have wine and a bowl of cherries.”
“I’ll be in the front yard. If I’m asleep when you get there, don’t hit me on the head.”
Walking barefoot across the lawn, cool and wet from the evening mist rolling in off the bay, I started feeling better. The half tumbler of vodka had done its part, but the greater salve was being back in the company of the Little Peconic, back from those other places that weren’t livable for me anymore. As it often does, the prevailing south-southwesterly had shifted all the way west, kicking up a short chop and fluttering the emerging white petals on the grandiflora. It was a dryer wind, for reasons unknown. I wished I knew more about the underlying forces that controlled the breeze crisscrossing the bay every day, or how the patterns of the prevailing winds changed with the seasons. But not that much. It was enough to keep track and stay alert for anomalies, or simply mark the familiar shifts, gusts and lulls.
“Big day, I take it,” said Amanda, dropping down into the other Adirondack. Also barefoot, she wore a dress with a loud tropical print that looked two sizes too big for her. Her hair was wet, like mine, as if she’d also just taken a shower. She’d brushed it straight back so I could see the full shape of her face in the fading twilight, her prominent cheekbones and green eyes and the reddish brown of her skin, the color of a glass of fine cognac.
“It’s nice to see you,” I said.
She looked surprised.
“You, too. What’s the occasion?”
“For what?”
“Such friendliness.”
“I’m always nice.”
“No, you’re not. Not in the ordinary way.”
“I’m not?”
“Unless you’re avoiding. Is that what you’re doing? You don’t want to talk about the day”
“I don’t. Not now. I need time to think a little. But it’s still nice to see you.”
“Okay.”
We sat quietly sipping our drinks and watching the evening descend into darkness, with the moon taking over, dipping the tips of the little bay waves in light blue iridescence.
“Say, Amanda.”
“Yes, Sam.”
“If you ever catch me expressing anything like willful pride in my ability to perceive reality, to extract the true thing even when it’s cleverly hidden from view, I want you to remind me of today”
“I will if you tell me what happened.”
“What is it, July 30? Just say to me, ‘remember July 30.’”
“So this isn’t avoidance. It’s humility.”
“That’s right. Maybe with a little awe mixed in.”
“Okay You’re humbled and awestruck. While you’re at it, tag on abstruse.”
I was able to deflect further questions by suggesting we go skinny-dipping.
“Your hair’s already wet,” I said, getting up and jumping down off the breakwater, unbuttoning my shirt and waving for her to join me.
“Is it dark enough?” she asked, as she sat down on the top of the breakwater before sliding off into the sand.
“Nobody on the point but you and me. Might as well own the whole world.”
Since the wind was coming out of the west I knew the water would be warm. I had a theory that the wind scooped up the sun-warmed water from the surface of the shallow Great Peconic, then slid it over here, where it was captured and pooled against Jessup’s Neck. A ridiculous notion, I’m sure, but I didn’t care. There was nobody around to tell me it wasn’t true. There was only Amanda, slender and supple, laughing naked in my arms after we’d dashed across the painfully knobby pebble beach and dove recklessly into the water, breaking through the surface into the fresh moonlight. Humbled, or awed, or simply grateful and surprised, it was easy at that moment to let all forms of thought dissolve into the sacred waters of the Little Peconic Bay, carrying away my manifold fears and indecisions, my uncertainties and confusion.
There’d be time enough to gather all that up again tomorrow.
TWENTY-SIX
LIKE JONATHAN ELDRIDGE’S,Gabe Szwit’s office was above a storefront. The only difference being the view, which for Gabe included the east end of Main Street and halfway down Job’s Lane in Southampton Village. And the store was a little different, since it sold $10,000-a-whack couture instead of $3.95 meatball grinders, unless you wanted a salad, which would add another $1.85.
It was early and few people were on the street. The shops wouldn’t open until about ten, so the sidewalks were mostly given over to early risers grabbing the
As far as I could tell, you reached the office by an outside run of stairs at the back of the building, which also had a small private parking lot. I had to assume Gabe would come in this way, though I didn’t know for sure, or even if he would show up for work that day. For all I knew, he only worked every other day. Or just kept the office for show, while spending the days cruising in his Jag and hanging out with grief-stricken widows.
I had the biggest size cup of coffee you could get from the place on the corner, and a fresh pack of cigarettes. WLIU promised to play jazz all morning, and the Grand Prix was the closest thing you could have to a rolling living room, so the wait didn’t promise to be that hard.
Still, after about three hours I was ready for Gabe to make an appearance. I could usually busy myself noodling out construction plans for the addition, or writing postcards to Allison, or casting about for ways to divert my mind from the litany of worries and regrets it would chew on if left to its own devices. It gets harder when all you’re looking at is the back end of a building, a Dumpster and a flight of rickety wooden stairs.
I gave myself to twelve noon, which is about the time Gabe pulled his Jag into the reserved parking lot, got out and locked the car, then plodded up the stairs, wearing a tan summer suit, his attache held to his chest like a heavy bag of groceries. I waited until he was through the door at the top of the stairs before following him. The
