and do something about it. But there was no rush.
He’d closed his eyes now fully against the sun, and was letting his imagination work on the remembered image of Vivian laughing at him, shoulder-deep in water. It was coming clearer and clearer. She held up her suit, panties in one hand, bra in the other. Her smile in the image was becoming inviting, beckoning, not the taunting expression it had been in reality. And now she was starting to wade towards him.
Simon sometimes felt a little frightened at the things his imagination could do for him. He’d never, for example, seen a real live girl completely unclothed. But when in a hundred hot deliberate dreams since last summer he’d brought Vivian out of the water naked, every detail of uncharted anatomy was as clear as something from a motion picture frame. And Simon couldn’t resist doing it that way, usually, seeing more and more detail, even if it did tend to get a little scary.
Now he brought the image of Vivian wading into water only knee-deep, smiling at him, displaying herself. He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his trunks, and then immediately worried that maybe he ought to row over to an island first, get among bushes where he could be absolutely sure of a few minutes’ privacy. Not that anyone was likely to see him where he was now, but—
A high-pitched voice shattered his daydream, calling from some distance away. “Yeeoh, Simon!”
Vivian vanished, reality returned with a rush. In confusion Simon sat up in the boat, tugging his trunks as straight as he could. A craft he recognized as Gregory’s white canoe was sixty yards or so downstream, being paddled up toward him by one person. In a moment Simon recognized Saul Littlewood.
She’s here, was Simon’s first thought. If Vivian’s little brother is here in Frenchman’s Bend today, then so is she.
Saul was waving a greeting. Simon waved back, then took up one of his oars. Using it like a paddle, he made slow headway to meet the canoe’s advance.
“Yo,” Simon called back, when the canoe with the younger boy in it was closer. “I didn’t know you guys were here.”
Now Saul with a delicate touch of paddle brought canoe sideways against boat; and Simon with his stronger hands gripped both gunwales, holding the two craft clamped together.
Saul was wearing cutoff jeans, and a new, expensive-looking T-shirt with an elaborate pattern. He was dark-haired, of average size and chunky build. As was to be expected for a twelve-year-old, he’d grown considerably in the nine months or so since Simon had seen him last.
“We ain’t gonna be here long,” Saul said now. “We’re driving home again tomorrow morning.”
“Oh.” Then I’ve got to see her today, before she leaves. Vivian and Saul lived most of the year with their parents in one of the far northern suburbs of Chicago, closer to Simon’s home in the city than either place was to Frenchman’s Bend. Yet Simon had never seen them anywhere but here. In fact he had never met them, had known only vaguely of their existence, until just last summer.
Saul, watching Simon closely, said: “So why don’t you come up to the castle now? Vivian’s there. She was saying to me she wished you were around.”
“Yeah?” Simon swallowed. “Okay, I will. Who else is there?”
“Our parents were, but they had to go back into Blackhawk. Some kind of a meeting or something. They won’t be back till after dark.”
“Is Gregory there?” Simon knew that the dignified-looking man intermittently lived in the castle, as part of his caretaker duties. For various reasons he didn’t like Gregory, and thought that Gregory felt the same way about him.
Saul shook his head. “Vivian’s up there all by herself right now. She’s out by the grotto, you know? She’s painting a picture of one of those statues. She was telling me she thought it looked like you.”
“Me? Jeez. Which statue?”
Saul looked for a moment as if he thought that a dumb question, but he answered without comment. “The big naked guy standing there holding the stone and the slingshot. Well, he ain’t quite naked, he’s got a figleaf on.”
“Jeez. I haven’t got muscles like that.”
“You got a lot more muscles than you did last summer. Vivian was saying she bet you had.”
“Jeez.” Simon couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He hoped that if he was blushing it didn’t show through his tan. And the uncomfortable bulge in the front of his trunks had eased abruptly when Saul startled him, but now it suddenly gave signs of coming back.
If Saul had noticed either of these reactions he was being diplomatically silent about it. The joined boats had drifted out from between islands, and now it was possible to see the relatively distant shore on both sides. Saul was gazing toward the shabby house where Simon stayed during vacations. “Your uncle’s car’s not there,” he observed.
“My aunt and uncle had to go into Blackhawk. Just like your folks. Said they prob’ly won’t be back till late.”
“Your grandma go with ‘em?”
“Yeah.”
Saul was silent, with the air of one who has just made some kind of subtle point. The hot, humid air seemed to be somehow supporting the suggestion that somewhere in Blackhawk, population about one hundred thousand, there was a gathering today of the adults of the clan, and that gathering might have a secret importance.
It might be true, thought Simon, and so what, and anyway Vivian was throbbing in his blood.
He said: “Look, how about it we both go over there in the canoe? It’ll be faster. I’ll tie up the rowboat first.” He released his grip, letting the two craft separate.
“Okay.” Saul wielded his paddle again. Rowing and paddling, they worked their respective vessels toward the landing at Frenchman’s Bend.
As if returning to a dropped subject, Saul asked: “What do your aunt and uncle do in that shop all day?”
“Jeez, I dunno. Putter around. Sometimes they get a customer. Why?”
“I bet they don’t have too many customers.”
“I guess not.”
“But they make enough money to get along. Or they get money from somewhere else.”
“I guess so. Why?”
Saul paddled, looking straight ahead. “Does your grandma have a job?”
“Yeah, in an office down in the Loop. Some days she works at home. Why?”
Saul shrugged. “Just that some of our relatives have a lot of money, and some don’t.”
“Which ones have a lot?”
Saul just shrugged again.
They were nearing the shore. “I guess,” said Simon, “your folks are some who do.”
Watching Simon closely again, Saul said. “They’re my step-parents, actually.”
Simon nodded at this information, then did a double take. “Both of ‘em?”
“Yeah, both. The way they tell me it happened was that my real father died before I was born, and then my mother married again. Then she died, when I was still real young, and my stepdad got married. So I got a full replacement set.”
“You and Vivian both did, then.”
Saul never answered that straight out. The prow of the canoe grated gently at the shoreline, and he braced his paddle against the river bottom to hold the craft against the gentle current. He said: “Our whole family’s kinda crazy, you know? I mean the way it’s organized. There’s about a couple thousand people all related to each other. Like you and me. And the funny part of it is, almost nobody has any really close relatives. Except for husbands and wives.”
Simon grunted, rowing one last hard stroke, driving the old tub of a rowboat firmly into the shore. Then he shipped oars and hopped out into the muddy shallows, grabbing a length of chain to tie up the boat at its usual place, the ancient willow trunk. He said: “There’s not really a couple thousand.”
“All right. Maybe there’s really about a hundred people. Littlewoods and Collines and Picards and Wedderburns. Hell, old Gregory’s actually some kind of a cousin to both of us.” Carefully shifting his seat in the canoe, Saul made ready for Simon to get in. “You wanna do the paddling?”
“Sure.” Simon had learned to use a canoe the previous summer. He was in a hurry now to get across the river, and also eager to see how fast he could paddle, with another year’s growth of muscle to call upon. Jeez,
