on the lip of a cliff.
At the edge of the flagstones there’s a patch of mint. She breaks off a sprig; rinses it with the garden hose and pokes it down amid the ice cubes in his drink.
He tastes it and shows his approval.
She moves to one side to get out of the smoke; the wind keeps pushing it around. She senses he is aware of the sexual tension. She reclaims her own glass from the redwood table and thinks about another drink.
But that would just postpone it. And let’s not forget the rules of the new game: never drink enough to make the head fuzzy or the tongue loose.
Come on. It’s Ellen’s future you’re farting around with. Blurt it out.
She says: “I had a motivation for learning to fly. It wasn’t just for fun.”
“No?”
“There’s something I need to do and it requires an airplane.”
Her abrupt determination seems to amuse him. “Smuggling wheelbarrows?”
“What?”
“Sorry. Old joke. Go ahead.”
She takes a breath. “I’ve got a daughter-fourteen months old. I’m having a custody fight with her father.”
“Must be painful.” An upward glance: the concern is genuine. “Sorry to hear it.”
She tries to decide how to phrase it. Prompting her, he says, “Your little girl got something to do with learning to fly a plane?”
“I wanted to be my own air rescue service. My daughter’s.”
“You’re serious now.”
“The son of a bitch has got my kid, Charlie. I want to get her back.”
28
The steaks are seared; she watches Charlie crank the grill higher so they will cook more slowly. She can’t decipher his expression. All he says is, “Go on.”
“Last year we separated and I moved out here. I thought I’d get settled and then go back and collect Wendy. As soon as I’d established California residency I filed for divorce here. But then I found out he’d filed at the same time-back in New York.”
“And?”
Now more lies: “There’ve been custody hearings in both states. California says I get the child. New York says he gets custody.”
“He’s got possession of the kid?”
“For the moment.”
He pokes the steaks with a long fork. Fat dripping on the coals has started a fire and he sprays it with water from a hand-pump bottle that used to contain window cleanser. Out here he’s startlingly different from what’s he like at the airport or in the plane. His domesticity seems wildly out of place.
She says, “It’s not altogether selfishness on my part. He’s not a fit father. She can’t stay with him. She just can’t.”
“Well-you’re talking about kidnapping now.”
“She’s my own daughter. My child!”
“Love, I’m talking about the law.”
“It’s kidnapping in New York-it’s honoring a court order in California. Depends where you’re standing.”
“Forget the legalities. The baby’s in New York with her old man? Then-possession being nine points of the law and all-you’re talking about kidnapping. You get caught, that’s what they’ll arrest you for.”
“I know that.”
“I think you belong on a funny farm.” But he says it with gentle humor. “What kind of guy is the father?”
“You won’t get an objective opinion from me.”
“Granted. Tell me about him.” He’s taking the steaks off the fire.
“On the surface very charming.”
“He’d have to be, to get you to marry him.”
He’s not looking at her just then and she wonders how he means the remark to be taken. Is it the casual flattery of a man on the make or a compliment meant sincerely?
“He’s dangerous.” Then abruptly she stops, feeling awkward. She didn’t mean to put it that way. It seems to reveal too much. She doesn’t want to scare him off.
She continues quickly: “He can be unpleasant.”
“Yeah, well we all can be unpleasant.” He’s plucking potatoes and corn on the cob out of the coals, using the long barbecue fork to peel the foil off them.
“What’s his name?”
“Bert. Albert. Some of his friends call him Al.”
“Albert what? Hartman?”
“Of course,” she lies.
Is it her imagination or did he notice her instant’s hesitation?
His face gives nothing away. His eyes are squinted against the smoke. “We’re about ready here.” With deliberate care he breaks the leaves off the corncobs and removes the silk. He slides the potatoes deftly off the fork onto the plates and when she carries them inside there’s a corner of her troubled mind that appreciates the precision with which he effects all these little accomplishments: he only
He shakes up a decanter. “Salad dressing. My recipe. English mustard in it-hope you don’t mind.”
And he actually holds her chair for her.
When he sits down opposite her she’s grateful to him for not lighting the candles. That would be carrying it too far.
She says, “Wendy’s not in the city. They’re at our-his summer house in the Adirondacks. Outside Fort Keene.”
“That in New York State?”
“Yes. Near Lake Placid.”
“Mountain cabin?”
“You could call it that. It’s got twelve rooms.”
He gives her a sharp sidewise look and pours the wine-something red from a California vineyard. She tastes it and it makes her tongue tingle pleasantly. Must be careful-ration herself to one glass.
She says, “They’ll be going back to Manhattan on Labor Day. So I’ve got a deadline and it’s less than four weeks away.”
Now she lets him see her distress. It is genuine enough. “Doesn’t look as if I’m going to be an accomplished pilot by then, does it.”
“No.”
It provokes her quick smile. “One thing about you, Charlie, you certainly don’t believe in polite lies.”
“I try not to lie to my friends, honey bun.”
He hasn’t started to eat yet. He points with his fork toward her plate. Not until after she begins to eat does he pick up his knife. He’s a strange fossil, she’s thinking. The last of his breed.
He asks, “What makes Labor Day the deadline?”
“In the city I wouldn’t have a chance of getting near her. We live-they live in a condominium with its own private elevator. One apartment per floor. It’s a top-security building. Guards all over the place. Even the doormen are private police. And you can be sure they’ve been warned about me.”
“But you think you can get out of this house in the country. Even with her father right there?”
“I know how to do that. Things are more casual at Fort Keene and anyway he’s not always there. Sometimes
