kinky beard was gone along with the chain-gang hair.
“If I were wearing Tarzan’s suit,” she said, “I’d show a little respect.”
“That’s why I asked. I’m showing respect.”
“Then ask him yourself,” she answered, and turned to leave. She had been sitting in the living room after lunch waiting for Margaret when he entered and stood at the piano. She was impressed and relieved by his looks, but his behavior in her bedroom was uppermost in her mind.
“Wait,” he said. “I want to talk to you—apologize. I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“Good,” she said, and kept walking.
“You can’t forgive me?” he asked.
Jadine stopped and turned around. “Uh-uh.”
“Why not?” He stayed near the piano but looked directly at her, the question apparently important to him.
Jadine took a few steps toward him. “I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“But I said I’m sorry. You can figure out why I did it, can’t you? You were so clean standing in that pretty room, and I was so dirty. I was ashamed kinda so I got mad and tried to dirty you. That’s all, and I’m sorry.”
“Okay. You’re sorry you did it; I’m sorry you did it. Let’s just drop it.” She turned around once more.
“Wait.”
“What for?”
“I want to play you something.” He tossed his jacket on the piano lid and sat down on the stool. “Would you believe this is one of the things I used to do for a living?” He played a chord, then another and tried a whole phrase, but his fingers would not go where he directed them. Slowly he took his hands away from the keys and stared at them.
“Couldn’t have been much of a living,” she said.
“It wasn’t. I could barely keep up with the drums when I was cookin my best. Now—” He turned his hands over and looked up at her with a very small smile. “Maybe I’ll just do the melody.” He tapped out a line.
“I don’t like what you did, hear? So don’t play any songs for me.”
“Hard,” he said without looking up. “Hard, hard lady.”
“Right.”
“Okay. I quit. I just wanted to tell you I was sorry, and that you don’t have to be nervous anymore.”
“I’m not nervous,” she answered. “I was never nervous. I was mad.”
“Or mad either.”
She walked toward him now and leaned an elbow on the piano, her thumbnail pressed into her bottom teeth. “I suppose Valerian invited you to stay for Christmas?”
“Did he?”
“Didn’t he?”
“I don’t know. I just got back this minute.”
Jadine stepped away from the piano and looked out the sliding glass doors. “He was carrying on this morning about some flower you made bloom.”
“Oh, that. He hasn’t got enough wind in there. It needed shaking.”
“You some sort of farmer?”
“No. Just a country boy.”
“Well, listen, country boy, my aunt and uncle are upset. You go and apologize to them. Their name is Childs. Sydney and Ondine Childs. I had to throw the pajamas you left in my bathroom out the window so they wouldn’t see them. You don’t have to apologize to me; I can take care of myself. But you apologize to them.”
“All right,” he said, and she sure did look it—like she could take care of herself. He did not know that all the time he tinkled the keys she was holding tight to the reins of dark dogs with silver feet. For she was more frightened of his good looks than she had been by his ugliness the day before. She watched him walk away saying “See you later” and thought that two months in that place with no man at all made even a river rat look good. There was no denying the fact that looking at his face and keeping her voice stern required some concentration. Spaces, mountains, savannas—all those were in his forehead and eyes. Too many art history courses, she thought, had made her not perceptive but simpleminded. She saw planes and angles and missed character. Like the vision in yellow—she should have known that bitch would be the kind to spit at somebody, and now this man with savannas in his eyes was distracting her from the original insult. She wanted to sketch him and get it over with, but when she thought of trying to lay down that space and get the eagle beak of his nose, she got annoyed with herself. And did he have a cleft in his chin? Jadine closed her eyes to see it better, but couldn’t remember. She left the room and climbed the stairs quickly. Christmas will be over soon. She had called Air France just as she promised Margaret she would, but she also made a reservation for herself for December 28, standby. Just in case. This winter retreat thing was running out anyway. She had not accomplished anything, was more at loose ends here than anywhere. At least in Paris there was work, excitement. She thought she had better go to New York, do this job, and then return to Paris and Ryk. The idea of starting a business of her own, she thought, was a fumble. Valerian would lend her the money, she knew, but maybe that was a sidestep, too. It was a silly age, twenty-five; too old for teenaged dreaming, too young for settling down. Every corner was a possibility and a dead end. Work? At what? Marriage? Work and marriage? Where? Who? What can I do with this degree? Do I really want to model? It was nothing like she thought it would be: soft and lovely smiles in soft and lovely clothes. It was knife hard and everybody frowned and screamed all the time, and if ever she wanted to paint a predatory jungle scene she would use the faces of the people who bought the clothes. She was bored and no more together than the river rat. She kept calling him that. River rat. Sydney called him swamp nigger. What the hell did he say his name was and even if she could remember it would she say it out loud without reaching for the leash?
