The CRDF’s first military engagement. They’d taken two casualties out of a force of twenty-nine, and the opposing force was completely wiped out. As far as Elvis Clagg was concerned, the CRDF had just kicked ass.
4
‘Dear,’ said Alice Prester Young, ‘do we know a Daniel Parmitt?’
Jack Young looked up from his Wall Street Journalto smile across the breakfast table at his bride. ‘Who, dear?’
‘Parmitt, Daniel Parmitt. It says here he’s staying at the Breakers.’
‘It says where?’
‘In the Herald.’
Jack Young’s smile was the soul of patience. ‘Dear,’ he said, ‘why is Mr Parmitt in the Herald?’
‘Because he was shot. Not expected to live.’
‘Shot!’ Jack’s surprise was genuine. ‘Why would we know anybody that was shot?’
‘Well, it says he’s staying at the Breakers, so I’m wondering if he’s here for the ball.’
‘Well, if he’s been shot,’ Jack said, ‘he isn’t likely to come to the ball.’
‘No, dear, but I was just wondering.’
‘If we knew him,’ Jack said.
‘Yes, dear,’ she said, although by now she had realized that wasn’t the actual question at all. It wasn’t did theyknow this Daniel Parmitt, it was did sheknow him. Jack wouldn’t be likely to know anybody from herpast, would he?
This was her first season at the beach as Alice Prester Young, after having been Alice Prester Habib forever. Eleven years; hard to believe. Before that, somebody else, before that, somebody else, who even remembers anymore?
It was very nice to bring an attractive new husband to the beach for the season, introduce him around, let the biddies turn green with envy. And it was especially nice to know that one could still look all righton the arm of such a husband. One didn’t look exactly like a girl anymore, but one certainly did look all right.
Particularly the body. Between the doctors and the dietitians and the personal trainers, it was possible, though not easy, to keep a hard youthful body forever, to offer an attentive young husband something interesting and responsive in bed. The face could be kept smooth and attractive, but never quite exactly girlish. The softnesses and roundnesses of youth can never be recaptured on the face, so the best you can hope for in that department is angular, slightly hollow, good looks, more striking than beautiful. But who could complain? At sixty-seven, to have a striking face above the body of a twenty-year-old wasn’t bad. And a twenty-six-year-old brand-new husband.
Whyhad she stayed so long with Habib?
Jack broke into her thoughts by saying, ‘Somebody shot this fellow at the Breakers?’
‘No, dear, he’s stayingat the Breakers. They kidnapped him’
‘What!’
‘and took him into the Everglades and shot him there.’
‘Who? Why?’
‘Apparently it was a case of mistaken identity. They were professional killers, and whoever they were supposed to kill they took this man Parmitt by mistake.’
‘Now, that’s what I call bad luck,’ Jack said, and laughed. ‘And besides that, he doesn’t get to go to the ball.’
‘Oh, that reminds me, the auction,’ she said. ‘Dear, would you be a dear?’
‘Of course,’ he said. He’d been just as attentive when he’d been an insurance company claims adjuster and they’d met after that silly automobile accident in Short Hills. Now, his bright blue eyes eager, he said, ‘What do you need, dear?’
‘My albums,’ she said. ‘Not last year’s, but the two years before that.’
‘Coming up,’ he said. He rose, smiled, folded his Journal, put it on the chair, and went off to her study, leaving her in the cool and quiet breakfast room, all pink and gold, with its view over the sea grape at the limitless ocean.
In a minute he was back with the two albums she’d asked for, both big thick volumes with padded pastel covers and glassine sheets within, inside which, every year, Alice inserted all photos and social-page stories involving her. Which meant, naturally, that most of the other important Beachers would also be seen in the various photos.
‘What I’m looking for
‘ Alice said, pushing her coffee cup aside and riffling through the first album, ‘what I want
is
yes! There, see it?’
She had found a newspaper photo showing the three co-chairs of a charity ball from two years ago, the last year Miriam Hope Clendon had still been active in society. The three over-dressed women were lined up in a row to face the camera, Miriam in the center, of course, being the grande dame, with Helena Stockworth Fritz on her right and Alice on her left. But this time it wasn’t at herself Alice wanted to look, nor even at the rather portly and snout-faced Miriam, but at the necklace around Miriam’s neck, on which she tapped a mauve false fingernail.
