it last? How soon would she feel the need, the irresistible need, to love herself again?
But when you came down to it, what did you really have, ever, but the moment? It was all there was. When it was gone it was gone and you couldn’t bring it back, you could only wait for the next one. Well, she’d made the most of this one.
Sheila came out of it slowly. Even as the glow faded she knew that it was only a temporary glow, that she had no one but herself to thank for it. Was there anything in life sadder than that? Sheila wondered. Having no one but yourself? Oh, God, she thought, wanting to cry. She sat up, shivering, as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees. The sweat on her sun bathed body was cold, and her crotch and armpits were damp and clammy. She reached for her clothes, hurried into them. Damn Caron and Paul! She was going home. If they weren’t finished with their afternoon games, they could Goddamn well adjourn to the bedroom or to a motel or whatever they considered private enough. She was tired and hungry and her body ached with a longing that not even sleep, not even food, could hope to fill.
She covered the portrait of Claire, wondering if she’d ever finish it, tucked it beneath the seascapes, then put everything into the carry-rack on her moped. Walking or bicycling was better exercise, but she liked the feel of the buzzing bike between her thighs, almost like a vibrator. She was just putting the paint box into the basket when the sound of an auto engine drifted up into her ears.
Paul? she wondered, looking down at the road below.
No. It was a red Volkswagen, coming toward the island, not away from it. Sheila put her hand on her hip and stared at the VW convertible, top down, speeding over the causeway from the mainland. She leaned over the bluff and looked down, curious. A couple of people in the car, she could see, even from this high up. A man, bald and moustached, his shiny head gleaming in sunlight, and a girl whose long blonde hair streamed in the breeze. Who the hell are they? Sheila wondered. Nobody came out to the island unless they had some business here. Of course not. The whole island was part of the Archer family estate. Caron would inherit it, once that worm Lou was safely and legally dead. Salesmen? Sheila shrugged. She didn’t really care. She had no interest in buying anything, unless someone was selling a lifetime’s worth of love with a money back guarantee. Caron would send them packing. And at least there’d be someone else to interrupt whatever games Paul and Caron might be up to right now. Before she got back to the house and did the same. That made Sheila feel better. She got onto her moped, fired it, started back over the dunes toward the house.
She parked her bike behind the house, loaded her arms with canvases and paints, entered the house by the kitchen door.
Someone was in the refrigerator. “Hi, Caron,” she said. “Get me a beer while you’re at it, okay? Need any help with dinner?”
The door swung shut and Sheila was staring into the face of a stranger. A blonde girl, tiny but stacked, oh, Jesus! Wearing a mane of silky silver-yellow hair that fell down her back and shoulders, green eyes that glittered like emeralds. A t-shirt reading HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD, if the nipple bulges weren’t enough to distract any normal eye from the printing. And blue jeans so tight Sheila’s hips and ass began to ache in sympathy. Oh, my God, she thought, I have never seen such a slutty-looking girl in my entire life! Not even in that struck stop on the Boston Pike. She ought to be singing country and western songs in a truck driver’s bar. And what was she doing in the refrigerator? Here? Had Sheila walked into some kinky replay of the Manson massacre? And was her heart turning upside down inside her because she was scared or because.
The blonde girl smiled, shook back her wealth of hair. How would I paint that hair? Sheila asked herself. How would I make the silver and gold highlights stand out? “Hi,” the girl said. “Did you say you wanted a beer too?” She was holding a six-pack in one hand, swinging it idly, and her tits were bouncing inside her clinging t-shirt as her arm moved. Sheila felt vaguely seasick, watching those tits jiggle. The carton rocked against the girl’s leg. She was young. Oh, God, she was young. No more than seventeen? And her pants were so tight Sheila could almost see the pulse beating in the blonde’s thigh. Sheila clutched her paint box and canvases.
“I’m Melissa,” the girl added. “Melissa Chase. Wow, this is really a weird situation, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
Melissa shrugged, then smiled roguishly. Sheila’s eyes began to water. That smile… “Come on in to the living room. I guess they’re still talking about it. There’s plenty enough to talk about.”
Breathing hard, Sheila followed the girl through the swinging doors, into the living room. Did hips really have to swing that fluidly? The way Melissa’s swung? Not even the doors had a swing like that.
Caron and Paul were sitting on the couch, pale, drawn-faced, holding hands intently. A man sat in the chair facing them, and he stood up as Melissa and Sheila entered the room. The couple from the VW, Sheila thought. I should have recognized, the hair on the girl. So what was all this about? The man smiled, and his moustache lifted, showing his teeth. One of them, in the lower jaw, was noticeably crooked. Sheila frowned. She looked at the man, bald and barrel-bodied, with a huge moustache, and she knew she had seen him before, but she couldn’t remember where.
“And who is this?” the man said, leaning his head to one side. “As I live and breathe, if it isn’t little Sheila! My God, you’re not so little anymore! What are you, five-nine? At least. Mmmm, Caron isn’t the only pretty one in the family, either. Well, hell, Sheila, aren’t you going to give your brother-in-law a hello kiss? After seven years I ought to rate a hello kiss from somebody.”
Seven years, Sheila thought. Crooked tooth. My brother-in-law. “Ohmygod,” she said, quickly. “Ohmygod.” It was Lou, Caron’s husband, come back from the grave, come back for God knew what. The only thing Sheila knew was that it could not be for any good. She felt weak in the knees and, if Melissa Chase hadn’t caught her, she’d have toppled. The blonde girl’s frame was small, warm, soft, upholstered in all the right places, and surprisingly strong as she held Sheila upright. “I think I’m okay,” she said, straightening up, wondering why she hated not to be touching the little blonde. Then she looked at Lou Archer, and if looks could have killed, he would have died on the spot, grin, moustache, and everything.
CHAPTER FOUR
This was one of the classic situations, Sheila thought, and in a kinky, sick, way it was a kind of a privilege to be a part of it. Someday, she reminded herself, we’ll laugh about all this. But it was a little too soon for laughter.
Caron cried all through dinner; afterwards she swallowed four valiums, which at least seemed to dry up her tears. Mostly she sat with Paul, holding his hand tightly, her face, drawn and pale. While Lou made himself right at home, as if he’d just gone out for cigarettes rather than returned from seven years of oblivion. He walked Melissa around the den and living room, showing her family heirlooms, antiques, telling her funny little stories, and she giggled in all the right places like the silly little girl she was. And through it all, Sheila couldn’t take her eyes off Melissa.
I’m the worst part of it all, she thought. I ought to be allied with my blood-born sister, helping Caron put that son of a bitch into his place, helping her destroy him. And all I can think about is that cheap, tarty, dumb, stacked teenaged sun bunny, about the tits inside her t-shirt, about her legs, about her sweet swinging ass. I want to bite her. I want to sink my teeth into that tanned flesh. I want to find out if California girls taste different.
Lou was showing off the portrait of his seventeenth century ancestor but Melissa’s attention span was short. She lifted one little hand and touched the painting beside the one Lou was talking about. Sheila’s heart sang inside her body. It was one of Sheila’s paintings, a scene in the Berkshires. “That’s really nice,” Melissa said. “Look at the clouds.” She touched them. She might as well have been touching Sheila, who fidgeted nervously on her chair. “You can almost feel the rain starting to fall. I wish it was raining now.” Her hand fell away. “I’d take off all my clothes and dance up and down the beach. I love rain.” Sheila’s eyes misted over. Oh, my God, she thought, I want her!
Lou peered closely. “Oh,” he said, “whose name do I see in the corner? I didn’t know you were an artist, Sheila.”
Sheila sniffed haughtily. “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Lou. You’ve been gone a long time.”
“So I have,” he agreed, slipping his arm around Melissa. Sheila hated that gesture of possession. “But maybe I’ve come home to stay.”
