Dam on a scenic road that ran alongside a pretty blue lake. He drove with one hand and fingered his bellybutton with the other. He felt like a new person. There were good reasons for his feelings. Penny liked him. She really liked him. She liked him well enough to leave Gary for him.
He was sure of it. She had given him all the signals. Of course, she couldn’t come right out and say so in front of Gary. It was his turn to take action. He was the man. He had to claim his property.
First, she gave him a big hug when she spotted him. Then she asked him to have dinner with them. She readily gave him her address and phone number. And she hugged him again when they said good-bye.
On top of that, she was upset with Gary because he had corrected her about the plums. A small thing, perhaps, but a harbinger of what was to come. She understood that. She was a smart girl. She would dump him now before they became too entangled. She was just waiting for Alfred to make the first move.
This revelation had come to him during the night as he tossed and turned in his motel room, unable to sleep. He had figured the whole thing out. He was proud of his logical mind-a steel trap-when he chose to use it. Well, he was using it now.
First, he had eaten some crow. He had to admit his mistake in not approaching Penny before this. When he had moved to Lomita a year ago, he should have made himself known to her. It would have saved a lot of grief on his part and a lot of dating errors on her part. There never would have been a Gary. He, Alfred, and Penny would be going on their honeymoon together, not Penny and Gary.
But Alfred had been suffering from a recent rejection when he arrived in California. A rejection it had taken him months to get over. Psychologically, he wasn’t in any shape to say anything to Penny. Well, that was over and done with. He had recovered his poise. He was ready to talk to Penny the way he should have long ago. He was ready to be a man.
His shyness and insecurity had played him false before, but he had overcome them. He knew what he wanted, and he would go after it like a bull in a curio shop. He would get the girl, and they would ride happily ever after into the sunset.
They would be going on his kind of honeymoon. A honeymoon not so outdoorsy, with more creature comforts. Perhaps to a luxury resort. Penny would love it. She was just doing this roughing it thing because Gary wanted to. But she had wised up about Gary.
Once Alfred had figured everything out last night, he had to make a decision. Should he wait until Penny was back in Torrance, or should he act immediately? The answer was obvious. He had to act now. Strike while the poker was hot. Penny would expect it of him. He expected it of himself. He had a head of steam going, and it would lead him to victory.
Penny and Gary had graciously verified their schedule for him at dinner. It was almost the same as the one outlined in the notebook. They planned to stop at Grand Coulee Dam today, probably for lunch. Alfred had gotten smart. He had his lunch with him. He was sure he was ahead of them. He would be there when they arrived.
Gary was singing off-key along with a country song playing on the car radio. “I can’t help it if I’m still in love with you.”
“What’s the matter?” Penny asked. “You look as if you’ve lost your last friend.”
He realized that he had a pained expression on his face. “That’s a hurtin’ song. Written by Hank Williams. That’s how you’re supposed to look when you listen to that type of music.”
“It’s too mournful. If it affects you that much we’d better turn it off.”
Gary clicked off the radio. Penny was right. This was a time for joy, not sorrow.
“I can’t believe we’ve been married five days,” he said.
“It’s four days since August twenty-ninth.”
“I’m counting the day we got married as one.”
“All right, Mr. Mathematician. Have it your way. Are you going to try to call Henry again?”
Gary had forgotten about his old roommate. He hadn’t been able to reach him in several phone calls. They hadn’t had any problems since the day of their wedding.
“No, I’m going to write off my brush with the law as a bad dream.”
Gary couldn’t believe how happy he was about being married. Although he had never been actively unhappy in his life, there had always been something missing. Penny filled that void. It was true that he had been in love his last few months of college. However, there had been several strikes against that affair from the start.
One was that he had long planned to go to California the day he graduated, leaving Michigan where he was a student at the U of M, and Western New York where he had grown up, far behind. That was the guillotine hovering above the heads of his girlfriend and himself. They both knew it would drop at a preordained time. And it did.
Another problem was the age difference. Alice had been a first semester freshman, too young, too smart, too ambitious to get married, or to follow him to California. And Gary, himself, had not been ready for any kind of permanent commitment. The romance ended the day he boarded a plane for Los Angeles. He had not seen her since.
The echoes of Alice had reverberated for the first two years he was in California. He compared all the girls to her and found them wanting. He had bouts of living like a monk and at times verged on depression. Even after he got his dating act together, he had not found any fish worth keeping. He had thrown them all back. These failures had led him to join Human Inventory. It was one of the smartest things he had ever done.
“Viewpoint for the dam ahead.” Penny brought him out of his reverie.
He turned the car in the direction the sign indicated, and they were soon sitting at the foot of the largest concrete structure in the world-producer of hydroelectric power, irrigator of farmland.
“Darn this rain,” Penny said. “We’ll melt if we go out there. We’ll just have to eat lunch in the car.”
Fortunately, they had plenty of food with them, including pineapple juice, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cookies, potato chips, and a can of peaches.
“ A feast fit for a king.” Gary was particularly addicted to potato chips and made sure he got his share.
“Look at that car over there. Except for the color, it’s just like mine.”
Gary directed his gaze at a 1959 Ford Fairlane parked about fifty yards away, whose occupants apparently were also looking at the dam. He couldn’t see who was inside the car. The two-tone, green and white model had wings that were less pronounced than those of the 1957 model had been. It looked stylish, but it was a gas hog. Which is why they had opted to drive his economical Volkswagen on this trip, even though Penny’s car, given to her by her parents, would hold a lot more baggage.
Alfred saw their car pull up to the viewpoint. He had guessed right about their destination, but he had parked far enough away so they wouldn’t see him inside his car. They didn’t know what his car looked like yet. It was just the car of another sightseer. He was safe for the moment. Soon they would know his car, but it would be because Penny was leaving in it with him.
He could sit here and plot his next move. The immediate problem was the rain. It was coming down in sheets, and they showed no inclination to get out of the VW. It must be cramped in that little car, especially with all the stuff they had in the backseat. He was glad he had the roominess of his Ford, even though buying gas for it was rapidly depleting his cash supply.
As long as Penny stayed in the VW, he wouldn’t be able to isolate her so that he could talk to her. He needed to catch her away from Gary. How could he do that? Alfred finished his lunch. Penny and Gary stayed in their car. Alfred thought about creating some sort of disturbance that would get their attention and separate the two of them long enough for him to do what he had to do. It was raining too hard.
While he dithered, time passed. Before he could come up with a workable plan, they drove away.
Penny wasn’t sure why she felt the way she did. The feeling was not one of terror, but the prelude to terror, when the hairs on the back of your neck tell you that something really bad is going to happen, but you’re not quite
