Turning, he walked to the door.
“Peter,” she said.
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder, and she had turned away from the windows, letting the drapes fall together across the glass behind her to shut out the night and the falling snow. Her lips were parted in a little smile that possessed a quality of deadliness, and her eyes were shining.
“About my position in the middle,” she said. “I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you. I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”
CHAPTER 2.
The sun was white and hot, just past the zenith. The trees on the lawn stood still in the breathless day. From his room in the east wing of the house, Peter could look down upon the stone terrace that covered part of the ground area between the east wing and the west. From its high place in the sky, the sun shot a sharp angle between the wings. White light rebounded from the colored, glittering flags. Down there on a bright red chaise longue on wheels, Etta lay stretched on her stomach with her head cradled on her arms. She was wearing a pair of white twill shorts that looked from a distance like a small part of Etta that hadn’t been previously exposed to the sun. Her body above and below the brief break was the color of cocoa. On a round wrought-iron table beside the lounge was a tall glass. The glass had parallel red, blue, and yellow stripes painted around its circumference from top to bottom. It was empty.
Carrying a tennis racket, Peter went downstairs. He stopped inside long enough to mix Tom Collinses in glasses to match the one on the table on the terrace and then went out onto the terrace with the racket under his arm and a glass in each hand. Etta didn’t look up. Her body was covered with a thin film of clear oil. The oil gave her skin a soft, shiny look like satin. He set the lull glasses on the table beside the empty, and Etta raised her head slowly and looked at him over a shoulder. Her eyes had a glazed, unfocused look, as if she had wakened from some very deep sleep.
“Hello, darling,” she said.
“I brought you a cold drink. Tom Collins.”
“Thanks. You’re a very thoughtful son.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Is this the boy who called me Mother? What’s the matter, Peter? Feeling sensitive?”
Sitting beside her on the edge of the lounge, he leaned down and touched her lightly with his lips just below the short hair on her neck. A tiny shiver moved through her skin peripherally from the point of contact, and she rolled over and swung her legs off the opposite side.
“I think you’d better hand me my Collins, darling.”
He handed it to her, and she took a swallow and looked at him across the red interval with a little smile twisting her lips.
“Playing tennis?”
“If you’ll play with me.”
“In this heat?”
“You play better when it’s hot.”
“All right. I’ll get my shoes and racket.”
She went inside, carrying her drink. He waited on the lounge and sipped his own. The sunlight bounced and hung shimmering above the flags, and he could feel the heat through the soles of his shoes. He drained his glass, letting the last fragment of ice slip down into his mouth. It melted immediately on his tongue. Time was white and hot and utterly silent, and it did not move. In eternal, unmoving Time only the things moved that were not eternal—the earth and the sun and Etta on the terrace behind him.
“Are there balls at the court?” she said.
“Yes. I left some there yesterday.”
“Okay. I’ll bet you ten on a set.”
“You’re on.”
They went down across the back lawn to the court and began volleying for service, and she won after a couple of minutes, and he knew he was in for a time because her service was very good. She reached high for the ball, rising on her toes and arching back for power, and her racket came up and over in a strong, clean sweep that met the ball at just the right instant of its descent to send it like a bullet over the net at a shallow angle that was mean. The ball skittered off the packed clay with practically no bounce. In all the games they played, he never broke her service.
It was so hot. Sweat kept running down into his eyes to impair his vision, and between the sweat and ascending heat waves, the proximate earth was a blurred distortion. Across the net, Etta’s cocoa body moved and altered and took a thousand shimmering shapes. He could see, even at a distance through the bright haze, how perspiration quickly dampened and darkened her white shorts where they stretched tight over her hips. It was hot as hell, and hell was too hot for tennis. They traded games on services to deuce and then decided to call it quits.
Beside the court was a shed in which were kept a roller and a marker and odds and ends of equipment. They went over and
