“Would you get mine? My swimsuit’s in it.”
“Sure,” he said.
“And put on some pants!”
“My suit’s in my bag too.” He found his trousers and got the keys to the Triumph. Outside the sun was higher, the chill of the fall morning nearly gone. He looked for the ship and saw it. Then it winked out like a star.
T
hat evening they made a fire of driftwood and roasted the big, greasy Italian sausages he had brought from town, making giant hot dogs by clamping them in French bread. He had brought red supermarket wine too; they chilled it in the Pacific. “I never ate this much in my life,” Lissy said.
“You haven’t eaten anything yet.”
“I know, but just looking at this sandwich would make me full if I wasn’t so hungry.” She bit off the end. “Cuff tough woof.”
“What?”
“Castrating woman. That’s what you called me this morning, Tim. Now
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“You sound like my mother. Give me some wine. You’re hogging it.”
He handed the bottle over. “It isn’t bad, if you don’t object to a complete lack of character.”
“I sleep with you, don’t I?”
“I have character; it’s just all rotten.”
“You said you wanted to get married.”
“Let’s go. You can finish that thing in the car.”
“You drank half the bottle. You’re too high to drive.”
“Bullshoot.”
Lissy giggled. “You just said ‘bullshoot.’ Now
He stood up. “Come on; let’s go. It’s only five hundred miles to Reno. We can get married there in the morning.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“If you are.”
“Sit down.”
“You were testing me,” he said. “That’s not fair, now is it?”
“You’ve been so worried all day. I wanted to see if it was about me—if you thought you’d made a terrible mistake.”
“We’ve made a mistake,” he said. “I was trying to fix it just now.”
“You think your dad is going to make it rough for you—”
“Us.”
“—for us because it might hurt him in the next election.”
He shook his head. “Not that. All right, maybe partly that. But he means it too. You don’t understand him.”
“I’ve got a father myself.”
“Not like mine. Ryan was almost grown-up before he left Ireland. Taught by nuns and all that. Besides, I’ve got six older brothers and two sisters. You’re the oldest kid. Ryan’s probably at least fifteen years older than your folks.”
“Is that really his name? Ryan Neal?”
“His full name is Timothy Ryan Neal, the same as mine. I’m Timothy Junior. He used Ryan when he went into politics because there was another Tim Neal around then, and we’ve always called me Tim to get away from the ‘Junior.’ ”
“I’m going to call him Tim again, like the nuns must have when he was young. Big Tim. You’re Little Tim.”
“Okay with me. I don’t know if Big Tim is going to like it.”
Something was moving, it seemed, out where the sun had set. Something darker against the dark horizon.
“What made you Junior anyway? Usually it’s the oldest boy.”
“He didn’t want it, and would never let Mother do it. But she wanted to, and I was born during the Democratic convention that year.”
“He had to go, of course.”
“Yeah, he had to go, Lissy. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand politics at all. They hoped I’d hold off for a few days, and what the hell, Mother’d had eight with no problems. Anyway, he was used to it—he was the youngest of seven boys himself. So she got to call me what she wanted.”
