dressed, watching Jack, wondering why she was so concerned about him. Did it mean what they'd done had less effect on her than it did on Jack? Did it mean she thought Jack might blab? Did it mean Jack was upset, Jack was already having regrets? Her body was sore nearly everywhere. The earth had hurt. The goddamn ground. She wondered if she'd become too complex to be concerned about someone without listing possible reasons.
'Where's my shoes?”
'You didn't have them.”
'I didn't have them, right.”
'I speak the truth.”
'No shoes,' he said.
'Which explains your feet.”
'What, cut?”
'Bruised,' she said.
He dressed and then started hopping on one foot while he examined the other. Pammy was on one knee, lacing the second sneaker. It seemed too much effort to get up.
'Which way back?”
'I don't know but we should get moving, I guess.”
'I guess,' he said.
'We say what?”
'We were here, if he asks.”
'We took a walk.”
'We look, glaa, like a little messy.”
'There's a windjammer, look.”
'We took a walk to the meadow,' he said.
'Can you see it, three masts? Don't worry. We took a walk. That's all.”
'Sure, like this.”
'So your shirt has a couple of wrinkles. No big deal, Jack.”
'Which way?”
'We went to the meadow and what? Looked at some boat for all this time?”
'It's not a problem, Jack.”
'Not for you, it's not.”
'Look, we skipped rocks for an hour and a half. We looted a graveyard. Who cares? He's not going to question us. We clubbed baby seals for their pelts.”
'Ethan is responsible for me. He is willing to be that. He accepts.”
'Jack, it's all right.”
'I'm in no mood to start things with Ethan right now. He accepts, whatever it is. My whole life. He is willing to be responsible.”
She realized she'd had that look on her face, briefly, gazing out at the windjammer, that dumb smile. They headed back through the woods, finding the right dirt road only after a period of some confusion, a brief disagreement over landmarks.
After the rain she sat with Ethan by the fire. At this angle, in his deep chair, he appeared to be asleep. She walked away from the light source and opened a side door just enough to thrust her face out into the night. The force of it, the snap of damp pine, was enough to startle her. Points of biolumines-cence were evident nearby, fireflies bouncing on the air, thimblefuls of abdominal light. She noted a faint odor of decomposition, bayside. When she slid the door shut her face grew warm immediately. Awareness washed away in layers and she went back to her chair. Ethan got up just long enough to poke a log apart: rekindling and hiss.
'There's something about your hair tonight. It's very black and shiny. A Japanese quality. The light, the way it hits.”
'To go with my German mouth.”
'It needs a topknot.”
'What's his name, the samurai?”
'You should try that, Ethan. A topknot. Back at the office.”
'I do sort of emit a certain feudal menace.”
He prolonged the word 'feudal.' Jack came in then. He took off his sweater and tossed it over the back of a chair. He sat on the flagstone hearth that extended about four feet into the room, his gaze directed between his feet. His voice was subdued, blending suggestions of fatalism and studied weariness. He paused often to take deep breaths.
'I saw it again. Out near the car. There's a gap in the trees. It was right there. I don't know, two hundred yards away. It was the same one. It was pulsing. Maybe not as bright this time. Greenish. The same green. I could see from near the car right out over the bay. Blue-green light. But solid behind it. An object. The light glowed and pulsed so it was hard to tell the shape the thing was. But it was solid. I knew it. I said it to myself standing there. I was carefuler this time. Color, shape, I kept my mind on it. I said don't move, keep it in sight. I never moved my head. I don't remember even blinking. Then it dipped a little and glided up and further out over the bay, going south and west, getting smaller. Then the trees blocked my view and I ran down to the water and I still could see it. Just the light, bluish green, getting small, small, small. Nothing solid. But before that it was solid. I told myself. I said it standing there. This is light from an object. There's a thing out there.”
'A turquoise helicopter,' Ethan said.
'The way to attack this,' Pammy said, 'is to make a list of all the rational possibilities. Then see what we can eliminate and what we're left with.”
'But no problem. It's a turquoise helicopter. Turquoise is the Maine state color.”
'That was a police helicopter.”
'Of course. No mystery whatsoever. Patrolling the bay.”
'Patrolling the bay for UFOs.”
'There've been sightings, I understand.”
'I don't care,' Jack said.
'And which ties right in with the state motto.”
'Turquoise Forever,' she said.
'No, In Turquoise We Trust.”
'But that's only one rational possibility. We have to list many. Or two at any rate. It's the government standard.”
'A turquoise pigeon.”
'No, no, come on, has to be different.”
'A fourteen-ton turquoise pigeon breathing heavily.”
'Go right ahead,' Jack said.
'United in Truth, Justice and Turquoise.”
'E Pluribus Turquoise.”
'There's got to be at least one other possibility,' she said. 'The man here claims he saw it. It's only right we come up with a second interpretation.”
'Saint Elmo's fire.”
'What's that?”
'I'm naming the bloody things. Do I have to explain them too?”
'You didn't explain the turquoise helicopter. I knew right away what you meant.”
'It's an electrical discharge. A phenomenon that takes place before, during or after storms. I don't know-choose two. See, you people don't know the references. Your early years were abortive, Pammy old kid. I could say a shirt with a Mr. B. collar. You've no idea, right? So-and-so's decked out in his Mr. B. collar.”
Jack headed upstairs, reaching for his sweater as he passed the chair, carrying it crumpled, one rust-colored arm brushing the edge of each step as he ascended. It started raining again. Pammy checked a row of paperback books set on a broad shelf between the portable TV and the wall. Mystery, mystery, spy, sex, mystery. The books were old, sepia-toned inside; pages would snap cleanly. Ethan poured a drink and returned to his chair. Proceeding
