Cancel All Our Vows (14 page)

“Fletch had a little work to do this morning. He probably got home around noon and got my note and got up here just in time to miss us.” She had a twinge of guilt as she remembered her note. It had been pretty chilly. She put her lips closer to Martha’s ear. “Pal, if anybody should ask you, coming up here was your idea.”

Martha gave her a quick, wise look. “Sure. Any time. Sometimes I can use favors like that myself.”

Jane rested her forehead on her crooked forearm. Every
dip and movement of the boat made her conscious of her body, conscious of flux and flow and that raw little edge of wanting which, once aroused, would stubbornly not recede until sated. Yes, Fletch would be there, waiting. He’d be irritated, and they’d do a little genteel snapping at each other, without letting the others know—because that united front you presented to the world was very precious and very necessary. And then you would find a chance to get away from the others for a few moments and then you would kiss and make up, and the instant he kisses you, he’ll know just how you stand because he always seems to sense that, always. And it will be a game to get away from the others, and it will be like that time last summer. Sun shining down through the leaves, and oh, those miserable deer flies, but good anyway, as this will be good.

When the motor slowed she lifted her head and saw the dock close by. She got up and balanced and picked up the bow line and jumped to the dock, turned and fended the boat off with her bare foot, then sat on her heels and made the line fast to the dock. It seemed silent and hot after the roar and wind of the boat

Judge said, “Mother, Johnny Dimbrough says there’s a very easy mountain right over there with a trail and everything and we can’t go swimming for an hour anyway, so all the kids are going and can we?”

“Of course, dear. Be careful. Watch out for Dink.”

They ran off whooping. Dolly grabbed her little one and carted it, objecting, off to the midday nap. Hank came out on the dock with a drink in his hand just as Jane stood up and turned toward the house.

“Is Fletch inside?” she asked, a funny feeling of catastrophe pinching her heart.

“He phoned, darlin’. He left a message. A couple of things have come up, he said. He said he’d try to be home as soon after dinner as possible, so I told him to come up here for a steak tonight and he said he’d call if he couldn’t make it.”

Jane frowned at him. “That’s funny. He
never
works Saturday afternoon.”

Hank beamed. “Tell you what. We’ll set spies on him and get her address. Then we’ll raid the joint.”

She turned to Martha. “Gosh, I think maybe I better go back to town.”

“Why don’t you phone him?”

“I don’t think I can get him at the office.”

“Go try, dear. It’s a lot easier than rounding up the kids and dragging them back into the heat.”

“Go use the phone, dear,” Dolly said.

Jane phoned the house, and then the office. After six rings a man answered hesitantly. “Yes?”

“Is this Forman Furnace? Who is speaking, please?”

“Glover, M’am. I’m a watchman.”

“This is Mrs. Fletcher Wyant. Do you happen to know if my husband is in his office?”

“He was, Missus Wyant, but not any more. He left here I’d say about twelve thirty. Around there. Drove off and he hasn’t come back. Nobody’s here. The air conditioning is all turned off and everything. I don’t expect nobody back on an afternoon like this.”

“Well … if he should come back, will you tell him to please phone the Dimbrough’s camp? Can you do that?”

“Glad to. Dimbrough you said? I’ll tell him, but like I said, I don’t expect nobody will come back today.”

“Thank you, Mr. Glover.”

“You’re certainly welcome, Ma’am.”

She sat by the phone for a few moments, snapping her thumbnail against her front teeth. She took a cigarette and flicked it angrily against the back of her hand, lit it with a hard sweep of the match against the striking surface. She broke the wooden match between her fingers. He’d started it, hadn’t he? Waking up in a bestial temper. Abusing the children. Growling at me. Taking the car without a word or an offer. Nobody would blame me for getting the children out of that heat. Heat like that can make them sick. And me too. He’d never think of that. He goes to an air-conditioned office every day, while I slog around that house with sweat dripping off me, trying to keep it decent for him and the children. Oh, Fletch, why are we doing this to each other just when I … when I need you near me.…

The sharp yell of the phone made her jump. She picked it up. “Is this Lake Vernon aye-yut seven nye-yun?”

“Yes, it is.” And bless you, my darling, for calling me.

“I have a call from Washington, D.C., for Mr. Henry Dimbrough. Is he there? Hello! Is he there?”

“Yes,” Jane said dully. “Just a moment, please.”

She went out and called Henry in off the dock. He was jubilant at getting his call. He patted Jane on the fanny, a familiarity that she despised, and said, “You just earned yourself an orchid, baby.” He snatched up the phone. “Hello? Hello? Johnny? You bastard! Jane honey, shut that door there, will you please?”

Jane went back to the dock. Martha was sitting up, oiling her legs. “Still want a ride back? I was thinking, I could leave all the kids here and drive you in and drive back out myself. I could do it, with luck, in less than an hour.”

Jane sat down. She knew she should say yes. She knew that it might be terribly important to say yes. She managed a smile. “He’s big enough now to take care of himself, Martha. I like it here, and here I stay.”

“Smart gal!” Dolly said, peering through her sun glasses at her knitting. She stood up. “You two can soak up that heat all day if you want to. Me for a cool nap with the rest of the young children.”

Jane spread her towel out, put her cigarettes handy. “I’ll take mine right here,” she said. She rolled onto her face and surrendered herself to the bright hard weight of the sun. The boards under the towel were sun-hot, and she could feel the heat of them against her breasts through the towel and the swim suit. She felt on edge. She felt as though she were trembling inwardly. Why should this feel like such an irrevocable decision? She shut her eyes against the glare. The lake lapped the pilings of the dock. She could almost smell the brassy heat. She made her muscles go flaccid, and she felt as thought, with each exhalation, her body flattened itself a bit more against the heated boards.

The voice awakened her and she felt bleared by heat, swimming in heat, afloat in tides of hot light. “Wha’?” she said, through thickened lips.

“I said you might be getting too much, Jane.” She half
turned and squinted up into Sam’s face. He was massive against the sun, kneeling beside her. She saw the incredible symmetry of his broad chest, curved hard as a warrior shield. She lay back again, face down, trying to force her way up through the daze of sun and light.

“Where’s … everybody?”

“Let’s see. Hank is napping and so is Dolly. The kids are up the mountain. Steve and Dick and Deena are doing some slow trolling in the boat. Jane, your back looks almost crisp. Let me put some oil on it.”

“Don’t, please,” she said weakly.

She heard him unscrew the bottle cap. Then she felt the warm slick of oil on her back, felt the gentle pressure of his big hand. He rubbed it up from the small of her back toward her shoulders. The sun and sleep had beaten down the hard wiry edge of desire in her, and now it all came back, but not as before. It came back as a floating warmness, and she abandoned herself to it completely, breathing through her open mouth, and his touch was a caress, and his hand was strong and warm.

“My darling,” he whispered.

“No,” she said, her thoughts incoherent, knowing only that she must stop the touch of his hand. “No! Oh, damn you! Oh, God, Sam!” And she rolled away from him, sitting up, her eyes squinched with brightness and with tears, and saying, “Leave me alone. Please leave me alone.”

He was kneeling, sitting back on his heels. His big hand gleamed with the oil. He stared at her and said quietly, “I know.”

“You don’t know a damn thing. You’re too young to know anything.”

He deliberatly capped the bottle, lay face down and washed his hands in the lake, picked up her towel and dried them, without speaking.

“Okay, Jane. In the lake it was a gag. Hell, you’re female. You’re pretty. You’re stacked. So you’re fair game. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That’s the way I figure. And, baby, I’m not one of your wet-eared prep-school kids. I’ve picked coal and driven trucks. So it was a standard approach. You see that? If I made out, fine. If I didn’t, better luck next time. But something went wrong.”

“How?” she whispered.

“You tell me. That crazy ride with you perched on my shoulders. I don’t know. Like floating. Like dreaming. Like nothing ever. It scared me. In a way that nothing ever has before. I kept thinking it had all happened before, somehow. I don’t expect you to understand what I mean. So I’m sunk. Damn it, I think I’m in love with you.”

“You’re not.”

“I don’t see how I could be. What’s the other answer? What is it, then?”

She squared her shoulders. “Young boys often get crushes on older women.”

He leaned forward a little. “All right lady. Then tell me what it was that got to you? Tell me.”

She was gaining control and she knew it. “Sam, I’d like to say it was your sterling character or your big shoulders or something. But it was purely physiological. Nothing more than that. Ask any neurologist, if you don’t understand what I mean.”

He stared at her and then shocked her with a great brassy bray of laughter. It made the cords in his strong throat stand out. “Now—believe me—I’ve heard everything.”

“Why are you laughing?”

“Let’s go for a walk along one of these trails.”

“No.”

“Don’t you want to prove you’re stronger than what any neurologist can explain to me?”

“That’s not the point. I don’t have to prove anything.”

He sobered at once. “I’m sorry I said that. Jane, I think you’re one damn fine person. I know what I am. I don’t want you to have any part of me.”

“Never fear.”

“But I can’t guarantee that I won’t make passes. That’s almost instinctive.”

“No character?”

He grinned that small-boy grin. “No training, maybe. So promise I’ll get a cold shoulder every time.”

“You will. That’s a guarantee.”

“Because, Jane, I think this could be trouble. I think it … might mean too much.”

“Nonsense!”

“We’re a hell of a lot alike, basically. That’s the trouble with us. You could be my sister.”

“Big sister.”

“Stop smiling at me like that or I make the next pass right here in front of God and everybody.”

“Control yourself, sonny. Lie down and tell me your personal history.”

He rolled onto his back. “Let me see now. Where do I start? The pass I made at the nurse in the maternity ward? I think I was four days old at the time.”

“That might be interesting.”

“Well, she leaned over my cradle and you understand I was too young to have developed any taste at that point. She had red hair and teeth like a beaver. And when she saw what was I up to, she was filled with outraged indignation. She told me she was old enough to be my mother, and what was I thinking of, anyhow. God, Jane, you’ve got a lovely laugh. Like bells.”

“Get back to the nurse.”

“Well, she reported me to the doctor and he told my mother and she said she wasn’t at all surprised, as that sort of thing seemed to run in the family. From then on I was under a cloud. I was the scourge of the kindergarten, and by the time I got to the first grade, I was a tired old roué, but I still had a fine fond eye for a shapely ankle. Girls used to follow me wherever I went. I made them line up in columns of twos and hired a fife and drum corps. We were quite a sight on the streets of Nanticoke. I insisted on nothing but music from
Scheherazade.
Now tell me all about yourself.”

“Dull, sonny. Dull. A housewife. My husband is the treasurer of Forman Furnace. I have those two children you met. We live in a new house. We love each other, and we’re good for each other.”

“He a nice guy?”

“Fletch is a honey. He has his gruesome moments, but don’t we all.”

“The script is wrong, Jane. You’re supposed to be married to some half-dead old crud. And you love life, see. So we get this sequence, see. We make it like a dream, and we
put you in something all shimmery and white, coming down these pink marble stairs see. With a full orchestra and heavy on the violins. I come walking out from the side to where the camera can pick me up, and at first I don’t see you. Then suddenly I look up and there you are. Your eyes go wide. We stare at each other. Lots of violins right there. You come down the stairs hesitant-like, your fingers at your throat. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. I take a step toward you. We reach out. Our fingertips touch. And we dance. Oh, hell! Cut. I just remember I don’t dance good enough.”

“Sam you’re a wonderful fool!”

“Oh, sure. Good old Sam. Tell you what. I’ll be a friend of the family. Raid your icebox on Thursday nights. The three of us, we’ll sit out in the kitchen and tell lies and laugh like anything.”

“What are you going to be, Sam?”

“When I grow up, you mean? It’s like this. That fellow that steers the back end of the hook and ladder, there’s a job!”

“Seriously.”

“Hmm, she’s got to be serious,” he said. She was propped on her elbows, looking at him in profile. His eyes were shut against the sun. He said slowly, “This I usually keep to myself. Don’t know why you should all of a sudden seem like … well, like another part of myself. I clown, kid. Strictly for the kicks. When I lock my door, I hit the books. We beef-trusters aren’t supposed to do that, not with the money they pay us to play ball. Honey, I’ve got to find myself something I can believe in. We’ve built a fat shiny world, and we’ve built it so tall, it looks like it wanted to fall on us. I know I could make myself fit my natural environment—which is maybe that good old Community Plate, Rusko Windows and a Forman Furnace in the basement. I have the right touch, somehow, with people. So I can make the living, according to
their
rules, but believing in it is something else. Mr. W. Chambers, it seems to me, simplified the problem. Be a pinko or a Christer he says, with nobody in the middle. I personally can’t get up a hot sweat over either answer. That Walden gentleman comes close, but I haven’t got a green thumb
and I like modern plumbing. You see, I somehow don’t want to live my life with my tongue in my cheek. Corny as it sounds, I want a cause, and some good reasons.”