Contrary Pleasure (16 page)

They had looked for brain damage and found none. It was, they said, some
genetic imbalance at the time of conception.

When Brock got back to the car, Bess was standing beside it. “Was he glad
to see you?” she asked anxiously.

“You know, he asked me to come again.”

Her face lighted up. “He did! Oh Brock, how wonderful! You will, won’t
you? He
does
like you.”

“I’ll try to see more of him, Aunt Bess. I… I haven’t wanted to see much
of anybody lately.”

She touched his arm. “I know. Don’t let ’
em
get
you down, Brock.”

“I’ll try not to, Aunt Bess.”

She looked up at him with a crooked grin. “You’re getting too damn big to
go around calling me Aunt Bess, boy. It makes me feel ancient. How about just
plain Bess from now on.”

“Bess.”

“That sounds better.”

“It’s hard to say.”

“Thanks for visiting David.”

“And thanks for the car… Bess.”

They grinned at each other in quick understanding. He got in and backed
out of the drive. Her car was a small business coupe, a tan Plymouth which had
been purchased used. He tested brakes and acceleration on the way down the hill
into Clayton.

The Oak Dell Country Club was on the old Stockton road, six miles from
Clayton. It was on a knoll, a long, characterless, red brick building which had
been made attractive by the ivy, by careful plantings and landscaping. Beyond
it were the tailored fairways of the eighteen-hole golf course. Down the slope
to the left were the tennis courts and the big swimming pool, with a separate
bathhouse and locker rooms.

Before the depression of the thirties, Oak Dell had been very exclusive
and very expensive, with membership limited to one hundred men. But the dues had
dropped substantially and there had been a great campaign for new members, a
great many new members, just in order to keep the club from going under.

Some of those whose wealth had not been too sharply diminished by the
depression started a new club, far off on a back road in the hills, but they
retained their Oak Dell membership because it was a good place for kids, and
the golf course was the best in the area. The food at the club was inexpensive,
rather tasteless, but very abundant. The chef, a club fixture, simplified his
duties by depending too much on steam tables.

In the late ’thirties, with the idea of providing additional revenue,
five guest cottages had been erected off to the right of the club beyond the
caddy house, so close to the fairway of the first hole that heavy wire mesh was
needed to protect those vulnerable windows from the effects of a screaming
slice. The guest cottages had proven popular with those members whose houses
were so small as to make house guests more of an irritation than a pleasure,
and who did not wish to put them up at a hotel in the city. “We’ll put you up
at the club.” It had a nice sound, and the guest cottages were pleasant, though
rather meagerly furnished and equipped. That did not matter, as the people in
the cottages could eat all their meals except breakfast at the club, and walk
down the road a quarter of a mile for a bean-wagon breakfast if they so
desired.

When Brock turned in between the squat brick pillars of the entrance, he
looked first at the big parking lot and saw about thirty cars parked there on
this Thursday afternoon. He knew that most of those would be the cars of
golfers and thus both pool and courts might be fairly empty. This pleased him.
He parked and walked around the clubhouse and down the slope toward the tennis
courts. There were four asphalt courts, looking blue against the surrounding
grass, freshly and crisply lined. Two of the courts were in use, two games of
singles, and one figure sat on the grass watching the action on the near court.

He walked down the slope with an exaggerated nonchalance, feeling
conspicuous. It seemed these days that he had to imitate the person he used to
be, and that he had forgotten exactly how to do it. He saw that Clyde
Schermer
was playing Ellen on the near court. Bob Rawls was
on the next court over, playing against a girl Brock did not know. And the girl
sitting on the grass watching was, of course, Norma
Franchard
.
For the past six years, starting right after the last year of junior high,
whenever you saw Bob, you looked around for Norma and there she was. Now they
were both in Cornell, both in the first year, the same class as Clyde
Schermer
.

Ellen, gathering herself to serve, turned and waved her racket at Brock,
smiling as though she were glad to see him. Norma, hugging bare knees, turned
and grinned up at him. “The little lost one! My favorite hermit. Why haven’t
you been up and about,
Brockie
?”

She was a small, dark girl with black, shining eyes, and she had a deep
tan for so early in the summer. Brock eased himself down onto the grass beside
her. “I’ve been studying up on women, kid.”

“For them or against them?”

“The jury is still out.”

Clyde finished a sweaty point, gathered up the balls, and wound up for
his big serve. “Set point, darn it,” Ellen called. She braced herself. The big
serve hit hard and fair and she couldn’t get her racket in front of it. It hit
her knee and went almost straight up into the air. She rubbed her knee and
glared at Clyde. “That does it, oaf.”

“You’re the one told me not to play pat ball with you,” he said,
grinning.

They came over and sprawled on the grass, breathing hard. Ellen lay
spread-eagled, her eyes closed against the sky glare. Clyde braced himself on
one heavy elbow, close to her, looking across her at Brock. “Where you been
hiding, boy?”

Brock wondered how much Ellen had told him. Or if she had told him
anything. Ellen had always been vibrantly loyal. “Resting up, I guess. Reading
and so on.”

“Reading,” Clyde said. He made a sound of disgust. “I’ve cracked enough
books this year to last me forever.”

“They make you muscle boys read down there in Ithaca?” Brock asked.

“Short words,” Clyde said. He picked up a handful of the thick grass and
sprinkled it on Ellen’s bare midriff.

“Cut it out,” she said, and brushed it off, not opening her eyes. He
sprinkled more on. Ellen opened one ominous eye, then brought her leg up fast,
stamped a tennis shoe against Clyde’s thick shoulder and shoved hard, rolling
him back and away from her. She sighed and closed her eyes again. Brock, looking
at her, thought how nicely and sweetly she was built, those tenderly rounded
brown legs, the young breasts snug in the halter. When he looked at her and
thought of her as a woman, it made him feel strange. He didn’t want anyone
looking at her like that. Clyde or anyone. It was a funny queasy feeling to
think of Clyde looking at her and wanting her. To stop thinking about them that
way, he turned and watched Bob Rawls playing the strange girl.

She had a sure, unhurried way of moving. She managed to be in the right
place every time. He saw that her tennis had been worked on. She had a lot of
power. She had Bobby’s tongue hanging out. She was a tallish, ginger-headed
girl, angular but well-built, and she wore yellow shorts with big, black
buttons down the side and a white halter. She kept driving Bob back with a big
forehand, then cross-courting him for point after point.

“Who’s the new beast?” Brock asked Clyde, keeping his voice low.

“She’s staying with her mother at one of the cottages. Betty Yost. Pretty
hot. She took me six-four, six-one. They’re guests of the
Trynors
’.
California beast.”

“I thought it looked like that brand of ball. Anybody play me?”

They said they were too pooped at the moment.

Bobby pushed one too weak and too high and the ginger-head moved in like
a big cat for an overhand kill so hard that the rebound took the ball over the
backstop.

“Game and set,” Bob Rawls said. He trudged around and got the ball and
tossed it toward the net and then came slowly off the court with the Yost girl.
Bob was a tall, thin, wiry boy, sandy-blond, with colorless brows and
eyelashes, and at this point he looked sulky. He said hi to Brock, then
introduced Betty Yost. Betty sat down and Brock sat down again beside her.
Bobby had collapsed beside Norma.

“Who in the world do you usually play with?” Brock asked the new girl.
“Billie Jean?”

“She’s way out of my class. I have been on a court with her twice. It’s
humiliating. I’m not even good enough to give her a warm-up game.”

Brock noticed that her breathing had quieted quickly. She looked neither
warm nor ruffled. When she smiled, she squinted her eyes and wrinkled her nose.
The nose was short, and her eyes were big and a funny shade of lavender-blue.
He liked the color of them. She had freckles to go with the ginger, blond-red
hair, but not a redhead’s complexion. The freckles were darker spots against a
smooth, even tan. Her long legs were very, very special, he decided.

“Six-two, six-love,” Bobby said disgustedly.

“Gosh,” Betty Yost said, “I
ought
to play pretty good tennis. I’ve
played all year round since I was about five years old. And it’s a big thing in
Southern California. I can swim and play tennis and that’s all. Take Ellen
here. She can do both of those and play golf and bowl and ski and ice skate and
play basketball and softball.”

“But I don’t do anything really
well,”
Ellen said.

“Why should you, unless you want to make a living out of it?” Betty
asked.

“You could make a living out of tennis,” Clyde said.

“Oh, no! I didn’t work at it hard enough. And I can’t cover enough court.
And I guess… I don’t care enough about winning. You have to have a certain
psychology about it. It has to be your life.”

Brock sensed that they liked her, accepted her. And that was a bit
unusual. The group was usually cold to newcomers. Betty seemed to have an air
of maturity that the others didn’t have. He wondered how old she was.

“Want to give me a lesson too?” Brock asked.

She looked at him. “Well, one set.”

They went out and volleyed for a time. She put a surprising amount of
weight on the ball. It came over as heavy as a baseball, and his return had a
tendency to hang and float when her drives resisted the
overspin
he tried to put on them. She asked him if he was ready. They volleyed for serve
and he won on a fluke that crawled along the tape and dropped in.

He went doggedly after everything. Time after time the game settled into
long booming volleys, base-line stuff that was hypnotic. They each held their
serve until it was six all, and then she broke through his service and took her
own to win the set eight-six. Brock was glad she had consented to only one set.
He had played hard. His knees trembled and he had a heel blister and he was
soaked with perspiration. It shocked him that he was so out of condition. He
tried to control his panting as they came off the court.

“That was fun,” she said. “Let’s play again. Not today though. Six sets
is all I can handle.”

“One set is all I can handle, I guess.”

They stretched out on the grass. The other four went out for their usual
clown set of mixed doubles.

“I like your sister, Brock,” Betty Yost said.

“She’s a good kid.”

Betty sat up. “I don’t want to sit here all sticky. How about a swim?”

He called out to Bob Rawls. “How’s chances of borrowing swim trunks,
Bobby?”

“Number twenty-one. It’s unlocked. Take the red pair, hey?”

“Thanks.” He turned to Betty, standing beside him, tall enough so that
the crown of the ginger head was just a shade above the level of his eyes. “See
you at the pool, then.”

She headed off toward the cottages on the other side of the club. He
watched her go. Slim, straight-backed girl, with a sort of pert, jaunty look
about the trim little backside of hers under the yellow denim of her tennis
shorts. He saw how it might make a lot of sense. She was fun. No involvement. A
lot of exercise. A few laughs. He liked her voice. A nice fuzzy edge to it. He
could get in shape, get a tan, have somebody to be with when he was asked to go
out with the others. He wondered how long she was staying.

He found the locker and the red trunks. He left his sweaty clothes on a
bench, took a fresh towel from the rack outside the shower room and went on out
to the pool, highly conscious of his winter whiteness. Small children splashed
and bickered at the shallow end of the pool. Some young wives he knew by sight
though not by name played bridge at a metal table under a striped umbrella.
“Rudy!
Stop splashing Marie. You
hear
me? Joey, you let Sonny have the ball if he
wants it. You’ve had it a long time. Rudy, if you
don’t
behave, you’re
going to have to come out of there
this minute.
Do you hear me?
Joey!”

He dropped the towel, padded out on the low board, took two long steps,
bounded high, hit the water a bit too flatly. The water made his broken blister
sting. He swam two lazy lengths of the pool, avoiding the little kids. He
hoisted himself up onto the apron and saw Betty Yost coming. She wore a
strapless one-piece suit, a tight, tubular affair in pale blue that looked as
if it were made of velvet. She moved just a bit awkwardly as he waved at her
and watched her approach. She spread out a big yellow towel, put sunglasses,
sun lotion, cigarettes, lighter and magazine beside it, then took a quick run
and slanted off the side of the pool. She bobbed up in front of him, hair
darkened and pasted to her head, making her look boyish.

“I needed that,” she said.

“Best grade of water, girl.”

“Race?”

“One beating is enough for one day, Betty.”

“Coward!”

“Okay, then. Four lengths?”

She climbed out lithely. “Done.” They started at the deep end, gripping
the edge with their toes. She counted. She was in the water with a flat racing
dive while he was still in midair. He gained on her all the way down the pool,
but her turn was much better, and he was back where he started. He gained on
the way back and made a slightly better kick turn. He got to the third turn a
few feet ahead of her, but she more than made it up on her return. On the last
length, at
midpool
, she was a shade ahead of him. He
used everything he had left, which was not very much, and sensed when he passed
her. He hit the end and grasped the edge of the trough, wheezing and gasping.