Sunburn (8 page)
“They once played a game where they stuffed some jeans and a shirt with newspaper and waited behind a hedge for a car to drive by. Then they threw the dummy out in front of the car and Sean ran out, yelling ‘My brother. You killed my brother.’ Stupid game. But they were just kids. Well, turns out one of the cars is driven by a man whose son had just been run over. I never before saw Sean take anything so badly. At home he brooded for a month. Of course then he got back to being his old self. But that was the first time I’d seen him obviously different from his public self. I guess I really became interested in him then, and he noticed. We became confidants, more or less. At least he’d come and talk to me. I didn’t understand most of what he’d talk about—I was only six or seven then—but he’d come in to say good night and sit and talk until I’d go to sleep. I think that was why he liked talking to me. I really cared but I’d always wind up going to sleep. He called that my honesty.
“Once he came in and started talking about what he was going to do when he grew up, and about going to war soon and the next thing I knew I woke up and he’d gone to bed. It was horrible for me. I felt so guilty, as though I’d really let him down.”
She fell silent and closed her eyes, remembering. The night had been freezing cold. She hadn’t been able to get back to sleep so she’d gotten up and sat on the side of her bed. She’d been in a frenzy to tell Sean that it was all right, that she hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and that she really did care. Without knowing why, she’d taken off her pajamas and run down the hall to his room. She watched him sleep for a few minutes, then shook him and asked if she could get in bed with him and hug him. She said she was cold. He pulled back the blankets and let her in, and she rolled on top of him, stretching her arms around his chest. She remembered how good it had felt, with his heart beating so loudly against her ear. She apologized for having fallen asleep, and then, after just a moment, dozed again. Then he awakened her and told her she had to go back to her bed. He had an erection that she could feel with her legs, and she hugged him tighter.
“I don’t want to go,” she kept saying. “Why can’t I stay here?”
He laughed. “You’ll know all about it soon enough.” And he got up and carried her back to her bed.
“You’d better turn over now. This sun can be murder.” Kyra pulled her out of her reverie.
She turned onto her stomach and smoothed out the shift beneath her on the hot sand.
They lay in silence then for a while. A man selling frozen chocolates walked by them, squawking like a gull. He stopped near them and looked over.
“Ai, carumba! Ai lookee, lookee, chongo, chongo! Ai likkee-likkee.” The little man ran around like a hairless monkey, screaming and dancing. “Ai chongo, hey chongo!” He came over to them, delighting the other people on the beach, and shoved a chocolate ice cream into Kyra’s face. He put on an insane grin and looked directly at her breasts.
“Chongo, chongo?” he asked.
Both women laughed and waved him off, but he went on, cupping his hands under his own breasts. “Oooh la la. No chongo. Mucho chi chis. Eeee. Eeee.”
His laughter echoed down the beach. Then someone called for him and he ran off, screeching.
“Could he be more obnoxious?” Lea asked.
“I never think so, but then he does occasionally outdo himself.”
Kyra got up and ran lightly down to the water. Lea watched her dive in and swim out to the nearest buoy, about a hundred yards from the shore.
When she came back, she told Lea to turn over. “Do you want me to put on some lotion?”
They started talking about Sean again as Kyra’s strong hands rubbed the oil into Lea’s back. Kyra wanted to know when he had changed.
Lea sighed. “When he came back from the war, he was completely different. Where before he used to sit with me and talk about his future, now he seemed to not care about it, or about anything. I remember him just sitting around the house in the afternoons after he got back, drinking beer and staring out of the front window. Finally he got a job, but just an assembly line job, and moved out of the house. After that, I rarely saw him, and when I did, it was almost too much for me.
“Once I went to his apartment and was supposed to stay for a week, but the place was a mess. Just a bed and a couch and newspapers all over the floor. Coffee cups lying all around and overflowing ashtrays. I only stayed one day. After that, we were strangers for a few years, but then when I moved to California, we began writing occasionally, and gradually, at least in his letters, he started to sound like his old self.
“Oh, he always had that same bluff exterior. You would never have thought, just to talk to him, that there was anything wrong. Even people who thought they knew him were pretty well fooled. It wasn’t so strange that people coming back from the war were hardened. But for a good five years, I don’t think he cared at all about anything.
“Even when his letters started saying something, they always stopped just before I felt he’d said what he wanted. And he stayed at that same job for more than twenty-five years. I think he’d probably be there still if it hadn’t been for the accident. It’s not that the job was so bad, but I just felt it wasn’t right for him. He had so much more to offer. At least now with this writing, he’s trying to get back in touch with himself. It’s almost as though he’s lived these past thirty years trying to get back to where he was when he lived at home.”
She stopped talking. The sun beat into her back.
Later, they went to Kyra’s favorite café, where Sean had come and asked her to live with him. They ordered some filter coffee and sat inside, away from the sun.
“And you never knew what happened in the war that brought about the change?” Kyra asked.
Lea shook her head. “Not specifically, but it was a betrayal of some kind. I’m pretty sure of that. And it had made him just stop trusting people. He even once wrote that the only reason he told me anything in his letters was because I was far enough away that I couldn’t do him any damage. That one hurt, let me tell you.”
She thought back to the letter. “Even my oldest drinking buddies are just people to pass the time. Any one of them would screw me if they had to. No, maybe that’s too harsh. Let’s just say if somebody had to get screwed, it wouldn’t be them. And how can you trust somebody when you know they feel that way? I think sometimes I’m really a fool and have always been one. I used to believe that if somebody was your friend, then that was that. Look on it as a defense alliance if you will. There was a certain perimeter inside which you were safe. But then . . . well, let’s just say I found that that wasn’t true.”
The letter had gone on. “The real world runs on the ‘Asshole Laws’ which are three in number, to wit: 1) If things get tough for me, things get tough for you. 2) I’d rather be an asshole than suffer. 3) If somebody has to lose, let it be you.
“
Voilà!
On this cheery note, I sign off, remaining yours in unfaith, etc.”
Voilà!
On this cheery note, I sign off, remaining yours in unfaith, etc.”
She winced even now as she thought of it.
“What’s wrong?”
She tossed her head to shake off the thoughts. “Oh, just thinking back.”
Kyra sipped at her coffee. “You know, though, he doesn’t seem unhappy to me now. I mean, I know he’s moody sometimes, but I don’t sense that he’s fundamentally depressed. He’s so out-front that I don’t see how anything could seethe inside him. He just lets go when he’s bothered, don’t you think?”
“He’s always been good at seeming carefree.”
“But I’ve seen him without his guard up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, reasonably.”
“Then I’m glad. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he were still watching out. Especially with you. You’re his first serious woman, you know.”
“He’s told me that, but I’m not sure I believe it.”
“It’s true. Though I suppose he’s not exactly been alone over the years. But you watch, and see if he ever is really vulnerable. Maybe people shouldn’t be. I don’t know. I don’t think I am. But Sean has to be, you see. He believes in it. And still he doesn’t let himself go. Maybe he’s afraid that he couldn’t handle another betrayal. We’ve all heard him say he couldn’t—that he’d kill himself, even.”
“He wouldn’t do that.”
“Then why does he say it all the time?”
“He doesn’t.”
“He says it enough to worry me.”
Kyra ran her hand through her hair and rested her chin on her hand.
“Lea, I’m not going to betray him.”
“But does he know that?”
“I’m sure he does.”
“Then why all the testing and teasing?”
“That’s just the way we are. It’s not that heavy a thing.”
“I think maybe you’re wrong.”
“Is that you or Doug talking? Sure, we keep on each other’s backs, but in a way it’s how we show we care. I really think he needs to know, for example, that I find other men attractive, so that the fact that I’m with him means that much more. And what am I supposed to do about his hand? Go around feeling sorry for him? He really can do almost anything anyone else can. And it has freed him, finally. Now maybe it’s unfortunate that he couldn’t have had it both ways, but I think—no, I’m sure—that he prefers his life now to the one he lived five or fifteen years ago. If we fight, it’s because we’re the kind of people who fight rather than let things build up.” Her eyes softened as she looked across at Lea, her hands curled around her coffee cup. “I am happy with him. Really happy. I’d never do anything to hurt him, especially just by teasing him. This jealousy thing isn’t so much the flirting I do, I’m sure. I don’t want anyone else. I wouldn’t be with anyone else. We’re friends. He trusts me. I told him I wouldn’t be with any other men, and he believes me.”
“Do you mean he wants to believe you?”
“No, I think he does. I really am aware of how serious all this is to him. Which isn’t to say it isn’t also for me. I don’t know if he’d kill himself, but I know that my faithfulness is a symbol to him, and I see its importance. I don’t know what he’d do if I betrayed him, or he me. I’m not sure either of us could stand it.”
What a coincidence that you should happen upon the same women when you come in for your afternoon cup of coffee. They sit well back in a darkened corner, but immediately you notice them. There is a table free near them and you can’t help yourself. You take it, if only to hear them speak.
It’s nothing very important, you gather, though they seem to be engrossed in it. Some talk about one of their boyfriends. Women like them probably have hundreds of men.
The coffee here is usually excellent, and they also serve a pear pie with whipped cream that has become a favorite. Too bad you’ve got only a few more days of vacation. But then, you suppose, if you lived here, it would finally get to you. No, it will be good getting back to work.
Again you look at the women. They probably spend all their days as they’ve spent this one. They sunbathe, eat, talk of their little society-oriented world. It must get terribly boring. They’d probably grab at anything for a little excitement.
And yet there’s something about the way they talk. There’s an intensity that seems to remove them slightly from the strictly mundane. Or is it that you just like to think that women who are so attractive ought to have something to say?
Oh well, the coffee has cooled and you take a sip.
They get up to leave. The older one brushes you slightly and excuses herself. Then you hear her say, “I don’t really think he’d do anything that extreme.”
What is wrong with the coffee? It tastes as if someone put salt in it.
Seven
Lea had already left the bed. I opened my eyes and looked out at the blue sky through the window. Normally there was a breeze in the morning, wafting over our bodies as we lay in bed, cooling the room, waking us gently. But today the room was an oven. I got up and walked to the bathroom, my head throbbing. For once the cold shower was welcome.
No sooner had I begun than I heard screaming from below. Without even shutting the water off, I ran toward the noise, grabbing a towel to put around me on the way.
Downstairs, Berta was standing in the middle of the dining room, fanning the air with a broom, screaming in short, hysterical gasps.
I saw something dart through the air, then toward the living room, and thought it must be a bat. Berta followed with her broom, still shrieking. I went in and took the broom from her. She kept gesturing for me to hurry and drive the thing out. Looking up, I spotted it in the corner, more scared, if possible, than Berta. It wasn’t a bat, but a lone and terrified sparrow beating its wings in vain against the stucco. It took only a moment to direct it to the door and out to its freedom.
Berta stood in the doorway to make sure it had flown away. I turned around to her. “It was only a sparrow.” I handed her back her broom.
She sat in one of the chairs, and looked at me, still shaking.
“It is from God. A message.”
“What is?”
“A bird in the house. You don’t know? It means a death in the family.”
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