Tigers in Red Weather (32 page)

“This heat,” Dolly said.

“And no fans,” Rory said.

“I read they’re having a rash of suicides in D.C. from the heat wave,” Harry Banks said, lighting a cigarette. “One man apparently ran all the way from his house to the Key Bridge, screaming about the heat, and then just jumped off. Middle of rush hour.”

“Really?” Dolly said. “My word. You know, I heard somewhere that more people commit suicide on a Monday than any other day of the week.”

“Work,” Rory said. “They don’t want to go back.”

“Maybe it’s just the monotony,” Hughes said. “Every Monday’s the same, so every month, every year’s going to be the same as well.”

He felt Nick’s eyes on him.

“Well, they need a thicker skin if monotony is their biggest problem,” Rory said.

“I think that’s the point,” Hughes said.

“I don’t know,” Dolly said. “I can’t say I relish monotony, but we all have to get on with it. I mean, it’s not all going to be adventure and excitement, is it?” She turned to Rory. “Sorry, darling.”

Rory blew her a kiss.

“Well, it
is
your life,” Harry Banks said. “You can make it as exciting as you want. Or not.”

“Spoken like a true bachelor,” Rory said.

“For shame, Rory,” Dolly said. “It’s not marriage that makes life … well, tedious. Or, not just, anyway. It’s everything. All the little things one has to do every day.”

“I think it’s about loneliness,” Nick said. “And desire.”

“Indeed,” Dolly said. “Do tell.”

Nick laughed. “No, really. I know everyone thinks that desire is some sort of ridiculous silliness for young people. But who says? I mean, without it … Well, that’s the real reason people throw themselves off bridges.”

“I never realized you were such a romantic, dear,” Dolly said. She turned to her guest. “What do you have to say to that, Harry?”

“I wasn’t talking about marriage, although you’re right, Rory. I don’t know much about it.” Harry Banks smiled at the table. “But when you talk about all those little, tedious things it makes me wonder: Why do it? I mean, why do what everyone expects of you? Who’s watching?”

Hughes laughed out loud.

So did Dolly. “Look around you,” she said, gesturing toward the rest of the room. “Everyone’s watching.”

The dinner wound down. Harry Banks went to get some fresh air, while Rory tried to get the waiter’s attention for the chit. Nick had excused herself to go to the ladies’ room and when she didn’t return, Hughes went to look for her. Outside the club, the air was just as warm, but softer. He saw a couple drinking their wine by the large painted anchor that sat in the middle of the front deck. He walked toward the stringpiece. In the darkness, he made out the shape of two figures, their heads together. He recognized Nick’s body, the way she held herself. She was leaning slightly against the side of the building and Harry Banks was tilted toward her, one hand against the clapboard siding.

Harry was saying something Hughes couldn’t quite make out and
Nick was laughing. Harry shifted closer. Nick didn’t move. It pierced him. It wasn’t that he was surprised, exactly. It was the feeling that he was responsible for it, responsible for forcing her to find intimacy with strangers in dark corners, when it should have been so different for her. She was too good for this.

“Nick,” he called softly.

She simply looked at him, before turning back to Harry.

Hughes watched for a moment longer, and then went back inside the club and waited for his wife to return.

He didn’t touch Nick on the way home, although she walked easily at his side. She was so close that he could smell her soap, something floral, mixed with sweat. Her heels scraped along the road. He dug his hands in his pockets. She stopped on Simpson’s Lane to pick a rose that was blooming over one of the picket fences.

As they rounded the corner onto North Summer Street, Hughes saw that the moon was hanging red and low in the sky. It was the heat that caused it to turn that color, something about the atmosphere, he couldn’t remember exactly, but he thought of the old saying “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky in morning, sailors take warning.”

When they got to the back drive, Nick stumbled, her heel catching as she stepped off the curb, and fell into him slightly. Automatically, his hand went out to catch her, and he felt her body against him, her breast crushed against his open palm.

“Nick,” he said.

“Sorry, darling. I think the martinis have made me a little clumsy.”

“I don’t care about the martinis,” he said.

“Oh?” She kept walking, trying to pull out of his grasp.

“Stop,” he said.

“What is it?”

“I want … I want to talk to you.” He was still holding her.

“Let go of me,” she said. “You’ll make me lose my balance.”

Hughes pulled her around to face him.

“Hughes.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Look at me.”

“Don’t.” She raised her hand to push him away. He caught it, and felt the rose she was still holding breaking damply under the pressure of his grip.

“Nick.”

“Whatever it is you have to say …”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know what I’m talking about. I’m sorry. For everything.”

“I don’t care.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“It is.”

They looked at each other and Hughes was certain she was about to break down, to let him in. He could feel her on the edge. He waited, but she remained silent.

Then he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Enough,” he said, and pressed his mouth against hers. Her mouth opened beneath his. “Enough, now,” he whispered into the darkness.

But as suddenly as she had surrendered, she freed herself, and ran down the path, slipping from his grasp like water.

1959: JULY
IV

H
ughes woke up the next morning with a headache, but also full of determination. Though it was still early, Nick had already risen. He stripped off his pajama bottoms, put on his bathrobe and made his way outside, down toward the outdoor shower.

He slipped a little on the dew. The air was slightly cooler. The heat wave hadn’t broken, but the heaviness had lifted a bit.

Hughes hung his robe over the wooden frame and turned on the water, letting it run over his head and shoulders until it swirled like a small tidal pool at his feet. He tipped his head back, pushing his hair out of his eyes, and looked up at the sky above him, a light blue that the morning sun was beginning to deepen. He could smell the wet grass and the damp bricks underfoot. He felt good. He also felt sad.

He thought about Nick running across the road in her red bathing suit, and wondered what was so much better about a bathrobe. They all acted like the strip of sidewalk between their house and the lawn across the road was private, belonged to them, when in fact you could run into any Tom, Dick or Harry trotting between the two in your
skivvies. At least Nick had the good sense to know it might be slightly shocking, even if she didn’t really care.

Back at the house he found her in the kitchen. He had already planned what he was going to say, but when Nick saw him, she spoke before he could open his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I had too much to drink last night.”

Hughes found himself momentarily confused; not only was an apology from his wife a rare thing, her words were also the kind that closed down the conversation. She was sorry, it had been the alcohol, everyone knows what that’s like.

“I should be the one apologizing,” he said. “I was boorish. I’m just … I don’t know what’s come over me lately. Everything feels so, I don’t know, different.”

Nick didn’t say anything.

“Look,” he said, walking toward her. “I don’t care about that. I don’t want to talk about that. I want you to come on the boat with me today. She’s ready to go now.”

“All right,” she said, slowly. “Daisy has her lesson until noon.”

“No, just you. I’m inviting you.”

Nick looked down at her feet and nodded. He could have sworn she was blushing slightly.

“You pack the picnic and I’ll sort the boat out. Meet me down at the dock in an hour.”

Then, before she could change her mind, Hughes walked quickly out of the kitchen. He met Daisy coming down the stairs. Her round, blue eyes were full of sleep and her hair was mashed up in the back.

Hughes swooped her off the last step, up into his arms, and she let out a screech.

“Daddy, put me down.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” Nick was right, she was turning into a sensitive little thing. “I was overwhelmed by this sleeping beauty on the stairs.”

Daisy pretended to be offended, but he could tell she was secretly pleased.

Hughes headed upstairs to change. As he was passing Helena’s room, she peeked her head out, but when she saw him she quickly withdrew it, like a turtle, and closed the door with a snap.

Down at the boathouse, he ran his hand over
Star
’s hull, checking to make sure it was bone-dry. Satisfied, he pulled the dinghy down the lawn to the small strip of beach, where he began rigging her.

He stepped the mast, running the breast hook line and cleating it off. He slid in the boom and bent the sail. When he was finished tying and fastening, Hughes pulled out the oars, gleaming with varnish, and locked them in. He fetched the cushions and two towels from the boathouse and laid them on the dock in the sun to get rid of the faint clinging odor of mildew.

Then he sat down on the warm wooden planks, watching schools of minnows flitting in and out of the seaweed beneath, and waited.

He saw her as she made her way down the sloping lawn, tripping slightly against the incline. From that distance, she could be twenty, wearing a pair of poppy-colored shorts over a white strapless bathing suit, her short hair brushed from her forehead. She carried the picnic basket against her hip, tilting from the weight. When she reached him, she was a little breathless.

Hughes rose and took the hamper from her.

“Thanks,” she said. “Phew, it’s already hot.”

“I think the heat’s breaking a little,” Hughes said.

“I don’t know about that,” Nick said.

They made their way to the beach, where
Star
lay shining like a large, green seashell. Hughes pushed the boat into the water, and Nick held her while he put in the daggerboard and rudder, and then handed him the hamper, cushions and the towels. He raised the sail and tied off the halyard; then, extending his hand, he pulled Nick in.
Her calves, slippery from the water, slid against the siding and she used her palms to steady herself.

The day was bright and clear and as they sailed through the harbor the sun made little stars on the peaks of water. Hughes could feel the bridge of his nose crisping and he found himself squinting behind his sunglasses, already sticky with salt. His hand rested lightly on the tiller. It was a good day for sailing; calm, but not still.

Several midmorning swimmers were already walking the shoreline of the Chappy bathing beach, with its red-and-blue-striped bathhouses, and behind him Hughes could hear the bell on the dock ringing for the skipper of the
On Time
, calling him to make his way across.

“It’s a perfect day,” Nick said. “At least, here on the boat with the breeze. I packed deviled eggs. Do you want one now?”

“Not yet,” Hughes said. “I’m going to delay my pleasure.”

Nick laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She leaned back slightly and trailed her hand in the water. “I think it’s in the genes, salt water. Whether you like it or not.”

“Is that so?” Hughes smiled.

“Helena tells me that no one in California goes in the ocean. They only go in their swimming pools. Can you imagine? All that beautiful ocean and everyone in their pools.”

Hughes didn’t say anything. He was just enjoying listening to his wife talk. She had a way of making old ideas sound fresh, off-kilter, as if she looked at things from a different angle than everyone else.

Nick reached out and removed his sunglasses. She blew on the lenses and then cleaned them off on the edge of her bright red shorts.

“That’s better,” she said, placing them carefully back on his face. “Now you can see where we’re going.” She tilted her head to one side and looked at him. “Wayfarers. You look like William Holden, so glamorous, darling.”

He steered the boat through the gut into Cape Poge Bay and made for the elbow.

When they neared shore, Nick jumped out and Hughes followed her into the water. Together, they pulled
Star
up onto the beach. Whenever they came here, they chose the same spot, where the water was deep right from the shore, making the swimming better, but not so close to the gut that the current would pull you away. Nick’s shorts were soaked through and she kicked them off before lying down on one of the towels.

“Do you want one of the cushions as a pillow?”

“No,” Hughes said, “I’ll use my shirt.”

They lay side by side, the picnic basket above their heads. Hughes propped his cheek on his hand and looked at Nick, who had her eyes closed. Her skin was a kind of golden color against the white of her bathing suit. After a bit, she raised her head.

“Do you want a deviled egg now?” she asked.

“What else do you have in there?”

“White wine?”

“That’s the ticket,” Hughes said.

Nick reached in and pulled out the bottle, which she had packed with a tea towel and ice. “You open it and I’ll stick it in the water afterward,” she said, handing him a corkscrew.

Hughes poured two glasses and gave Nick the bottle. He watched as she stood and tied a piece of string around the neck, with a small anchor attached. She dug the anchor into the sand and plopped the bottle into the water, where it quickly bobbed up with the current. Then she took out a little container of olives stuffed with pimento and offered one to Hughes.

The brine exploded into his mouth and he washed it down with a sip of the cold white wine.

“White wine and olives always taste like the beach,” Nick said.