A Hundred Summers (27 page)

“Let me.” He lifted aside the soft vee of my dress and tucked the paper under the edge of my brassiere.

“I’m not back in the city until the end of the month. Mother likes to stay until the bitter end, and Kiki’s school doesn’t start until the twenty-sixth.”

“You can’t make an excuse? Shopping, maybe?”

“I might.” The cigarette began to burn my fingers. I took a last draw and stubbed it out against the wood.

“Might. Maybe. Can’t a fellow get a straight answer out of you, Lily?”

My glass was empty. I set it down and picked up Graham’s hands. “Can’t you just be happy with
this
, Graham? You don’t need to marry me.”

“Someone needs to do right by you, Lily.”

I picked up my empty glass and stood. “No, someone doesn’t. Frankly, marriage doesn’t impress me so much anymore. All I can see are the ruins. Mother and Daddy, Aunt Julie and Peter. Nick and Budgie. Something always happens, doesn’t it?”

“It will be different with us.”

Aunt Julie’s words floated back to me from a naive dormitory foyer, seven years ago. I gripped the glass in my hand. “It’s always different, Graham, until it turns out to be just the same. I’ll visit you in New York if you want. But for God’s sake, let’s just leave marriage out of it.”

He jumped up. “No. That’s the deal.”

“Then there is no deal.”

“
Li
-ly!”

It was Kiki, running down the grass toward us with frantic legs.

I hurried toward her. “What is it? What is it, darling?”

She crushed my thighs in her arms. “Nothing. I just wanted to find you. Come back in the house, Lily. Please? Nick says it’s going to rain.”

I looked over my shoulder. Graham was shaking his head, sitting back down on the dock. A pang of remorse struck my chest. “I’m sorry,” I called back. “I’ll find you later.”

He waved his hand at me and took out another cigarette.

BUDGIE SERVED A PICNIC DINNER,
which was moved indoors when the rain arrived in ruthless sheets. We sat around her white floors and mirrored tables, eating chicken and paper-thin ham, drinking ice-cold champagne. It had grown so gloomy outside that Budgie turned on all the lights, blazing her chandeliers and sconces with abandon. Nick was nowhere to be seen.

Kiki stayed next to me, eating silently. I caught a glimpse of Graham, looking a little wet, chatting with the two women from earlier, who had been joined by an attentive third. A hand fell on my elbow, accompanied by the smell of Budgie’s perfume. I turned to her.

“Kiki,” she said, bending down. “Could I borrow your sister a moment?”

Kiki stared at her and walked away without a word.
I should call her back,
I thought listlessly,
call her back and force her to politeness.

“Well, well.” Budgie straightened and watched her go. She held a glass of champagne in one elegant hand, a cigarette in the other. She transferred the cigarette to the fingers holding her champagne and took my hand. “Come along, Lily. Let’s find a corner.”

All the downstairs rooms were crowded. I glimpsed Nick at last, standing next to the far window in the dining room, talking earnestly to a man in a seersucker suit and lightly graying hair. Kiki was clinging to Nick’s leg, nibbling a cookie. He reached down and gave her hair an absent pat.

Budgie led me upstairs and down the hall to the left, to her bedroom. It looked less tidy than before, vaguely sordid, the bureau cluttered and the sheets on her bed somewhat rumpled, as if someone had been taking a nap. It smelled strongly of the Oriental notes of Budgie’s perfume. She went around the room, humming, turning on all the lamps, tossing down the dregs of her champagne, while the rain rattled the windows. I stood and watched her, sipping from my glass.

When the room was lit, she drew me next to her on the bed and leaned back against the pillow, cigarette still trailing from her fingers where it knocked against the three large stones of her engagement ring. “I’ve such news, Lily.” She kicked off her shoes. She wasn’t wearing stockings, and her brightly painted toenails curled against my leg. “I wanted to tell you first.”

I knew what was coming. My stomach felt it first, in a coil of nausea, a lurching and boiling. I set my champagne on the floor and leaned back on one hand. “What is it?” I asked carelessly, swinging my foot.

She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray by the bed and leaned forward. “We’re going to have a baby. Isn’t it wonderful? I’ve been praying all summer.”

For some reason, it wasn’t hard at all to take her hands in mine and squeeze them tightly. It wasn’t hard at all to say, with great sincerity, in a bright crackling voice, “Why, that’s wonderful, Budgie! I’m just thrilled to pieces for you both!”

She looked earnestly at me, her round, childlike eyes an icy and luminous blue in the light from all those lamps, her skin as pale as milk. “Are you really, Lily? You don’t mind?”

I squeezed her hands even tighter. “Mind? I’ve been expecting it. You’ll make a wonderful mother, Budgie. Look at you! You’re absolutely blooming! When are you expecting?”

“April, I think. The doctor wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t say for certain, if you catch my drift.” She winked at me, her long black eyelashes lazy with mascara.

It seemed as if I were watching the scene from a distance, from somewhere near the ceiling, watching curly-haired Lily speak with delight to the beautifully fragile bones of Mrs. Nicholson Greenwald, congratulating her on the sensational news of her pregnancy. “Nick must be over the moon,” I heard myself say.

“Of course he is. He longs to be a father. He told me so on our honeymoon, how he wanted children with me, how he wanted a
real
family.”

“Well, of course. That’s why people marry, don’t they?” I squeezed her hands again. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than I expected. Exhausted, of course. That’s why I was such a hysteric the other day, when Nick was hurt. I thought . . . oh, you can’t imagine. Having this darling little secret tucked up inside me, and Nick lying there on the sand without moving.” She laid her hand across her middle. “Thank goodness you were there to keep everybody calm. You’re such a rock, Lily. You’ll help me with the baby, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“I’m going to make the announcement at the party, in just a few minutes. But I wanted to tell you first, in private. You’re my dearest friend, Lily. I can’t tell you what it means to me, to have your friendship again.”

“Of course,” I said again. I picked up my champagne, drained every drop, and cocked my head. “Oh, listen. That’s Kiki again. You’ll have to excuse me. It’s wonderful news, Budgie. Absolutely the best. I can’t wait for the happy event.”

“You’re such a darling, Lily.” She kissed my cheek and let me rise.

“You’re not coming down?”

“No, I’m going to stay up here and rest a few more minutes. It’s so exhausting, you know.” She smiled gloriously at me from her nest of pillows.

I went down the stairs and found Aunt Julie, flirting in the corner of the living room in the company of a man with slick black hair and a bow tie. “Can you take Kiki home for me?” I asked. “I’m not feeling well.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Of course. What’s the matter?”

“Too much champagne, I think.”

Graham was back in the sunroom, sitting in a white wicker chair, women perched on each arm. I stalked up and took his hands and pulled him up. “I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “Do you mind giving me a ride home in your car? It’s awfully wet outside.”

GRAHAM HAD TO DASH
to the Palmers’ for his car. By the time he pulled up outside the house in an elongated black Cadillac, he was soaking wet. “I’m sorry,” I said, ducking inside, shaking the water from my bare head.

“I don’t care.” He took my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. His mouth tasted like whiskey, like the night at the roadhouse. “We’re engaged.”

“Yes. Take me home, quickly.”

We rolled down Neck Lane through the rain, wipers flashing in a frenzy against the screen. Graham stayed in low gear and took my hand. He drove a little unsteadily. I wondered just how many drinks he’d had.

“What changed your mind?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I was just thinking it over. Wanting to belong to someone, I suppose.”

“Belong to me, Lily. We’ll belong to each other.” He lifted my hand and kissed it.

We pulled up to my house. The lights were out, except one deep at the back of the house. The kitchen, probably. We had given Marelda the evening off, but she hadn’t gone into town, with the weather threatening.

“Are you going to ask me inside?”

I turned to him. “Marelda’s inside. Let’s just sit here for a moment.”

“All right.” He cut the engine. His face was dark as the rain poured down around us. He leaned forward and kissed me, put his hand on my knee. My dress had rucked up, and he pushed it up farther while we kissed, his fingers sliding against my stockings.

He kissed my jaw, lifted my hair, kissed my neck. “Lily, don’t you think we’d be more comfortable in the backseat?”

“I thought you didn’t bring girls like me into the backseat.”

“We’re engaged now, aren’t we? Safe and sound.”

His body rested heavy and wet against mine; his hand warmed my thigh. “I think we’re fine right here,” I said, shifting under him.

He kissed me some more. His fingers crawled up my left leg to unhitch the stocking with an expert flick. I felt the release of tension from the strap, the sag of silk on my skin, and reached down to cover his hand. “Wait, Graham,” I said. “Not here. Not in the car.”

“Just a little more, Lily. Come on, let me see you a little. I love to look at you.” His hands found the hook at the top of my dress and unfastened it, unfastened the next and the next. My head fell back against the window.

“Graham . . .”

“
Shh.
Give me a taste, won’t you? I just need a taste, to keep me going. I’ve been crazy for this all summer.” He loosened my dress from my shoulders and pulled it down below my brassiere. The air inside the car grew warm and sultry, though the window beneath my head was cool with rain. “I need this, Lily. You have no idea how much.”

His voice held a note of pain, softening me. I put my arms around his neck.
“Shh,”
I said. “It’s all right.”

He kissed me, pulled me flat on the seat, worked my dress to my waist and unhooked my brassiere. With a deep and relieved sigh he buried his face in my breasts. The seat was warm cloth, smooth beneath my back. Overhead, the rain roared against the roof of the car with renewed strength. Graham kneaded my flesh, suckled me like a hungry child. With all my concentration, I searched for the physical desire I had felt a week ago, in the garden. The melting ache, the pull, the desperation for contact. Instead I felt curiously remote, devoid of nerve endings, as if I were a doll being made love to.

“You’re so sweet, Lily. You have no idea how sweet.” He licked my breast. “My milk-and-honey girl. All mine now.”

My brain was a little tipsy. I knew I should stop him. Already his hands were climbing back along my legs, unfastening the other stocking.

“You’re so beautiful, Lily,” said Graham.

“I’m not beautiful. Only convenient.”

“Milk and honey.” He put his elbows next to my head and laid himself nearly flat atop my chest, his left leg braced against the floorboards and his thick right knee between my legs. He was hot and damp with sweat in the sticky Labor Day air. His breath covered me in whiskey and smoke. “Let me in, Lily, won’t you? Just for a moment. I can’t even think, I want you so much. I’m shaking.”

“Graham, wait. Not the first time. Let’s wait until later, until I visit you in the city. The hotel, remember? We’ll have all night.”

“I’ve been waiting all summer long for this.” He kissed me and lifted himself up. “Just for a moment, okay? Just the littlest feel of you. I won’t come, I swear.”

I put my hands on his chest. “Graham . . .”

But he was already fumbling at the buttons of his trousers, already grasping under my dress, already tugging down my step-ins from beneath my open girdle. “Only a moment, I swear,” he said. “I just need you so much.”