Black Water (4 page)

—at
the same time The Senator, in high spirits, was whistling happily through his
teeth, big perfect capped white teeth, saying, sighing, with sentimental
pleasure, "God!
that
really takes me
back!"—as, on the radio, out of speakers in the backseat of the car though
somewhat muffled by the roar of the air conditioner which The Senator had
turned on full blast as soon as he'd turned the keys in the ignition, there
came a plaintive adenoidal instrumental version of a song not immediately
familiar to Kelly Kelleher.

Not reproachfully so much as teasingly
The Senator said, with a nudge of Kelly's arm, "Don't suppose you even
know it, eh?"

Kelly listened. She would have liked to
turn the frantic air conditioner down a notch but hesitated, for this was The
Senator's car after all, and she his passenger. One thing Artie Kelleher did
not appreciate was a passenger fiddling with his dashboard as he drove.

Cautiously Kelly Kelleher said,
"Yes, I think I do.
Except I can't remember the
title."

"An old Beatles
song—'All the Lonely People.'"

"Oh,"
said Kelly, nodding happily, "—yes."

Except
this version had no words, this was New Age music.
Synthesizers,
echo chambers.
Music like toothpaste squeezed very slowly from a tube.

"But
I bet you're not a Beatles person, eh?" The Senator said, in that same teasing
voice, "—too young," not a query so much as a statement, as, Kelly
had noticed, The Senator was in the habit of making queries that were in fact
statements, his mind shifting to the next subject, as, indeed, a new subject
presented itself now, "Here's our turn!" braking the Toyota and
turning the wheel sharply without having had time to signal so, close behind
them, an angered motorist sounded his horn, but The Senator took no heed: not
out of arrogance or hauteur but, simply, because he took no heed.

The
badly rutted sandy road back into the marshes was known locally as Old Ferry
Road though there was no longer any sign to designate it—there had been no sign
for years.

Strictly
speaking, The Senator was not lost at the time of the accident: he was headed
in the right direction for Brockden's Landing, though, unknowingly, he had
taken a road never used any longer since a new, paved Ferry Road existed, and
the turn for this road was three-quarters of a mile beyond the turn for the
old.

At
about the time he'd finished his drink, and Kelly Kelleher gave him the one
she'd been carrying for him: for the road.

They
were new acquaintances, virtual strangers. Yet, what immediate rapport!

You
know how it is, basking in the glow of a sudden recognition, his eyes, your
eyes, an ease like slipping into warm water, there's the flawlessly beautiful
woman who lies languorously sprawled as in a bed, long wavy red hair rippling
out sensuously about her, perfect skin, heartbreak skin, lovely red mouth and a
gown of some sumptuous gold lame material clinging to breasts, belly, pubic
area subtly defined by shimmering folds in the cloth, and The Lover stands
erect and poised above her gazing down upon her his handsome darkish face not
fully in focus, as the woman gazes up at him not required to smile in
invitation, for she herself
is
the invitation, naked beneath the gold
lame gown, naked lifting her slender hips so subtly toward him, just the hint
of it really, just the dream-suggestion of it really, otherwise the
advertisement would be vulgar really, the perfume in its glittering bottle is
OPIUM the perfume is OPIUM is OPIUM the
parfum
is OPIUM it will drive you mad it will drive him mad it will make addicts of
you it is for sale in these stores...

* * *

And,
on their hike through the dunes, the wind whipping Kelly's hair, the gulls'
wings flashing white above them, the beat
beat
beat
of the surf like a pulsing in the loins, how assured
his fingers gripping her bare shoulders, how shy yet eager her response:
thinking
This can't be happening!
even
as she was thinking
Something is going to happen that cannot be stopped.

...the thin red needle jolting up
beyond
40 mph as the
Toyota hit a sandy rut and began to skid like an explosively expelled sigh and
The Senator braked hard and quick exclaiming under his breath and the skid
continued as if with more momentum, more purpose, as if the very application of
the brakes aroused willful resistance in the vehicle that had seemed until now
so obedient, such a sort of plaything, a wild
wild
roller coaster ride provoking that thrill deep in the groin, and then, how had
it happened, the car was off the road, the car was skidding sideways off the
road, the right rear wheel sliding

forward
and the left front wheel back, the guardrail no sooner flew up out of the
shadows than it collapsed into pieces and there were seven-foot broom-headed
rushes slapping and scolding at the windows, there was a crack!
a
crack!
a
spiderweb
-crack!
of glass and a rude jolting and rocking as in an earthquake and then the car
was in water, you would suppose a shallow creek, a ditch, you would not suppose
the car would sink beneath the surface sinking and not floating as black water
foamy and churning rushed over the crumpled hood, the windshield, the car roof
now bent in sharply on the passenger's side, and the door, the passenger's
door, buckled in, the way on the beach one of the young guys had squeezed an
aluminum can of Miller
Lite
but still she could not
draw sufficient breath to scream nor did she even have a name to call him, a
name that flew unbidden and spontaneous to her lips.

When first she'd met the senator in the
early
afternoon of
the Fourth of July, introduced to him by Bully's lover Ray Annick, who was a
lawyer-friend of The Senator's and had gone to school with him at Andover,
Kelly Kelleher had been guarded, rather reticent.
Inwardly
skeptical.
Observing this famous man shaking hands as he was,
vigorously, delightedly, with that breathless air of having rushed hundreds of
miles expressly for this purpose: shaking hands with you, and you, and you:
standing a little apart, thinking,
He's one of them, forever campaigning.

In
the subsequent hours, Kelly was to radically revise her opinion of The Senator.

It
could not be said that in those six hours Kelly Kelleher had fallen in love
with The Senator, nor could it be said that The Senator had fallen in love with
her, for such matters are private and unknowable; and what the future may have
brought (in contrast to what the events of that night did in fact bring) will
forever remain unknowable.

Except:
Kelly certainly revised her opinion.

Thinking
how instructive, how purifying for the soul (smiling into a mirror in the
bathroom of the guest room that was hers at Buffy's, would have been hers again
for the night of the Fourth had she not decided so precipitously to accompany
The Senator back to the mainland) to learn that you are fallible, to be proven
wrong.

Even if it's a merely interior, private
proof.

Even
if the one you've so carelessly misjudged never knows.

"Kelly,
is it?—Callie?
Kelly"

It
was
absurd, wasn't it, that her heart should trip like a
young girl's, hearing her name on The Senator's lips, for Kelly Kelleher was a mature
young woman who'd had many lovers.

Several lovers, in any case.

In
any case, since graduating from Brown, one serious lover—of whom she never
spoke.

(Why won't you talk about G-----,
Kelly's friends Buffy, Jane, Stacey asked, not meaning to be intrusive but
generally concerned for Kelly, misinterpreting her silence for a broken heart,
her cynicism about men for depression, or despondency; her angry refusal to
answer their taped telephone calls and to keep to herself at certain times for
suicidal tendencies
of which they dared speak only to one
another, never to Kelly herself.)

Yet
The Senator was such a physical presence! Climbing out of the rented black
Toyota loose-jointed and peppy as a kid, smiling, greeting them all as the
murmur passed among them like wildfire
It's him—Jesus, is
it really him?
A youthful ardor shone about him like an aura.

Ray
Annick had invited The Senator out to Grayling Island and Buffy had told her
guests carefully,
I
don't expect him really. I'm sure he won't
come.

The
man was more vibrant, more compelling, there was that tacky word
charismatic,
than his television appearances suggested. For
one thing, he was a big man: six feet four inches tall, weighing perhaps two
hundred fifteen pounds. He carried himself well for a man in his mid-fifties
who had the fatty-muscled body of a former athlete, with an athlete's wariness
on his feet; even when his weight was on his heels (in comfortable scuffed
beige canvas crepe-soled shoes from L. L. Bean) there was that air of poise, of
springy anticipation. And his broad handsome-battered face, the eyes so
transparently blue, the nose just slightly venous but
a
straight nose, lapidary, like
the jaws, the chin, the familiar profile.

Tugging
at his necktie, loosening the collar of his long-sleeved white cotton
shirt—"I see the party has started without me, eh?"

He
turned out to be really warm, really nice, not at all condescending,
Kelly Kelleher
began to compose her account of that memorable Fourth of July on Grayling
Island—
spoke to us all as if we were, not just
equals, but old friends.

He'd
kissed her, too. But that was later.

Kelly kelleher knew about politicians,
she was
no fool. And not just from
studying American history and politics at Brown.