Deep Water (11 page)

       Vic did not think about his costume for the Cowans' party until the day before it, and then he decided on Tiberius. The costume was simple, a toga made from one of the oatmeal-colored draperies that had used to hang at the living room windows, heelless house slippers with leather straps that crossed over the toes, two cheap but classic clips that he bought himself rather than use any of Melinda's, and that was that. He thought for decency's sake that he should wear a T-shirt and some walking shorts underneath instead of merely underwear.

       The party was on a Saturday night of a particularly warm weekend, but since it was never really warm in the Berkshires in the evenings, the lanterns set around the edge of the Cowans' lawn and around the swimming pool suggested festivity and not an unpleasant warmth. Vic and Melinda arrived early, at a quarter to nine, so that Melinda could be on hand to welcome Charley, who was coming at nine, and to introduce him to the Cowans. Only the Mellers were there as yet, sitting with the Cowans on the side terrace where there were more lanterns and a huge bowl of punch that stood on a low table surrounded by glasses.

       "Hello, there!" Evelyn greeted them. "Well, look at Cleopatra!"

       "'Good' evening," Melinda said, slinking up the terrace steps in her trailing green dress, puffing on her serpentine cigarette holder which she carried on a forefinger. She had even put a henna rinse in her hair.

       "And Cicero?" Horace said to Vic.

       "It could be," Vic admitted, "but that's not what I intended." "Ah, Tiberius," Horace said.

       "Thank you, Horace." He had mentioned to Horace that he was interested in Tiberius lately, and was reading all he could find on him. "And you?" Vic peered with amusement at Horace waistline that had been enlarged with a pillow. "A Venetian Santa Claus, perhaps?"

       Horace laughed. "You're way off! I'll let you guess."

       But Vic was distracted from guessing because Evelyn was pressing a glass of punch upon him.

       "It's the last you'll 'have' to drink, if you don't like it, Vic, darling, but you've got to drink one tonight for luck!" Evelyn said.

       Vic lifted his glass to Phil Cowan. "Here's to 'Buried Treasures,' Vic' said. "May they be uncovered."

       'Buried Treasures' was the title of Phil's book. Phil bowed and thanked him.

       The MacPhersons arrived, got up as a couple of Vikings, costume that was singularly fitting for Mrs. MacPherson's tall sturdy figure and her broad, fat, faintly pink face. The MacPhersons were in their fifties, but they had been sporting enough to wear knee-high skirts and sandals with straps that crisscrossed up their respectively fat and skinny calves, and they looked extremely pleased by the roar of laughter they caused as they came on to the terrace.

       Evelyn put some music on the phonograph, and Phil and Melinda started to dance in the living room. Two more cars arrived. Two couples walked up the lawn, followed by Mr. De Lisle in his white dinner jacket. He hung back from the advancing group, looking around for Melinda. Vic pretended not to have seen him. But Melinda, hearing the hubbub of greetings, came out on the terrace, saw Charley and rushed to him, taking him by the hand.

       "You might at least have come as Chopin!" Melinda cried, a sentence she had probably made up days ago to say. "I'd like you all to meet Charley De Lisle!" she announced to everybody. "This is Mr. and Mrs. Cowan, our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. MacPherson—" She waited for De Lisle to mumble his "How do you do?"—"Mr. and Mrs. Meller—the Wilsons, Don and June—Mrs. Podnansky and Mr—''

       "Kenny," said the young man who was one of the young men Melinda had danced with at the Fourth of July dance at the club.

       "Mr. De Lisle is going to play for us this evening," Melinda said.

       There was a murmur of interest and a small patter of hands. Charley looked uncomfortable and nervous. Melinda got him a glass of punch, then took him into the house, pointing out the piano at the back of the living room as if the house were her own. The Wilsons also looked a bit ill at ease, standing near the punch howl. Wilson was probably too hot in his raincoat, tightly belted with its collar turned up, and he also wore a hat with its brim pulled down. Some detective story writer, Vic supposed. He had not taken much trouble with his costume, but he was rather shamefacedly carrying a pipe, and his scowl perhaps went with whatever character he was trying to portray. His slender blond wife was barefoot and dressed in a sleazy something like a short nightgown of pale blue. Either Trilby or a sharecropper, Vic thought.

       Vic felt awkward and bored from the start, and he was utterly sober at the end of his first glass of punch, though he had joined Melinda, at her insistence, in a stiff one before they left the house. It was one of those evenings when he was going to stay stone sober the whole night, even if he had several more drinks, and when every moment between twelve-thirty, when De Lisle would return from Ballinger, and five or whenever Melinda chose to go home, was going to drag, and was going to be excruciating as well because of having to listen to De Lisle's scintillating piano from twelve-thirty onward.

       Mr. De Lisle was at the piano already, grinding it out, and Melinda was leaning over him, beaming like a mother showing off a prodigy. Vic could see them from the terrace through the tall picture windows of the house. He moved toward the terrace steps,

       passing the Wilsons, who were talking with Phil at the punch bowl.

       "How are you?" Vic said to both the Wilsons, making himself smile. "Glad to see you."

       The Wilsons acknowledged it timidly. Maybe their main trouble was shyness, Vic thought. At any rate, they were infinitely preferable socially to Charley De Lisle, who, Vic had just realized, had not even looked at him when Melinda had been introducing him on the terrace, though Vic had been looking at him. Which reminded Vic that both De Lisle 'and' Melinda were retaliating for his not having spoken to De Lisle the day he was in the Chesterfield with Horace. Melinda had reprimanded Vic for it the next day. 'I hear you were in the Chesterfield bar and you didn't even speak to Charley!'. Vic lifted his head and took a deep breath of fresh air as he strolled out farther on the lawn. The air was sweet with the honeysuckle that grew on the Cowans' low stone wall at the edge of the lawn, but as he passed a gardenia bush, the gardenia became stronger. Vic turned and walked back toward the house. It was only nine-thirty. Another full hour before there would be a respite from De Lisle. Vic marched up the terrace steps toward the living room door, braced to find anything going on inside.

       But Melinda was dancing with Mr. Kenny. "Mr. Van Allen," said a woman's voice beside him. It was Mrs. MacPherson. "You're such a scholar. Can you tell me what people wear under their togas or do they wear anything?"

       "Yes." Vic smiled. "I've heard they wore underwear." No use telling her the Latin name for it, he thought. She'd think he was stodgy. He added, "I understand that when orators orated and wanted to show the populace their honorable scars, they left off their underwear so they could lift up their togas and show the people whatever part of the body they wanted to."

       "Oh, what fun!" Mrs. MacPherson squealed.

       She was the daughter of a wealthy Chicago meat packer, Vic recalled. "Yes. I don't suppose I'll be much fun tonight. I've got on walking shorts and a T-shirt underneath."

       "Oh-ho!" she laughed. "Horace told me you're going to publish the most beautiful book this summer."

       "Xenophon?"

       "Yay-yuss! That was it!"

       Then somehow Vic found himself on a sofa with her, talking about Stephen Hines, whom she knew slightly because they went to the same church, and about the MacPhersons' garage roof, which they didn't know whether to repair or to tear off and rebuild. George MacPherson—Mac—was a completely ineffectual fellow, Vic knew from other similar conversations with Jennie MacPherson. Vic had given them advice about enlarging their cellar a couple of years ago. Mac had retired, on his wife's money, and managed to do nothing at all at home—except drink, some people said. Vic discussed the roof problem thoroughly and at length, quoting prices and building companies' names. It was more interesting to Vic than most party conversations, and it made the time pass. He noticed that Melinda went over to Charley at exactly ten-thirty-two, put a hand on his shoulder and told him—Vic felt sure—that it was time he had to leave, and Charley nodded. He finished the song he was playing, stood up and wiped his shiny flat forehead amid the slight but enthusiastic applause.

       "Charley's leaving, but he says he'll be back at twelve-thirty, and we'll carry on from there!" Melinda announced to all and sundry, waving an arm.

       She went out with him onto the terrace, a fact which was noted by Horace, Vic saw. Then Horace looked over at Vic, gave him a casual nod and a smile, but Vic could read Horace's thoughts in his eyes. It crossed Vic's mind that perhaps many or all of the women, being quicker at such things, had already guessed that De Lisle was Melinda's new conquest and were refraining from showing that they had noticed it for politeness' sake. But of course not all the women were that polite. Vic didn't know. He found himself looking around at everybody in the room, examining each face. He got nowhere.

       Evelyn was herding people into the living room, in a circle, for the costume judging. There was to be no judge except the applause each contestant received.

       Martha Washington (Mrs. Peter Jauch) stepped forward first, being the First Lady, complete with ruffled cap, ruffled apron, candy box, and a cigarette holder sticking out of her mouth at a jaunty angle. She curtsied somewhat shakily. Then came Lady Macbeth, with a candlestick, accompanied by her husband, who was Hamlet, looking quite mad with a hand mirror.

       Vic kept his eyes away from the terrace door, already reconciled to Melinda's having gone to Ballinger with De Lisle, but after five minutes or so she came in again, alone, and fixed a cigarette coolly into her holder in preparation for the judging.

       Ernest Kay, a skinny, shy fellow who turned up at parties about once a year, got the loudest applause that had yet come with his Dr. Livingstone costume—riding breeches with ancient puttees, pith helmet, a monocle for some reason, and an absurdly long, narrow-shouldered, cotton riding jacket which hung almost to his knees. Vic, when his turn came, got a surprising amount of applause and loud cries of "Take it off, Vic!" He unfastened one shoulder clip, revealed his walking shorts and T-shirt with a complete turn and a bow, then refastened the toga with a flourish like a practiced Roman. Melinda got applause and howls, and she held her act, dropping her ashes disdainfully into Phil Cowan's hair.

       Little Martha Washington got the prize for women—a cellophane bag of goodies including a small box of candy, lipstick, and perfume, and she looked at the box of candy suspiciously and asked, "What brand is 'this'?"

       Dr. Livingstone won it for the men's costumes, a package wrapped in a great deal of tissue and in his nervousness at being watched by the whole party he dropped it, and there was more laughter. Finally, he held up a hip-molded bottle of brandy. "I presume this is Mr. Stanley," he murmured, and everybody laughed and applauded.

       There was more music from the phonograph, more trays of drinks, and two maids put out a baked ham and a great many other t lungs on the long table that stood against the windows. Vic went nit on the terrace. People were playing some kind of game on the terrace, crawling on hands and knees blindfolded, carrying plastic glasses of water between their shoulder blades. The game was ailed "Llama."You raced a competitor blindfolded, to the end of the terrace, always moving hands and knees alternately as four-looted animals did, and without spilling the water, although much water was spilled. Vic could not think of anything he felt less in the mood to do, though he stood a long while watching, and he was still standing there when De Lisle returned at half-past twelve.

       Melinda met De Lisle at the living room doorway, took his arm and brushed her cheek quickly against his bluish cheek, and Charley smiled, looking more at ease than before. He even turned his head in Vic's direction, saw him, and gave a quick little smile that seemed to Vic to say, "Just what're you going to do about it?" Vic felt a prickle of anger. He regretted his automatic smile in reply to De Lisle's smile. De Lisle looked like a criminal. He was the kind of person one really didn't want to turn one's back on in the house for fear he would steal something. Vic was of a mind to tell Evelyn or Phil that it might be a good idea to put away anything valuable that was portable, since it wasn't entirely unknown for hired entertainers to pocket a few things around a house, but he realized it would reflect on Melinda, who was obviously sponsoring De Lisle tonight, so he couldn't. He was hamstrung.

       "Vic, come on!" Evelyn took his hand. "You haven't played the game yet!"

       Vic got down on his hands and knees, tucking his toga up in his shorts. His competitor was Horace—Galileo. The plastic glasses of water were set on their backs, then they were off. From the living room came a four-hand arrangement of "Melancholy Baby," an intricate arrangement that had taken some time to coordinate, an audible proof that Melinda and De Lisle had spent a great deal of time together.

       Horace dropped his glass.

       Vic had won. He was matched with Ernest Kay and defeated him. Then with Hamlet for the championship. Hamlet, Dick Hewlett, was a bigger man and could cover ground faster, but Vic's coordination was better. He could move left-hand-right-knee, left-knee-right-hand as fast as a little trotting dog. He made everybody shriek and roar with laughter. Don Wilson was standing in a corner of the terrace watching with a faint smile. A wreath was placed on Vic's head, then somebody dropped gardenias within the wreath. The oversweet smell emanating from his head made him think of the sickening smell of Charley's brilliantine. As Vic was straightening out his toga, he caught sight, across half a dozen people, of Evelyn Cowan in the doorway nodding toward the piano and whispering something to her husband who leaned closer to her. Vic saw Evelyn's eyebrows go up and down with a kind of sad resignation, and Phil put his hand on his wife's shoulder and pressed it quickly. Vic moved toward the door almost against his will. The piano had stopped.