Ed King (3 page)

When Diane took the kids to a park one Sunday, he looked around, delicately, in her bedroom. On the desk was a letter she’d written on ruled school paper: “Dear Club,” it began, followed by “Hey cheeky Jimmie take a puff for the au pair. On the up side I’ve had a trip to the World’s Fair.” Walter skimmed ahead to ferret out “Club,” which he took to be one of those silly English nicknames, in this case probably for a buck-toothed beau whose real name was Rupert or Lionel or Percy. Farther along, though, after evaluating evidence like “In answer to your question, I haven’t kept in touch with John or Mum, or with anyone in Essex, for
that matter,” he surmised that Club was Diane’s brother. And that was good, because a brother was no impediment to his chances.

Even though no one was in the house, Walter found himself being very quiet as he opened Diane’s drawers. There were high-waisted panties and white camisoles, but what he liked best, and lingered over, was the mocha bathing suit with the long back zipper, a bust of tulip petals, a modesty panel draping its crotch, and leg openings in the style of a boy’s briefs. Walter sniffed it—chlorine—and fondled its hook-and-eye closures. He pressed on the plastic bone between the cups, ran his fingers along the perforated lining, and caressed the metal slides of the shoulder straps before, in a pique of shame, arranging the bathing suit to approximate how he’d found it. After pausing to steal a look in the closet, he admonished himself and fled.

On the last Friday in June, Walter took the kids and Diane (with the blessing of Lydia’s therapist, who assured Walter that there was no reason not to do it) for a three-day weekend on San Juan Island, where he owned a cabin with a sagging roof that was admittedly a money pit and a burden. Between the southern exposure and the steady sea wind, there was no way to keep up with the leaks, stave the drafts, or preserve the rotting windows that, in the best scenario, would be painted with a heavy preservative annually. This was not to mention the weeds between the pavers, the sluggish septic system, the well needing deeper excavation, the failing foundation, and the potholed drive. From the moment they bought the place, Lydia had encouraged Walter to think of its rusticity as charming and to let go of his urge to make it perfect, but he viewed a day not spent on chores as a day hastening the demise of their investment. There was no way he could let the place disintegrate, and as a result, only some of his island time was spent in a deck chair with a beer; otherwise, it was trips to the hardware store and unending, halfhearted puttering. This weekend, though, there was the stimulating consolation of Diane in her mocha bathing suit, cavorting with his kids on the beach.

On Saturday afternoon, Diane helped him paint the picket fence and pulled weeds out of Lydia’s perennial beds. Lydia wasn’t much of a gardener; every spring she planted a box of bulbs that by June lay under a morass. Diane took care of that cheerfully, wearing jeans she’d scissored into shorts, a baby-blue T-shirt printed
DEWEY WEBER SURFBOARDS
, and Keds without socks. At five, she disappeared into the bathroom, to
emerge eventually with her hair combed wet, in a plaid sundress, barefoot. Walter, in the striped polo he reserved for painting, unshaved, sunburned, and smoking a cheap cigar—a look he could only hope had a manly summer charm—watched her from his post at the barbecue while she leaned on the porch railing and gazed at the water. “I ought to shave and change,” he thought.

He did. At nine-thirty, Diane put the kids to sleep in the cabin’s single bedroom. The plan was for her to bunk with Tina in the musty, soft queen-size bed that was Lydia’s before he married her; Barry would sleep beside them on a narrow camp cot. Walter was to repair to the sleeping loft, with its spiderwebs, heat, and nocturnally active houseflies, but since this prospect had no appeal, he settled on the couch instead, his feet up and a beer beside him, to read
The Sand Pebbles
.

Then, around ten, Diane slipped out of the bedroom. Her hair, he noticed, was a little awry, probably from pressing against a pillow. She still wore the plaid dress, now wrinkled across the thighs. Without asking his permission, she went to the front door and propped it open with one of Barry’s rubber beach boots. “Warm in here,” she explained.

“Fortunately, we don’t have mosquitoes,” he replied.

“I’ll shut it again if you want me to—do you? Whatever you want. It’s your cottage.”

He put down his book and said, “Diane, come on, now, it’s not what
I
want, it’s what
you
want. If it’s the night air you want, then, by all means, let’s have the door open wide.”

Diane smiled and raised her eyebrows suggestively. “What
I
want? Is it, really? In that case, let’s play a game.”

Walter swung his feet to the floor and, taking up his beer, feigned confidence. “Which game is that?” he asked.

“Life,” said Diane, pointing toward the cabin’s shelf of tattered board games. “That’s one I know how to play.”

Together, they set up Life on the kitchen table. She accepted his offer of a bottle of Dr Pepper and, when he told her to pick first, selected the red car; he took the green. Off they went, following the track past mountains, trees, and buildings until, at the first junction, Diane chose the College route. In the name of competition, he teased her by saying, “College isn’t automatically or always the right path. It might seem like it is, but let me tell you, it isn’t.”

“How would you know?”

“I’m older than you.”

“How old exactly?”

“Old enough to know you shouldn’t go to college without giving it some thought.”

“Well,” said Diane, and spun the wheel, “I’ve done that already. The thinking.”

“That’s fine,” replied Walter, “but look where you’ve landed. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with my Collect card and take half your windfall. Pay up.”

Diane wagged a finger at him. “Keep your hair on,” she said. “I’ve got an Exemption card I haven’t played yet.”

He bought insurance, she bought none, and eventually, his long-term approach proved superior. But just when he thought he had her on the ropes, Diane landed on the Lucky Day square. With twenty thousand dollars newly in hand, she opted for the game’s penultimate gamble: lose all of it or, in one spin of the wheel, turn it into the lead-seizing sum of three hundred thousand. “Don’t do it,” he warned. “The odds are four to one against you.”

“Just get the number strip,” she answered.

When she’d lost the twenty thousand, she took a pull from her Dr Pepper and said, “Your turn, Walter. At least I tried.”

Had she called him Walter before? “Walter” was a good sign. “Walter” meant he was getting somewhere. Yes, there was a definite warming trend. “You did try,” he said. “And now you’re broke.”

Eventually, he retired as a Millionaire, and Diane, behind, risked it all on one spin, hoping to vault past him and become a Tycoon. Instead, she finished Bankrupt, then plucked up her car in a feisty capitulation. “Congratulations,” he said. “Another round?”

“No,” she answered. “You only get one go at Life. I went to college, got married, got a job, had kids, bought a house, bought a car, bought two cars—what more could I want?”

Was this code for ridicule? A condemnation of his choices? “Great,” said Walter. “Now, not at all meaning to lead you astray—but could I offer you more than just a soft drink?”

“I’ll have what you’re having. A pint.”

“You mean a beer.”

“If you want to call that a beer, yes, thank you—I’ll have an American beer, please, served from an American can.”

He got her a beer. They went outside and sat on the stoop, where they listened to waves degrade the beach and gazed at the Big Dipper. Walter admired how Diane brought her knees together to prevent stray glimpses of her panties. What great legs she had, he observed, with just the right girlish taper. “You knock a beer back fast,” he said. “I bet you had a good senior year.”

“Absolutely. Tip-top, Walter.”

“You went on dates, went to parties, ran around.”

“I partook, yes. Indulged, shall we say. I enjoyed my year as an exchange student.”

Walter—feeling like a teen-age boy again, one with the utterly transparent intention of getting his cute date drunk—went in for what remained of the half-case he’d bought that afternoon in Friday Harbor. “Partook,” he thought. “Indulged. Enjoyed. This girl’s talking about sex.”

When he came back, Diane said, “Stars like this remind me of home. I used to look up at the stars quite a lot, for lack of better things to do.”

“You’re a romantic, Diane, so try this out: look at that moonlight, glinting on the sea.”

She did that. Then she leaned on her turned-back palms with a tilted head so as to look at the sky more comfortably. Walter almost said, “Can I kiss you, Diane?” but opted instead for, “You’re clever for your age. Incredibly mature. For someone just done with high school.”

“Here,” she said. “But at home I’m below average.”

“I’m sure that’s not so.”

“Flattery gets you nowhere.”

Walter shrugged like somebody defeated. “Changing the subject, then,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Have you overwhelmed our State Department yet with your vast English charm? Because, if not, maybe I could help you with it.”

She hadn’t overwhelmed the State Department yet. “Though I’m still working on it,” she assured him. “But, please, don’t let’s talk about it.”

“You’re on a little vacation up here. You don’t want to think about the real world, do you. Well, then, long live the Queen, or whatever you people say. Drink up.”

And she did drink up, with her fair throat bobbing. He offered her another right away.

“Declined,” said Diane. “Not tonight—no.” She grinned, rose, crossed her legs, and pressed her thighs. “Walter,” she said. “Walt. Wally. I need to run a bit quickly to the toilet. Excuse me, then. I’m off.”

Walter considered the meaning of “Wally” while listening to his au pair pee forcefully. Then she emerged, took their beer cans to the sink, and, under the kitchen lights, bent at the waist to pick up a dish towel that had gotten shoved under the toe kick. The thick, falling hair, the tanned legs, the nimble hands, the shadow of her junior bra beneath her plaid dress: a familiar panic from his pre-married years began churning in Walter’s brain and chest. “Maybe,” he thought, “the ball’s in my court and she’s waiting for me to take a shot at her—or maybe, if I do that, she’ll scream.” However he looked at it, one thing was plain—this little chick had him gripped by the balls. “Fun game,” said Diane. “Good night.”

Later, irritated by flies trapped against the ceiling in the loft, he jerked off while generating a mental slide show of Diane, in her underwear, meeting his needs.

The flirtation and seduction that played out in the coming days, both on San Juan Island and back home, in Greenwood, were built from the usual and inevitable ingredients: double entendres, verbal sparring, electrifying unease, fearful agitation, bated breath, and, finally, desperation before the inevitable plunge over the waterfall.

The kind of trouble that there was no going back from started before midnight on the Fourth of July, when Walter awoke to find Diane on his bed in light cotton pajamas printed with fire engines. “What is it?” he said, sitting up on one elbow. “What’s the problem, Diane?”

“Oh, Walter,” she answered, pleadingly.

He hesitated. “Bad timing,” he thought, because he’d eaten two burgers and a lot of macaroni salad around eight, then worked his way through nearly a half-case of Pabst while Diane, in her scissored-off jeans, lit sparklers and Snakes for the kids in the back yard. In other words, he felt sluggish, not in optimal form, and too bloated for what might be about to happen. In the bed he shared with Lydia. Beneath portraits of Tina and Barry on the wall. Where either of them might come padding in, wakened by fireworks, scared, seeking solace. And, finally, with a girl who claimed to be eighteen but who might be, by the look of it, considerably younger. “What’s the deal?” he said.

“Can I get in?” Diane asked.

She lifted his sheet, rolled onto the mattress, and tucked herself, urgently, against his side, as though she were his daughter and he was about to read a story. Walter, who wore only his boxer shorts, said, “Whoa-ho-ho, wait a second.”

“Please,” Diane answered. “I’m lonely.”

She snuggled in farther. There was a big portable fan on in the room, and the window was open, but it was still hot. Already, between them, a film of sweat was forming. But that wasn’t the main thing. The main thing was that Diane was making a strange noise now, a cross between a whimper and a shriek. Was that crying? Yes, it was crying. Not knowing what to do or say, Walter said, “Hey, come on, now, Diane,” and patted her shoulder.

Diane blubbered, sniffled, and honked while twisting a lock of hair around her index finger and giving him—maybe not unwittingly—a boner. Yet, despite his dick’s insistence on a selfish response, there was no way for Walter not to feel sorry for Diane, even tender, like a father. Until now she’d seemed so resilient and unsinkable. What was she crying about? He wasn’t ready for crying. “Diane,” he said, and stroked her hair once. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” she answered.

Then she let forth with personal information she seemed desperate to divulge. She was fifteen, she was “the daughter of the town whore,” she was “never, ever going back to England,” she’d lied to the State Department, her school year had been a social disaster, and nothing had gone right with her Seward Park host family, particularly with her host father, who’d ignored her. “How could that be?” asked Walter.

“He didn’t like me, I know he didn’t.”

“That’s impossible. He must be nuts.”

Then she said that her own father was French or an American sailor—she didn’t know which. She had a half-brother, Caleb, older by sixteen months (“So I was right,” thought Walter, “about the letter on her desk—her half-brother Caleb is this ‘Club’ she writes home to”), who’d run off when he was fourteen to London, and another half-brother, John, older still, who was a constable. She had a grandmother in the countryside who, Diane said, was “a terrible witch,” and a grandfather who’d called her “a bastard miscreant from a litter of bastard miscreants.”