Fallen Idols (22 page)

If he lived here one of the first things he'd do would be to learn to surf. If you were going to live in California, that was one of the prerequisites. He wondered if his father had tried it. He could see the old lion, standing up on a board, hair all tangled with saltwater and sand, gnarled toes gripping the edge. His father would try anything. This move out here was a radical example; yet as Tom walked along the sand, feeling the water at his feet, looking out to the horizon, he thought that maybe the move wasn't so strange after all. His father had spent his life trying to find lost civilizations. How different was that from trying to find a new life? Yes, Walt had bed about things, like the mortgage. But he might have legitimate reasons for not telling the truth. Maybe he and his brothers really had rushed to judgment. Standing here at the water's edge, feeling the sun on his face and the surf lapping at his feet, Tom decided he was going to give his dad the benefit of the doubt, at least until Walt showed him otherwise.

He took a long, easy swim out to the buoys, then down three, then back, then in. He was a good swimmer, he exercised in one of the university's pools. He had been a swimmer in college, middle-distance freestyle. Nothing great, but good enough to win letters in his junior and senior years.

The sun, melting like an overheated yellow lollipop, was descending in the hazy sky. Tom checked his watch. It was almost seven. He walked across the cooling sand to his car. He didn't want to be late.

He dried off from his shower and put on a clean shirt and khakis. He hadn't seen his father for over a year. He wanted to look good.

Emma was in the kitchen, on the phone. As she heard Tom approach, she turned to him. She looked angry, and chagrined. She handed him the phone.

“It's your father.”

“Hey, dad.”

“I won't be making it home tonight,” Walt said brusquely, over the line. No “hello, how are you son,” no “I'm sorry.”

The instrument flared hot in Tom's hand. He felt like he should be holding it with an oven mitt. His stomach tightened. “Why not?”

“Got hung up here. Need to meet with them tomorrow morning. I won't be back until tomorrow afternoon.”

“Jesus, dad …”

“I told you I couldn't make any promises. I have compliments, Tom. I can't drop everything because you decide to come out and pay me a visit.”

I'm your son, you asshole!
Tom wanted to shout.
I haven't seen you for over a year! Change the schedule. What's the big deal?

“That's a bitch,” he said flatly. He looked over at Emma. She shook her head in sympathy.

“I know.” Walt's voice and attitude softened. “You're here for a couple more days, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So we'll have tomorrow and the next day. That's plenty of time for us to be together. I tried to get out of this, but I couldn't. I really am sorry. Can you forgive me, this one time?”

What could he do? Throw a tantrum? “Yeah, dad, sure.”

“Great. You know how these things are, you're in the academic world, the same as me. When they say ‘jump,’ you ask ‘how high.’ Am I right?”

Walt Gaines had never jumped for anyone—not through a hoop, not off a cliff. Now he had to? Maybe trying to start over at a new school wasn't that easy, even for a man of Walt's renown. He had vowed to give his father the benefit of the doubt. This was a test for doing that.

“I guess. I'm not in that rarefied atmosphere yet. I'm happy just to get noticed and tossed a bone.”

“That's all going to change as soon as you finish your thesis,” his father said heartily. “You'll see. They'll be pounding on your door. And you know I'll be helping you, any way I can. I still have friends in high places,” he said boastfully.

“First I have to finish it.”

“You will, you will. So we're cool with each other about this?”

Tom sighed. “Yes, dad. We're cool with each other.”

“Good. Put Emma on the phone.”

He held the phone out to Emma, who took it and half-turned away from him with an embarrassed look on her face. Grabbing a beer from the refrigerator, he headed toward the backyard. As he was opening the French doors that led to the outside, he heard Emma angrily say, That's no excuse, Walt. You could have tried harder.”

Tom stood at the edge of the deck, drinking his beer in Bug swallows. Emma came outside. She walked toward him. “We could go out to eat,” she offered. “On me.”

He shook his head. “You don't have to bother yourself on my behalf. I'll find something to do.”

“I could make you an omelet.”

“Thanks anyway. I'll go out on my own.” He needed to get away from here. From his father's house, his father's woman.

She handed him a key. “The kitchen door. I'll probably be asleep by the time you get back, so I'll say good night now, and see you in the morning.”

“Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

She bit her hp. “I want to apologize for your father's behavior. It was rude and inconsiderate.”

“You don't have anything to apologize for. It wasn't you.”

“Still … he shouldn't have done that.”

“He has to do what he has to do,” Tom told her. Thinking, when hasn't he?

Tom walked along Main Street in Santa Monica, checking out the shops and bars. It was a bustling scene, mostly younger people who were intent on having a good time. He wished he felt like they did. Goddamn his father! He was pulling another one of his power plays: I come first, kid. If there's anything left over, you can have that. But you're not at the top of my priorities. He had a couple of beers in a couple of bars, then ducked into a hole-in-the-wall sushi restaurant, where he sat at the counter and watched the chefs wield their knives like samurai. After that he walked over to the Third Street Mall and took in a movie, slumping low in his seat as he watched an Albert Brooks comedy that flew out of his head as soon as he left the theater. Then he worked his way down the mall, stopping in each bar he came to, having one beer and moving on.

It was late when he got back to the house. He had a buzz on, but nothing serious. No lights were on, although shards of moonlight filtered through the windows. He stood in the hallway outside his room until his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, then he fumbled his way, taking care not to bang into a piece of furniture or some other large object, toward the kitchen. Finding a clean glass in the dish-drainer, he crossed to the built-in Sub-Zero refrigerator and held the glass under the cold- I water tap in the door.

As he navigated his way back toward his bedroom at the far end of the house, he sensed something from the outside; a presence, or more accurately, a premonition? He didn't know what it was, or why he was drawn to it. Backtracking across the living room, he opened the French doors that led to the outside patio, and stepped out onto the deck.

The moon was full, so he could see his surroundings more clearly than he had been able to from inside the house. There was definitely something out there. For a moment, he didn't know what it was. Then his senses coalesced, and he identified what it was. He was hearing the sound of moving water.

Venturing a few steps farther from the shelter of the house but taking care to remain hidden in the shadows, he looked across the lawn and saw Emma, swimming laps in the pool.

She was naked. Her stroke was strong, purposeful, arms reaching out, pulling, turning her head for air, the moonlight glimmering off her sleek hair that was combed back like a seal's coat, a soft diffusion as if filtered through sheer silk, lighting her bare torso, her ass, the backs of her thighs, calves, the soles of her feet.

She swam back and forth several times before stopping. Then, reaching the far end of the pool, she stood in the thigh-high water, pushing her hair back from her face.

Tom took an involuntary step backward, deeper into the shadows. He could see her clearly, her breasts, the dark triangle between her legs. Drops of water glistened on her body like silver fish. She leaned back against the pool's edge, her elbows on the deck, resting.

He stood stock-still, mesmerized, afraid to move, afraid any movement, even breathing, would reveal him.

The way she stood there in the shallow end, leaning bin k, it was almost as if she knew she wasn't alone. But she I couldn't see him. He knew that. He was under the eaves of the overhang, where the moonlight couldn't reach.

She dipped her knees and pushed off and started swimming again and he stood there, watching her. He didn't know for how long: five minutes, ten. Time had stopped.

Then she was finished. She climbed out of the pool, grabbed a towel she had thrown on a nearby chaise, and started drying off vigorously, her hair, then her arms, body legs, ass, snatch. Picking up a dark terry cloth robe, she put it on and knotted the cinch around her waist. She slung the towel over her shoulder and started walking up the lawn toward the house, to where Tom was standing, watching her. Spying on her.

It was as if he had been frozen in a block of ice that was suddenly broken apart. He turned quickly, silently, reentering the house, closing the door behind him. Before she reached the patio he had made his way back to his bedroom and closed the door.

He sat on the edge of his bed, shaking. His breathing was fast and shallow, like a dog's pant. He drank the glass of water that was still in his hand, listening to see if she was approaching, if she would throw open his door and bust him.

He remained where he was, his tailbone aching from tension, for several minutes, but she didn't come. She hadn't seen him.

There wasn't any hand cream in the medicine cabinet. He fumbled in his pack and found the sunblock she had given him. Standing over the toilet, SP30 lotion smeared on his cock, he masturbated, coming so violently that when it was over he went light-headed, almost fainting from the blood-rush. His knees buckled and he slid down onto the cool tiles of the floor, hugging the white porcelain bowl for support.

“How did you sleep?” Emma inquired, when he staggered into the kitchen in the morning. She was in a casual summer dress, looking fresh as a daisy.

Tom waggled his hand
comme ci comme ça
. “It takes me a few days to get over the time change.”

“Coffee?” she offered.

“Yes, please.”

“With or without?”

“I'd better have it black this morning.”

She drew him a cup, handed it to him. It was hot. He blew on the rim.

“Do you have plans for today?” she asked. “Until Walt gets back?”

“I thought I'd be spending all my time with him, so no.”

“I understand,” she answered sympathetically. “I'd escort you around, but I'm busy.”

“It's not your problem. I'll find something to do.”

“Okay. Your dad called earlier, he will definitely be back at four. We'll have a nice dinner, and you two can Catch up with everything then. Stay around here as long as you like, take a swim in the pool. The pool's nice for swimming laps.”

He nodded. He had already seen how nice it was.

A swim was the ticket. It cleared the mush from his brain, lubricated his constricted joints. After he had finished, shaved, showered, and put on clean clothes, he felt better.

Casting about for something to do, he remembered that one of his dad's former students, Perry Bascombe, was at UCLA, in the graduate archaeology program. Perry and he were the same age, in the same undergraduate class. He had become friendly when Perry was still in Madison.

He had lost touch with Perry, but maybe he was still here. If so, he'd be a teaching assistant, in which case he might he on campus, preparing for the fall term. Tom had never been on the UCLA campus. He decided to drive over and check it out.

Once he got off the city streets and inside the body of the campus, he felt at ease in the thick red-and-yellow-brick buildings, the wide walkways, curving bike paths, kiosks with events plastered on top of each other; all the familiar and sheltering details of the cocoon of university life. School wasn't officially in session yet, but there was plenty of activity. This would be a nice place to teach, if he ever got his head out of his ass and finished up, so he could apply for a job. The big
if.
Sometimes it loomed as an insurmountable wall in front of him, reaching so high he couldn't see the top.

He had to finish. What other choices did he have?

Locating the building that housed the Archaeology section of the Anthropology Department, he looked up Perry's name on the rosterboard. It wasn't there, but that didn't mean anything. Graduate assistants usually weren't listed, there were too many of them and they didn't have their own offices. Scanning the board again, he found the name and office number of the department chair, a man whose name he didn't know. If Perry was still here, the chairman's secretary would know how to locate him.

“North Carolina,” she informed Tom briskly. “Chapel Hill. The minute he finished his degree here last year UNC gobbled him up. He was one of our prizes. North Carolina got themselves a winner in Perry.” She peered at Tom over her bifocals. “Are you a friend?”

“From a long time ago,” he said, feeling deflated; not only that Perry wasn't here, but that he had finished up, and moved on. Another reminder of his own torpor. “We'd lost track of each other.”

“I can give you his e-mail address,” she said briskly. “Hold on a minute.”

He was about to say “don't bother,” but he held hid tongue. Somewhere down the line it would be nice to get back in touch with Perry. Too bad it wasn't going to be today.

She handed him an index card with the information written on it, and turned back to her computer. He stuck the card in his back pocket and went out. As he was walking down the steps, he heard someone call his name.

“Is that Tom Gaines?”

He turned. A small, wiry, middle-aged man, balding red hair sticking up from his birdlike skull like he had stuck his finger in an electric socket, came bounding down toward him.

“You are Tom Gaines, aren't you?” the man asked. He was dressed in standard university mufti, khaki pants, loose sports coat, tennis shoes.

“Yes, I am.”

“I thought that was you.” The man's face broke out into a smile. “It's been a long time, but you haven't changed that much.” He stuck out his hand. “Steve Janowitz. Your dad and I spent a summer together at a dig, eight years ago. You were there helping out, with your brothers and your mother.” His face dropped. “I'm sorry. That was so awful. She was a great woman.”