Walking Dunes (8 page)

No women were at the club courts. The players were all men and boys. Sons and fathers, David guessed. He seemed to be the stand-in for Kimbrough's lack of a son. The other boys were older than David, young men about to go back to college. He heard the schools' names floating in the air all morning: Baylor, Texas, Yale. Bobby Birdsong, who had been All-State, and nominated for All-American, who might have picked any of a dozen schools if he had played football, was at Dartmouth, for the rowing team. The other guys kidded him. He said he had seen a photograph, and had wanted to leave the prairie for water. Still a team player, he pointed out. David felt a moment, just a moment, of complete rapport with Birdsong.

The boys treated David with neutrality. He was someone's guest, that was all. They did not seem to remember him, and why would they? As a freshman and sophomore, when they might have known him, he was still a skinny and unremarkable little boy. Even now he was small in the chest, with thin arms, no matter how much he worked out. The two or three years the others had on him had filled them out. He felt dwarfed, outclassed.

David played seriously, but until the last couple of sets, he avoided the smashing drives that characterized his best games. He was—face it—awed by the company. He studied the haircuts of these boys who had been at schools in the East. The styles were different, a little longer. Somehow, Eastern.

He made himself concentrate on the ball. He was really glad he had on a new shirt.

They shook hands all around. In a moment David realized they had all gone off to shower and change. So here I am again! he thought, damning himself for not bringing clothes. He stood bewildered at the edge of the court, sweat running in rivulets down his face and neck. His shirt was soaked. Kimbrough handed him a towel, and then with another, began mopping his own face and neck and thighs. “Almost too hot for this, isn't it?” he asked David amiably. David dabbed at himself. “The heat doesn't get to me too bad, sir,” he said. “I like feeling I've worked hard.” He fought the urge to raise his arm and check his odor.

“Sure you do!” Kimbrough barked. He threw his hot arm across David's shoulder for a moment and steered him across the broad patio, past the pool, to a table with a large umbrella. Kimbrough was putting off a healthy smell himself. David felt better. “Have a seat there, young man,” Kimbrough said, “I'll hurry up something to drink.” He took their towels.

Mrs. Kimbrough and Beth Ann were already at the table. Mrs. Kimbrough was smoking. In front of her on the table were an ashtray and a tall frosted glass beaded with moisture. She wore wide-cuffed navy linen shorts and a pink silk shirt open low at the throat. She smiled and gestured for him to sit. He sat beside Beth Ann, leaning toward the empty chair on the other side of him.

The girl looked cool and regal in a white sundress. The material was soft and fine, like good handkerchief cotton. At the shoulders, her straps had wide epaulets flapping onto her upper arms. She sat slightly stretched out in her chair, her rear end scooted up toward the edge and her legs extended into the sun. Her body was turned away from him. She looked at him over her shoulder. Light struck the down on her neck. She had tugged her dress skirt up to the edge of her knees. Her legs were glossy with oil. “Hi,” she said, and David felt something close to shock.

He had never really looked at her before. She was someone he knew slightly at school. They were on Student Council together. She was often elected to things; he saw announcements in the school paper. Y-Teen, Junior Board. She was part of the special, almost magical inner circle of students for whom school was a wonderful experience, girls whom Glee was dying to join. (If one of them spoke to her, she would say, So and so was really nice to me today. So and so said she liked my skirt. It was sickening.) Beth Ann had always seemed remote in meetings, as if she were there as a favor to her constituency.

Now, at the sound of her greeting, a single syllable, it struck him that there was a wonderful shyness about her. Modesty. The word sprang to mind. Beauty and modesty, the stuff of medieval ladies, of women in old English novels, of saints. He tried to see the round flesh of her shoulder; the cloth that obscured it was maddening.

“You saved me from being humiliated today,” she said. Her whispery soft voice lacked Glee's nasality, though their attitudes toward the words they spoke were a lot alike, gentle and breathy. She turned around and leaned her elbows on the glass table. She raised one hand to her head and spread her fingers in her hair, at the back of her neck.

“I did?”

“Daddy was going to make me play in that awful ole—tournament—or whatever it was. Me, and all those college boys!”

“You play well enough, you could have done it.” He remembered that she had an admirably steady, dependable style, the product, he was certain, of many years' practice. She was athletic just the way a girl ought to be, lean, graceful, and quick. And beautiful.

“Oh
sure
,” she said, dipping her chin, saying with her face, Yes, I know I could have, but I like it that you said so. She surprised him. What was his opinion to her? He was gawky, naive in the company, however removed, of
college
boys. She played with a long strand of her hair, pulling gently, sliding her finger down it, out at the end, and then, after holding the very tip between her thumb and finger, she let it go, and let her arm down onto the back of her chair. The pose opened her shoulders and exposed her throat.

There was a long moment of silence. Beth Ann was still and almost solemn in her expression. David felt his ears redden as he searched for something clever to say. He swallowed, and was mortified when the swallow was an audible gulp.

“I think Hayden would have had to sit it out,” Mrs. Kimbrough said, “if we had not thought of you.” She looked at her daughter indulgently. “He could not have made Beth Ann play tennis if she didn't want to.” She spoke in a lazy but well-articulated drawl, more Southern than West Texas. She seemed amused.

“‘What a good idea,' I told him,” Beth said. She looked to her mother. “I said, ‘He can play with Daddy, and then have lunch with Mommy and me.'”

Her mother nodded. “So, here you are.”

“Indeed he is.” Mr. Kimbrough set a tall glass of iced tea in front of David. It was garnished with a sprig of bright mint and a delicate slice of lemon. Kimbrough sat down with his own glass of beer. He lifted the glass in a toast, and the others lifted theirs. “To summer's end,” he said. His daughter said, “To good sports,” smiling at David. “Hear, hear!” Mrs. Kimbrough said, and they all clicked glasses and drank.

David wished for a photographer, to capture the moment for him. He could not believe he was there. Kimbrough had not mentioned Ellis in the invitation. When David told Ellis about coming—if he told him—he would say, They said it was too bad you were working and couldn't make it. David had this disloyal, amazing thought, that Ellis would not have fit in.

“I took the liberty of ordering our lunch,” Kimbrough said. His wife had taken out a fresh cigarette from a silver case on the table. He leaned to pick up her lighter and offer her the flame. The whole shared gesture was like something from a movie with Cary Grant. Actually, Kimbrough might even be better looking than Grant, with the same square jaw, smooth skin, Greek-god nose, and tall athletic build.

“I am starving,” Mrs. Kimbrough said. David could see the curve of her breast pressing against the pink cloth of her draped shirt. He felt his own flesh stir. He readjusted himself in his seat, leaning onto the table on his elbows.

Beth twirled her straw in her glass of Coke. “I could eat a roasted goat,” she said. Clearly, she could not. She was thin but very healthy-looking, and elegant, like her mother, not so thin as Audrey Hepburn, but much more like her than like the lush Elizabeth Taylor type. Her long mahogany hair, pulled back and caught up so that it cascaded onto her back, was waved around her head, balancing the largeness of her dark eyes and thick straight eyebrows, her large white teeth in a wide mouth. She had been voted Junior Prettiest the year before. Her skin was flawless, except for a tiny brown mole below her left eye, a “beauty spot” like some girls applied with a pencil. Her long brown arms moved languorously; her long fingers were tipped with oval nails the color of apricots. He thought, dismayed, that she was probably taller than he. He remembered seeing her with Walter Fleetwood, who was over six feet. He had never stood right beside her, himself. He was 5'8”, if he stood up straight; he hoped he had a last surge of growth in him.

He thought of the times he had sat with Glee in her kitchen while she did her nails. He had liked the intimacy of it. They listened to her 45's. She liked Buddy Holly, Tommy Edwards, Johnny Mathis. He lifted the stack to reset it while she waved her wet nails around in the air. He pulled her to her feet and they danced to “It's All in the Game.”

Beth had surely never groomed her own nails. They were perfect. The amazing shininess of her hair was like her mother's though the styles were different. They wore no spray, their hair always fell back into place. That, he realized, was the beauty of a cut. They could go to the beauty parlor all they liked. Everything is better, done by an expert. He had a sudden, clear picture of Beth Ann and her mother, side by side, in black plastic chairs and pink bibs at Pearl's Curls, their throats exposed as they lay arched, their heads back in the deep basins, their scalps obscured by suds. The girls who washed their hair looked like Glee and his sister, Joyce Ellen.

An arpeggio of laughter from the Kimbroughs made him aware that they had been talking while he drifted away. He smiled, hoping it was fitting, and that he did not need to say anything. He was aware of the particularity of his observations; he almost smiled again when he realized he wanted to go home and write them down.

“Ah, here is lunch. You did a lovely job of choosing,” Mrs. Kimbrough said to her husband. The waitress laid before them bright white china plates and silverware, a plate of chicken salad and another of yellow cheese spread, flecked red with pimentos, a narrow silver platter lined with bread slices, and a bowl of olives and pickles.

David found he was almost panting with hunger. “It sure does look delicious.” He was dry now. He reached up with the flat of his hand to smooth his hair, knowing his cowlick made it stick up after exercise. He kept an eye on Mrs. Kimbrough, and dipped the salad onto his plate in small mounds as she did on hers. He used the bread to slide food onto his fork, and ate it in alternating bites, instead of making a sandwich, as he would have if he were alone. The crispness of the celery and onion and apple in the chicken salad was delightful. To be polite, he ate a little cheese spread, though he did not like the gooey sauce that held the ground cheese together.

“How did you spend your summer, David?” Beth Ann asked. She had a trace of her mother's cultivated Southern accent.

David felt himself flush. He chose his words carefully. “My father owns a small store in Fort Stockton. I ran that, and made trips for him to other towns in the region.” What else was there to say? The Kimbroughs would know nothing of shopping in beauty parlors, church halls, and parking lots. His cautious explanation would not conjure up embarrassing images. To them he would be what he was, or what he wanted to be: ambitious, energetic, dependable.

As if he were applying for a job with the Kimbroughs! He felt yet another flush, a long, deep surge of resentment. He set his fork down and took a drink of tea to quell the feeling. The ice in his glass shifted and wet his mouth too much; quickly he dabbed with his napkin. “What about you?” he asked before they could demand any more information from him. He addressed no one in particular; he was looking at his glass. Mint clung to a shard of ice like moss on a rock.

Beth chatted for a few moments, never hurrying her words. Here was a way she was different from Glee. And why was he comparing them, anyway? They were in more ways unalike than like. Beth never got lost in the gush of her own verbiage. She trotted, ladylike, through a long description of her visit to San Miguel de Allende, “in the highlands of Mexico,” where her mother's sister had a house. Her parents looked on. David saw how much they liked their daughter, how pleased they all were with one another. He almost wished for it to be false; it was too smug to watch. Like the scene at the Cottles, it was painful for him.

Karen Riley ran lightly across the patio and reached down to hug Beth and then her mother. She was trailed by Carl Stuckey, looking glum. The girls were caught up for a moment in a gush of words. David took the opportunity to stand and say it was time for him to go. He was shaking hands with Mr. Kimbrough as he heard Carl say, touching Karen lightly on the shoulder, “See you by the pool.” He trudged across the patio, shedding his shirt, then his shoes. David glanced at him standing for a brief moment on the diving board. Carl looked down at the water unhappily. Mrs. Kimbrough gave David a light tap on the cheek. He felt the faint tang of her nails. “See you, dear,” she said. Beth Ann smiled, David smiled back, and he fled.

If
he told Glee about going to the club—and he probably would not—he would tell her how unhappy Carl Stuckey looked without Shirlee.

He drove to Leland's house and said if Leland would come by and pick him up later they would drive around. He said he would like to go visit somebody in the hospital, and Leland could come, too. Leland scratched at a pimple on his chin. “Weird,” he said, but he was game for just about anything.

David had a strong urge to tell Leland he had fallen in love. It was a silly idea. He made himself think again of the girl Sissy; he did wonder how she had done through the day.
There
was a girl who was not sitting around the country club, not today or any day. He wished he knew what she had been doing on the highway carrying a bloody rabbit. Gosh, he thought, that's probably a great story, if you knew.