Honeymoon for Three

by Alan Cook

  “After we cross the river we’ll start gaining altitude again on the way to Mt. Rainier,” Penny said, looking at the map. “We may run into some more cold weather.”

  “We’re tough. We can take it.” Gary was feeling good. Even though he hadn’t been able to get hold of Henry, he had a feeling that nothing could go wrong.

  ***

  Alfred didn’t want to get too far ahead of them. He stopped at a lodge in Packwood, a few miles from Mt. Rainier National Park. Last night he had stayed in a motel in northern Oregon. Traveling this way, while not luxurious, was at least comfortable. Eating in restaurants, driving through the countryside in a leisurely fashion. He mustn’t get used to it, because he was rapidly burning through his money.

  It was clear from the notebook that they intended to visit the 14,000 foot peak. He hoped they weren’t going to try to climb it. Actually, he wouldn’t mind Gary climbing it, because it was a treacherous mountain, but he didn’t want anything to happen to Penny. He, himself, had never climbed a mountain, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  He spread his Washington map out on the bed and studied it. He figured that sometime tomorrow they would show up at Paradise, a village inside the park. Although the park was large, it didn’t have many roads. He should be able to spot them there easily.

  He had mixed feelings about finding them. On the one hand, he wanted to see Penny again. On the other hand, if they did make it here, it meant that they were still together and getting along all right. It meant that Penny hadn’t yet seen the light.

  ***

  The food served in the rustic dining room of the lodge was delicious, and there was plenty of it. The walls were dark wooden logs, just like the walls of the cabin he was staying in. That was a real log cabin, albeit with modern conveniences. From what Alfred had learned about the original log cabins in school, they were dark, cold places, and he wouldn’t want to live in one.

  He was chowing down on a healthy hunk of meat when out of the corner of his eye he saw a young couple come into the dining room. He looked directly at them and then jerked his head away. They were supposed to be camping. He hadn’t seen a campground in the vicinity. Did that mean they were staying here?

  He became petrified, not able to move for several seconds. Then he turned his head slightly and peeked at them. A waitress escorted them to a table on the far side of the room. Good. They were seated with their profiles toward him, meaning that they probably wouldn’t notice him.

  With Gary, it didn’t matter anyway, because he no longer looked like the person who had probably been described to them by the woman at the chapel. Penny hadn’t seen much of him for six years. Well, she had undoubtedly seen him at the restaurant in Lomita when he had eavesdropped on her conversations with her roommate. She couldn’t have recognized him.

  His current short hair and hairless face resembled his yearbook picture a lot more than his previous look did, but she would still have a problem recognizing him at this distance. Especially if he didn’t let her get a good look at his face.

  Breathing easier, he finished the main course and ordered apple pie a la mode. Since he didn’t dare call attention to himself by getting up to leave until they were gone, he might as well enjoy himself. He looked at them from time to time—casually, ready to turn his head away if they glanced in his direction.

  His precautions were unnecessary. They only had eyes for each other. They bantered; they laughed; sometimes they reached across the table and held hands. They were obscene.

  Alfred finished his pie and drank coffee. The dining room wasn’t full, so he wasn’t pressured to give up his table. He grew impatient, waiting and watching what he didn’t want to see. Fortunately, they didn’t linger over dinner, which would have increased his agony. Any time spent watching them together was too much. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand it when they finally finished eating and left.

  Now what? He had gotten his glimpse of Penny. She was obviously happy. Now he should do what he had planned—go home, get his job back, and rebuild his life.

  But first, he hastily paid his bill, put on his new winter jacket, and left the dining room. Outside it was dark, but he heard a tinkle of laughter coming from among the evergreen trees. Walking swiftly and silently on a blanket of pine needles, he followed the laughter and was just in time to see them enter one of the cabins.

  He returned to his own cabin. It was roomy, with a living room, bedroom, and a small kitchen at the end of the living room. Once inside, he turned up the heat and turned on the television set. A movie called Man on Fire was playing, with Bing Crosby and Inger Stevens. The movie didn’t grab him. He kept the sound on to provide background noise while he took out his sketchpad. He extracted the sheets containing the sketches of Penny and placed them on a coffee table in front of the couch where he sat.

  He opened the pad to a blank sheet and started drawing Penny in profile, the way she looked tonight. He knelt on a throw rug in front of the table and concentrated on his work. He had trouble getting it right. He ruined one drawing, turned the paper over, and tried drawing her on the other side. That didn’t look good, either.

  He crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it across the room. Then he retrieved his jacket. He went outside and pulled the hood over his head. He didn’t like the cold. That’s why he’d left Connecticut. He walked downhill to their cabin. A light shone in one of the windows. If he could get another look at Penny, he might be able to draw her correctly.

  Because of the sloping terrain, the window was above his head. Just like Penny’s window at her apartment. He looked around in the dark for something to stand on. The only thing he could see was a rock—actually a small granite boulder ten feet from the window. He tried to lift it and almost collapsed. If he succeeded in getting it off the ground, he would end up with a hernia.

  However, he found that he could roll it because it was roughly spherical in shape. Very roughly. It didn’t want to go where he tried to direct it. It was much more interested in heading down the slope toward the woods and away from the cabin. By the time he got it near the window, he was hot and panting, in spite of the cold night air.

  Now the trick was to stand on top of the uneven surface. He placed his hands against the logs of the cabin to steady himself and gingerly stood up on the rock. As he inched his body higher, his eyes came above the windowsill, and he could see into the cabin.

  There they were, sitting on a couch to his left, similar to the one in his cabin. Penny and Gary were looking at the television set, which was to his right. He glanced at the screen and saw the blond beauty of Inger Stevens. They were watching the same movie he had been watching.

  Watching was too precise a word. They did glance at the screen, occasionally, but they were more interested in each other. They kept kissing and fooling around. Now he was touching her—inappropriately. Now he slid his hand under her sweater. In spite of his disgust at what they were doing, Alfred unzipped his jacket, unbuttoned a couple of buttons of his shirt, and put his hand through the opening, pushing his T-shirt up and out of the way. He found his bellybutton and started manipulating it.

  This helped to relieve his tension, but he still could barely watch the two of them. His body began to vibrate. He had only one hand available with which to steady himself. He pulled his other hand out of his shirt, but not in time. His body began to tilt, slowly but irrevocably. There was nothing on the side of the cabin that gave him a firm grip. His hands skittered along the log wall as he fell off the rock.

  He landed clumsily and twisted his ankle. He tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress a cry of pain. Even though he landed on the pine needles, his body made a thump. They must have heard the cry or the thump. He got up and limp-ran toward the woods. Fortunately, there were no more cabins between him and the woods. The biggest problem in the dark was not tripping on rocks and pinecones.

  Once in the woods, Alfred stopped behind one of the larger trees. The trunk was wide enough so that it easily
hid him. He leaned against the rough bark and panted for a few seconds. Then he looked around the trunk of the tree and back toward the cabin. The door was open, and Gary was silhouetted in the doorway. He was looking around.

  There was no way Gary could see him. Where he was in the woods it was almost pitch black. Gary came down the steps in front of the cabin. He was carrying a small flashlight, and Alfred could follow his progress by watching its beam. Gary walked to the side of the cabin where Alfred had looked through the window. He wouldn’t find anything there except a rock under the window. He wouldn’t be observant enough to see that the rock had been moved.

  The light of the flashlight flitted along the ground and among the trees surrounding the cabin. Alfred didn’t think Gary would come into the woods, but he was prepared to keep the trunk of this granddaddy tree between them if he did. Gary’s search, however, was cursory. There was nothing for him to see. Alfred hoped he would go back inside. This one time he was depending on Penny’s allure to pull him back into the cabin like a rubber band.

  Gary did return to the warmth of the cabin—and the warmth of Penny’s body. Alfred cursed him for that, but at least he appeared to be out of danger. He waited five minutes after the door closed. Five cold minutes, since he rapidly cooled off from his recent exertions.

  He made a wide circuit of their cabin as he returned to his own. He limped because his ankle hurt. It was uphill to his cabin, which made it more difficult. When he reached his refuge, he collapsed on the sofa without taking off his coat. The movie was still playing. He watched it without much interest while he decided that Penny could go to hell for all he cared.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I don’t believe Mt. Rainier actually exists.” Penny was disgusted. She made an adjustment to the focus of their binoculars and looked again. “The map clearly shows Mt. Rainier to the south, but all I see is clouds.”

  The map on the Observation Deck of the Space Needle pinpointed the grand peak to the south and slightly east of their location five hundred feet above the bustling metropolis of Seattle, but it was nowhere to be seen.

  “Mt. Rainier is a myth whose purpose is to draw tourists to the great state of Washington.” Gary took the binoculars from her.

  Penny was sure of it. That morning they had driven into cloud-covered Mt. Rainier National Park. The majestic peak was nowhere in sight. At the Visitor’s Center near Paradise Lodge, they found out that the glacier caves had been closed for a year due to snow. They tried to walk to Nisqualy Glacier in Paradise Valley. They reached a viewpoint, only to see fog and more fog. They did get a look at the lovely Fairy Pond.

  They escaped from the fog and drove through Tacoma on the way to Seattle. In Seattle, they walked along the wharf area, stopping at The Old Curiosity Shop, with its shrunken heads, mummies, and other exotic imports, including items showcased by “Ripley's Believe It or Not.” Other large importers occupied nearby buildings. Random walking took them to the site of the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair and the Space Needle.

  “Anyway, there’s a good view of Puget Sound.” Gary swung the binoculars to the southwest. “Look, there’s a freighter.”

  “Let me see.” Penny playfully fought him for the binoculars. Gary gave them up without much of a struggle. She looked in different directions, pretending to hog them. Gary hovered nearby, so she finally gave them back, acting as if it were a magnanimous gesture on her part.

  She mentally pinched herself. It was hard to believe she was actually married. At one time she hadn’t been able to picture herself getting married at all. So far married life had been a blast. The curse of Emily hadn’t affected her, after all. Well, maybe a little. But they had overcome it. She glanced around the platform, its height a good metaphor for the high she was on.

  Then she looked straight down. That was a mistake. The platform extended out from the supporting structure, so there was nothing below except the ground, which looked miles away. Penny backed up as the universe reeled. She braced herself against the wall for a few seconds as she tried to put her stomach back in its proper place. One more jolt like that, and she wouldn’t be able to eat any dinner.

  She wandered around the platform to see the view in different directions as other tourists did the same. She saw a man staring at the view whose profile looked vaguely familiar. Those big ears, the slight hook in his nose. She glanced at him several times, trying to place him. When he placed his hand on his stomach inside his jacket she was sure.

  “Alfred,” she said, approaching him. “Alfred Ward.”

  He focused on her, a startled expression suffusing his face. He looked like a deer caught in a driver’s headlights. For a moment, Penny thought he was going to turn and run from her.

  “It’s me, Penny.” He still looked dazed. “From Fenwick.”

  Recognition seemed to dawn in his eyes. Haltingly, he said, “Hi, Penny.”

  “It’s good to see you, Alfred.” Penny went up to him and gave him a hug, backing off when he didn’t return it. “What has it been—six years? Well, I guess we’ve seen each other a few times since high school.”

  “Yes, a few times.” Alfred appeared to find his voice and managed something of a smile.

  “Tempus fugits, as Miss Warren used to say. Imagine running into a classmate in Seattle. What are you doing here?”

  “Err…I’m sightseeing. Yes, I’m just here seeing the sights.”

  “I’m on my honeymoon.” It was the first chance Penny had had to say those words to somebody she knew. The word honeymoon felt good rolling off her lips.

  “Congratulations,” Alfred said. “Well, this is a good place to go. Lots to see.” He giggled.

  “We’re actually going all over the place. We just came from Mt. Rainier—although it was so foggy we couldn’t see the mountain. We don’t believe it really exists. We’re going on to Leavenworth tonight.”

  “You’re moving faster than a speeding bullet.”

  “We have to cover a lot of territory before school starts. I’m a teacher. What do you do?”

  “Uh, I’m in the retail business. Meat, produce, canned food. That sort of thing.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  “No kidding. Me too. This really is a coincidence. We’ll have to get together.”

  Gary came up beside Penny. He had seen her talking to a strange man. “Gary, this is Alfred Ward. We went to high school together. Can you believe that?”

  “Glad to meet you, Alfred.” Gary extended his hand.

  Penny was glad Gary wasn’t the jealous type. Of course, he had no reason to be, especially with Alfred. But since Alfred had been a classmate of hers and because they had known each other forever, she owed him more than just a hello and good-bye.

  “We’re going to take the monorail back to the wharf and have dinner there. Would you like to come with us? We can catch up on what’s been happening since high school.”

  ***

  Alfred had not expected to run into them in Seattle. They were a day ahead of their schedule, as laid out in the notebook he had purloined. That morning he had waited until they drove away before he set foot outside his cabin. He was still limping from the effects of his fall, but he could manage to get around.

  After he ate breakfast at the lodge, he had to decide what to do. He knew he should go back to L.A. He was on a fool’s errand, as he’d realized when he heard Connie Francis singing about fools. In addition, his money wasn’t going to last forever. He needed to get his job back. However, he didn’t want to leave on such a negative note, with his tail between his legs.

  He wanted to feel that he had at least accomplished something. He didn’t know what that something was. Maybe if he went to Seattle and did some sightseeing he would feel better about himself. Then he could tell people—if anybody asked—that he had been on vacation. Seattle was a city, and he liked cities much better than the wilderness he had been seeing.

  When Penny accosted him on the Space Needle, h
e was shocked. His first instinct was to run away, but that was impossible. Then, when she was so friendly, he remembered how she had acted toward him in high school. She was almost the only member of the in-crowd who had paid much attention to him. She had always smiled and showed concern for his well-being.

  The dinner went well. They ate in a cafeteria at Pike’s Place Market with a view of Puget Sound. By the time they arrived there, Alfred had regained his poise. He was witty as they reminisced about the foibles of the students and teachers at their high school. He kept them both laughing with his stories. He had learned to play the class clown in school to gain attention, and this ability stood him in good stead now.

  “We were always doing things like taking the flags from the golf course and hiding in the trees. One time, a group of us were wandering around on a summer night, looking for something to do. The house where the Coles live now was about to be built. The boundaries of the house were staked out, and the stakes were connected with string. We moved one of the stakes. The next day the builders dug the foundation. They never spotted the error.”

  “That house has always looked skew-geed to me,” Penny said, covering her mouth with her hand. “So you’re the one who did it.”

  “You didn’t tell anybody about it?” Gary was frowning.

  “Uh oh, I should have warned you,” Penny said. “Gary has very high moral standards. Yesterday, we stopped and bought a box of plums. When he saw me take a couple from another box and add them to our box, he said, ‘Are you going to teach our children to do that?’ Of course I was just replacing bad ones…”

  “Where are you headed from here?” Gary asked, interrupting Penny.

  “Los Angeles. Gotta get back to work.”

  “What part of Los Angeles do you live in?” Penny asked. “We’re going to be living in Torrance.”

  “Nice place, Torrance. I’m living inland. East of there. I’m not rich enough to live near the beach.”

  “Give us your address and phone number, so we can get together.”