by Melissa Bank
It's hotter than it's been. It's less like the end of spring and more like the middle of summer. Bella changes into a black sleeveless dress that looks like a wetsuit. Yves, forever freshening our drinks, carries his cards to and from the bar, sometimes in his shirt pocket. Jamie's little array of booty is growing, mainly because whenever Bella folds, she nuzzles over and plays his hand with him. I tell myself that I can quit as soon as I lose everything, and to this end I begin eating my olives.
Bella turns to me and says, "You are bored with the game."
"Me?" I say.
"We could change it," she says, shuffling. "Would you like to change it?"
"Sure."
"Well, strip poker then." She says, "Five card draw, no high-low," and deals.
"Look," I say, "you don't have to change the game for me."
"No," she says. "You were right. The game was not interesting."
Yves takes my glass.
I look at Jamie, Hi, Jamie, it's me, Jane.
He looks at me, but he doesn't know himself what his look says.
I try to remember crisis advice I've heard: From my mother, on boys out of control, Call us and we'll come get you; from my high-school gym teacher, on averting rape, Go down on all fours and eat grass.
The first few hands, I fold without betting. Yves wins, Jamie wins, and Yves again. Then I get three aces. I bet and win. Yves passes me Jamie's watch; Jamie slides me Yves's shirt, which is white-and-yellow striped, cotton so fine it has a sheen to it. And Boom-Boom half rises and wriggles out of her wet suit, under which she wears nothing.
I can almost hear the voice in Jamie's head, to the rhythm of his accelerated heartbeat: Don't look, don't look.
I expected Bella's breasts to be round and perfect like in magazines, but they are just regular, not so different from mine.
Yves freshens our drinks.
Jamie stares at the cards he's already played.
Bella glances at him, and I suddenly see how angry she is. When Yves starts dealing the next hand, she pushes her cards back.
He collects all of our cards, shuffles, and starts a new deal, leaving her out.
She rises and walks unsteadily, as though in high heels, inside.
I keep waiting for Yves to follow her, but he doesn't.
I forget that I don't know how to play the game, and I stay in, betting and losing until I've got nothing but real clothes to bet with. Then, I say, "I'm out."
"You can't fold once someone is naked," Yves says. "I've got a full house." He turns my cards over. "A pair of tens."
I say, "Don't you think you should've told me the rules?"
Yves shrugs. "It's just a game."
I mean to say, It's not a game, but I wind up saying, "I'm not a game."
"Yves—" Jamie says in a voice I don't recognize—it may be the voice of a man starting a fight with a man.
Bella interrupts. "I think our guests are tired," she says from the other side of the screen door. The house is dark, and I can just make out her bathrobe.
Even when she slides open the door and comes out, Yves doesn't move. She stands beside him at the table, and then sweeps the swords into a pile. "We are all tired," she says.
"Here's what I want to know," I say to her. I am so nervous my voice comes out throaty.
"It's pretty obvious you wanted to sleep with Jamie to make Yves jealous," I say. "Right? I mean, even I can get that much."
Her look is so cold I almost stop.
"But then Yves goes after me—that's the part I don't get," I say. I can feel everyone not wanting me to speak. It is like fuel. "I mean, why would you want to watch that?"
Jamie is shaking his head.
Yves looks irritated.
Bella blinks, and I realize, She didn't know. And I suddenly imagine myself as her, hearing these questions put to me by a stranger.
—•—
Back in our room, I sit on the chair by the window while Jamie undresses and brushes his teeth.
He comes up behind me and bends down and kisses my neck.
I don't know what to do, so I talk. I say, "Do you wish I hadn't said anything?" He says, "I think Bella's in a lot of pain." A moment later, he adds, "I don't think everything always has to be spelled out." There is an instructional quality to his voice that I haven't noticed before.
He kisses the top of my head. "Come to bed," he says.
I stay where I am.
The air is cooler now, with morning close. The sky is getting light. At this hour, you can believe that just staring at the stars will put them out.
I think about Jamie pretending that he was just being a good friend to Bella, who wasn't trying to seduce him, which was my delusion.
I get into bed, underpants on.
Jamie is still awake and trying hard to sleep, his head under the pillow, blocking out noise and light.
—•—
In the afternoon when I wake up, the Belladrama appears to be over. The three of them are on the veranda having breakfast. The sun is out and sparkling away on the water, and there's fruit salad and juice.
"Hi, babe," Jamie says.
"Hi," I say to the table at large.
I help myself to a bowl of fruit and walk around the table to the empty chair, past Jamie, who reaches for me as though we are a happy couple on a nice vacation.
"How did you sleep?" Yves asks, placing a cup of coffee in front of me.
"Okay," I say.
Yves says, "For your last day, we are thinking of renting a sailboat."
Bella says, "Do you like to sail?"
I don't answer right away.
"Henry's a big sailor," Jamie says, caulking over the silence. He adds, "Jane's brother. I can't remember if you ever met him," he says to Bella. "Henry Rosenal. Tall guy, glasses. He looks like Jane, only not pretty."
Everyone's looking at me; I have a new role here at the round table—She Who Must Be Appeased.
"At Columbia," she says. "We played tennis with him and Ramona at the court with all the rats."
"Right," Jamie says.
"He had a funny serve," she says, smiling at me.
Here we are on Day Six of our visit, having a Day One conversation. There's no evidence that anyone except me remembers Night Five. They're all wearing pokerless faces.
"I didn't meet Jane until last summer," Jamie says. "When I told Henry that I really liked her, he looked at me like, 'Keep your hands off my sister.' "
Yves laughs. Bella smiles. I eat their strawberries, raspberries, grapes, and bananas.
Jamie turns to me and suggests that just the two of us rent a sailboat. He says, "We haven't spent much time alone."
"That's true," I say.
Yves goes inside to call about a boat.
Jamie stacks the dishes on a tray and takes them inside. I hear him rinsing them for the dishwasher.
Which leaves Bella and me alone.
Looking out at the water, she says, "I have behaved badly. I am sorry for this."
I lift my head, neither accepting nor rejecting her apology.
"But it is not James's fault," she continues. "You should not punish him for the way I acted."
"At the moment," I say, "I'm trying not to punish you for the way he acted."
She raises her eyebrows, as though to say, You are more interesting than I thought. "But he did nothing. And he is the one you need to forgive," she says. "He is the one who matters—not me."
"Everyone matters," I say.
"You are making it harder than it has to be," she says.
I say, "And I should forgive him because it would be easier?"
"You don't need a reason to forgive," she says. "If you want to go on with someone, that is what you do."
I wonder if she knows more or less than I do. I say, "Well, I forgive you, Bella." And as soon as I say it, I do.
—•—
Yves drops us off at the docks and points to a sign for Cap'n Toby's Day Cruises, where we find a blond-bearded he-man heave
-hoing a cooler onto the dinghy.
Jamie says, "Are you Cap'n Toby?"
"Tom, actually," he says. "James?" and the two shake hands.
I don't know why, but I instantly like this salty dog with his sunny hair and sunburnt tip o' nose. He is like a counselor and we are campers. "Chips ahoy," I say.
He chuckles and extends his huge blond-haired brown arm to me and helps me onto the little boat. He says, "Welcome aboard."
"Thanks, Cap'n," I say.
He motors us out to a huge beautiful sailboat, and the sight of it puts the wind back in my own sails. I see the boat's name, The True Love, and think of the one from The Philadelphia Story. To myself I say, "Yar," in my best Katharine Hepburn accent.
After Tom hauls the snorkeling gear and cooler and life preservers onto the deck, he asks if Jamie knows how to sail.
"Not really," he says.
You probably could if you let yourself, I think. It's like Shakespeare—after a certain point, it just comes over you.
Jamie says, "I've only sailed Sunfish."
It's a wind-management game, I think.
"Sorry," I say to Tom. "Landlubber."
Jamie says, "Can you sail it alone?"
"Not a problem," Tom says, and it isn't. He moves around the boat like the expert he is, and we're off. Tom works the sails, sometimes steering the wheel with one foot.
Jamie puts sunscreen on his legs and arms and chest, and hands it to me.
"No, thanks," I say.
I let the two of them go through the usual questions—where we're from, where he's from, where we're staying, why he stayed.
I go to the front of the boat, and stand in the wind. I do actually feel yar, as much from having the wind in my face as the Floating House at my back.
When we get near Buck Island, Tom drops the anchor and takes out masks and snorkels and flippers. I say that I've never snorkeled before.
He tells me I'll love it and takes my mask, which he spits into. Then he rinses it in the ocean water. "Cap'n," I say, "I can't believe you just spit in my mask."
He laughs. "Just how you clean it, matey," he says. And asks if we want to smoke a joint.
I say, "Are you going to spit on it?"
"Already did."
My own matey gives me a look.
"Better not," I say.
I climb down the ladder into the pale green water and under. I am amazed by the coral and sand and then I see my first fish. Yellow-and-white stripes! Then I see a school of blue ones. Then orange. They let me swim right up to them. I'm having such a good time, I laugh underwater, dancing in my fins. I am Flipper. I am in the undersea world of Jane Cousteau. I am hunting for treasure. Fending off sharks. I am Bond, Jane Bond.
But it's not easy for me to breathe through the snorkel, and I'm claustrophobic in the mask; I go up to the surface to demask and desnorkel. And then I see Jamie in his mask, and I bob and giggle, as he flippers over to me. He takes off his mask and snorkel and suggests we explore the island.
We walk in, now clumsy in our big-feet fins. "Wasn't that the coolest?" I say.
He says, "That was cool," but in his tone I think I hear the talk we are about to have, and I stop feeling so joyous.
At the shore, he says, "What the hell were you doing with that guy?"
I am stunned. "What are you talking about?"
"Flirting with that guy," he says.
"Cap'n Tom?" I say.
"I don't believe you," he says.
" I don't believe you," I say. But I feel like a fish clown in my flippers and have to take them off before I go on. "We're just friends," I say, mocking him. "Besides, I don't think everything needs to be spelled out."
"Okay, he says, I get it."
"Good," I say. "Now multiply how you feel times six days and five nights."
"So, you're getting back at me," he says.
"No," I say, "I wasn't. I wasn't flirting with that guy. I just liked him."
We walk and walk. We are both fuming, which seems all wrong with the blue sky and green water. We pass another couple, holding hands. "Hey," they say, like we are four peas in a pod.
Jamie says a death-voiced "Hi" for both of us.
Then we're back at the beach where we started, facing the boat. Jamie sinks down in the sand, and I sink down beside him.
He turns to me. "I'm sorry," he says.
It's hard for him to apologize, and usually I just say, Say no more or No prob or 'Nuff said. Now I say, "Tell me what you're sorry for, Jamie."
"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you," he says. "I'm sorry I put you through this."
"You left me stranded," I say, and my voice cracks.
"I know," he says, and I can hear that he does know and that he really is sorry.
It scares me how fast I go from disliking to loving him, and I wonder if it's this way for everyone.
Walking into the water, he asks me if I think Cap'n Tom is smoking a joint now.
"Probably," I say.
"And do you think we're going to capsize and drown?"
"Yes," I say. "We will swim with the fishies."
Pretending to be one, he comes at me, fluttering his fingers like fins. He gives me little fish kisses. Then we put our masks on, go under, and flipper out.
M Y
O L D M A N
The only way for a woman, as for a man, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own.
—From The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
Pin up on your bed, your mirror, your wall, a sign, lady, until you know it in every part of your being: We were destined to delight, excite and satisfy the male of the species.
Real women know this.
—From The Sensuous Woman by J
"Look up when you walk," my great-aunt Rita told me, the summer I stayed with her in Manhattan. "Tilt your chin," she said, lightly tapping her own. I was sixteen, and I listened to her because she was beautiful. She was tall for a woman, but small-boned, willowy, with long white hair she wore up in a chignon.
It was my last night with her, and we were going to the theater. I was already dressed in my Indian-print halter and wraparound skirt combo, and I lurked in the doorway to the bathroom, watching her put on the shade of red lipstick she'd told me Coco Chanel had invented. She noticed me then and looked me over, and her eyes paused at my Dr. Scholl's, the wood-heeled sandals that were the fad of my suburban high school.
Aunt Rita was cranky whenever it was humid or rainy, like my grandmother, her sister.
Following her into the bedroom, I heard my sandals clomp on the polished wood floor.
She shook her head.
I said, "They're all I have."
She handed me a pair of navy-blue pumps. They looked to me like shoes a stewardess would wear and were a size too small, but I squeezed into them. My feet began to hurt even before we left the apartment.
"That's better," my aunt said.
During the first act, she sat perfectly still and silent, enthralled.
At intermission, she went to the ladies' room to take her pill. She never took a pill in public. I was to wait for her in the lobby. My feet throbbed, and I shifted my weight, giving one foot a rest and then the other.
I scanned the crowd, thinking in placards: These Are the People Who Attend the Theater in Manhattan.
One older woman smiled over at me, spoke to her husband, and he turned to look in my direction, too. Then another woman did. I didn't really know what I looked like yet, and my face flushed with the possibility that I could be prettier here than at home.
Then I realized they were staring behind me, and I turned around to see.
You noticed her limbs first, long and tanned, and then her eyes and cheekbones and lips, perfect, like in magazines. She had on a hot-pink silk minidress with straps as thin as string. He was older, a big man, broad and tall, with blond hair and weathered skin. He wasn't handsome exactly, but his looks carried. He was teasing her, and she said something like, Okay, and she flexed
her arm. He squeezed her biceps, and I saw, and faindy heard, him whisde. She laughed and he kept his hand there, around her beautiful arm.
When I spotted my aunt, I waved. She had on a fresh coat of Coco-red lipstick, and she seemed thrilled to see me. This was her party face. I knew because she'd told me. "When you're out," she'd advised, "try to appear captivated." It wasn't her fault; I begged her for tips.
She handed me a cigarette, lit mine and then hers. While she cataloged the flaws of the first act, I kept an eye on the famous couple, trying to learn something.
My aunt was asking me my opinion of the play.
"Good," I said.
" 'Good'?" my aunt said. "Children are good. Dogs are good. This is theater, Jane."
"Urn," I said, and just as I was taking a last, loving look at the couple, the man caught me. I turned away fast, but I saw him say something to his girlfriend and head toward us.
"Oh," I said, and I heard the man's voice, like a growl, right beside me.
"Rita," he said.
She gave him her standard two-cheek air kiss, but he said, "Nope."
He kissed my aunt right on the lips.
When she introduced me, I was too surprised to speak. After all, she was old enough to be his mother.
—•—
His name was Archie Knox, and my aunt liked him. That was rare. In the cab home, I asked her if he was famous.
"More famous than an editor should be," she said. "The best are invisible." She herself was a novelist.
"I bet his girlfriend is famous," I said. "A writer maybe. Or an actress. Somebody."
"No," my aunt said. "If she were, he would've brought her over."
"Archie Knox kissed you," I said.
She squeezed my hand and said, "Did you have a good time?"
When we got home, we took brandies out to her little terrace. There was a bigger one below us, and as we sat there, a couple came out and shared a cigarette. The woman stood against the wall, with her arms crossed.
"Who lives there?" I asked.
"Nina Solomon," she said. "She makes documentary films. Her husband is the painter Ben Solomon. If you were staying a little longer we could go to his gallery. And there's a book party I could take you to tomorrow night." She swirled her glass of brandy. "But literary people are so dull nowadays," she said. "I wish there were more Archie Knoxes."
