Karin set the tone. Her long flowered dress had been designed by a young woman with a romantic theatrical flair. It was pink and green and vaguely Edwardian. May's was simpler. Of yellow silk, it was ankle length and skimmed her body. Her hair was pulled back with a spray of white orchids.
May had flower leis flown over from Hawaii, and floated them around our necks so we could breathe in the fragrance of frangipani and ginger and tube roses. The setting was sublime, we could lose ourselves in the loveliness of the day, and the place and the music and the people.
"A little island in time," Kit reminded me, "grab and hold on tight. Isn't that right, Israel?"
Israel stationed himself beside me on the pretext that I might have difficulty maneuvering my wheelchair over the flagstones. He looked splendid in a beige silk suit he had borrowed from a cousin, set off by a midnight blue silk shirt, but I could tell that he was not entirely comfortable in this setting. That changed when Eli and Hayes arrived, escorted by May who came beaming, arm and arm between them, saying, "Just look who I found lurking about."
"Hey brother," Eli called to Israel. "I admire your style, I certainly do, and I especially admire that pretty lady you came with." He kissed me on the cheek and Hayes stood holding one of my hands while May clung close enough to him so that I could hear her when she told him to remember to find her again when the music started.
Sam's wedding gift to Philip and Karin was to be an album of photographs from the wedding and the reception. He shot from four o'clock, when the first guests began to arrive, until all light was gone and the Japanese lanterns were lighted, transforming the gardens. He was making his way back to the house with his camera equipment when he came upon Time's bureau chief and his Swiss wife. Sam asked if they would like a private tour of the house. May happened onto them in her bedroom, where she had gone to get an aspirin for one of the Mount Holyoke classmates.
"Miss Reade," the woman, whose name was Eugenie, said in thick accents, "I am so happy to meet you. I am reading about you just yesterday—I wonder do you know about that Paris Match story, the one called 'America's Rich Girls'?
May frowned and said she didn't know.
"Oh yes," Eugenie went on, her hands with their bright red fingernails shaping the air, "it is all about women beneath"—she said be-knees—"thirty, who are very wealthy, and they say you are one of them, and that little is known about you—you are mystery. The photograph of you was, I think, when you are little girl, with your father in some courtroom, I believe."
May sat down on the bed. Sam put his hand on her shoulder, rubbed it. "Not all that many Americans read Paris Match," he said, "I don't think you have to worry."
May tried to smile. "As long as Time magazine doesn't decide to do a little feature on rich girls."
"What rich girls?" the Time man said gallantly.
May found Eli walking back from the tennis courts. "You can get high just breathing in down there," he told her. "That little chubby blond woman from Iowa, the one with the innocent eyes? She must have about ten pounds of what she swears is Acapulco Gold. Did you know one of your old classmates is a dealer?"
May laughed. "It's her looks. That flower-sprigged innocence covers a charming, larcenous little heart. Carrie likes money and men and wild parties, in that order. Dope falls into the first category—I hope she isn't selling it today."
Eli shook his head and slipped his arm around her. "While we're on the subject of old college pals, I've been wanting to ask . . ." he began.
Sam waved to them from across the pool; May noticed he was still with the Time couple. Seeing Sam reminded her, and she interrupted, "I've been wanting to ask you something, too. What was it Sam did that he had to explain to you? I heard part of the telephone call."
Eli tightened. "No big deal," he said.
"Maybe it isn't, but I know it involves Hayes, too, and I'd like to know."
Grudgingly, he told her, "I thought Sam had used our names— mine and Hayes's—to get into a meeting of the Panthers that was supposed to be closed. He got one of the Brothers to pose with some guns . . . not a very smart thing to do, given the current climate of public opinion. Anyway," he looked away, "Sam worked it all out, it's okay."
She knew by the way he said it that it wasn't. "My turn now," he went on, "while we are on the subject of Hayes."
She took his arm, moving him across the terrace to the ballroom. He bent his head to hers so he couldn't be heard. "Hayes and you—what I don't understand is why, if it works, you don't let it."
"If it works," she said, "I'm not sure it does."
"I'm sure it could," he came back.
She tried to explain. "Hayes is full of doubts . . ."
"About himself, yes, but not about you," he answered.
"But he has to come to terms, sort things out . . . and I have some things that need to be resolved before I can be any good for anyone . . ." She stopped, looked at Eli and something about the way he looked back at her moved her to speak with a searing, blunt honesty. "My mother deserted me when I was one month old, and it crippled me. I've been trying to come to terms with it—her walking out on me—all of my life. I don't know why it gnaws at me . . . I hate it . . . but I know I have to settle it before I can get on with my own life."
"Hayes knows about this?"
"Yes," she said, smiling wistfully, "he knows that I have to find her, to tell her . . . so I can get free of it. . . ."
They walked for a time in silence. "I'm sure it could work for the two of you," Eli said softly, "and I think it should. You could make him happy, pretty May, and he deserves to be happy, my friend Hayes does. I have a powerful wish to see the two of you together, where you belong."
She slipped her arm around his waist and leaned her head lightly on his shoulder, to show him how he had touched her.
"Miss Reade," called a small man with a moustache that brushed big on his face so that his mouth looked like a small, pink, wet thing. "I'm Ira Rossman—Philip's agent in L.A. I'd like to speak to you—privately, if I could." He shot Eli a glance of dismissal. Eli looked at May, she tugged him closer.
"Well Ira Rossman," she said, "I'd like you to meet Eli Barnes . . . friend, lover, Boy Scout, Black Panther, to name a few of his accomplishments. Eli and I have no secrets—except for Panther meetings which I am not allowed to attend. Bunch of racist snobs, the Panthers."
The small man snorted and sneezed at once to cover his confusion. Eli's laughter saved him. May gave in and smiled.
"I see," Rossman said, laughing to show he could take a joke. "What I wanted to talk to you about . . . I read this article in Paris Match about you . . ."
May cut in. "About me?" she said. "What did it say? What could it possibly say? What was the article called? Tell me."
Her quick switch confused him. His hands tried to shape the air into an answer. "Well, I didn't actually read it myself, I heard about it—the gist of it—and it seemed to me there might be something there . . . I mean, I know a lot of people in the Business and . . ."
"What business is that, Mr. Rossman?" May came back, mock innocent now. Eli watched, fascinated. He had never seen May so taunting.
"The movie business, May," the little man said, his pink gums flashing between swaths of moustache. "I think we might be able to put together a package . . ."
"A package of what exactly?" May came back. "You say you haven't read this story, but you think there's 'something' in it. Perhaps they talked about my work—is that what interests you?"
Ira Rossman tried grinning and shrugging, a gesture meant to be boyishly charming. "I think we could . . . it would be possible, certainly . . . to work that in."
"Work what in?" May demanded.
"Man," Eli laughed in a big, loose-jointed way and lapsed into street language: "You got to do your homework before you come lookin' after the doctor here. The doctor, she don't suffer fools graciously, you've got to know that. She likely push your belly in boy, send you flyin' out on one of those volcanoes
she done study all the time. That's so, man, that's perfectly so, you don't watch your step this lady here about to blow, like Stromboli, like Krakatoa. No shit. You got to watch out there."
Ira Rossman lost control. He began to trip over words. "Investments . . ." he said, "Many people find films an interesting investment, not just dollar return but the people you meet. A whole lot of very interesting people . . . Brando," he said, his voice rising, "John Huston," he went on, "fabulous people."
"John Huston you say?" Eli repeated. "No shit."
"Miss Reade?"
"I could never bear fabulous people," May told him, "ask Philip."
May and Eli walked toward the music. The sky was a deep, dark blue, the night was almost upon them. The colored lanterns lit their way, swaying in a soft and welcome breeze, come to cool the day's long warmth.
"God this is a good party," Eli said, shedding the accent he had affected for Ira Rossman. "I said to myself when I came in here today that I would leave the rest of the world outside, the whole bloody mess, festering out there. Today I called myself a time-out, just to be with my friends and have a nice time for now, that's all."
"Don't stop being my friend, Eli," May said, "or Hayes's. Please."
She could see his teeth shining against the dark of his face, and his eyes studying her. "Hayes is the best man I ever knew," Eli said, "black or white. If the two of you don't find each other sometime, some place, I will never forgive you. Never. Because I love you both, you two honkies. God help me, I do."
He gave her a fierce look and said, "Come on woman, let's dance." The "Sweet Relish" version of "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" drifted out to them, soft and throbbing. She swayed down the path, moving with the beat, soft and easy and rhythmic. Eli lifted his hand to Hayes who put down his glass, as if their movements were synchronized. He walked to meet them. "I'm going to ask the bride to dance," Eli said to Hayes. "You take hold of the bridesmaid here."
"Always the bridesmaid." May sighed as she moved into Hayes's arms. "Never the bride."
"Bridesmaids have more fun," he told her, pulling her around in rhythm, singing the words of the song into her ear.
"Are you sure about bridesmaids?" she teased, moving her hips in an easy sliding motion.
The sound pulled them in, throbbing and rising.
"Absolutely," he answered over the thick twang of the electric guitars, as if it made all the sense in the world. He smiled at her and she at him, as they moved to the music and the flickering lights, caught up in the steady, hard rhythm of it.
"Move aside white boy," Eli nudged him, "make room for the Bride and Count Dracula."
"Yes, move aside," Karin laughed. She was shimmering with happiness. As Eli threw her out from him, her hair came loose and tumbled around her shoulders. She shook it out. "Yeah!" Eli called to Philip who was watching from the terrace doors, "Your lady is hot tonight!"
Philip smiled and saluted. He watched a few moments, enjoying the way they moved—Eli and Karin—the grace of the dance, the easy soft sway of their hips to the music. He could not master it himself. He had tried once, with Karin, and failed. He knew he had failed because she had never asked him to try again.
"Ah for a little Benny Goodman," Kit said.
"I'd settle for Kay Kaiser."
"Or Tommy Dorsey."
"Glenn Miller would be perfect."
"Tuxedo Junction.'"
"'Pennsylvania 6-5000'."
They laughed. "Come walk with me a bit," Kit said. "If we pretend to be deep in conversation, perhaps no one will interrupt."
"I don't have to pretend, Kit," Philip said, I've been trying to get a moment alone with you for some time—to thank you."
"You don't have to do that Philip," Kit said. "The truth is, I gave the party for Karin."
"I know that," he answered, "I didn't mean thank you for that, though it is a damned good party, even without Benny Goodman."
Kit smiled. "I am extraordinarily fond of Karin," she began.
"I know," Philip answered. "What I wanted to thank you for was giving me the benefit of the doubt."
She looked at him quizzically.
"It's been a long time since that summer after the war," he said. "What was it—six weeks? Long enough. You were right to send me packing, Kit. No, hear me out, please . . ." She had tried to stop him, and seeing that she couldn't began to lead him away from the terrace, away from the crowd. "You were too smart for me, Kit. Too sophisticated, and I mean that in the best sense. God, when I think of how callow I must have seemed . . ."
"You weren't callow, Philip. But as you say, it was a long time ago . . ."
He leaned back against a low brick wall and looked at her. "Nothing is ever over, Kit. I will never forget that time—it has a cherished place in my memory. And to be honest with you, until Karin came along I didn't think I'd ever feel so intensely about a woman as I felt about you. And this time, I think, I am finally mature enough."
"Karin looks radiant," Kit said. "Marriage suits her, I think. She seems so happy with you and Dan and Thea, and that makes me very happy."
He leaned against the wall, turned toward the darkened drive, and lit a cigarette.
"Have you been happy, Kit? I told myself I'd never ask you that, but now I find I must. Did you make the right decision?"
She sighed. "I've made so many decisions, Philip. Some of them were right." She looked up to the top of the little summer house and smiled. "The first time I came to Wildwood I had made a decision, and it was right. I know that. The man who became my husband had run away from me. He came here to hide, and I followed him and seduced him. Right here. In this house. But you weren't talking about my marriage, I know that. All I can tell you is that what happened between us was a lovely interlude for me, but I think for Karin's sake it would be best not to mention it again. Can we do that?"
The end of his cigarette glowed red in the dark. "Of course," he finally said. "I simply wanted to say 'thank you.' For then, and for now as well. And I wanted to tell you something else—that Karin is very like you."
"That's a great compliment," Kit said.
"It is truly meant."
"I know."
As the band swung into "A Natural Woman," May said, "No more, I can't breathe . . . air, air, air . . ."
Hayes followed her off the dance floor, his hand on the bare of her back. Alone on the terrace he pulled her around to face him. "Let me take your pulse," he said, pressing his hand firmly under her breast.
"Most doctors use the wrist," she answered, leaning into him.
"Dumb doctors," he said, and then he dropped the bantering tone to tell her, "It isn't working, May. Not for me. I want to be with you too much, I want . . . need . . ."
She pulled him to the edge of the terrace. "See that little summer house over there," she said, trying to keep her voice calm, "there's a family story. It's about Kit, she seduced her husband there."
"Seduced, you say?" he answered, trying without success to go back to the bantering tone.
"We can talk there—and even touch without everyone looking at us."
She tugged at the old screen door until it opened, and the pungent smell of marijuana rushed out at them. She entered quickly, pulling him into the darkness, turning to wrap into his arms, to find his mouth and press hers into it, hard and hungry. A surge of passion washed over them. Small, pointed cries of pleasure escaped from her; she heard them and pressed closer, and every small nerve fiber in her body translated for her: Love, she loved him, she wanted him, she could not be without him.
Their bodies had taken over, reason was overwhelmed . . .
"Jesus, May, I love you," Hayes said, in a voice that was low and husky and unguarded.
The voice came from the far corner. "You've got him where you want him now, May. I heard it all, I'm your witness." A cigarette glowed in the darkness. They could not see who it was, but they knew. Sam, it was Sam's voice. He had been there all along, smoking, watching, stoned.
&n
bsp; "Maybe I should have waited to speak up, let him screw you, maybe you'd get lucky and get pregnant . . . then you'd have the Big Diehl where you want him. An old trick, old, old. I mean, he's an honorable man . . . marriage, family, all that shit." His voice broke loose: "God, May, I thought you were better than that . . ." Then again, under control, "Actually, the two of you make me sick . . . May, you throw yourself at him like all the love-crazed puling Anglo females. And Hayes—Andy's Big Bro—the Great Activist who does nothing but good for mankind, can't bring himself to make a simple little commitment to a lady who is breathing hard to drop her pants for him."
He stood, made his way to the door, sounded a grunt of derision, and threw back at them, "Carry on, my fine fucking friends."
FOURTEEN
It was as if they had been catapulted into separate orbits, as if the gods in their anger had banished them, hurtling them into the heavens to circle the Earth, passing but never to touch like errant beings punished by the Fates.
It was not fair. May knew that. One moment she was spilling over with anger, the next she felt only despair. For the disappointment she knew Sam felt, for the hurt she had inflicted.
Hayes knew, too. They had sat side by side, drained of passion, on the flowered chintz love seat in the old summer house, trying to make sense of it.
"He wants you too," Hayes had said, "and if I were to be truthful, I'd have to say I've known from the beginning . . . from the first day . . . and it's one more complication."
"No," she had all but shouted at him. "No, I refuse to let Sam come between us. In fact," she said, realizing it for the first time, "in a strange sort of way, I think he always meant for us to be together . . . I think he wanted it . . . But even if he didn't, even if he had not brought us together and I had never met you, it wouldn't change how things are between Sam and me. We are friends, important friends. But no more, never any more. And he knows that, I promise you he knows."
Hayes sighed. "What now?" he asked.
Gift of the Golden Mountain Page 22
