A Fair Maiden

by Joyce Carol Oates

  As Katya remembered, her mother had liked it just fine when Katya's daddy had won. No furious condemnations of "compulsive gambling" so long as he brought money home. In fact, hugs and kisses. In fact, celebrating by getting drunk.

  Let the dice decide was a cool way of saying Take a chance, see what happens, why the hell not?

  Not a good idea, maybe! But Katya was going to execute it.

  He was an elderly man, with an eye for her. He was a rich man, and he was (shrewdly, she knew) a lonely man. In Atlantic City, such men were marks. Such men were asking to be exploited, duped.

  She would return to him. Quite deliberately—consciously—shrewdly she would return to Mr. Kidder in that mansion of his.

  Not the day after they'd met—that would be too soon. Let him wait a while, and worry that pretty blond sixteen-year-old Katya wasn't coming back.

  Nor the day following, either (an exhausting day spent on Mr. Engelhardt's showy thirty-foot Chris-Craft powerboat bucking the waves to Cape May and back—an "outing" providing as much pleasure for the harassed nanny as being taken for a jarring ride on a lawn mower across corrugated ground). Next day was a Monday—by which day Katya reckoned that Mr. Kidder would have given up expecting visitors.

  Just a roll of the dice. She was risking nothing. No danger in upscale Bayhead Harbor, which was very different from Atlantic City, fifty miles to the south, where Katya Spivak would never have been so naive as to go to a man's house, no matter how harmless he appeared, how gentlemanly or how rich.

  Of course, she wasn't going alone: she wasn't that naive. She would take little Tricia with her, and the baby in his stroller. Not really risky by Spivak family standards.

  So on Monday, after they'd fed the noisy waterfowl in the park, as if she'd just thought of it, Katya squatted before three-year-old Tricia and asked if she'd like to visit that "nice funny old white-haired man with the cane, who was so friendly the other day," and predictably Tricia cried Yes!, and so Katya saw no harm in taking Tricia and Tricia's little brother in his stroller to Mr. Kidder's house a few blocks away.

  If Mrs. Engelhardt found out and asked about the visit, Katya might say that Tricia had wanted to return, Tricia had insisted. She could not have reasonably argued that 17 Proxmire Street was on her way back to the Engelhardts' house on New Liberty Street. For Mr. Kidder lived in the much-revered "historic"—"landmark"—section of Bayhead Harbor, near picturesque Bayhead Lighthouse and the open ocean. As the open ocean was very different from the narrow boat channels in the Engelhardts' newly developed neighborhood, so the air nearer the ocean was distinctly cooler and fresher and smelled bracingly of water, sand, sun.

  Money too, Katya thought. A special kind of money-smell, which had nothing to do with grubby paper bills you might actually hold in your hand and count. Nothing to do with coins sweating in the palm of a hand. This was money that was invisible, the money of true wealth.

  The Engelhardts and their friends spoke enviously of these older, spacious oceanfront properties that so rarely came on the market or, if they did, sold overnight for several million dollars. Katya felt a stab of satisfaction; the Engelhardts would envy her, a visitor in Mr. Kidder's house.

  I am special. Mr. Kidder wants me.

  She laughed, this was so delicious. She was feeling very good.

  On Proxmire Street, pushing the baby's stroller and staring at the enormous houses. And not just the houses—"properties," as they were called—several times the size of the crowded lots in the Engelhardts' neighborhood of showy split-levels and A-frames. And the stately ten-foot privet hedges that shielded the houses here from the street and the curious stares of sightseers hoping to gaze at the homes of the wealthy as you might gaze into the dazzling shop windows of Ocean Avenue.

  Katya liked it that the house at 17 Proxmire was old and dignified and weathered—a "shingleboard" house—with white shutters, winking lattice windows, and a steep slate roof like an illustration in a children's storybook of a tale set once upon a time.

  There was an entrance in the privet hedge. And a wonderful old wrought-iron gate, shut but not locked.

  No solicitors.

  All deliveries to the rear.

  Katya laughed. These admonitions did not apply to her.

  "Well, Tricia! Here we are—Mr. Kidder's house."

  Her heart beat in anticipation of an adventure. Katya was a girl who craved adventure. How bored she was here in Bayhead Harbor, playing the role of nanny to people she hated. Two weeks! That was more than enough.

  Thinking reasonably, If the old man isn't home, go away. Never try again.

  Katya pushed the stroller along the surprisingly uneven flagstone walk to the front door, as Tricia walked shyly beside her. Were both feeling that Mr. Kidder might be watching them from one of the latticed windows, invisible behind the glittering glass? Like a scene in a movie, this seemed to Katya; she felt the man's eyes on her ... Yet she was hearing a piano being played inside the house, which didn't sound like a radio or a recording.

  On the wide front flagstone step Katya dared to ring the doorbell. When Tricia began to speak, Katya put a forefinger to her lips: "Shhh!"

  There was a sort of magic here. Katya felt it. She could not behave carelessly, or let the child prattle. They were both very excited.

  Whoever was inside had not heard the bell, it seemed. Katya tried again, and this time the piano-playing ceased and a few seconds later the heavy oak door swung open, inward—and there stood Mr. Kidder, blinking and staring at them as if, for a moment, he didn't know who they were.

  "Why, it's—Katie? I mean—Katya. My dear, you've come..."

  Mr. Kidder was smiling strangely, not welcoming her exactly, a wary sort of smile, dazed and wary and not what she'd expected. And he'd almost forgotten her name! Katya's face smarted with hurt. Well, he had not forgotten her, at least.

  The greeting was very awkward. Katya thought, Damn—this is a mistake. But she could not back away. Of course she could not back away. Nervously she laughed—there was an edge of cruelty in her laughter—for Mr. Kidder was startled to see her, and nervous; his blue eyes were not so composed now, and not so icy; in his face was a sick-sinking expression of something like abject and raw desire he hoped to disguise, as a starving dog might try to hide his terrible ravenous appetite.

  "Can't stay long, Mr. Kidder! We were just walking home from the park and Tricia said..."

  Mr. Kidder was fumbling to tuck his loose shirt into his baggy shorts, which were wrinkled; clumsily he made a gesture as if to smooth down his fluffy white hair, which looked as if it hadn't been combed yet that day. "You've taken me by surprise, dear Katya—but what a lovely surprise—and dear Tricia—and Tricia's baby brother, whose name is—"

  Tricia giggled, providing her little brother's name as if this were a fact of supreme importance: "Kevin."

  "Why of course—Kevin. How could I have forgotten!"

  Where was the playful dignified gentleman of the other day, who had so impressed Katya? In khaki shorts worn without a belt, in a wrinkled white cotton shirt with short silly boxy sleeves, and with sandals on his bony pale feet, Mr. Kidder could have been any older man at whom a sixteen-year-old girl wouldn't have so much as glanced. Accustomed to dark-tanned men and boys in Bayhead Harbor, as in Vineland, Katya saw with particular distaste Mr. Kidder's naked feet and thin legs, lacking in muscle and near hairless.

  Quickly Mr. Kidder said, "Come in! Come in. In fact, I was eagerly awaiting you—the trio of you."

  "Were you!" Katya laughed, just subtly sneering.

  "I was. Indeed I was. 'Tickling the ivories'—playing piano to evoke a lyric mood. In fact"—repeating in fact as if he were trying to cast a spell on Katya, who continued to stare at him—"it was my magical piano-playing, the first dreamy movement of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata,' that drew the trio of you here."

  Katya laughed, this was so fanciful. Very likely Tricia would believe what Mr. Kidder was telling them.

  "You are j
ust in time, my dears. Katya, do come in. For everyone else in my life seems to be gone."

  "Gone? Where?"

  "Oh, nowhere! Everywhere. Wherever people disperse to, like milkweed fluff, when they go."

  Katya wasn't sure that she liked this. Gone? Everyone?

  Gaily Mr. Kidder ushered them into the house. Firmly Mr. Kidder shut the door.

  A heavy oak door. Katya wondered if it automatically locked, inside.

  As Mr. Kidder chattered, a flush rising into his cheeks, Katya smiled uncertainly, gripping Tricia by the hand. Maybe this was a mistake and she was putting these helpless young children at risk ... With a flurry of his hands, as if to dispel such ridiculous thoughts, Mr. Kidder said, "My fickle houseguests have departed for the city just this morning, you see. Not that I wanted them to stay, nooo! For I knew that Katya, Tricia, and Kevin were imminent. And so the house looms large and empty as a—we will not say mausoleum. No, no! We will not. And Mrs. Bee—dear Mrs. Bee—has Mondays off and has quite buzzed away."

  Houseguests? Mrs. Bee? Katya knew what mausoleum meant and hoped that Tricia wouldn't repeat the word later that day, as children of her age sometimes did, like parrots. So far as she could see from the foyer, the enormous house did appear to be empty: rooms opening onto rooms, hallways leading into hallways, as in a maze of mirrors infinitely reflecting. "I had not expected visitors this afternoon," Mr. Kidder said somberly, "though last night there was a moon, and this moon peeked into my bedroom window and said, 'Whatever you do, M.K.'—for, from the lunar perspective, we are no more than our initials—'do not eat up all those delicious strawberries in the refrigerator,' and I asked why, and the moon winked and said, 'You will see, M.K.' And now my special visitors have arrived, I see."

  This spirited little speech was delivered for Tricia's benefit, but it was Katya for whom Mr. Kidder was performing, she thought. By quick degrees he was becoming increasingly confident, like an actor now recalling lines and no longer flailing about, blinded by the spotlight.

  "This way! We will have tea on the terrace."

  The first thing you saw, stepping into the living room of Mr. Kidder's house, was the far wall, entirely glass, overlooking the ocean in the near distance. For at this elevation on Proxmire Street you couldn't see the beach; if anyone was on the beach below, you couldn't see them; you saw only dunes, dune grass, the choppy ocean, the distant horizon. You saw the sky, which was a faint, misty blue, and a sickle moon just visible by daylight.

  Katya felt something turn in her heart: a stab of hurt, envy. "This is so beautiful, Mr...." She seemed to have forgotten Mr. Kidder's name. She could not help it that the flat nasal accent of south Jersey had an accusing tone even when meant to be admiring.

  Graciously Mr. Kidder said that beauty is a matter of "seeing"—"seeing with fresh eyes, with the eyes of youth." So long he'd been spending summers at the Jersey shore in this house, as a child, as an adult, from June through Labor Day, he no longer saw what was.

  He led them outside, onto a flagstone terrace. Here it was windy, much cooler than it had been on the street. And here even more beautiful: the view of the dunes, the rolling white-capped waves.

  At the Bayhead Harbor Yacht Club beach there were usually so many other people around, Katya was distracted. Now she settled Tricia into a chair and saw that baby Kevin was comfortable sucking on his pacifier. She'd have to inform Mrs. Engelhardt of this visit, she supposed, since Tricia, who chattered about the least little thing encountered on their outings, would surely tell her. Shrewdly, Katya thought there might be a way—she would find a way—to suggest that there'd been other guests at Mr. Kidder's "tea-time," Mr. Kidder's housekeeper at least.

  Katya helped Mr. Kidder bring things out to the terrace, for the white-haired man was obviously unaccustomed to such practical tasks as setting a table and serving food. Katya took from Mr. Kidder's uncertain hand a heavy cut-glass pitcher of lemonade, and deftly she spooned strawberries and sherbet into shallow cut-glass bowls. Out of a baker's box she took vanilla wafers and arranged them on a plate. She was amused to see that while Mr. Kidder had been out of her sight he'd tucked his shirt more firmly into the baggy khaki shorts and he'd tried to tamp down his unruly hair. And possibly he'd taken a quick sip of something that smelled sweetly tart on his breath, like red wine.

  Mr. Kidder sat at the head of a heavy white wrought-iron table, beaming at his guests. "I'd about given up, you know. I'd begun to think that our little Tricia preferred those noisy old geese with their messy ways to Marcus Kidder."

  Their tea-time passed in this way, Mr. Kidder addressing Tricia or the baby, all the while glancing sidelong at Katya, as if there were an intimate rapport between them that didn't require overt acknowledgment. Katya considered asking him for a glass of wine. No doubt he'd have been disapproving. Yet intrigued. Katya was what the law calls a minor—it was a felony in New Jersey to serve liquor to a minor, even unknowingly. How strange it was to be sitting close beside this stranger, at an elegant wrought-iron table that must have weighed a hundred pounds, on chairs so heavy Katya could scarcely budge them; strange, and not strange, that their knees should touch beneath the table, accidentally.

  This was quite the most exciting event of Katya Spivak's summer, so far. She was feeling a thrill of pride, a wave of childlike happiness, that she was here: at this table, on this terrace at 17 Proxmire Street, overlooking the open ocean; she, whose father had been a part-owner of a garage in Vineland, with his brothers, before he'd lost his share of the property and disappeared. Katya Spivak in "historic" Bayhead Harbor, being treated so politely, so graciously, by a rich old white-haired man named Kidder.

  She would have liked to tell her mother, her older sisters, her brothers, and her cousins, who would envy her.

  Boys she knew. One or two older boys, in Vineland.

  This house! You would not believe. On the ocean, worth millions of dollars, the owner has to be a millionaire...

  "And what are you thinking about, dear Katya? You seem to have drifted off."

  In the wind Mr. Kidder's hair looked as if it were being roughly caressed by agitated hands. The wind was taking their breath away. Katya said she was thinking she'd like a glass of wine. If Mr. Kidder had wine ... Seeing his startled expression, Katya laughed.

  "I'm afraid—no. I don't have any wine. And if I did, my dear, I wouldn't be so reckless as to give some to you. "

  Meaning, You are underage. You are off-limits.

  The wind! Tricia squealed as her napkin went fluttering and flying across the terrace like a live thing, and Katya jumped up to retrieve it. She saw Mr. Kidder's eyes trail over her tanned legs, the curve of her hips in the denim cutoffs. Thin streaks of cloud passed over the sun; there was a mild chill. Mr. Kidder said apologetically, "We should move inside, I think! It's one of those capricious days. Warm—now not so warm. And I have presents for you, dear Tricia and dear Katya, I dare not forget."

  Presents! Tricia was thrilled. Katya smiled guardedly.

  "Yes, we should go inside," Katya said. "We should be leaving soon, I think. Mrs. Engelhardt will be expecting us back..."

  Was this true? Often when Katya returned to the split-level house on the channel, Mrs. Engelhardt's SUV was gone and only the Hispanic housekeeper was there.

  Katya helped Mr. Kidder carry the tea things back into the house, into the largest kitchen she'd ever seen. He led her then into a room that was a kind of studio, overlooking the terrace from another angle, with lattice windows, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a sofa covered in brightly colored upholstery. The room smelled of paint and turpentine; in a corner was an easel, and on the floor a paint-splattered tarpaulin; against a wall, stacks of unframed canvases. On the walls were works of art—paintings, pastel drawings—portraits of women, girls, young children. So Mr. Kidder was an artist! When Katya complimented him on his work, which was impressive to her, with a smile he asked if she'd like to pose for him sometime.

  "Pose? Like for a ... portrait?"

>   "Depending on the results, portraits."

  Meaning more than one? Katya was made to feel confused, uncertain. Those icy blue eyes were fixed upon her so intently. "When would I have time, Mr. Kidder? You know that I'm a nanny—my work hours are dawn to dusk."

  She meant to be funny. Though what she said was true, essentially. She had two half-days off, Wednesday, Sunday, and even after dusk, after feeding the Engelhardt children, bathing them, and preparing them for bed, she felt, in a far corner of the house with no view of the channel, that she was expected to remain on duty.

  "What about dusk, then? Night?"

  Katya laughed uneasily, supposing that Mr. Kidder must be joking and not knowing how to reply.

  While Mr. Kidder turned to Tricia, Katya drifted about the studio. So much to look at! She liked it that Mr. Kidder's furniture did not resemble the stark angular sculpted things in Hilbreth Home Furnishings, and she liked it that there were so many books on the shelves (books were a comfort to her), so many small carvings, vases and urns, glass flowers. Light struck and illuminated these flowers like flame.

  Mr. Kidder was presenting Tricia with a gift: a children's picture book titled Funny Bunny's Birthday Party, with which Tricia was delighted. Katya glanced about, still uneasy: was there a present for her?

  There didn't seem to be. Mr. Kidder was absorbed in Tricia, turning pages of the book for her, reading aloud. Katya stared at the glass flowers. She'd never seen anything like these flowers before. None seemed to resemble real flowers, or at least flowers familiar to her; their stalks and leaves were varying degrees of green, but their petals were the most exquisite colors, flaming crimson, iridescent purple, gold-striped, grotesquely shaped. There were petals that resembled tentacles and petals that resembled nerve filaments. Stamens that resembled tongues, pistils like eyes. Katya stared at a large flesh-colored peonylike flower that mimicked a seashell, or—she didn't want to think—the smooth hairless vagina of a young girl. With a nervous laugh, she asked, "Who made these, Mr. Kidder?" and Mr. Kidder solemnly bowed, with a sad-clown smirk: "M.K.—in a lyric phase of long ago. My 'fossil flowers.'"