Pike's Folly

by Mike Heppner

  With his back to the door, he waited for her to come out of the bathroom. His Speedo swimsuit lay in a black lump on the floor, just inches away from his right little toe. At the sound of footsteps, he bent over, stuck his ass high in the air and picked up the suit. The footsteps slowed in front of the doorway and stopped.

  She’s looking at it, he thought. Carla Marshall is looking at my ass!

  “What are you doing?” Marlene inquired.

  Whirling around, he covered his penis with his hands. “Just putting on my swimsuit,” he said.

  Her brow wrinkled suspiciously. Her new, shorter haircut showed off more of her face, revealing expressions he’d never seen before. This was one of them, this spinsterish look of disapproval.

  “At least shut the door.” Brushing past him, she took a pair of sunglasses out of her bag and transferred them to her purse. Apparently, his being naked merited no more comment than that. Like any old wife, she crossed the room and pulled the door closed behind her, saying, “Come on, they’re waiting.”

  For a long time, he stared at the tarnished brass coat hook on the back of the door. With a sigh, he retrieved the Speedo from the floor and stepped heavily into it, first the left leg, then the right.

  When he got outside, Bill was wearing a pair of navy-blue trunks that came down to his knees. “What the hell’s that?” he asked, smirking at Stuart’s swimsuit. “You look like Greg fucking Louganis, man.”

  “I thought I’d get a tan,” Stuart explained. Feeling every inch the loser, he followed the other three through the tall grass to a marsh, where they took off their flip-flops and crossed an ankle-deep inlet of mud to the other side. Stuart kept his eye on Carla and Marlene ahead of him. The one on the right is my wife, he thought, and the one on the left is not.

  Past the inlet, a row of warped birch boards served as stairs down a sandy hill to the beach. The day wasn’t quite right for sunbathing, so they had the place more or less to themselves.

  “Does anyone see Lucien?” Carla asked. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she stared down the beach. “Oh! There he is. Hey, Lucky!”

  A man in cotton pants and a white unbuttoned shirt ran over to introduce himself. He looked about forty, with a salmon-colored complexion and golden hair parted wet to one side. Taking Stuart’s hand, he said, “Mr. Breen, the novelist. Carla told me all about you. Your book is widely read in Europe.”

  Stuart frowned; this wasn’t true, and they both knew it. “Are you sure?” he asked. “It was never published there.”

  The Frenchman made a trifling gesture and moved on to Marlene. “And Mrs. Breen. I hope I’m not intruding on your holiday.”

  “Of course not,” she said. It was the first thing that Stuart had heard her say since they’d set out for the beach, and probably the most animated she’d sounded the whole trip. “We hear that you’re an excellent chef,” she added.

  “No, no.” Thinking himself rather charming, he said, “I am an excellent photographer but a wonderful chef.”

  Stuart rolled his eyes. “A man of many talents,” he said. “Hey, where are we in relation to Chappaquiddick?”

  “It’s not far,” Lucien said. “We’ll drive to Edgartown in the morning. Don’t worry, we’ll see everything.”

  Stuart resisted the man’s allure but listened with the others as Lucien led them down the beach, regaling them with his knowledge of the island. “The best place to watch the sunrise is ten miles from here, in Oak Bluffs. Of course, I am primarily interested as a photographer.”

  Marlene asked, “What kind of photography do you do, Mr. . . . ?”

  He said a word that sounded like Zhean-Zhahn. “But call me Lucien. I like to take pictures of people—women, mostly.”

  “Lucky took a beautiful picture of Carla,” Bill said, winking at Stuart. “You can’t see that one, though.”

  “Of course he can,” Carla said. “What’s the big deal? It’s just art, you know. Everyone gets all freaked out in this country.”

  Bill challenged her. “What other countries have you been to?”

  “I’ve been to Bermuda, and Jamaica, Barbados—”

  “Those aren’t countries, kid, those are islands. Like this one. This is an island.”

  As the resident exotic, it was Lucien’s job to make peace. “Carla is right, though. In Europe, particularly in my country, there is a different attitude toward the human body. Less of a taboo. If you want to show your cock, you show your cock.” Carla tittered, and he asked, “Is that not the right word? ‘Cock,’ you say?”

  “Nope, that’s the right word,” Stuart grumbled. He didn’t like where the conversation was going, so he said, “Actually, Jamaica is a country, I believe. Bermuda’s part of Great Britain.”

  “Regardless,” Lucien said, “it’s true the world over. My first wife, Victoria, was Swedish, from Uppsala. Naked all the time— outside, in the backyard. They say, ‘Look at my body,’ you know? And no one cares.”

  “Isn’t it against the law?” Marlene asked.

  He shrugged. “Sure, but so is murder, no? It happens.”

  By this point, Marlene, Lucien and Carla were walking together, with Bill and Stuart a few steps behind. Stuart watched his wife carefully. Marlene was in a dangerous mood—he could tell just by looking at her.

  At the front of the group, Carla was saying, “You should go to Paris, Marlene. Stuart, too. Stuart could write a book about it. Wouldn’t that be a great idea?”

  Marlene glanced behind her. They’d moved far enough ahead where Stuart couldn’t hear what they were saying. “Oh, I don’t know. We’ve already been through a lot this year. I wouldn’t want to cause any more trouble for him.”

  “You should listen to your friend,” said Lucien. “Paris will welcome you with open arms. I will put you up myself—and your husband, of course.”

  She blushed. “That’s very nice of you.”

  He continued in a lower voice. “You must forgive me, but I have a business proposition that I hope you will consider. You see, Marlene, in my country, in France, you are what the Parisians call—” He said a word that sounded like Zhee-Zhean-Fvay. “You know, ‘Big hot stuff.’ ”

  “I am?” she asked.

  Carla interrupted. “Marlene, I’m so sorry. This happened at the last minute.”

  “Yes, Carla is not to blame.” From inside his shirt pocket, he pulled out a long, brown cigarette and offered it to Marlene. When she declined, he stuck it between his lips and lit it with a match.

  “What kind of a proposition?” Marlene asked.

  “It’s for a personal venture—online. I call it Nude-About-Town. ” As an afterthought, he added, “dot-com.”

  “It’s a huge commercial Web site,” Carla said. “Subscription only. Lucien could make you a star.”

  “It will be difficult, of course,” Lucien warned. “The world is filled with naked women. One public-nudity Web site is as good as another. That’s why I need you, Marlene.”

  She didn’t know what to say. “Why me? Why not Carla? She’s beautiful, and I’m not.”

  He reassured her. “But Marlene, you are a notorious nude. A famous nude, the Bettie Page of nude. You have gone where no nude has gone before.”

  Marlene stopped walking, and the others waited on her. Fortunately, Bill and Stuart were nowhere in earshot, having wandered farther down to walk in the surf. “Me?” she asked.

  Lucien nodded yes. “Please understand, Marlene. You are a role model. Maybe not to everyone but to some people. Think about your husband. How many people have actually read his little novel?”

  Marlene looked toward the water, where Stuart was standing in the shallows, watching the sea foam bubble around his ankles. “I don’t know . . .”

  “A few dozen, who cares? But you . . . you, my dear.” Lost in the vision, he simply shook his head—no words to express it. “Today, a handful of lonely souls on the Internet. But tomorrow? The possibilities are limitless.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Lis
ten. Are you comfortable in front of a camera?”

  She answered haltingly. “I guess so. I made a silly little video a few months ago, in Providence.”

  This news pleased him greatly. “Ah! I must see it. We will make our own video, of course. Video, still photos. I will film you naked in Times Square, Central Park, the Champs-Elysées.”

  His enthusiasm was hard to resist, but she said, “I don’t have it anymore, Mr. . . . Lucien. I mean, I’ve got a cheap copy at home, but that’s it. Heath has the rest of it.”

  “Who’s Heath?”

  “Oh, just a friend. He’s a very talented film director.”

  Lucien instinctively reached for his wallet. “He will sell it to me, this Heath. Whatever the cost. Your adoring public must have a sense of where it all began. For historical purposes.”

  Her eyelids fluttered. “My public?”

  Carla nudged her in the ribs. “Hey, you’ve got a public, Marlene. Isn’t that cool? I don’t have a public. Just you and Stuart.”

  Both women gazed across the beach at Stuart, who’d moved away from Bill to find a dry spot to sit down. His back was to them, and he had his knees drawn to his chest. He looked cold, even though the temperature was in the upper seventies.

  My public, Marlene thought, and continued along the beach. Carla and Lucien followed.

  They went as far out as a breakwater, then retraced their steps and returned home. Bill and Stuart had gone back early— Stuart to lie down, Bill to lift weights in the yard. They decided to do some shopping before it got too late, so Bill toweled off and fetched his keys. Carla and Lucien went along, and Marlene stayed behind with Stuart.

  Once the others left, Stuart emerged from the bedroom and joined her on the porch. She’d opened a can of beer and was sitting with her legs propped up, facing the vegetable garden.

  “Lucien’s such a nice man,” she said.

  “Sounds like a pretentious prick to me.” He mimicked Lucien’s voice. “ ‘Oh, your book’s doing so well in Frahnce.’ I hate being patronized like that.” Stepping down from the porch, he leaned against a corner post and glared at the guesthouse. Lucien’s royal-blue beach towel was still hanging out to dry.

  “Maybe he wasn’t patronizing you,” she suggested. “Maybe he was just trying to be nice.”

  “Unlikely.”

  She sighed. The afternoon had been pleasant up until now, and she was angry at him for spoiling it. “You might’ve not liked him, but I did. He made me feel good about myself.”

  “Don’t I make you feel good about yourself?”

  “Sometimes. Usually. Not right now.” She set down her beer and followed him into the yard. “Stuart, listen. Lucien wants to buy our video.”

  “No.”

  “Wait—”

  “No. How the hell does he know about it, anyway?”

  “I told him.”

  “You what?”

  Her voice warbled out of control. “Yes, I told him. I told him, Stuart. I told him because he asked and was interested . . . in me. And now he wants to make another video, only not just in Providence—all over.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “He wants to start a Web site—”

  “No.”

  “Don’t just say no. You can’t tell me no.”

  He smiled to placate her. “I know I can’t, but Marlene, listen to yourself. This is insane.”

  She’d never known this kind of feeling before, this outraged, seething anger. “Why is it any more insane than you, with your stupid book that nobody reads.” Her anger ran out, and she suddenly felt ashamed. “Stuart, I’m sorry.”

  “Well, Marlene, I’m sorry if you think my book’s stupid. I think it’s pretty stupid, too, but so what? You’ve gotten plenty of mileage out of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t think it was stupid when you married me. Remember? Stuart Breen, the big-time, hot-shot novelist.”

  “That’s not why I married you.”

  “But it was a reason, wasn’t it? What if I weren’t a big-time, hot-shot novelist? What if I were just another poor schmuck trying to write a book and failing at it, like most people? How cool would that be?”

  She put her hands up to block his face from hers. “Look, just forget it. It was a stupid thing to say, and I’m sorry.”

  He took both her arms and held them at her sides. “Marlene, I am not going to let you get involved with another harebrained scheme like the last one. No video, no Web site. As soon as we get back to Providence, I’m going to call Heath and tell him to get rid of those tapes.”

  She twisted away from him. “We still have our own copy, Stuart.”

  “I’ll junk that one, too.”

  “Not if I get to it first.” Both she and Stuart were standing with their fists balled, their foreheads almost touching.

  He laughed. “Come on, Marlene, get real. You don’t know what’s best for you.”

  “I have a right to do whatever I want to with my own life. No one told you not to write your book.”

  “Oh, a whole lot of people did, Marlene.”

  “I don’t care. This is what I want. I want to do something that matters. I don’t just want to be your wife, or some fat old bag who works at the bank. I want to be famous. I want to be naked all the time.” Their argument then turned into a scuffle, with Marlene running away from him as she pulled her shirt up over her head.

  He reached for her, but his arms fell short. “Put your fucking shirt back on.”

  Her bra came off next, and she threw it at him. “That’s me!” she said, bunching her breasts in her hands. “I want everyone to see me. I want to be naked!”

  He waited for her to calm down, and when she finally did, they both looked and felt equally helpless. “Just put your shirt back on,” he said.

  She went inside with her clothes, and by the time the others returned with the groceries, she and Stuart had managed to pull themselves together. Lucien took charge of the kitchen, dispatching Carla and Marlene to chop vegetables, while Bill and Stuart hovered nearby, drinking more aggressively now that it was after six. The Frenchman cooked with a high flame, pouring sherry and blended egg yolks into a saucepan and stirring it with a whisk. The choice of music was also Lucien’s—fucking Billie Holiday, Stuart moped, of all things. So predictable, so bourgeois. Yes, let’s listen to Billie Holiday, and then Bessie Smith and Dinah Washington, and then some fucking Sting, and goddamn Joni Mitchell, and then we’ll all congratulate ourselves on how sophisticated we are. To get away from the music, he took his drink out onto the porch, then continued across the yard, past the vegetable garden, to the guesthouse. Lucien’s blue beach towel had fallen from the rafter, and he kicked it into the weeds.

  At the dinner table, Marlene said to Lucien, “This is absolutely delicious. Thank you so much.”

  Lucien set down his fork and gave her hand a squeeze. “It’s a recipe from the region of Burgundy, where my family lived during the German Occupation. The secret is, you add a . . . lemon? To seal the flavor. But just a drop.”

  “Add a lemon.” She tapped her forehead. “I’ll remember that.”

  Stuart stared at her over his hardly touched blanquette de veau, thinking, Oh, like you’re ever going to make this.

  After they’d cleared the dishes, they went outside to smoke a joint. Various stupid philosophies circulated during the course of conversation, most of them Carla’s and Lucien’s. When they started talking about acupuncture, Stuart said, “I hate to bag out on you guys, but I’m beat.”

  Four pairs of red-rimmed eyes looked at him, but Carla was the only one to wish him a good night. “Be sure to find the right room,” she said. “You don’t want to wind up in bed with the wrong person.”

  Oh, but I do, he thought. For Marlene’s sake, as much as my own. Let her sleep with Lucien, and I’ll sleep with you, Carla, and we’ll let Bill be the odd man out. Or better yet, let’s all five of us go our separate ways tonight. We’ll keep it real
simple. No sex, no pressure, no human interaction whatsoever. Just darkness, and silence.

  Alone in bed, he listened to the party drone on without him. One last thought came to him before he drifted off to sleep. Like hell, he told himself. Marlene’s never getting her hands on that fucking videotape.

  6

  Pike and Sarah were alone for the first time in many weeks, and to celebrate she cooked him his favorite meal of roasted venison with chestnuts. Pike fidgeted all during the evening. He wasn’t used to accepting her hospitality, no matter how long they’d known each other. Though he liked doing people favors, he wasn’t so good at receiving them.

  After dinner, they went into the den for coffee. “What do you want to do next?” he asked. He was lying on the couch in his stockinged feet, while she sat across from him in a tall wing chair.

  She looked out the front door, which stood open, with only the screen closed to keep the flies out. Beyond, a moonless country night had settled in the foothills. “We could sit on the porch,” she offered.

  He stretched and undid one of the buttons of his oxford shirt, the first wave of postprandial fatigue weighing down on him. “I guess that’s not what I meant. I mean, what do you want to do next month, next year, that sort of thing?”

  “Hmm, I see. The eternal Nathaniel Pike question.” She rose from the chair and pushed aside his legs to make room on the couch. “We don’t have to do anything, I suppose. I’m happy doing nothing.”

  “I know you are,” he mused. “That’s a good quality. Whatever the opposite of restless is.”

  “True enough. You’re still restless. Forty-three years old, and you haven’t slowed down a bit.”

  “I’m not forty-three,” he said.

  She smiled familiarly at him and took his hand. “I know how old you are, chief. I’ve always been a year older than you. Older, uglier, lazier—”

  “Now cut that out.” He sat up straight and held both her hands. He couldn’t tell whether she was kidding or not. “How about smarter, huh? You’re an ace compared to me. Ask me anything, any fact—I guarantee I don’t know it.”