The Stories of Alice Adams

by Alice Adams

  She came over promptly, in answer to my invitation (a summons, it must have sounded like), and she looked as I had imagined that she would: contrite and tired, and rumpled. Unlike me, she could not have slept well.

  She told me that she had been walking around the town, and how much she liked it, and I agreed. Then we both admired, again, the bright fall view from my windows.

  And then she said, “I’ve been thinking—and I hope this won’t sound presumptuous, but would you mind if I shifted the focus of our talk a little? I mean, so many people have written about the legendary love affair.”

  This was irritating: she was saying to me exactly what I had meant to say to her.

  I snorted. “I suppose you mean to take another tack, and zero in on our fights?”

  “Oh no, of course not. I wouldn’t—”

  “In point of fact,” I told her, “the written accounts are remarkably close to the truth. I was in Italy, and Gloria Bingham visited here for a while, and then she left. Ran and I both had our flings, but no one else mattered much to either of us.”

  Candida seemed to find that statement both moving and final, as I did myself. She was silent for a while, and then she said, “I really meant about your work. It’s interesting, your beginning with those small figures. The gain in scope.”

  “It undoubtedly had something to do with my physical size,” I told her, very dry.

  “I can understand that,” she said. Well, I believed that she could, indeed; we are about the same height. Big ladies.

  “What really happened,” I then told her, “was in Italy, for the first time, I saw real Michelangelos. In the Bargello, and in the Vatican, St. Peter’s—”

  We talked for several hours, and I saw that I had been right all along about Candida; my instincts still were fine. She was very nice indeed, and smart. I liked her. Our talk went on all morning, and into the afternoon.

  I had a marvelous time.

  At the Beach

  The very old couple, of whom everyone at the beach is so highly aware, seem themselves to notice no one else at all. Tall and thin, she almost as tall as he, they are probably somewhere in their eighties. They walk rather slowly, and can be seen, from time to time, to stop and rest, staring out to sea, or to some private distance of their own. Their postures, always, are arrestingly, regally erect; it is this that catches so much attention, as well as their general air of distinction, and of what is either disdain or a total lack of interest in other people.

  Their clothes are the whitest at the beach; in the ferocious Mexican sun of that resort they both wear large hats, hers lacy, his a classic panama.

  They look like movie stars, or even royalty, and for all anyone knows they are, deposed monarchs from one of the smaller European countries, world-wanderers.

  Because there is not much to do at that resort, almost nothing but walking and swimming, reading or whatever social activities one can devise, most people stay for fairly short periods of time. Also, it is relatively expensive. The Chicago people, who have come as a group, will be there for exactly ten days. The couple who have the room just next door to that of the distinguished old couple will be there for only a week—a week literally stolen, since he is married to someone else, in Santa Barbara, and is supposed to be at a sales conference, in Puerto Rico.

  But the old people seem to have been there forever, and the others imagine that they will stay on and on, at least for the length of the winter.

  And while everyone else can be seen, from time to time, to wonder what to do next—the Chicago people, apparently committed to unity of action, were heard arguing in the dining room over whether, or when, to rent a boat for deep-sea fishing—the two old people have a clear, unwavering schedule of their own. After breakfast, to which they come in quite late, as they do to all meals, they sit out on their small porch for a couple of hours. The girl in the room next door, who is named Amanda Evers, is passionately curious about them, and she tries to look through the filagree of concrete that separates the two porches. But she discovers nothing. (She is in fact too curious about too many people; her lover, Richard Paxton, has told her so. Curiosity contributes to the general confusion of her life.)

  The old man reads his newspapers, a Mexico City News that he has delivered to his table each morning, at breakfast, and sometimes he seems to be writing letters—or perhaps he keeps a journal? The woman does not read the paper; she seems to be doing nothing at all—a thing that Amanda, who is restlessly energetic, cannot imagine. (Amanda manages a travel agency, in Santa Cruz, California; she often considers other careers.)

  The arrival of the elderly couple, down at the beach, at almost precisely noon each day, is much noticed; it is when they look, perhaps, most splendid. In trim dark bathing suits, over which they both wear white shirts, in their hats and large dark glasses, advancing on their ancient legs, they are as elegant as tropical birds—and a striking contrast to everyone else on the beach, many of whom wear bright colors. One woman in the Chicago group has a pea-green caftan that literally hurts Amanda’s eyes.

  The old people sit each day under the same small thatched shelter, a little apart from the others, at the end of the line. After a while they will rise and begin one of their long, deliberate walks, the length of the beach and back. Then, returned to their shelter, in a slow and careful way they divest themselves of the shirts, the hats and glasses; they walk down to the edge of the water, and slowly, majestically, they enter the lapping small green waves. After a not quite total immersion they return to the shelter, to rest. Even in such apparent repose, however, they both have a look of great attentiveness. They seem highly conscious of each moment, and very likely they are.

  They take lunch quite late, and always, of course, alone, at one of the small restaurants down the beach. They are seen to chatter away to each other, and to eat rather little. But no one can ever overhear what they are saying, nor would anyone dare address them. Her accent, however, is recognizably “foreign”; his is English, probably—giving further credence to the theory that they are royalty, deposed.

  And that notion is not entirely incorrect: those people are named Carlotta and Travis Farquhar, and once, if not royal, they were famous: Carlotta, originally Polish, as an actress, and Travis, a Scot, as an astronomer; an asteroid has his name. They both, simultaneously, reached their heights of achievement about forty years ago; since then, not entirely by choice, they have eased themselves into retirement. In Travis’s case, what was then called a nervous breakdown took two years from his life; coming out of it, he was, or felt himself to be, too far behind, in terms of research. He could still teach, of course, but he tired of that, fairly early on. And Carlotta, who took care of him during those years, had never been truly dedicated to the stage; later she was happy enough to yield her place to younger actresses, or so she said.

  They never had children, always traveled a lot.

  One ostensible reason for the high cost of this resort is its extraordinary natural beauty—a beauty that most people seem to take some note of on arrival, and then, curiously, to forget.

  The hotel is built on the downward slope of a hill above the beach, from which one faces a very large cove of bright, often glassy-green water. Far out across that water, at the mouth of the cove, there are two widely spaced but rather similarly shaped promontories of land; both slope gently down to the water, like great dark obedient beasts. Delicately feathered trees are silhouetted out there, at sunsets, which are almost always brilliant and violent, or in the first pale light of early mornings.

  The beach, a wide white ribbon, encircles the cove; above the sand is the powerful, encroaching, mysterious green jungle—impenetrable, probably dangerous. It marks the start of a mountain range that extends almost to Mexico City.

  The skies are nearly always clear and blue and pale, and the air is warm—subtle, moist, insinuating. Getting off the plane, their first night, still in her northern California clothes, Amanda gasped with pleasure at that tropical ai
r and the smell of flowers that even at the airport hung in the slight evening breeze. “Oh, feel the air, it’s so lovely,” she cried out to Richard, by which she meant: Our time here will be lovely. But then she forgot about the air, or stopped thinking about it.

  Richard is usually foremost in Amanda’s mind and consciousness; he is a difficult lover (although she has reflected that all her lovers have been difficult, in one way or another). Her obsession with Richard is so anxiety-ridden that she cannot sort out those emotions; indeed, it is hard for her to imagine love without anxiety. Richard is not only married, in an explosive off-and-on way, but he is exceptionally handsome, a golden southern California boy; he is spoiled, rather moody and seemingly fond of his moods—he has put in some time at Esalen. He is five years younger than she, which is not supposed to matter, but somehow, sometimes it does.

  At this resort, though, he seems exceptionally cheery and calm. Before breakfast he runs on the beach, two lengths, and he has announced that the sand is superior. Amanda, whose discovery this place has been, is more than relieved; she is delighted. They swim far out into the cove together, in the clear warm green water; sometimes, looking down, they can see small stray brightly colored fish. At lunch they drink the excellent Mexican beer, and eat fresh garlicky seafood. They shower and sleep, they make love. They swim again, and shower again, and head up to the bar, which is cantilevered out into the open, starry, flowery night; they drink margaritas, toasting each other and the lovely, perfect place.

  And the next day they repeat the pattern.

  Perhaps for that reason, Richard’s relatively “good mood,” Amanda’s attention wanders from him more than usual, and she finds herself acutely aware of the elderly, possibly royal couple next door: how long have they been married, she wonders. And who are they?

  “You could ask them for autographs,” Richard suggests. “Then you’d know.”

  It is just past noon. From their beach chairs Amanda and Richard are watching as the Farquhars slowly rise and start out on their walk, watching the slow progress of those erect, high, narrow bodies, on their thin brown wrinkled legs.

  Choosing to ignore Richard’s facetiousness (he enjoys teasing her), Amanda asks him, “Will your hair be white, do you think?”

  He frowns a little. “Not any time soon, I hope.” And then, as though taking her earlier question seriously, he says, “Why don’t you ask those people to have a drink with us, if you really want to know something about them?”

  “Oh, well. I really don’t think so.” Amanda says this calmly, but inwardly she has quailed at the very idea; of course it would have to be the other way around, the older people would have to ask them for a drink, which of course they never will do—but oh! if they should. To be with those people, to know them at all, Amanda feels, would itself confer distinction; in their presence one would find peace.

  And then, as she contemplates the two tall, erect figures that gradually grow smaller, walking down the very white beach, slowly, near the bright green-blue water, for a moment Amanda’s consciousness blurs; from behind closed eyelids she has a sudden vision of herself without Richard, without the chaos of his presence in her life: she sees herself in some new and calmer phase, even released from her frenetic occupation. She is running a bookstore, perhaps. There is one for sale in Aptos, a town next door to Santa Cruz but smaller and quieter, by far.

  Opening her eyes, as though she had been asleep, she shakes her head, and drowsily, rather impersonally, she speaks to Richard: “It’s so restful here, isn’t it.”

  “Well, that’s one thing we came for, I thought. Leave our old problems behind?” He grins in a familiar, challenging way; they both know what “problems” he means, and her usual fondness for discussing them.

  But this time she does not take him up. “It’s so beautiful. I could stay here forever” is all she says.

  If the Farquhars are objects of Amanda’s admiring curiosity, the Chicago group inspires opposite emotions: she finds them noisy, obtrusive, in their too bright clothes. One of them, a heavily mustached young man, even smokes a cigar, all the time, which you can smell all over the beach. Their loud, quite unself-conscious voices dominate the dining room or the bar when they are present—as they seemingly always are, and always together. Amanda cannot imagine herself, with or without Richard, as a part of any group at all.

  “Wouldn’t it be great if they’d leave before we do,” she whispers to Richard.

  “They look pretty settled in,” he observes.

  “That’s probably how they’d look anywhere. Do you realize that there’re actually only six of them? I just counted. They seem more like ten or twelve people.”

  Richard laughs. Her ability to amuse him is a thing that Amanda counts on; it almost makes up, she feels, for being older And less beautiful than he is, although by most standards she is pretty enough (which she sometimes forgets), in a thin, rather original way, with her heavy dark hair, narrow face and large pale-gray eyes.

  Another object of Amanda’s wayward curiosity is the hotel’s manager, or manageress: a large blond strong-looking woman, who is unfailingly cheerful. A big happy woman, she walks about in old soft white pants and a blue work shirt. She is called, by everyone, Lisa, and she seems to have neither a last name nor a history; her accent, in English, is vaguely Central European. She also speaks German and Spanish, fluently.

  She and the Farquhars appear to know each other, and this too, of course, draws Amanda’s attention. Lisa is, in fact, the only person to whom the Farquhars are ever seen to speak.

  Amanda wonders how Lisa happened to come to Mexico, and if she has ever been married. Mainly, though, she would like to know the secret of such level cheerfulness: how can Lisa cope with the whole hotel, the guests and the help, and answer everyone’s questions and still smile like that? Her own work has taught Amanda more than a little about the irritations of travel.

  In fact, Amanda is wrong about the people from Chicago: there are seven of them, not six, although she may have counted when one of them was missing. And they are not quite as homogeneous as, to Amanda, they appear. At least one of them, a recent widow, Natalie Barnes, is quite out of sorts with the rest. It was good of them to ask her along, without Herbert, but they all make too much noise, and she knows them well enough by now to have tired of all their jokes and stories. Besides, her skin is getting too old for all this sun.

  Natalie, like Amanda, like everyone there, is fascinated by the Farquhars—especially that woman’s skin, which is remarkable, so fine and smooth and white. Natalie wishes she knew what kind of sun block that woman uses.

  And she wonders about their marriage, the Farquhars’: have they always been married to each other, and got along as well as they now apparently do? Natalie and Herbert were actually separated at the time that he died, a fact known to none of their traveling friends, so that Natalie has been cast, by them, in a role that does not precisely suit her, that of Herbert’s beloved, bereaved wife. But she is just as glad that none of them knew about the girl.

  Did those old people ever quarrel and get back together? Would Herbert have come back, had he lived? Would he have tired of that girl? Natalie sighs, afraid that she will never have an answer to anything.

  The bougainvillea, in that place, blooms with a wild extravagance; there is every shade of pink, of red, even violet and purple. Vines cling to the steep hillside, from which the gaudy blossoms foam. Brilliant colors lurk between the low white plaster buildings of the hotel; everywhere there are sudden bursts of flowers—on the way to the dining room, or going up to the bar, and flowers bloom all around the porch-balconies of the rooms. Just beyond the porch that Amanda and Richard share with the Farquhars (except for the intervening filagree) there is a bush of yellow angel’s trumpets, and beside the bush a strangely branched small tree, reddish blossoms among its crooked limbs. Hummingbirds are drawn to the tree’s red flowers, while among the trumpet flowers there often appear small yellow butterflies, almost indistingu
ishable from the yellow petals.

  By their fourth day Amanda is acutely aware of just that: four days gone, only three remain. Less than half their time. And the four days seem to have passed as one, she feels. Just as the years of her life race faster and faster. Soon she will be middle-aged, then irretrievably old. In a discouraged way she looks around the beach, at so much exposed and aging flesh, the sags and wrinkles that painstakingly acquired suntans do not conceal.

  Richard, though, is simply a darker shade of gold. The small fine patch of hair on his chest and the hairs on his arms and legs are all bleached out, pale, almost invisible. No wrinkles, anywhere. Amanda sighs, thinking of what they—or, rather, she—will be going back to: at work, days on the phone or at the computer, people either impatient or angry with her, or both, and most nights spent alone, either not hearing from Richard or hearing, via a hurried call, that they cannot meet, after all, wherever they had planned to.

  For reassurance, or perhaps to answer some unformed question, she turns toward the elderly couple, who are resting beneath their small thatched shelter. He is lying back in his chair, his eyes closed against the sun and his mouth slightly open. But she, her white skin shaded by the lace-brimmed hat, sits intently forward; she is looking, looking—but at what? Following the direction of her gaze, Amanda sees, in the foreground, a small outcropping of rocks, spattered with a little white moss. Then sand, and then the water, bright and clear and green, rippling out in the dancing, dazzling sunlight, as far as the horizon. And the hot flat blue endless sky.

  Further sadness for Amanda: after four days she and that couple, whose name she still does not know, are no closer to speaking or even nodding terms than they were on her arrival. They have never even seen her, Amanda believes.