Honeymoon for Three (5 page)

He had to make sure it was the correct car.
He came right up to it and stooped in front of the license plate.
He shone the flashlight on it, shielding it with his hand so its
rays wouldn’t spread. This was Gary’s car, all right. Next to the
car was a small tent. What he would call a pup tent. It must be the
smallest tent in the campground, just big enough for two people. If
they were friendly. That thought brought back Alfred’s rage.

He stood motionless, a few feet from the
tent, and stared at its dark outline. When he looked directly at
it, the fabric blended into the blackness of the night and
disappeared. The way he would like to make Gary disappear.

He heard noises coming from inside the tent.
Whispers. Soft giggles. Then grunts. A stifled shout. He knew what
they were doing. He pictured Penny’s body, the way it had looked
when he saw it from her window. Perfect. The body of a goddess. And
that bastard was ravishing her.

Alfred wanted to dive on top of the tent and
bring it crashing down on them, then beat them with a fallen tree
branch until they stopped. Stopped the whispers. And the giggles.
The grunts and the cries. He would silence them. Forever.

No. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t kill
Penny. Gary, yes. He could kill Gary in the blink of an eye.
Easily. Without remorse. But Penny might still be his. She might
see the light. Recognize that he was the only one who truly loved
her. For months he had watched her from a distance. He had been
afraid to approach her, afraid that she would reject him. Just like
the one other girl he had been brave enough to approach had
rejected him. But now he was ready to act. He had to act—before it
was too late.

He silently backed away from the tent until
he couldn’t hear the noises inside. Slowly his insides cooled. His
skin cooled off more rapidly, matching the temperature of the night
air. He shivered. He forced himself to start walking back toward
his car. He needed to get some sleep. If he could.

CHAPTER 5

Penny laughed as
she put a dime into the slot that turned on the water for the
shower. A shower with
class—cobwebs,
peeling paint, and aromatic canvas curtains. What a way to start
her wedding day. A nontraditional wedding day if there ever were
one. Their conformity scores had been correct.

She and Gary had met through a computer
matching service called Human Inventory. Although as Gary, the
IBMer, had pointed out, the probability that the service actually
used a computer in 1964 was not high. Computers were just barely up
to that kind of challenge, and the programmers who could make them
work were still too scarce for a startup company to
employ.

The concept sounded good. Even if
they’d only used a punched card sorter, it had worked for her and
Gary. All applicants had taken a series of tests for interests and
attitudes. Interests of matched couples didn’t have to coincide
exactly; some diversity was good, but the scores should be close on
several attitudes. And they were. They had both scored very low on
conformity. Thus her easy acceptance of the current situation. And
they had both scored high on—she peeked through the curtains to
make sure nobody else was about, afraid that somebody might read
her thoughts—attitude toward sex. Those scores had also been
correct.

***

Gary fired up the Coleman stove he
and Penny had purchased by pooling their Blue Chip Stamps and
pondered how his life had changed so much in four short months.
Well, okay, six months. Although it was just four months since
Penny and he had met each other face to face. But for two months
before that they had corresponded anonymously, through Human
Inventory. He was Adam plus a number, and she was Eve.

Their letters covered a lot of
territory, and by the time they went on their first date to the San
Diego Zoo, they knew each other better than many couples do after
months—or years—or forever. Gary wondered what would have happened
if one or both of them hadn’t been truthful in the letters. They
would certainly have found out on that marathon first date which
had lasted twelve hours. It would have been two months down the
drain, but then, life was a risky business.

Fortunately, they had been
truthful, and they were still being truthful with each other.
Although, Penny hadn’t told him about the notes and phone calls she
had received until the night before last. However, he trusted her,
and she trusted him.

Since their families were both on
the east coast, if they were going to get married at all it was
easier to do it this way than try to coordinate from long distance.
He had mentioned the possibility of marriage to his mother on the
phone a few weeks ago. She had immediately started naming the dates
they weren’t available, including right now. They were in Europe on
an extended vacation.

He put a pot of water on the stove
to heat for cocoa, and a frying pan for eggs. He was happier than
he’d ever been.

***

Alfred didn’t know whether it was
the sunlight or the cold or the noises of other campers that woke
him, but as soon as he opened his eyes, he was startled enough to
take a quick look at his watch. Almost nine o’clock. Panic. What if
the birds had flown?

Actually, he didn’t notice the
cold until he moved, but when he tried to get up, he realized just
how stiff his body was. Frozen stiff. Last night, after he had
returned to the car, he had run the engine with the heater on high
until the interior heated up, not caring how the noise affected the
people in the adjoining campsites.

That warmth had allowed him to go
to sleep. It had long since dissipated. When he made it to a
sitting position, he considered what to do first. Based on
yesterday’s experience, that was obvious. He walked to the nearby
restroom, trying to ignore tempting odors of food and drink wafting
from nearby campsites. He had nothing to eat with him, except the
remains of a bag of peanuts.

Since Penny’s campsite was on the
other side of the campground, there was no chance of running into
her or Gary. He washed his hands and face in the icy tap water, wet
his hair, and ran his fingers through it. He took handfuls of water
and reached up under his clothes to wash his armpits, in lieu of
using deodorant. The cold shocked his body into full
wakefulness.

Then, ignoring the inquisitive looks of a
couple of other men who had the unkempt and slightly soiled
appearance that campers always had, he placed his mouth under a
faucet and drank as much water as he could consume. He could
picture all manner of stuff dissolved in the metallic-tasting
liquid, but it might be the only breakfast he would get.

Alfred returned to his car,
walking among the tall pine trees and inhaling their fragrance. It
reminded him of a trip his family had taken to the White Mountains
of New Hampshire when he was a boy. Some of the sun’s rays found
their way through the foliage, descending to the earth in parallel
lines. They were heating up the air. The campground was alive with
activity. Children ran about, and adults drank coffee at their
picnic tables. His hunger pangs returned. He must stop thinking
about eating.

He was faced with immediate
decisions. Should he drive to their campsite and risk having them
notice his car, or should he walk? He was quite sure he could walk
the distance in five minutes by daylight, now that he could see
where he was going. That also meant five minutes getting back to
his car when they left.

Neither alternative was appealing. He drove to
the entrance, instead. Once there, he parked his car near the
office where several other vehicles sat, keeping his eyes glued to
the rearview mirror. After a few minutes he remembered that he had
seen some snack food for sale in the office last night.

He got out of the car and covered the few feet
to the door of the office at a trot. Once inside, he glanced out of
the window every few seconds as he picked out several bags of chips
and nuts and paid for them. Back in the car, he opened a bag of
chips and started to munch on them. With his other hand, he opened
the glove compartment and pulled out a map.

Alternately looking at the mirror
and the map, he ate with one hand and used the other hand to hold
the map as he tried to figure out where they might be headed. The
minutes dragged by, and no VW appeared. Why was he so sure they
were still in the campground? A map of the campsites was posted in
front of the office. He had at least been smart enough to note the
number of their campsite last night. He got out of the car and
found the number on the map. It was close to the
entrance.

He walked along the side of the
narrow campground road, keeping out of the way of the vehicles of
families who were departing to explore exotic Lake Tahoe, or gamble
in the Nevada casinos. He spotted the green car through the trees.
No need to go any closer. He saw Penny as she walked around the
car, and his heart gave a bound. She was dressed in shorts and a
sweatshirt. She and Gary were packing up. Their tent had
disappeared. Only a stove remained on the table. They were about to
leave.

Alfred scurried back to his car.
Within five minutes the VW appeared in his rearview mirror. He
started his car as the other one rolled by. It paused at the
campground entrance and then turned onto Route 50.

Route 50 went north along the east
side of Lake Tahoe, into Nevada, and east through a mountain pass
to 395. If they continued north on 395, they would come to—Reno. An
awful thought occurred to Alfred, not for the first time. They
might be going to get married. But all he could do right now was to
keep them in sight.

***

“
Well, here we are in Reno.” Gary
drove the car slowly along Virginia Street. “What do we do
now?”

“
Uh, find a place to get
married.”

“
Shall we stop at a phone booth
and look in the yellow pages?”

“
That won’t be necessary.
Look.”

Gary followed Penny’s pointing
finger and saw the freshly painted white building to their right. A
sign on it read “Park Wedding Chapel.” A red neon sign that said
“Weddings” emphasized its purpose. A fake spire at the top of the
building enclosed another neon sign with the outline of a
bell.

Gary parked on a short street in
front of the chapel. Penny remembered to take her sweatshirt off
before she got out of the car. Gary put a few coins in the parking
meter, and they walked hand in hand up four steps and through the
front door of the chapel. They entered a small room with red,
patterned wallpaper on the lower part of the walls. The carpet was
also red. The rest of the room was painted white, including a
number of doors.

The smiling receptionist sat
behind a counter. Her hair and clothes were as immaculate as her
surroundings. She told them that they could get married as soon as
they obtained a marriage license.

“
The courthouse is closed for
lunch. It opens again at one o’clock. It’s right across the street.
I suggest that you wait by the entrance so that you’ll be able to
get your license when it reopens. Then you can come back here and
get married.”

“
Just like that,” Gary said.
Events were moving very rapidly.

“
Just like that.” Her sympathetic
look said that being a little nervous was par for the
course.

“
Where can we change our clothes?”
Penny asked.

“
Right here in our dressing rooms.
I suggest you change right now before you go to the
courthouse.”

“
They’ve thought of everything,”
Gary said, as he and Penny walked back to the car. Even to locating
the chapel across the street from the Washoe County Courthouse, an
impressive building, complete with Greek columns and a
dome.

“
This is exciting.” Penny
carefully removed her dress and Gary’s suit from where they were
hung up inside the car.

Gary took his suit from her. “Look
out, world. Here we come, ready or not.”

***

Alfred was frozen. This time it
wasn’t cold air; it was the events that were happening right before
his eyes. He sat in his car, parked on the street to the side of
the chapel, and kept his eyes on the front door. In a few minutes,
Penny and Gary would come through that entrance, and when they did
they would be married.

He’d watched as they’d made their
initial foray into the chapel, his car partially shielded by
another car parked on the other side of the street. Shortly after,
he saw them come out, get their wedding clothes out of the car, and
return to its hallowed depths. There could be no doubt as to what
was happening. Why couldn’t he do something? Many times he had
pictured himself getting married to Penny. Standing at the altar,
watching her walk down the aisle bathed in light, beautiful in
white. Now it was happening, and he wasn’t the one at the altar. He
was watching from the window of a car.

What could he do? Should he go
running into the chapel and break up the wedding? Carry the bride
off in his arms and escape with her the way young Lochinvar did in
the poem by Sir Walter Scott? His car would be his steed. She
wouldn’t resist; she would understand that they were meant for each
other.

If that were true, why hadn’t he
had the courage to speak to her since he’d been in
California?