Living Room (17 page)

Shirley had been listening to the sound of his voice.

“Do you mind?”

“One guarantee,” he said, “whatever happens, on the way home we won’t be strangers.”

After they checked in at the BOAC terminal, they each bought a bottle in the duty-free store, his Chivas, hers Smirnoff.

At the announced time of departure the 747 was already taxiing. There was an American Airlines 707 and a Lufthansa DC-something ahead of them, and in five minutes she could hear the engines go to full throttle, saw the wings quivering, and then they were hurtling along the ground. She wasn’t sure of the precise moment that Brooklyn suddenly dropped hundreds of feet below her. The plane was beginning to bank gently toward whatever compass heading south and east would find a speck of coral in mid-Atlantic.

“No matter how many dozens of times I’ve flown,” she said, “it’s still unbelievable.”

“Nervous?”

She glanced at her watch. “Not really. Just thinking what my boss might be thinking right now.”

“Feel guilty?” he asked.

“An absolute heel,” she said, just as the stewardess wheeled the cocktail trolley adjacent to their seats.

They ordered Bordeaux with the meal.

“What blew up at the office today?” asked Al.

Shirley stared out the window at the carpet of cotton below, clouds as far as the eye could see, no ocean, an airplane drifting in space.

“Don’t talk about it, if you don’t want to.”

Shirley turned from the cloud cover and looked at Al straight and direct, face to face for the first time since they had met. She could see the tiny dots of stubble on his chin and cheeks, noticed the wild, long, mischievously disarranged hairs in his eyebrows. She couldn’t say Marvin Goodkin called her a cunt. Telling the whole tired mess would bore him.

“I suppose,” she said finally, “a man would not have done what I did. You have to be crazy to walk away from what could be the most important business meeting of your career.”

“Why wouldn’t a man?”

“Oh, you know, wife and kiddies, dependents who eat the paycheck before it can get to the bank.”

“I know men who’ve pulled the plug.”

“With families? With people depending on them?”

“Yes.”

“Do you realize I could be blackballed throughout the industry for leaving Arthur in the lurch at a time like this?”

“I’d have thought some of his competitors would welcome a chance to hire your head.”

“Agency directors hate each other like a family. They’ll steal from each other any chance they get, but not if someone breaks the rules. It’s like the Mafia. In the agency business, you don’t screw up a client and get away with it.”

“I bet Crouch has people trying to find you all over town.”

“There’s at least one of Arthur’s competitors who would love to buy what’s in my head. I don’t mean my ideas, I mean what I know about Arthur’s business. It’s the straightest form of spying, hire the enemy’s people. They’d milk me, and find an excuse for dropping me.”

Al passed her cup over so the stewardess could pour the coffee. “Maybe you’re in the wrong business.”

Christ, thought Shirley, everybody hates advertising.

“Know any lawyers?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Heads their clients win, tails their clients lose. Either way, they get their fee. If an advertising firm’s clients lose, the agency loses the account. Politicians and the church have been doing for eons what we do. Selling people.”

“I’m not going to defend politicians or churchmen.”

“Advertising agencies haven’t burned people at the stake or napalmed them. You don’t have to buy the products I’m selling. You don’t even have to listen to my ads. The only power an advertiser has over you is the power you let him have.”

“You’re very loyal.”

She held her tongue. They were both listening to the sound of the engines.

After a while, she said, “Tell me about your project.”

“Later.”

“How long have you known Jack and Mary?”

“Later.”

“I say something wrong?”

“No.” He smiled. He almost patted her hand. She thought she should have taken a tranquilizer. Something.

“Are we having an argument?” she asked.

“No. Relax. You’re on vacation.”

“What’s that noise?” said Shirley.

“The landing gear going down.”

“Why behind us?”

“Because that’s where the wheels are.”

Out of the window she could see they had burst through the cloud cover. Below them, the ocean was blue; closer to land it was teal; near the foam on the shore, green crystal.

“So quick,” she said.

“It’s nearly an hour and a half.”

“Bermuda’s tiny,” she said as the plane turned for the final approach.

“It’s all that’s left of three volcanoes, supposedly.”

The plane seemed to be coming down too fast, the sky was letting go too quickly, then the tires squealed, there was the sudden roar of the engines’ reverse thrust, the seat belt straining against her middle. The chief steward’s voice welcomed them to Bermuda. It didn’t feel like the end of a trip.

It was the beginning.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE COTTAGE ITSELF was part of a colony of ten or twelve with a central dining room. Al had Shirley’s bags carried into the larger bedroom feeing the ocean, his own into the one that opened out on the other end of the living room.

In the cubbyhole kitchen, Shirley spotted a wicker basket containing a bottle of champagne and two upended plastic champagne glasses. A white card read “Compliments of the Manager.”

“Don’t let it go to your head,” Al said, sticking the champagne bottle in the refrigerator. “Everybody gets one.”

Shirley took the broom leaning against the sink. “What’s this for, a hint?”

“Maid probably forgot it.”

Al put his right hand around the broom handle just above Shirley’s. She put her other hand on the handle just above his. His left topped hers, and so, hand after hand, to the top of the handle. “I win,” said Al. “We used to do that in Little League to see who batted first.”

“Again,” said Shirley, fist on broom handle.

The top of Al’s fist touched hers. Skin. Quickly their hands clambered up the handle, and with Shirley’s hand near the top, there was less than two inches of room for Al’s hand. He tried to put his fist around it. “Rule is,” he said, “you’ve got to be able to hold onto it.”

Shirley let go, the broom swayed in Al’s precarious grip, dropped to the floor with a clatter. They both laughed, as Al raised her arm, pronouncing her the winner.

“I think we ought to use a broom in the office,” said Shirley, “to decide arguments.”

“Hey,” said Al, “come out on the balcony.”

Below them were great rocks, scalloped by the sea that roared against them. Every third or fourth wave was a wall of water ending in a thunderclap and a geyser of spray releasing energy twenty feet into the air.

“Rockaway is kid’s stuff,” she said.

Shirley noticed the small coral beach, pink sand with a few obstinate sunbathers still under the rapidly waning sun.

“Swim?” Al asked.

“Tomorrow’s plenty of time. Unwind is what I want right now.”

“Agree.”

*

After unpacking, they sat on the balcony watching the waves break against the rocks, the spume flaring. The irregular rhythm of the breakers, the ocean’s pounding, mesmerized her. Why had the ocean not pulverized Bermuda by now? See how it had carved the rocks and cliffs. Glancing farther out, she could make out the reefs where the waves first broke, then sloshed over the flattened coral, diminished in intensity, but heading for shore with enough force to sweep a man off his feet.

Al had vanished somewhere into the cottage. She heard the pop of the cork, and he reappeared carrying the frothing champagne bottle. He poured some into her plastic glass, apologized that it was barely chilled, poured himself
some. They touched plastic to plastic,
then Shirley turned again to watch the tide cover more and more of the thin strip of sand.

When she looked up, Al was reading the newspaper he had brought from New York.

“How can you read a paper in a place this beautiful?” she said.

“Listen to these headlines,” he said. ‘“Priest Converts to Christianity.’”

Shirley looked suspicious.

“It could start a trend,” said Al. “Here’s another one. ‘Divorce Rate in Gay Marriages Reaches Same Rate as Regular Marriages.’”

“You’re making them up.”

“‘Artists Granted Depletion Allowance.’”

“That’ll be the day.”

“Hey, look at this,” he said, turning the page. “Bobby Fischer Says Chess Boring, Will Never Play Again.”

“Let me see that.”

He kept the paper just out of her reach. “
‘
New York Times
Abandons Its Monopoly, Sets Up Rival with No-Strings Trust.’”

She darted for the paper unsuccessfully. “You play this game often?”

Al folded the paper and put it under his chair, closed his eyes. “The best thing to do when you’re vacationing is to save the papers and read them all together at the end. The headlines always seem absurd then. Now,” he said, his face directed at the red ball of setting sun, “relax.”

Dinner was pleasant, the service slow. Every table in the small dining room was filled. In one corner, several tables had been shoved together to accommodate a noisy family of, she counted heads, eleven people, nine of them children and teen-agers. She looked at the father, wondering how you could superintend a large, fratricidal group like that? Could you love that many children?

Al interrupted her thoughts. “The honeymooners go to the large hotels. This place is for families.”

“Like us,” she said.

“Like people who need two or more bedrooms.”

The dessert trolley arrived.

“Stay away from the custardy things,” Al warned. “The heat gets to them fast.”

“I’ll skip dessert.”

“You’re on vacation.”

“I’m full. Really.”

They ordered coffee.

“How about us going into business together,” said Al.

“What business?”

“Doing whatever you’d like to do. I’ll back it, you do it.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

*

After dinner, they took a walk along the beach in bare feet, carrying their shoes. The coral sand wasn’t soft like ordinary sand.

“It’s like getting your feet massaged,” she said.

And then the last light from the red ball vanished and it was dark except for the weak moon. Al clambered up on a rock that seemed to have a flat surface, held a hand out for Shirley. They sat together, not speaking, watching the ocean lap closer to their rock until it seemed that the rock was the island and everything around them was water.

Al had now stretched out, his hands behind his head, listening to the surf, staring at the sky.

Overhead, a few stars showed, but there seemed to be movement in the black sky. Clouds.

Astonishingly, Al had dropped off to sleep. Only for minutes, then his eyes opened, and he said, “Sorry.”

“Am I that boring?” She said it gently, without an edge.

“It’s a sign that I trust you.”

“Tired?”

“Not especially. Just feeling peaceful.”

She was puzzled by a man so thoroughly and suddenly on vacation.

“What are you thinking?” Al asked.

She was on her elbow, turned away from him.

He added, “Your ass has a nice profile.”

“My ass,” she said, “has a nicer profile than my face.”

“I’ll reserve judgment.”

Without warning, he skittered down off the rock with remarkable grace, then held his arms out for her to jump. The force of her leap knocked him over backward into the sand. Despite the grit in their clothes and hair, they laughed as they walked lack, patting the sand off themselves.

When they got indoors, she said, “I’ll have to shower this stuff off and wash my hair.”

“Shake your clothes out in the bathtub first,” said the voice of experience.

She retired to her bedroom and its separate bath, let the tap run full force, dutifully shook each garment into the tub as she removed it, watched the pink and buff grains swirl down the drain. Naked, she turned the handle to let the overhead shower run, and it was marvelous, warm rivulets streaming over her as she shampooed her hair, then got the last stubborn sand off by brushing it with a bar of soap to which it stuck, thinking that, like monkeys, maybe they should be in the same shower doing this to each other.

Coming out into the living room in a bathrobe and towel-turbaned hair, she said, “Ten more minutes and I’ll look civilized.”