Chapter 8
THE SUMMER MORNING was warm. Blue waves broke lazily on the beach. Gulls hovered over the dunes. The setting was beautiful, peaceful. Nell and I were part of it. We were going on a picnic.
Nell was at the wheel of her Cadillac. The big tires drummed smoothly on the hard-packed beach. In the back seat was a picnic basket. I sat beside her, watching the island scenery sweep past us. The last time we had been this far down the beach we had been carefree youngsters on bicycles.
We were different now. Guilt rode with us. My gaze shifted to Nell's hands on the steering wheel-the wedding ring on her finger. We had suddenly become adults. I didn't much like it.
"There's a pretty spot about two miles further down the beach," Nell said. "There's a hull of an old boat washed up there. I found it last week."
"Do you come down the island very much?"
"Whenever I can. It's so pretty and peaceful here. Sometimes there's no one else within miles."
We fell silent again. I was thinking about yesterday, about coming back, about seeing Aunt Bertha and all my young cousins again, the mixed emotions I had felt upon coming face to face with Nell-and our incredible moment of reunion in the darkness of her mother's front yard. She had promised before leaving me to come back early this morning, so we could be together all day. And now we were in her car on our way to a picnic.
Nell drew a deep breath, shook out her hair and stretched her arms against the wheel in a gesture of pleasure.
"We can spend the whole day together, Mark. I don't have to be home until late this afternoon. Fred went to the mainland on business."
I was glad we were going to be together but I wished she wouldn't talk about her husband. I was trying to forget he existed.
"There it is," she said suddenly. "See it up there ahead, Mark?"
I gazed through the windshield. Up ahead the beach dissolved into a perpetual haze. The outlines of a wrecked old hull sticking out of the sand dune emerged as the haze retreated.
We reached the wreck. Nell had parked the big car on the hard-packed beach. She jumped out and ran across the sand to the hull. She clambered up on the rotting hulk and waved to me like an excited kid.
She looked fine standing up there. The breeze from the water molded thin summer fabric to her body. Her auburn hair flagged in the breeze. Her long legs were braced against the wind and the slant of the hull.
Her mood infected me. I removed my shoes and socks and rolled my trousers to my knees. The hot sand felt good between my toes as I strode to the wrecked ship to join her. She kneeled, laughing, to extend a hand to me.
I swung up to stand beside her. I sucked in a deep lungful of the wet wind, tasted its salt. From this vantage point I could gaze far out to sea. I felt a wave of exultation.
"We're pirates," Nell said. "We've come ashore to bury some treasure. Where do you want to hide it?"
"I know just the place."
I made a flying leap from the prow of the wreck into the side of a dune. I scrambled on my hands and knees over the spilling sand, ran between the dunes, plowed my way up the highest dune. I waved to Nell.
She shouted something to me but the wind carried her words away.
She jumped down, disappeared for a while. I waited. She reappeared, lugging a small, portable ice chest. She reached my dune and collapsed, laughing and out of breath.
She said, "I brought the treasure."
I fell into the sand beside her. I opened the ice chest. There, nestling in a bed of crushed ice, were frosted cans of beer. I took out one and tossed it to her. She caught it. I seized one for myself. We pulled tabs, lay back in the warm sand. I let the cold beer trickle down my throat.
Nell reached for my hand and our fingers laced together tightly. We drained our cans, buried them in the sand and opened two more.
"Tell me more about what you've been doing since that summer, Mark," Nell demanded. "We didn't really talk much yesterday."
"I don't know what more to tell."
"Oh, silly-there must be a lot. My goodness-you went abroad, didn't you? Debbie wrote to me-but you only sent postcards. Then you finished high school. What happened there?"
"What do you want to know?"
Nell stared up at a circling seagull, then beyond it into the blue sky.
"Oh-I want to know all about Europe-the things you saw-and tell me about high school-the proms you went to and the girls you dated and the pretty evening dresses they wore and the parties and everything." Her eyes swept down to my face and I felt the full impact of their blue hunger. "And tell me about college, Mark. What's it like to go to college? Tell me what the girls wear and what you all talk about and do."
We lay on the hot sand, the wind blowing against us and the sun beating down, and I told her. I answered endless questions. She listened intently. I had the feeling that I was telling her a phony movie plot-except, of course, there was no plot. But she seemed as interested in what my family and I did as if we lived in some sort of fantasy. To her, being rich was glamorous-and I guess she was still getting used to living with Fred Turner's money.
Finally she got around to the subject of girls in my life. I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable. But she kept after me, teasing and pestering and wanting to know, so I told her.
She stared at me amusedly.
"Did you kiss any of them, Mark?"
I felt my ears grow hot.
"I kissed some."
Nell continued to gaze at me in that amused, probing way.
"I'll bet you did more than that, Mark Harris. I remember how you get. Did you neck with some of them a whole lot?"
"Well, yeah."
"Did you go all the way with some of them?"
"Nell, damn it, you sure can ask personal questions!" I couldn't tell if she was jealous or having fun teasing me or curious or what. I never could figure Nell out exactly.
"I really want to know. Aren't you going to tell me?"
"What do you want to know for?"
"Don't be silly, Mark. You can tell me. I knew you before anybody else did."
I sighed. I reached for another beer. The hole we'd dug was getting pretty full of empties.
"Well, if you must know, I did score with one girl in high school."
Nell giggled.
"Mark, you bad boy. Did you have fun with her?"By now I felt as if my ears were scorching. I laughed self-consciously.
"It was pretty awful. She was so stupid and clumsy-"
Nell laughed. Her face had become slightly flushed.
"But you made love with her and I'm jealous, Mark. It makes me mad to hear about your going all the way with some girl."
I stared at her.
"Why the heck did you ask me then?"
She seemed pretty illogical because she kept after me to tell her about the other girls in my life.
"Whom have you been going with since you started college?"
I tried to get her to change the subject but she persisted until I told her about Alice.
"I've been going with her most of the past year."
Nell looked at me closely.
"Have you been sleeping with her?"
I shrugged. "Yes." .
Nell continued to look at me. Her expression changed but remained unreadable to me. "Are you in love with her, Mark?" Her voice sounded a trifle unsteady. I shook my head.
"Alice is a great girl. She isn't a phony or a square-and she isn't a gold-digger, either. She's got plenty of bread herself. You'd be surprised how many chicks around the campus let me know they're available because my old man has some money. Well, Alice isn't like that. She's smart and sweet and comes from a nice family. But there's just something missing." I suddenly looked directly at Nell. "I've stopped kidding myself Nell. I don't love Alice-or any of the girls at school What I'm trying to say is that I love you. I mean that Nell. I don't care if you're married or what. I've been in love with you ever since that summer and I haven' changed. I never will."
Nell's eyes widened. Suddenly her gaze faltered and slid away from mine. She squeezed my fingers tightly.
"You mustn't talk like that, Mark."
"Why not? I love you. I can't help it."
"But, honey, I'm married-" Her voice was muffled.
"Nell, I want to know how you feel about me."
"Why, Mark, I love you, honey. I always have. You know that."
"No, Nell. Don't give me an answer like that. You're talking the way you did when I was a kid. Sure you love me-like a big sister or a friend or someone to have fun with, in a kind of a fond, playful way. But we're no kids and we're not playing any more. And what we've done isn't done between brothers and sisters. I want to know how you really feel about me."
Her eyes were troubled now.
"Mark, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," she murmured. "You-you kind of scare me."
"Why? Are you scared of talking about how you feel?"
She nodded slowly. "Yes, I think that must be it. I-I've made up my mind about my life, Mark. Fred treats me all right. I was tired of being poor-now I'm not poor any more. Fred gives my mother money, too. She and the kids need it."
"Damn it, Nell." I picked up one of the empty beer cans and hurled it. I whirled and glared at her. "Will you stop talking like a damn whore?"
Tears spilled from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her head was bowed.
"You didn't have to say a thing like that," she whispered.
I felt like kicking myself.
"Nell, I'm sorry. It's just that this whole deal makes me so damned mad. I hate that fat bastard's guts. You don't belong to him. You belong to me."
I grabbed her desperately, anxiously. I rained kisses on her face, tasting salty tears. Her arms went around me and she clung to me, shivering.
"Mark, I wish you wouldn't talk wild like this," she whispered against my shirt. "Can't we just be sweethearts again, the way we were when we were kids? We had fun. Don't spoil it."
"You don't have to stay married to Fred," I insisted. "You can get a divorce." She started to cry again. "He'd never let me go."
"You're scared of him, aren't you, Nell?" I grabbed her shoulders and shook her, angrily. "Tell me the truth. You're scared of him, aren't you?"
"I don't know," she said, miserably. "Yes, I guess so. Mark, you're spoiling the whole day. Is that what you want?"
I felt lousy again. I picked up a fresh can of beer and stormed off the dune. I walked all the way down to the beach. I sat on a driftwood log and stared out at the breakers. I wished Fred Turner would choke to death on his own fat.
I realized that Nell was right. I had loused up the whole morning. I should have kept my big mouth shut and just enjoyed being with her. Maybe that was all there was to life anyway-grabbing what happiness you could from the moment at hand.
Nell came to sit beside me.
"Mark, honey, be sensible. What can we do? You want me to leave Fred and go away with you?"
I traced a pattern in the sand between my feet with a splinter off the log.
"Of course that's what I want you to do."
"Mark, use your head. You're in college. You don't have any money-or even a job. Your father would be furious if we did something crazy like that. You know how he is. He wouldn't give you a dime. He'd probably disown you. What would happen to me? and my mother and the kids? Fred has been good to them-I have to give him that. He's been paying my mother a pension ever since my father was killed. He doesn't have to do that-"
I continued tracing patterns in the sand. Nell was making me feel like a fourteen-year-old again. I thought I had grown up but I was beginning to wonder. Whenever I was with Nell I always had the feeling that she was the mature one, the one who had the sensible grasp of the situation. Was that part of her appeal to me?
I stabbed the splinter into the sand.
"I guess you're right, Nell," I said. "I guess I actually am acting pretty silly. It's just that seeing you married to Fred Turner bugs me-"
She squeezed my hand.
"I know, Mark. But sometimes we just have to make the best of a situation."
We sat in silence for a while.
But it was not Nell's nature to remain glum for long. She suddenly brightened and gave my hand an impulsive squeeze.
"For goodness sake, let's stop sitting around wasting the whole morning feeling sorry for ourselves." She jumped up and brushed the sand from her palms. She looked down at me, her eyes alert and sparkling, her hair a red-gold cloud blown around her face by the strong breeze. "We came out here for a picnic and to have fun." She grabbed both my hands and pulled me to my feet. "Let's go for a swim, Mark-okay?"
We ran like a pair of kids, fell against the side of the car together, laughing and out of breath, and suddenly we were in each other's arms. Nell's trembling mouth was crushed under mine like ripe fruit.
"Mark, honey, I'm crazy about you-"
I kissed her again. She grew heavy in my arms, started to sag. But she pushed me away, laughing, when I began to go down with her.
"It's too early for that. Behave yourself now, Mark. We're going swimming, remember?"
I grinned at her fondly. I felt good again. The sun was warm all the way through me. The deserted island beach was the greatest place in the world and I was with the one girl in the world who gave meaning and happiness to my life. I was even pleased that she had insisted on the swim we had planned.
The world was an orderly-yet infinitely exciting-place with Nell.
She took our swimsuits and towels from the car. She stood holding them and looked at me with a sudden teasing gleam in her eyes.
"I don't know why we have to bother with these, do you? There isn't another person around for miles."
How innocent were Adam and Eve really-even before their fall from grace and their resort to a fig leaf?
A surge of excitement jolted me. Nell had a sure way with my hormones. Nature had made her a hundred percent my kind of female, and she knew it.
"I don't know why we should bother with suits," I said, excitement tightening my voice.
She laughed deep in her throat, slowly unbuttoned her shirt. It parted and fell from her shoulders.
She looked at me steadily.
"Mark?" she murmured. "Remember that first time I took off all my clothes for you-here on the island? How old were you-about fourteen?"
"Of course I remember," I replied thickly. "Do you think I could ever forget?"
Again the soft, teasing laugh.
"That was the first time for you, wasn't it, Mark? I was the first girl you ever had." I nodded.
She tossed her shirt into the car. She unhooked her bra and slipped it from her arms. Her unsupported breasts sagged only enough to be real. Sunlight caressed them. She leaned back against the car, watching the expression on my face, a speculative gleam in her eyes.
She asked, "Am I still pretty, Mark? Do I still look as good to you as that first time?"
Blood was thundering in my temples.
"Of course," I whispered.
I could not tear my eyes from her. She was as beautiful as ever-why did the nagging thought suddenly intrude that she ought to seem more so? Was I subtly disappointed?
No, I decided. Her body had taken on maturity, ripeness. Did these detract or add to her charm for me?
Abruptly, I did not care. It was enough that she was still what she had been.
She flushed under my stare, stripped completely. The thundering in my head reached an explosive level. I lunged toward her.
She slipped out of my grasp and ran toward the breakers. The wind carried her over-the-shoulder challenge to me.
"Last one in is a monkey-"
She waited, ankle deep in the foaming surf, the sun gleaming on her naked flesh. I quickly divested myself of my own clothing. I raced to join her.
I splashed into the breakers. The water foamed around me, fresh and life-giving. I was buoyed, lifted, dropped. Nell had plunged in before me, was swimming far ahead, disappearing and reappearing between the waves, waving and challenging me to catch her.
She was a strong swimmer. I was strong, too. I pursued her until the beach and the car receded into distance. I felt a momentary apprehension. Then I saw her up ahead, apparently treading water, waving and laughing at me. I reached her side and felt sand under my feet.
"I didn't know it was shallow this far out," I said.
"We're on a sand bar," she told me.
I moved close to her and she did not try to avoid me. She turned to me and her laughing, salt-wet mouth met mine. Her body pressed against mine under the water and her arms wound tightly around me. We stood in shoulder-deep water, hugging and kissing, swaying with the movement of the waves. Nell's naked flesh slid against mine. Fires I had not thought possible were lit in me-hot and cold contrast fighting a battle that was probably as old as first creation.
She drew back from me, her gaze searching and frowning toward the beach. I turned to see what she was looking at. I saw a jeep stopping on the beach near her Cadillac. A man got out, walked over and picked up the clothing I had left on the sand beside the car. He turned to stare in our direction for several long moments. Then he dropped the clothing, went back to his jeep and drove away.
My eyes swung to Nell. She was biting her lower lip. She looked worried.
I asked, "Who was that?"
"A man who works for Fred. I wonder what he was doing this far down the beach?" I felt a wave of anger. "Was he checking on you?" Nell was grave and concerned.
"I don't know," she murmured. Then she shook away her uneasiness. "Oh, hell-he was probably just driving down the island on some errand and saw the car. It doesn't mean anything."
She splashed water in my face and swam away, laughing.
I, chased her. She swam toward the beach. I caught her in the shallow, foaming surf. We tumbled, laughing, as our legs tangled.
We stopped laughing. Nell's mouth locked hungrily on mine.
Again she squeezed me in a fierce embrace. We let the foaming water wash us to the water's edge. Nell's legs parted, clamped about me.
She gasped, "Oh, Mark-"
Her glistening body threshed against me wildly in the shallow water. We clutched at each other, groaning with ecstasy as the sun beat down on us, the water foamed around us and a seagull whirled above and called to his mate.