Chapter 14
"Don't forget," Ethel Prantis said. "The minute it begins to get dark, we're expecting you."
"Not a chance in the world our forgetting," June said. "We've been looking forward to this for ages."
Ethel giggled. "I'm afraid it's gotten a bit out of hand." She cast a glance of mock reproof at Post. "And you didn't help matters any, Stu."
"What did Stu do?"
"Well," Ethel said, "your husband was the one who suggested the digging pit. Leave it to the Public Relations men to plant ideas that involve action, then they sit back and watch others do the work."
"Unfair," Post said. "I tried. They wouldn't let me in. They said the whole thing had to be a surprise."
"Joe and Phil Lark have been working on the fireworks display in secret for nearly a week. Today, they won't let anyone near our backyard until it's time to light the fuse. On top of that your husband had to suggest a pit, a barbecue pit in the ground for a roast pig," Ethel explained.
"In that case," June said, "wild horses couldn't keep me away."
"You haven't seen a Fourth of July celebration out here yet. We're on our third one. They get progressively more raucous. And I think it's a bit more than coincidence that the Regans have been here three years and have three children all of whom arrived in March. Simple arithmentic, my dear. Watch out, June."
"We'll just have to take our chances," Post said.
Ethel excused herself, leaving with the condiments she'd come to borrow. When she was gone June looked nervously at Stu. "Speaking of the Regans," she said, "Lou came over yesterday for more of the same. When I said no, she tried blackmail."
"Blackmail?"
"Yes, she said if I didn't ... cooperate, she'd tell you about our little tryst."
"Wouldn't that leave you free to go to Mike?"
"She claims Mike knows and approves," June said. "She says Mike married her for her money with the understanding that she could continue her homosexual flings whenever and as much as she wished."
"I'd be willing to bet that's a damned lie. Mike's not that kind. Oh, Lou may have come into the marriage with money of her own, all right, but my guess is that he knows nothing of his wife's predilections."
Post looked up to see June's shoulders shaking with anxiety. "Hey, you cut that out," he said, going over to put his arms around her. "Perversion is Lou's problem, honey child, not yours. You've just got a bad case of, if you'll pardon the expression, buck fever. And it's not going to last forever, either. One day, sooner than you realize, you'll have a shot at it and everything will be okay. Okay."
June smiled ruefully and silently nodded her agreement.
"What did you say to Lou?" Post wanted to know.
"I told her I'd have to think about it. She said she'd be back tomorrow."
"You mean today?"
"Nope. She said July fifth. Evidently she keeps the fourth open for heterosexuality."
"Ha, ha," Stu replied grimly. "Look, tomorrow she's going to face both of us. Then I'm going to try a little blackmail. If she doesn't see a psychiatrist, I'll threaten to go to Mike with the whole story."
June took Stu's hand, holding on to it tightly. "Do you think she'll agree?"
Shaking his head, "No," Stu said, "I think she'll agree to anything to keep Mike from knowing the truth about her. But I don't think it'll do any good. Lou's a vicious woman, June. I don't believe she's capable of loving a man."
He was silent a moment, then burst out angrily. "Damnit, June, they've got three kids. What're you going to do."
"I know what you mean, darling."
"All I'm really hoping for is that psychiatric treatment will keep this thing in reasonable bounds with her. Let her go to her own kind for satisfaction and stop seducing the neighbor ladies and then using blackmail to keep them available to her sexually. I suspect she wants normal women because she's jealous of them. Maybe the psychiatrist can rid her of that. This whole problem is too much for me."
He spread out his hands helplessly. "It's too much like playing God. If I hadn't become a professional sex peeper for Prique, we wouldn't be involved with this evil woman."
June had frowned at the words "professional sex peeper, but, after a few moments reflection, agreed. "I've come to lose faith in our work here, too. It's tough, Stu, facing up to mistakes."
They spent the better part of a couple of hours putting their house in order. Stu worked on the study and garage, June had some chores in the kitchen. By the time they were finished, the sun was turning a dull red and they changed into informal garden party clothes and sauntered over to the Prantises.
The party to k place in the Prantis' backyard and flowed over into the Lark's, where the rich odor of roasting pig came from the pit Phil Lark had been digging all day.
Stu took over the huge bowl of potato salad he and June had agreed to provide, plus several bottles of gin, purchased on special at the cut-rate drug store in the shopping center.
The come-as-you-are part was taken seriously, Stu noticed as he saw the occasional dress, but mostly shorts on the women and Bermuda walking shorts on tve men.
The unpredictable California weather-it had rained only the day before-bore down with a balmy summer evening that held the patio lights and glow from the fire in a soft, warm diffusion.
Stu and June had not had more than five minutes to greet the Prantises and be poured drinks when, it seemed to him, he was whisked away by a woman he'd only recognized vaguely. She was a tall blonde, in her early thirties; a big woman with large, appealing proportions.
Stu saw June's eyebrow lift in that characteristic sign of curiosity, and he knew it meant a bit more, it meant jealousy.
"I'm Lee Frost," the woman said. "We live over on the next block. Actually I don't know how to tell you any of this, but Joan Humphrey told me it might be a good idea to talk with you."
He followed Lee, not knowing quite what to expect. She was nearly as tall as he, with an expensive blonde dye job on her long, lanky hair.
She wore tight, white shorts and a bright orange blouse that was tied at the waist to reveal several inches of well tanned, sinuous stomach and back, and to make her large breasts stand out in proud beauty.
They moved to the rock garden and sat. Lee Frost took a pull at her drink, then peeled a few leaves from a fern. She tossed these into the pond.
"Look," she said, "I have a terrible problem. Joan said you might be able to suggest something, that you'd helped her out of a jam. I'm going to have a baby."
Post touched the wedding band on her left hand, wondering just how he'd become chief counselor for the neighborhood. "Then what's the problem? Surely, you can't be afraid."
Her hand clutched his knee imperatively. "I am," she said, "really afraid. The trouble is, I don't know who the father is. For all I know, it might even be my own husband."
"What am I supposed to do, tell you the name of a nice abortionist?"
"I don't know. I'm so damned nervous, Stu, that I can't think. Joan said you wouldn't preach. She said you'd listen."
"Okay," Stu said, "tell me."
"I'm three inches taller than my husband, Stu. I know that sounds silly, it doesn't matter to me, and for all he cares, I can wear six inch heels if I want. But I'm a big girl. I'm conspicuous. Bob and I get along very well together. We're extremely well adjusted sexually and anything goes, but other men won't leave me alone. I keep trying to tell Bob, 'Get them to leave me alone. Doesn't it bother you to see other men make passes at me.' And Bob just laughs it off. He says I'm big enough to take care of myself. He likes the idea, I think. He says I'm sexy and I just have to get used to the idea.
"It got me mad, Stu. It got me furious. I told Lyle Windover one night, 'if you were half a man, you'd come right out and proposition me instead of sneaking around the way you do.' "
Well, he did and I did. I was so mad, Stu, that it was good. That was the first time I ever did a thing like that to Bob. And when it was over between Lyle and me, he was so tired, so completely worn out that I felt I've won some kind of silly sort of victory. I began drinking. I got into one of those perverse moods. Dale Rapport tried something fresh while we were dancing and I told him the same thing.
"Well, Dale and I got as far as the broom closet. I told you I was perverse from the anger and the drinking. And to complete the story, after the party, when we went home, Bob accused me of behaving like a bitch. He said I was waving my fanny around like a wig-wag signal at a railroad crossing. I told him to do something about it. He made a fist. I was positive he was going to hit me. Then he realized what he was doing and smashed a lamp instead. I'd never seen him that way before. Bob said if it happened again, he'd take me across his knee and spank me. And then he did.
"I was black and blue for a week, Stu, but I loved him for doing it. He was really asserting himself. I apologized for the way I'd acted and one thing led to another and we both became excited and then it happened again, right there on the couch. It was the best it's ever been with us in nine years of damn good happiness that way. And ever since, it's been wonderful, but the horrible thing is, I'm going to have a baby from that night."
Post lit a cigarette. "What am I supposed to tell you, Lee?"
"I don't know," she said. "Maybe nothing. Maybe I just had to tell someone."
Post shook his head. "That doesn't make sense, Lee. If you wanted to get this story off your chest, you'd have told your family physician or preacher or even a girl friend. Why come to me, practically a stranger to you?"
Her breast rose and fell as she took a deep breath. "All right," Lee said. "You're right. You've got an intellect. You can reason well. I won't bother any more with that. I'll come right to the point."
"What is the point?" Post asked.
Lee moved her angular face closer to his. Post could smell her scent, a faint, jasmine cologne. Her hand rested on his leg. Nice hands, large, well proportioned. There was none of that sag of flesh at the wrists. She was a big, handsome woman. She oozed the sex appeal of a big, well formed woman. "I want you," she said. "I want to go to bed with you."
Post didn't know how to react. "Well," he said. "I'll be Goddamned."
"Don't you think I'm desirable, Stu? Wouldn't you like to have me wrapped all over you?"
"I'll be Goddamned," Post said.
"Stop being goddamned and answer me. Will you go to bed with me?" The look on her face was so intense, so filled with sensuality now that Post believed he was being given a preview of how she would look in bed, eager, alive and ready. She had that haunting appeal of a mature woman in her thirties and Post was quite susceptible to it, but almost without thinking, he heard the words come out of his mouth. "It's completely out of the question. There's someone I care for enough to make the idea absurd."
Lee's face clouded. "All right, Stu Post, you can't say you didn't have your chance. Opportunity won't knock twice." She stood up and left with a haughty display of her hips and legs, as though taunting him with what he'd missed.
Post cogitated a moment. Without pinning a medal on himself, it felt good to know that he was not quite so vulnerable that he could be considered prey for all the mixed up, frustrated females who happened to think him attractive. It was nice to have a reason. You cared for someone else so much it didn't matter.
He lit another cigarette and decided to go back to the Prantis' backyard for anthor drink. And then he heard the scream.
It was a high pitched, woman's voice, and it had none of the festivity or racousness in it that floated over the two yards.
The scream came again, filled with an intense fear that immediately set the two yards into an aura of tense, expectant silence.
And then the scream came for the third time.