Gift of the Golden Mountain (34 page)

     "Bridesmaids have more fun," he told her, pulling her around in rhythm, singing the words of the song into her ear.

     "Are you sure about bridesmaids?" she teased, moving her hips in an easy sliding motion.

     The sound pulled them in, throbbing and rising.

     "Absolutely," he answered over the thick twang of the electric guitars, as if it made all the sense in the world. He smiled at her and she at him, as they moved to the music and the flickering lights, caught up in the steady, hard rhythm of it.

     "Move aside white boy," Eli nudged him, "make room for the Bride and Count Dracula."

     "Yes, move aside," Karin laughed. She was shimmering with happiness. As Eli threw her out from him, her hair came loose and tumbled around her shoulders. She shook it out. "Yeah!" Eli called to Philip who was watching from the terrace doors, "Your lady is hot tonight!"

     Philip smiled and saluted. He watched a few moments, enjoying the way they moved—Eli and Karin—the grace of the dance, the easy soft sway of their hips to the music. He could not master it himself. He had tried once, with Karin, and failed. He knew he had failed because she had never asked him to try again.

     "Ah for a little Benny Goodman," Kit said.

     "I'd settle for Kay Kaiser."

     "Or Tommy Dorsey."

     "Glenn Miller would be perfect."

     "Tuxedo Junction.'"

     "'Pennsylvania 6-5000'."

     They laughed. "Come walk with me a bit," Kit said. "If we pretend to be deep in conversation, perhaps no one will interrupt."

     "I don't have to pretend, Kit," Philip said, I've been trying to get a moment alone with you for some time—to thank you."

     "You don't have to do that Philip," Kit said. "The truth is, I gave the party for Karin."

     "I know that," he answered, "I didn't mean thank you for that, though it is a damned good party, even without Benny Goodman."

     Kit smiled. "I am extraordinarily fond of Karin," she began.

     "I know," Philip answered. "What I wanted to thank you for was giving me the benefit of the doubt."

     She looked at him quizzically.

     "It's been a long time since that summer after the war," he said. "What was it—six weeks? Long enough. You were right to send me packing, Kit. No, hear me out, please . . ." She had tried to stop him, and seeing that she couldn't began to lead him away from the terrace, away from the crowd. "You were too smart for me, Kit. Too sophisticated, and I mean that in the best sense. God, when I think of how callow I must have seemed . . ."

     "You weren't callow, Philip. But as you say, it was a long time ago . . ."

     He leaned back against a low brick wall and looked at her. "Nothing is ever over, Kit. I will never forget that time—it has a cherished place in my memory. And to be honest with you, until Karin came along I didn't think I'd ever feel so intensely about a woman as I felt about you. And this time, I think, I am finally mature enough."

     "Karin looks radiant," Kit said. "Marriage suits her, I think. She seems so happy with you and Dan and Thea, and that makes me very happy."

     He leaned against the wall, turned toward the darkened drive, and lit a cigarette.

     "Have you been happy, Kit? I told myself I'd never ask you that, but now I find I must. Did you make the right decision?"

     She sighed. "I've made so many decisions, Philip. Some of them were right." She looked up to the top of the little summer
house and smiled. "The first time I came to Wildwood I had made a decision, and it was right. I know that. The man who became my husband had run away from me. He came here to hide, and I followed him and seduced him. Right here. In this house. But you weren't talking about my marriage, I know that. All I can tell you is that what happened between us was a lovely interlude for me, but I think for Karin's sake it would be best not to mention it again. Can we do that?"

     The end of his cigarette glowed red in the dark. "Of course," he finally said. "I simply wanted to say 'thank you.' For then, and for now as well. And I wanted to tell you something else—that Karin is very like you."

     "That's a great compliment," Kit said.

     "It is truly meant."

     "I know."

As the band swung into "A Natural Woman," May said, "No more, I can't breathe . . . air, air, air . . ."

     Hayes followed her off the dance floor, his hand on the bare of her back. Alone on the terrace he pulled her around to face him. "Let me take your pulse," he said, pressing his hand firmly under her breast.

     "Most doctors use the wrist," she answered, leaning into him.

     "Dumb doctors," he said, and then he dropped the bantering tone to tell her, "It isn't working, May. Not for me. I want to be with you too much, I want . . . need . . ."

     She pulled him to the edge of the terrace. "See that little summer house over there," she said, trying to keep her voice calm, "there's a family story. It's about Kit, she seduced her husband there."

     "Seduced, you say?" he answered, trying without success to go back to the bantering tone.

     "We can talk there—and even touch without everyone looking at us."

     She tugged at the old screen door until it opened, and the pungent smell of marijuana rushed out at them. She entered quickly, pulling him into the darkness, turning to wrap into his arms, to find his mouth and press hers into it, hard and hungry. A surge of passion washed over them. Small, pointed cries of pleasure escaped from her; she heard them and pressed closer, and every small nerve fiber in her body translated for her: Love, she loved him, she wanted him, she could not be without him.

     Their bodies had taken over, reason was overwhelmed . . .

     "Jesus, May, I love you," Hayes said, in a voice that was low and husky and unguarded.

     The voice came from the far corner. "You've got him where you want him now, May. I heard it all, I'm your witness." A cigarette glowed in the darkness. They could not see who it was, but they knew. Sam, it was Sam's voice. He had been there all along, smoking, watching, stoned.

     "Maybe I should have waited to speak up, let him screw you, maybe you'd get lucky and get pregnant . . . then you'd have the Big Diehl where you want him. An old trick, old, old. I mean, he's an honorable man . . . marriage, family, all that shit." His voice broke loose: "God, May, I thought you were better than that . . ." Then again, under control, "Actually, the two of you make me sick . . . May, you throw yourself at him like all the love-crazed puling Anglo females. And Hayes—Andy's Big Bro—the Great Activist who does nothing but good for mankind, can't bring himself to make a simple little commitment to a lady who is breathing hard to drop her pants for him."

     He stood, made his way to the door, sounded a grunt of derision, and threw back at them, "Carry on, my fine fucking friends."

It was as if they had been catapulted into separate orbits, as if the gods in their anger had banished them, hurtling them into the heavens to circle the Earth, passing but never to touch like errant beings punished by the Fates.

     
It was not fair.
May knew that. One moment she was spilling over with anger, the next she felt only despair. For the disappointment she knew Sam felt, for the hurt she had inflicted.

     Hayes knew, too. They had sat side by side, drained of passion, on the flowered chintz love seat in the old summer house, trying to make sense of it.

     "He wants you too," Hayes had said, "and if I were to be truthful, I'd have to say I've known from the beginning . . . from the first day . . . and it's one more complication."

     "No," she had all but shouted at him. "No, I refuse to let Sam come between us. In fact," she said, realizing it for the first time, "in a strange sort of way, I think he always meant for us to be together . . . I think he wanted it . . . But even if he didn't, even if he had not brought us together and I had never met you, it wouldn't change how things
are between Sam and me. We are friends, important friends. But no more, never any more. And he knows that, I promise you he knows."

     Hayes sighed. "What now?" he asked.

     For once, it was May who said, "I guess we'd better call another time-out."

She did not see Sam for several days. When finally she came home and found the Winged Victory in the doorway, she could feel her pulse speed and throb. She knocked on the door of the cottage. He did not answer at once, and for a long moment she thought that maybe he would not, would leave her standing there, knocking until the knuckles on her hands became red and bloody and sore. When he opened the door, his face was cold and closed.

     "I think we need to talk," she said.

     "There's nothing to say," he told her.

She wanted to get away, and Mauna Ulu cooperated. A new mountain on the eastern flank of Kilauea, it had been building for the better part of the year, pushing up, shooting fountains of lava as high as 1,800 feet into the tropical Hawaiian sky. This new volcano had pumped viscous hot lava into Alae crater until it was full to spilling over. Sinuous red lava streams slid down the mountains, snaking all the way to the pali, all the way to the cold ocean where it sizzled and surged and solidified and, finally, added hundreds of acres to the mountain. Kimo told her when she called to ask: "She's getting ready to blow. Come on over and watch the fireworks."

     "What does Auntie Abigail say?" May had asked, and Kimo answered, "She say no foolin', Pele messing around for sure."

Sam took her to the airport. "I don't think I'll be here when you get back," he offered, his mouth tight.

     "I know," she said, "but if it comes through I think you should take it."

     "It doesn't matter what you think," he snapped back.

     "All right," she allowed. She had not been able to talk to him, to work anything out. She had tried but it hadn't been any good. She felt as if a thick, muffling wall had been sprayed between them, the way workmen sprayed insulation into buildings. He could not hear her, she could not get through to him.