Interstellar Pig

“I'm telling you, there's more history to this house than any other place on Indian Neck, and that's the truth," Ted Martin said, and took a long swallow of beer. He had just finished installing an outside shower, and his forehead was streaked with grime.

"How fascinating," Mom said politely. She was rinsing glasses at the sink. I knew she wasn't very interested in Ted, who had no social importance.

"What kind of history?" asked my father. Ted was the caretaker of the beach house we were renting for two weeks in July. We had been there for one week already, and had heard nothing unusual about the house.

"This was a Captain Latham's house. I heard there was even an article written about the tragedy here." Ted chuckled. "They even used to say it was haunted."

"Haunted?" I asked him. "What do you mean?" I had been hovering in the doorway in my usual indecisive way, but now I took a couple of eager steps into the kitchen. I had not been enjoying this vacation on the beach. The house was far from the village. There didn't seem to be any other kids my age—which was sixteen—in the area. We were surrounded by nature reserves, and I wasn't big on nature. I wouldn't even be able to go home with a tan, since I can't lie in the sun for fifteen minutes without burning miserably. A supposedly haunted house might be a welcome diversion from the science fiction books I had been reading.

"What do you mean, haunted?" I asked Ted again. "What kind of tragedy?"

"Captain Latham had a trading ship in the last century, out of the harbor here. Dunstable was almost as important a port as Boston, in the early days, you know. Used to sail from here to China and places." Ted paused to make sure this important piece of special information would be fully appreciated. "He had a younger brother, this Captain Latham. He was a sailor on Captain Latham's ship. Never was too bright. And after what happened, his mind went completely. Off the deep end, you know. The captain kept him locked in the front bedroom here for twenty years."

This was getting really interesting—I slept in the front bedroom.

"After what happened?" I said.

led took another long, slow swallow, then studied the label on the beer bottle approvingly. "Good stuff," he said. "Where'd you pick it up?"

"In Boston," said Dad.

"First-rate suds," Ted said. "Can't get it around here."

"Come on, tell us about this tragedy," I said, really curious now.

"Well, Captain Latham's ship was out in the South Pacific somewhere, and they picked up this shipwrecked sailor. Nothing left of his ship but the timber he was floating on. There wasn't much room on those traders, you know, and the guy they rescued had to bunk down with somebody else. The captain's brother got him. The next morning the stranger was dead. Kind of too bad, after he got out of his shipwreck alive. Strangled. Ever see somebody who was strangled? Red marks on the throat and the eyes popping out and the tongue all black and swollen and—"

"No. I never have," Mom said, putting a hand on her pink neck.

"Well, it was the captain's brother that killed him, everybody could see that. Didn't even try to deny it. Must have been a little embarrassing for the captain."

"They were drinking and had a fight, I suppose," Dad said, trying to prod Ted along.

"No drinking, no fight. The brother just strangled him. Quietly."

"But there must have been some reason," I said, sitting down across from Ted.

"I told you, the brother never was too bright. They had a kind of trial, like they did on those ships, and they asked him why. And he just raved a lot of nonsense, nobody could get any sense out of him. All about the stranger being the Devil, crazy stuff like that. Brother must have just had a bad dream, and didn't know what he was doing, that's the only explanation they could come up with. So Captain Latham, he was in a real dilemma, since he had to see that justice was done. But he couldn't really stomach hanging his own brother. So he sentenced him to be keelhauled."

"What's that?" I asked.

"They tie a rope to him. And they tie the other end of the rope to the back of the ship. Then they toss the guy off the front of the ship. So you know what happens then?" Ted sat up in his chair and leaned forward with enthusiasm.

"Go on," I said impatiently. "What?"

"He gets dragged underneath the ship, for the whole length of the ship.

Dragged across all the sharp jagged barnacles there. The brother was sliced up real bad. Most of the time a man drowns, since he's under the water for a while. But sometimes they don't drown. There's always that chance. That's why the captain preferred keelhauling his brother to hanging him." Ted paused to finish his beer.

"And he didn't drown, is that it?" I said. "The captain and his brother were lucky in the end?"

"That depends. He was alive, all right, when they pulled him out. But he was under there so long without breathing that he got permanent brain damage. Lack of oxygen to the brain cells or something. He was a raving lunatic from then on. Never said another sensible word in his life, locked up in the front bedroom here. Didn't do nothing but mew like a sick cat and claw the walls. You can still see the scratch marks all around the windows."

"Whose car is that coming up the road?" Mom asked. She was usually a little suspicious of strangers and tended to avoid them until she was sure of their reputation.

Ted turned slowly to glance through the window behind his chair. "Oh, that must be them, the ones who rented the cottage next door. They were supposed to show up an hour or so ago." He chuckled and shook his head. "This here's the place they wanted, but they were too late. Already rented it to you folks.

Man, were they ever disappointed. Never heard anybody get so upset about a summer rental. They even tried to bribe me, but I have my ethics. And they wouldn't take it for August, it had to be now. Tried to tell them the cinder-block cottage had a better view, and finally they took it."

"I hope you made sure they had proper references," Mom said. "That cottage is so close."

"Sure, sure," Ted said lightly. "But man, I thought I was gonna hear grown men weep when I wouldn't let them have this place. Just didn't make sense the way—"

"Well, thanks for the shower, Ted," Dad said, standing up and extending his hand.

"Guess I better be heading next door," Ted said, rising and making a brief salute. "Thanks for the beer."

I followed him out of the kitchen. I had noticed the scratch marks around the windows of my room, and I was more curious than ever now. "But is that the whole story?" I asked him. "They never found out why he killed the sailor?

Nobody knows why he made the scratch marks, or what they mean? How long ago was it? Was he really there for twenty years?"

"Hey, don't you ever stop asking questions, kid?" Ted said, suddenly in a hurry. "I got to see to the new tenants."

"What about that article you said was written about this place? Do you know the name of it, or the author or anything?"

He shrugged and lifted his hands. "Never read it. Somebody just told me about it once. Got to take care of your new neighbors now. Don't want them making another fuss. Never heard three people so upset about not getting a summer place, and at the last minute, too. Don't they know places on the beach get taken way ahead? They were lucky to get the cottage when they wanted it. Kinda nutty themselves, if you ask me." He let the screen door slam behind him and loped across the wooden porch.

I waited a moment. Then, opening and shutting the door quietly, so I wouldn't be noticed, I stepped outside.

The old gray shingled house we were renting sat on the top of a hill and faced directly out toward the small island about a mile offshore. A fat orange sun was sinking behind the island trees, and restless scribbles of gold danced over the dark water. A mockingbird warbled aggressively from a stunted pine that swayed in the evening wind.

A little gravel road sloped steeply down our scrubby front lawn and wandered off toward a small private beach, several hundred yards to the right. The view was almost perfect, for we were very isolated—the hill the captain had built his house on was the only solid land in the midst of a velvety green salt marsh, on which no houses could be built. Unfortunately, Ted's family had added another house to the top of the hill, to increase the income from their property—a squat cinder-block cube painted a revolting shade of pink, only ten yards to our right. I kept out of sight behind one of the pillars of our porch and watched a woman and two men emerge from the purple

--

Volkswagen convertible parked between the houses.

"God, I thought we'd be in that brutal traffic all night!" the woman cried, flinging her long arms above her head in an impatient, almost violent gesture.

Then she saw Ted, and her manner suddenly became demure. "Ted? You must be Ted. Thank you so much for waiting for us," she said, taking his hand. "The voyage took much longer than we thought it would." She was a little shorter than Ted, with a thick mane of black hair. She wore a halter top and denim cutoffs, an outfit that showed her spectacular figure to great advantage. Ted, who had been so talkative a moment before, now seemed tongue-tied as he stared at her.

"Cars were expiring all around us," the woman went on. "If that had happened to ours, I think I might have just left it there and hitchhiked." She smiled sweetly up at Ted.

"You probably wouldn't have had much trouble getting a ride," Ted said.

"Nice domain you got here, Ted," said the man with the brown mustache. "A prime piece of domain, no doubt about it. Prime."

"Well, we do try to take good care of it," Ted said, sounding pleased with himself.

"Our little lodgement does seem to have a better view, just like you told us," said the other man, who had a blond beard. "Even though it's not quite as picturesque as the captain's house."

"The captain? How'd you know the story about the captain?" Ted demanded, as though the house's history were his own personal property. "I didn't say anything about it over the phone."

"Oh, no one told us any kind of story about it," the woman quickly explained, with a glance at the blond man, who pressed his lips together. "We don't know any story. That's just what the agent called it—the captain's house, whatever that means." She turned toward our house, and I squeezed back behind the pillar. "But it did make us a trifle curious. And you seem like such an accommodating person, Ted." She smiled at him _again, and her voice took on a husky, cajoling quality. "And I was just wondering ... if those people didn't arrive yet, do you think you could guide us around inside? We'd be so engrossed. I'm sure you've taken wonderful care of it."

"They've been here for a week," Ted said. "Much as I'd enjoy showing it, I don't think they want company now. But there are some things I should tell you about your place. . . ." His voice faded as he moved with them toward the front door of their house. I went quietly back inside.

The two windows in our dark, pine-paneled dining room faced directly toward the cement patio in front of the cinder-block cottage. Mom and Dad sat at the ends of the table, and I sat on the side, opposite the windows. We all had a perfect view when the neighbors emerged in their swim-suits with a tray of bottles and glasses.

Mom was the first to look away from them. "Why, Barney, you haven't even touched your burger," she said.

I quickly took a bite. But I also kept watching. It wasn't just that all three of the neighbors had the bodies of athletes. There was also a casual, animal grace to their movements that attracted the eye simply because it was so unusual. I knew they were just three people—but somehow I felt as though I were watching three lions.

"That's really an adorable bikini she's wearing, don't you think?" Mom said. "Only the poor dear should know better than to show herself in something that skimpy at her age. She just doesn't have the figure for it anymore."

I choked on a sip of milk, and Dad gave Mom a puzzled glance. The woman's figure was as flawless as any movie star's. "Her figure looks all right to me," Dad said, making a gross understatement.

"It's especially unflattering on her in comparison to those two striking young men," Mom said, as though she hadn't heard him. "They could be models or something."

"Models?" Dad said. "Those ordinary-looking guys? They're a little on the puny side if you ask me."

I had to laugh. Mom and Dad, who were middle-aged and out of shape, were trying to rationalize their way out of being compared unfavorably to these perfect physical specimens. It seemed rather childish.

"I wonder what it is they see in her," Mom said. "Maybe she has money. That would explain it." The idea seemed to satisfy her.

"Maybe they just like her for herself," I said. "Maybe they're all just good friends."

"Well, they're certainly having a good time," Mom said, her eyes resting on the neighbors again. I wondered vaguely why she was paying so much attention to them. She usually made a point of ignoring other vacationers, unless they had connections with her own set. But now she smiled wistfully at them. "It's nice seeing people enjoy themselves so much, isn't it?" she asked.

The neighbors had arranged lawn chairs in a row facing the bay. They seemed fascinated by the sky and the water, pointing and gesturing, talking animatedly, sipping their drinks, frequently laughing. Their skin had a purplish cast in the fading light. I began to wonder, as their shapes grew indistinct, why they kept looking more and more often toward our house. Were they talking about us?

It was several hours later, Mom and Dad were watching television and I was rereading The Puppet Masters, when there was a knock on the front door.

"Maybe that's the people from next door," Mom said.

The cottage next door was the only other house on this stretch of road. "Who else?" Dad said, pushing himself out of his chair. I got up too, but he beat me to the door.

The woman from next door was wearing a sleeveless lavender cotton dress, and her hair was pinned up into a bun, exposing her long slender neck. Now, face to face, she seemed much taller than she had at a distance, several inches taller than me.

A smile hovered around the edges of her wide mouth, and in the dim porch light her eyes seemed as deep a shade of lavender as her dress. "Hello, I'm from next door and I'm sorry to bother you like this," she said. I couldn't place her accent. "I feel terribly genante. It's just that we're trying to light a fire, and they don't seem to have provided us with any . . . what's the word?

Oh, yes, tinder. We were wondering if you might have any surplus, which we could burn just for tonight. We'll be sure to repay you in full tomorrow." She didn't meet our eyes as she spoke, but peered around us, as if she were trying to see as much as possible of the interior of our house.

"We have lots," Dad said. As he started for the fireplace she stepped quickly into the house, almost bumping into me in her haste to get a good look at the living room

"Good evening," Mom said, standing up and nodding pleasantly at the woman. "Barney, why don't you be a gentleman and carry the kindling over for her? Maybe they need some help settling in."

"Sure," I said, wondering what the matter was with Mom. Usually she would have been a little cold to a stranger barging in on us like this. Now she was actually sending me over to fraternize with the neighbors.

"Oh, thank you. And you wouldn't happen to have an extra one of those tide charts, by chance, would you?" the young woman asked, her gaze wandering toward the stairway.

"Yes, I'll get it," I said, forgetting to be shy. She was looking at me now, and my eyes slid away from her. "That would be so gentle of you," she said warmly.

I got the tide chart, filled my arms with prickly kindling and pushed open the screen door. I waited while she remained inside for a long moment, then followed as she came striding out. In the darkness, the light from the cottage's picture window made a pale oblong on the sloping lawn. A crescent moon hung over the invisible black water.

"We're in fortune," the woman announced, holding open the screen door of the cottage as I stepped cautiously inside. Compared to the heavily curtained, overstuffed interior of the captain's house, the main room of the cottage seemed empty and bleak—bare white walls, gray linoleum floor, unmatching plastic furniture, with two metal floor lamps providing the harsh illumination. The men sat drinking wine at a wooden table in the center of the room. The debris of a meal had been pushed aside, and some kind of a game seemed to be in progress. A board had been set up on the table, with movable pieces and colored cards and envelopes. A succulent, spicy smell lingered.

"That's a bonanza," said the man with the brown mustache, getting up to accept the kindling. I was aware, as he came toward me, of how large and powerfully built he was. "Thanks extremely," he said and lifted the big load of kindling from my arms as though it were a couple of match sticks.

"Hi," said the man with the blond beard, who was slenderer than the other, but wiry. "Did you get inside?" he asked the woman. Then he said "Oops!" and gulped down some wine.

Three pairs of lavender eyes watched me curiously now. And at that moment I noticed, in the corner by the fireplace, a pile of kindling. Why had they lied about it and borrowed more from us? Their strangeness intrigued me. "Anything you'd like to know about the area?" I asked, wanting an excuse to stay. "Or maybe I'm interrupting your game?"

. "Of course you are, but please stay anyway," the woman said, smiling.

"You're the only people around and we're wanting to find out about this quaint seacoast locale. Aren't we?"

"Yes, have some vino," said the blond man, reaching for the bottle.

"It's your tinder, stay and enjoy the fire," said the Other man, kneeling at the hearth.

"This dump might actually be almost cozy when we get the fire going," the woman said, wrapping her dark arms around her shoulders. She stared at me. "Sit down."

There was such authority and command in the way she spoke that I complied without thinking. What had happened to the petite, demure creature who had so coyly tried to cajole Ted to let them into our house? This person wouldn't have cajoled; she would have ordered. She seemed a different woman now, massive, brusque, in control. We sat close together around the fireplace. I could tell that they really weren't too much older than me—they seemed about college age. The two men were shirtless, their taut bodies as deeply tanned as the woman's. I knew they had just arrived, but they looked as though they'd been living on the beach for months,

Zena, Manny, and Joe were their names. Before starting their game, they had gone for a moonlight swim, which was why Zena was so eager for a fire. "The water's superb at night," said Joe, the big man with the mustache. "It seems like a different element in the moonlight, phosphorescent and glittering and alive."

"I've never been swimming at night," I said. "I'd love to go sometime."

"You get a nice frisson because you can't see underwater," Zena said. "So you always have the notion that there might be something lurking there, observing you, waiting to pursue you if you try to get away. It's rather like our game."

"What I like is ... you don't have to wear anything," said Manny, the blond man. He giggled.

"That's the natural and proper way to swim," Joe said.

"If only it didn't get so frigid at night," Zena said, shivering a little.

"Though I never would have believed it this afternoon, when we were sitting in that filthy traffic jam. I felt like we were three eggs in beurre noire."

"Not butter! Rancid diesel oil would be more like it. Wonder what that would taste like."

"I didn't feel like a fried egg. I felt like Tou-sha-pou—you know, one of those Chinese steamed dumplings, those sickly sweet ones, filled with hot mashed prunes."

We were all laughing now. "Well, all I can is, thank God we had our game to play," Zena said. "That was a truly capital round we had in that little car, stifling and gemutlich as it was."

"Capital, because you won," Manny pointed out.

"I like games too," I said. "Maybe we could play sometime."

I was impressed and a little awed by their easy, high-spirited banter. They could even have fun being stuck in a traffic jam. They seemed exotic, as though English was not their native language. And strangely enough, they really did seem interested in me. Maybe the second week of this vacation would be better than the first.

"This tide chart seems to be closely accurate, as far as you can tell?" Joe asked me.

"Yes," I said. "The tides are very extreme here, actually."

"Are they?" Joe asked me. "How so?"

"Well, at low tide, there's some areas where you ean walk and walk and walk, and the water hardly jSver gets past your waist."

"Do you know quite where?" They all seemed Interested.

"Sure. I could show you. Tomorrow, maybe." I shrugged, and laughed self-consciously. "I don't have a real heavy schedule here."

"We could make it a charming little expedition," Zena said.

"Yes. Studying all the biota of this enchanting region," Manny said.

"Is this your first time in New England?" I asked them.

"Uh . . . yes," Zena said.

"You must be from California then, right?" I went on. "Or Florida?" They didn't answer. "I mean . . . you're so tanned."

"We travel a lot. We absorb the sun," Zena said.

"You don't have to work?" I asked.

"Curious fellow, isn't he," Joe said, putting a hand to his dark mustache.

"Our occupation gives us ample time to travel and explore," Zena explained, smiling. But there was a touch of impatience in her voice.

"Well, I'm pretty much of an expert on this whole coast," I said. "I could show you lots of things."

"That's pleasant," Joe said. "Barney? That's your name, right? Do there appear to be a lot of fishing boats in this immediate vicinity? Commercial or otherwise?"

"Sometimes they come around the island," I told him. "Ted has a cabin cruiser."

"How about excursion vessels, sightseers?"

"They don't come right around here." I was glad to be able to tell them so much. My familiarity with the area, limited as it was, might give them a reason for wanting to spend some time with me. "But there are several excursion boats out of Dunstable. Whale watches and dolphin watches and things. Would you like to go some day?"

"Love to," Manny said, with a funny little smile. "Joe adores dolphins. Don't you, Joe?"

"Yes. And octopi, too," Joe said.

Zena put her hand over her mouth and giggled like a little girl.

"They do any octopus fishing around here?" Joe went on, grinning at Manny now. "They do in some Greek settlements, I know. Remember Greece, Manny?"

"Oh, the way they bashed their poor little heads against the rocks, and left them out in the sun to dry!" Manny cried, rolling his eyes, "A sight I shall never forget!"

They were all laughing again. I didn't understand their secret joke, but I was amused by the way they were enjoying it. The enthusiasm with which they approached almost everything—especially their precious game—was appealing. They were younger and more playful than any adults I knew. And the amazing thing was, they continued to seem interested in me, and everything I had to say, asking lots of questions. They seemed fascinated by what I said about our house, absorbed and curiously motionless while I told them the story about the captain and his brother. I answered in detail their question about the layout of the house and spent a lot of time describing the front bedroom, where I had been sleeping for the past week.

"Still, as nice as the view is, I wouldn't want to be locked up there for twenty years," I said.

They had turned out the floor lamps. In the shadowy, firelit room, Zena's eyes glittered like a Ijjft. "And the scratches Ted informed you about, were you able to discover them?" she asked, leaning toward me, her voice a gentle purr.

"Oh, sure. There's a lot of them, and some of them are deep, deeper than you'd think a person could make with his bare hands. He must have . . . spent a lot of time making them."

"And did they seem to fall into a kind of pattern or ... or tell a tale or anything?" Zena asked.

"No. They're completely senseless."

"I don't suppose there was anything else, uh . . . unusual about the chamber, was there?" Zena said carefully. "Nothing odd, peculiar, that you or your parents might have stumbled on?"

It was a strange question, and I tried to make a joke out of it. "You mean like a dead body, or a ghost or something? Uh-uh. No such luck."

But they didn't seem to appreciate my wit. Barely moving their heads, their eyes met; three pairs of eyes meeting equally somehow, as though there were only two of them. And I thought of the jagged pits and troughs in the windowsills of my room, and I felt uneasy for the first time. A curtain flapped gently at the window. The others in the room remained as still as reptiles in the sun.

"So you travel a lot?" I said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "That must be great. Where's your home base? What was your last trip?" :

"You certainly do ask a plethora of questions," Manny said.

"I do?" I said. "Funny. It seems to me like you're I the ones who've been asking me questions all evening."

"You know what?" Zena said abruptly. "All of a j sudden I have a powerful nagging itch to get back j to the game. How about it?"

"Nice," Manny said. "I always want to play the game."

They turned on the lights, pulled their chairs up to the table and sat down around the board I had noticed when I first came in. They hadn't asked me to play, so I stood behind Zena and looked down at it. It was the first chance I had had to study it, and I saw now that it was not like any board game I had even encountered before.

"Hey, what game is this, anyway?" I asked, beginning to feel extremely excited. It seemed to be a space fantasy, with dreamlike, but detailed, planets. "I love games, but I've never seen anything like this. Where on earth did you get it?"

There was a moment of silence. Then Zena said, "It's a very new game. I suppose it isn't even on the market yet. It's still being . . . uh, what's the word? . . . Consumer tested, that's it."

"How did you get your hands on it then?"

"Because ..."

"Because we ... encountered somebody in the business," Joe explained. "He borrowed us an advance set."

"It was the best event that ever happened to us," Manny said with conviction. "It's a noble game," Joe said. "We've been playing it every night, and we still can't wrench ourselves away from it."

"But what's it called?" I asked again. "How do you play it?" I reached down to pick up one of the pieces.

"Don't touch, you'll distress it!" Zena slapped my hand a lot harder than seemed necessary.

"Questions, questions, questions," Joe murmured.

"But can't you just tell me the name of it?" I said, feeling a bit wounded. "It's called Interstellar Pig," Zena said tartly. "We'd ask you to play, but we're in the middle of a three-person game. Perhaps another time."

Time! I had forgotten about it completely. How long had I been here? If I outstayed my welcome they might think I was a pest, and wouldn't take me along on any expeditions, "Well, it's probably time for me to go," I said. "But I would love to play it sometime."

"Uh-huh," Zena murmured, staring down at the board. She moved her piece. "Hyperspace tunnel!" she announced triumphantly. "I'm going straight to Vavoosh."

They seemed to have forgotten I was there.

Mom and Dad were extremely curious about the neighbors, and dissatisfied by what I had to tell them. I'd been there for several hours, and yet I'd found out almost nothing about them. Mom and Dad quizzed me about their ages, their professions, their financial status, their relationships with one another, and where they came from. All I knew were their first names, that they traveled a lot and were addicted to Interstellar Pig.

"I'm surprised at you, Barney," Mom said. "You're usually so inquisitive."

And I was surprised at Mom and Dad. The neighbors were much younger than they were and had no obvious social position. Yet, for some reason, they were fascinated by them. It wasn't like them at all.

I looked carefully at the marks around the windows in my room that night.

There was no message of any sort, only random wounds etched into the wood. When I got into bed, the scars, by some trick of the lamplight, emerged in sharp relief, like welts. I couldn't concentrate on my book, and turned out the light. The wheezing and gasping of the bedsprings as I tried to find a comfortable position made me think of an old man struggling to breathe. I assured myself that, ancient though it was, this could not possibly be the bed in which the prisoner had slept.

And if his ghost remained, it was too feeble a specter even to materialize in my dreams. It was Zena I dreamed of, leading me by the hand across the floor of a gigantic arena. It was patterned, like their game, with the images of planets and stars, and curving pathways of light. Zena was telling me over and over again something I could not grasp, something terribly important, of great beauty and significance.

The next day, Sunday, was what Mom calls a perfect day: blistering hot without a trace of cloud in the sky. Immediately after breakfast, she and Dad headed out for the beach. It was the first such day we'd had for a while, and Mom was way behind on her tan. I accompanied them just to see who was there. It was well before noon, but the usual beach denizens were already ensconced: the old ladies with short-legged beach chairs and decks of cards, withered pink flesh drooping out of their ruffled suits; the shrieking toddlers with buckets and plastic swim toys; the gleaming adolescents, as stiff and carefully positioned as dark sarcophagi beside their radios, coming to life only to anoint themselves with more oil and solemnly, ritualistically press their blackened forearms together. In minutes, Mom joined their ranks, her comparative pallor giving her the look of a greased corpse. I retreated to the safe darkness of the house.

I decided to take my book out to the front porch, which offered a view of the bay—not to mention a view of the patio next door, where our neighbors were setting up a table for breakfast. I didn't know them well enough yet to feel comfortable about joining them uninvited. But I did want them to see that I was available and idle, ready to be included in any games or expeditions. I pretended to read.

They still seemed preoccupied by their game of the night before. They spoke in hushed voices, but I could hear enough to tell that they were arguing about the best escape route from a maze on some foreign planet.

Then, abruptly, and in a much louder voice, Zena announced, "These tomatoes taste ersatz."

Joe remarked in equally artificial tones that the word ersatz came from a German noun meaning "substitute," first used in 1875.1 wondered if they had realized I was listening, and were changing the subject for my benefit.

"How come I never know obscure little data like that?" asked Manny.

"Because you never read a word besides fantasy and science fiction," said Zena disdainfully.

"You should mention! Regard the books you brought here. The Flame, the Power and the Passion; The Body in the Library."

"But I also brought Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy," she pointed out. "Unlike you, I'm not totally self-involved."

They were both beginning to giggle. "Self-involved!" Manny exclaimed. "How can anybody vain enough to let her fingernails grow as grotesquely long as yours talk about self-involved? Observe her, Joe. She can barely even grasp her coffee cup with those claws."

"Vain!" she exploded. "You don't think it's vain to obsess about how evenly your beard is trimmed, not to mention bleach it! And don't try to deny it. I glimpsed that bottle of peroxide in your drawer."

"You prying bitch!" Manny cried. Zena threw back her head and laughed.

"Cut it out, you two," said Joe. "Look at the island. See how much clearer it is in the morning light. It looks nearly twice as close as it did yesterday afternoon."

"I wonder if we could swim out to it," Zena said. "Not you, Manny, of course. We all know you'd never make it. But Joe and I might be—"

"It's too distant to swim," Joe interrupted, before they had a chance to get started again. "Windsurf-ing's the means. One of these days we should borrow some boards and sail on over there."

"Grand idea!"

I listened, not turning any pages. Yet somehow they managed to startle me a moment later by appearing without any warning at the bottom of the porch steps. Why hadn't I noticed them getting up and coming over?

The men wore only running shorts and sandals; Zena had on the brief denim cutoffs and halter top. "Good morning, Barney," she said in her deep voice, smiling. "We just wandered over to see if everything was serene." Her legs looked wonderful.

"After we kept you up late and fed you intoxicating beverages and everything," Manny put in.

"I'm fine," I mumbled. Their unexpected arrival had brought back all my original shyness.

"You just seemed so bereft and deserted, all by yourself here," said Zena, moving smoothly up the steps. "Your parents abandoned you for the beach, huh?"

"Yes, we were kind of surprised to see anyone at home on a day like this," Manny said.

Zena shot him a glance and Joe looked away. It occurred to me, though I knew it was ridiculous, that they had been hoping we would all be at the beach today. But why should that make any difference to them?

Zena sat down on the porch railing across from my chair, watching me with that slight smile, one hand on a brown thigh. The men stood less comfortably at the top of the steps. They seemed to be expecting me to do something. "I can't lie out in the sun," I said. "I always burn."

"It's because you're a redhead," said Joe, with a hollow little click of the teeth.