Late in the Season (5 page)

When he unlocked and slid open the door, gusts of wind blew rain and the figure into the foyer. He made out a small man, a teenage boy, in an orange slicker. Jonathan shut the door behind the boy, and turned to see the raincoat open, the hood thrown back, the oddly familiar face—Jerry? Jerry Locke? Visiting now? Then he saw it wasn’t Jerry at all; it was the Locke girl, staring helplessly at him, then at the floor where she was
forming a widening puddle of water, then at her soaked denims, and finally back up at his face. For a moment he thought she was going to laugh hysterically, and he would have, in addition to the nerve-wracking noise of the rain on the roof, the howling wind, the thunder and lightning, her maniacal laughter to put up with too.

He must have looked as surprised as he actually was. He tried to settle his face into composure to meet hers. What could be the emergency that had driven her out in this weather? Was someone ill? Injured?

“Yes?” he said, drawing out the word, the question.

A torrent of words escaped from her, so fast, so confused, so incomprehensible, that he was relieved when she stopped in mid-phrase and began to cry.

He went to her, pulling off the raincoat and dropping it to the floorboards, and took the sobbing, trembling creature into the broad warmth of his cashmere-covered arms. She felt impossibly small there, fragile, like a child.

She stopped crying as quickly as she’d begun, and peeked up at him.

“It’s all right. It’s over,” she said, sniffling, and even trying to laugh. She remained in his hug, however, until he finally felt self-conscious and let down his arms so she could stand free. “You must think I’m nuts,” she said.

“I don’t know…I don’t know what to think yet,” he admitted. “Is anything wrong?”

“Not now,” she said, looking around her. She spotted the raincoat on the floor and reached for it. “Where can I hang this?” she said, holding it by an edge. “And where’s the mop? I’ll clean up this mess I made.”

“I’ll do it,” he said, but didn’t move.

“I was alone,” she explained. The tears in her eyes had dried up. They shone clear, rather tin-colored in the candlelight. “First the radio went off,” she said. “There’s no phone; it was shut off Labor Day. Then the storm got worse. Then the lightning began. Then the lights went out. I was scared,” she concluded.

“Ah!” he said, suddenly understanding what she was doing there—though he didn’t really understand at all. Scared of what? he wanted to ask: this hurl and burl of the elements that had kept him irritated all night long, unable to concentrate on his work, unable to read, or listen to music on the cassette deck. “You were alone?”

“I guess I needed company,” she said brightly, then felt embarrassed, and began to blush.

“Your jeans are all wet,” he said. She was soaked from her knees down.

“It’s all right. I can come in, can’t I?”

“Yes. Sure. But you shouldn’t stay wet.”

“You mean I’ll drip on everything?”

“I’ll get you something to wear.” He took the slicker from her and hung it in the smaller of the two bathrooms. He thought he’d find something for her to change into, but what? Everything he owned was far too big; Dan’s clothing was even larger. Wait! What about those tan corduroys that boy had left here last summer? Dan’s little friend.

He found the pants in the guest room closet, shook them out, sized them up. When he returned to the foyer, she had found the mop and was mopping up the floor.

“It looked so bright in here, from my place,” she said, still explaining. “I don’t know. So hospitable. You’re sure I’m not intruding?”

“It’s all the candles,” he explained. “Dan buys them by the gross. Here, these are clean. I don’t know who they belong to. Change and come warm up by the fire.”

“You mean I can stay?”

He suddenly felt as though he were in a Pinter play where the delivery boy stops by, has a cup of tea, and doesn’t leave for thirty years.

“Go change,” he said, pointing to the guest room. “I’ll get you something warm to drink.”

Even the corduroys were too large, he saw when she came out; they hung on her, but she’d belted them tightly around her small waist, and they looked sort of charming, like rather thick harem bloomers.

“I won’t forget this,” she said.

He handed her a hot rum toddy he’d made. She sipped at it cautiously.

“Not too fast,” he warned. “It’s strong.”

He led her into the big room and offered her his seat, but she remained standing by the fireplace, looking around, warming her legs, sipping her drink. Her hair was in one thick, long braid tonight. It glowed in the candle- and firelight. Her skin was so clear and bright it was like the skin on a pale-colored plum at its August ripest.

“I’m so glad you weren’t working or anything,” she said, then squatted down on the floor between the fireplace and where he sat. “I would have hated myself for interrupting you.”

“Too much noise to work,” he said. She certainly made herself at home quickly enough. Dear Abby, he thought, my neighbor’s daughter came to visit me one stormy night and now she won’t go home. What should I do to let her know I don’t want her living here? Signed, Polite but perplexed. “You were there alone?” he asked to make conversation.

“Two days,” she said. “I’m staying all week.” Then she giggled. “If I can make it. Last night I was frightened because it was so incredibly quiet here with no cars and only the surf. Tonight I was scared because it was so stormy. I guess I’m just not a pioneer woman type, am I?”

Her voice was amazingly like her brother’s, though higher pitched, even when she spoke low, like now. The way she rushed at her words at the beginning of a sentence, then slowed down at the end, was like him. How her a’s were broad, not at all like a New Yorker’s, more like a New Englander’s. The facial resemblance was strong too, the clear-cut nose, the deep-set eyes, high cheekbones, the large forehead. The bottom half differed, however. Jerry’s face was square, almost too square. His chin almost too wide, dimpled twice. His lips, especially his lower lip, were large too, as though to fill in all that space. Not hers. Her face, her chin were nicely pointed. Her mouth was small, fitting the smaller oval of her face, the smaller nose.

“I suppose you have the right to know why I’m out here all alone,” she suddenly announced in a deeper voice, as though imitating someone older: her mother?

The last thing Jonathan wanted was the confessions of a frightened teenaged girl. “That’s not necessary,” he said, as calmly as possible.

Her gray eyes opened wide; he could see they were flecked with different colors: blue, gold, brown. Then she lowered them to gaze at the steaming mug in her lap.

“I guess you’re right. It’s not necessary.”

“You’re Sally,” he said.

“Stevie!” She looked up. “It’s really Stephanie, but somehow they began calling me ‘Stevie’ and it stuck. I wasn’t a tomboy.”

That explained the confusion. Dan always thought the reference Paula Locke made to Stevie was to another, younger brother: one unseen, and thus even more desirable than the deliciously known Jerry.

“And you’re Jonathan Lash, the famous composer,” she said.

“Hardly famous.”

“More famous than anyone else I’ve ever met.” Her eyes searched the room. Looking for signs of his fame? The scrolled honors, the autographed photos? “You know,” she said, “I’m such a jerk sometimes. Here I am talking as though I were across the street or something, and your lover is probably trying to get to sleep.”

“He’s not here. He’s in London, directing some films for the BBC.”

Her eyebrows rose and fell; he read this as surprise, and/or being impressed.

“And no,” he went on, “you aren’t interrupting me at
all. No intrusion. No bother. I’m sort of glad to have company.”

“I tried playing solitaire,” she said, then bit her upper lip, and fell silent, looking down at her mug.

Conversation lapsed. The rain still thundered overhead, lightning frequently brightened up behind the curtained windows, unpredictably, now on one side of the large room, now another; the fire settled, crackled, popped.

“May I tell you”—she suddenly looked up at him, as though begging, and embarrassed to be doing so—“may I tell you why I’m out here alone? I’d like to.”

Jonathan didn’t know how to respond. Good Lord, no! he thought, but nodded yes.

“I was supposed to be in college yesterday. Second year. I’m supposed to get engaged next month to a boy I’ve been seeing. And I don’t want to. Isn’t that strange? I don’t want to go back to school, and I don’t want to get married. I’m having a crisis. It’s all very adolescent and typical of me that it’s happening now, at eighteen, instead of when I was thirteen, like everyone else. An identity crisis, I suppose it’s called. So I came out here to be alone, to think, to make some clear-headed decisions about my life.”

She sighed and sat back when she was done, relieved at having gotten it out.

The last part made up for the first part, which he hadn’t at all wanted to hear. At least she was doing it independently, and didn’t want his help.

“I see,” he said.

“Well, I haven’t done any of it,” she said. “All I’ve done is read a mystery, lie in the sun, get tan, and then get scared and act like some kind of screwball tonight.”

Jonathan suspected that was someone else talking for her: her parents, her teachers.

“The week isn’t up yet,” he said.

She smiled. “You’re right! It isn’t, is it? Why am I already admitting defeat?”

“Five more days left,” he said.

“Sunny ones, I hope.” Then, “You see, I was right to barge in here the way I did. I feel better already. An objective outsider is always best in these matters. Rose was right about that. I can’t tell you how gloomy and damp it was over there. It’s so nice here,” she added, slung over a hassock now, and turned to look at the fire.

Well, that was easy, he thought. No complete confessions and suffering stories faced him now. He’d said exactly the right words to forestall them.

“I really love fires,” she said. “They seem to have lives of their own, don’t they?”

He looked at the fire. Underneath the two logs was a silver red white ashy furnace, as glitzy as a gay theme party decorated on the idea of Dante’s
Inferno.
But it was lovely here, fitting.

He wanted to ask her questions: about Jerry, about her parents, her boyfriend, her school, her life. Dan would. Dan would never forgive him if he didn’t use this opportunity. If Dan were here, he’d be pumping her for every shred of information, every detail of the Lockes’ life that he’d wondered about in the seven years they’d been neighbors in Sea Mist. But Jonathan couldn’t bring himself even to begin.

She yawned, stifled it, looked back at him apologetically, began to say something, then yawned again and shook her head, as though to clear it.

“The rum,” he suggested. “Tired?”

“I didn’t think I was,” she said.

“Want to go to bed?” he said, and immediately regretted it.

She seemed to hear no implications in the offer. She only yawned again, like a sleepy child. “I can just lie down here by the fire. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“We have a guest room.” Then, as she was beginning to doze against the hassock, he leaned toward her, touched her shoulder. She barely responded. So he helped her up, and along the corridor.

“I’ll be all right,” she said sleepily, as he led her into the guest room. Jonathan felt as he did with Artie and Ken, Dan’s boys, whenever they’d stayed up too late, and had to be put to bed.

“There are some old pajamas in here,” he said, opening the bureau drawer. A candle was burning in a dish on the night table next to the bed. “Don’t forget to blow it out,” he reminded her.

“Can I keep it on?” she asked. And now she really reminded him of the boys. “In case I wake up in the night.”

“Sure. ’Night.”

“Thanks. Thanks for taking in an orphan of the storm,” she said, and waved weakly at him, a movement that was stopped in mid-gesture by a huge yawn.

He went back into the living room and decided to put on another few logs, to take the dampness out of the house. Then he made another rum toddy for himself, and finally sat down, drink in hand, cigarettes handy, to read that biography he’d brought out in June and still had not gotten to.

Oddly, he felt he could concentrate better now: even feel content. The rain was no less fierce, the thunder and lightning only a bit less tempestuous. Yet he did feel content. Was it knowing someone else was in the house with him? Often, after he and Dan had gone to bed and made love, and Dan had fallen asleep, he’d got-ten dressed again and come out here to work, or to read, or just to sit out on the lounge chairs on the deck, hear-ing the ocean, looking up at the starry skies, thinking. It always felt better being awake this late, knowing someone else was sleeping.

He had to laugh when he thought what the consequences would be if her parents—especially Lady Bracknell—knew where their daughter was sleeping tonight.

What a pretty girl she was, though: nothing artificially pretty about her. Refreshing too, as youth was supposed to be for those older.

He felt much older now: almost as though he were her parent. Her mood swings were really extraordinary—from tears to placidity in a few minutes, from vivacity to exhaustion in another minute, from seeming indifference and poise to girlish confidentiality. Perhaps that really was what changed as one aged: one’s moods evened out more. One had longer stretches of each—days of contentment, weeks of boredom, months of depression, years of satisfaction. He might use these sudden changes of temperament of Stevie’s in a song or two in
Lady and the Falcon,
to display Fiammetta’s youthfulness. She was only sixteen or so in the story, wasn’t she? All those quattrocento girls married early.