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She’d startled hell out of him. “Me?” He had bounced up and down on his toes, swinging his arms. “Got to stay in condition. I do a little running every once in a while. Hi, Park. You ever do any running?”

“Not if it can be avoided.”

He ran vigorously in one spot for a moment, bringing his knees as high as he could and then said, panting, “Good night, all,” and went on in to his room.

The real big worry about the whole thing was he’d come so terrible close to turning around and grabbing her. And, brother, that would be the end. That would do it. She was an Older Woman, and a Teacher and she’d gone to College. She’d been wonderful to him, and she was the finest woman he had ever known. And it would certainly be one hell of a way to show gratitude, to grab aholt of her like some crazy animal. He guessed it was the beast in him. It made him ashamed of
himself that he could think of Monica in that way. There’d been some girls. Sluts, if you want to use a better word for those pigs. Just a few times back in rug storage, and the couple of times he’d gone with some of the guys and they’d paid for it. He felt as if he was soiling Monica to even think about her at the same time he remembered those pigs. Not that there was a hell of a lot to remember.

He forced the evil thoughts out of his mind and concentrated on getting the shadow the little tree was making against the base of the faded blue wall. For a little while he made progress, and then he was aware of someone directly behind him. He thought it was Miss Keeley. But a hand was placed on his shoulder, and when he turned his head there, an inch and a half from the tip of his nose, was the distended pouch of pale-blue seersucker with its awesome burden. It was so close that Harvey’s eyes crossed. Monica was bending over him, looking at the work he had done.

“It’s very nice, Harvey,” she said.

“Harf!” he said, and for one horrid moment he thought his eyes would not uncross. He turned his head away. “Uh. Thanks.”

She went back to her chair. He bit the knuckle of his first finger until tears came to his eyes. He glowered darkly over at the squatting Mexican and wanted to race over and plant such a perfect punt that there would be a clicking shower of the little pebbly teeth. He looked at his painting again and had the mad desire to snap his head forward like a striking snake and bite a chunk right out of the middle of it.

For once the bus returned on schedule, just as Agnes was finishing her final critique of the work accomplished. Hildabeth received praise that made her beam and blush. In fact the second painting of the wall that she had done was, at a fair distance, almost indistinguishable from the works of Agnes Partridge Keeley, in both style and normal content and sweet color tones.

“You can certainly be proud of that, Hildabeth. I think you have a marvelous talent. You should take it home with you and have it framed. Anybody would be happy to hang such a lovely thing in their home.”

They walked back. As was his habit, Monica’s admirer walked about fifteen feet behind her until they had gone through the gate. And then he turned away, heading for the path that crossed the barranca.

* * *

Park and Bitsy arrived back at the hotel the next day, Tuesday, at lunchtime. They came sauntering into the big, sparsely inhabited dining room, smiling and at ease, halting all conversation and the random clink of silverware.

“Greetings,” Park said.

“How you all?” said Bitsy.

They went to an unoccupied table. Park held her chair for her, kissed her on the temple when she was seated, and took the chair at her left, and they began to talk earnestly and inaudibly, their heads close together.

“A perfect picture of guilt,” Agnes said to her table. “An attitude like that sickens me.”

“Bet they had a time,” Hildabeth said.

From the table where he sat with Miles, Harvey and Monica, Gam Torrigan looked over at the back of Park’s head with a sad twinge of envy.

Jeanie said to Gil, “Look at them, dearest. I bet they’ll get married.”

“Everybody should be married, honey. It’s all so damn efficient. No taxis. No tired little motels. No plotting and planning. No dark hallways. No sneaking around. Why, anytime you just happen to want …”

“You hush up, greedy boy.”

John Kemp, sitting with Barbara, Klauss, and Mary Jane, thought Park looked much better, and he did not have that look of springs wound too tightly.

“Hah!” Mary Jane said. She shoved her chair back, picked up her iced tea, and carried it over to their table and sat beside Bitsy.

“That’s a new outfit,” she said.

“Like it?” Bitsy asked.

“Very nice. Don’t suppose you care much that I nearly went crazy worrying about you.”

“She was in good hands, Mary Jane.”

“That point is, like they say, debatable, chum.”

“My outfit is new too. When your playmates got playful, it took the knee out of my pants.”

“What a terrible, horrible, tragic shame!”

“Why are you being so nasty, Mary Jane?” Bitsy asked. “Feel guilty for not coming with me when I walked out of the party?”

“I wish to God I had. Then you wouldn’t have made a fool of yourself.”

Bitsy smiled blandly at her. “Of course, you’re the one with all the good judgment, dear.”

“What’s wrong with you? You don’t act like yourself.”

“I’m not myself. I’m somebody else.”

“If this is a game, I don’t want to play. Who the hell are you?

Bitsy, still smiling, said, “The second Mrs. Barnum.”

Mary Jane stared at her, obviously shocked. She moistened her lips and said, “Now there’s a spooky idea! Lose your mind, darling? Maggie will slash you to ribbons if you take home this kind of a meathead and you know it!”

Park bit his lip but remained silent. Bitsy kept her smile, but it was like something drawn on. “You’re so sure of that, aren’t you? We did a lot of phoning on Sunday. Maggie and the clan flew down yesterday. We were married late yesterday afternoon. A civil ceremony, but very well attended. Everybody missed you.”

“I wasn’t invited.”

“Maybe you can figure out why.”

Mary Jane’s mouth trembled for a moment. She smiled, but wanly. “So I’ve said all the wrong things. Like I seem to always do lately somehow. Congratulations, or something. I want you to be happy, Bitsy.”

“Thank you.”

Mary Jane looked across the table at Park. “I guess you know I don’t think this is the best idea she’s ever had. It’s done now, and I hope it works, and I want to be friends.”

“Friends,” Park said and took her hand.

“What are your plans, kids?”

Park said, “We thought we’d drive on down to Acapulco for a while. No plans beyond that.”

“I’ve got myself some new plans all of a sudden,” Mary Jane said. “With you gone, Bits, I’m not going to hang around here, certainly. I’m going up home.”

“Why don’t you wait until we come on back through, Mary Jane?” Bitsy said. “We won’t be down there long. We can go on up in convoy.”

“Fifth wheel?”

“Heck, no.”

“All right. So you kids take my bug and leave me the wagon.

It’ll be a whee of a honeymoon chariot. Please. If you don’t, I won’t be here when you come back.”

Bitsy looked questioningly at Park, and then nodded agreement.

Mary Jane stood up and hammered loudly on a glass with a spoon. “Big announcement, all you types. Big things going on. Introducing one bride and groom. A real sneaky pair. It happened yesterday. Gather ’round and kiss the bride. Gam, you go get some of those bottles of yours. Miles, you order up some ice. I here and now declare one official half holiday and we’ll have ourselves a reception for the bride and groom. Let’s have us a committee in charge of old shoes and rice. And music from someplace. I’m in an organizing mood. So let’s party this thing up.”

It became a party. Park and Bitsy had planned to leave early enough to drive on through to Acapulco. And then they decided it would be enough to get as far as Taxco. Eventually they got as far as the Marik down in the center of Cuernavaca.

Park had a chance to talk to John Kemp when he went to pack what he’d need at Acapulco and John came into his room, glass in hand, and sat on the bed.

“Pretty sudden, boy.”

“I’m as surprised as anybody, John. God, I was a stinking shambles on Saturday night. I was so close to the edge. I’d begun to feel like I was made of glass and pretty soon a violin was going to hit the right note and they were going to have to sweep me up. She picked me up and brushed me off. Sunday morning we walked miles in those parks. We sat on a bench and I looked at her and she smiled at me, and I knew I’d been thrashing around in a big, gray, empty ocean and by the damnedest luck in the world, I’d caught hold of the trimmest little lifeboat you ever saw. Part of this is the drinks talking, John, but it’s all true. I knew I couldn’t let her go, so I said I loved her and I needed her and let’s get married. She said, ‘I guess it’s time for that,’ and so we went back to the hotel and started running up the damnedest phone bill tracking down her folks. She got Maggie, that’s her mother, on the phone and pretty soon they were both crying. And then I got on and Maggie cussed me out like I’d never heard before, and then said if I didn’t make her happy she’d spread little chunks of me all over Texas. So a big batch of them flew down in a private plane. I don’t know what it was, but it was big. They
got in Monday noon. Maggie is a character. Her husband is a little Limey type who cracks the whip so you can really hear it. The little kids, her brother and sister, came too. And I couldn’t get the big cousins and uncles and their wives straightened out. It was confusing, believe me. So … I’m married again.”

“And to some heavy money, I would suspect.”

Park straightened up from packing his suitcase, and frowned thoughtfully. “Yes. I know. But I’m not thinking about that. I mean it didn’t have one single damn thing to do with my asking her. And she knows that too. She’s a hell of a girl, John. I had some stupid ideas about her. I didn’t have the faintest idea of what she’s really like. I had the feeling she was immature. A fun kid. But her family deal has given her so many emotional knocks that she’s grown up all the way. She doesn’t go around advertising it. She’s a thousand years older and wiser than I am. She’s a hell of a girl.”

“Will you go back to your job?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what being back in that deal will do to me. Or if she’ll be happy in the East. She hated hell out of it when she was in school there. But it might work. It’s a decision for later. Put it this way, John. I’m going to work at my trade. I’m good at it. It wouldn’t be a happy thing for either of us if I make a nice warm nest out of her dough.”

“Don’t ever rationalize yourself out of that position, Park.”

“I don’t think I will. All of a sudden I’m cured of Suzie. She’s somebody I knew once, and loved very much. And now I know what it was about Suzie. She’s so damn clever that there isn’t enough room in her for warmth. I guess what I want now is a nice place to live and work to do. And I want to fix it somehow so my kids can come and visit. That little brother and sister of Bitsy’s adore her. She’ll be good with kids. And we want a great big batch of our own. Lots of them. And we want to give them the best kind of emotional security kids can have. Not the way she grew up, or I grew up. I’m talking too damn much.”

“It’s a good kind of talk to hear, boy.”

“Good God, listen to them out there!”

“Torrigan is really ready.”

“I’m through here. Let’s join the group.”

The best parties always seem to be the spontaneous ones.

And the spontaneous ones can only occur when group tensions have reached a point where some kind of release is unavoidable.

A dining-room table was moved to a commanding location between the dining room and the lobby and converted into a bar, with Felipe Cedro as unexpectedly competent bartender. When a collection was taken up to replenish the liquor supply, Mary Jane drove with Gam to town in Park’s station wagon and brought back not only liquor, but three wandering musicians from the
zócalo
, two guitars and a portable marimba. Gam spotted Gloria Garvey in front of the Bella Vista, the first time he had seen her since their weekend, and, with certain bravado, asked her to come join the party and bring her friends—a tall English girl named Margot, with a manner so completely languid that she seemed a victim of deep hypnosis, and a knotty pug-faced little man called Shane. And they arrived at the hotel a half hour later.

Had the party been planned in advance, it certainly would not have been anticipated that the hotel staff would join in. But when Miles Drummond looked over and happened to notice Fidelio, the driver, dancing violently and expertly with a barefoot Margarita, the two handsome jolts of Scotch he had consumed during the initial toasts to the bride reduced his potential objection to a slightly uneasy feeling soon forgotten. And not long afterward, when he saw Colonel Hildebrandt move across his line of vision, dancing in slow and stately ballroom fashion with that same Margarita, holding her at arm’s length and maintaining a tempo that had little to do with the beat of the music, it seemed perfectly natural. It was only when he found himself dancing with Margarita, her face a perfect symbol of fiesta, that he again felt uncertain, and wondered about future difficulties in enforcing discipline.

Rosalinda Gomez quickly established her special niche, and from the delighted grinning of the
mariachis
and the general public approval, it was exactly where she belonged. She could sing with the eerie, spine-tingling whine of the true flamenca, or, snapping her fingers with exceptional loudness and precision, belt it out with the husky emphasis of a dusky Sophie Tucker. And she knew the lyrics to everything.

Esperanza Clueca had joined, very dubiously, in the toast to the bride. She despised the typical
borracho
, as exemplified by the sodden Alberto, the gardener. And she had never touched liquor. Yet, because she had been asked, it seemed a politeness
to join them. And she did like the girl from Texas with the coppery hair. She had seemed genuinely friendly. The one with the yellow hair was different. There had been, in her, a kind of contempt, a roughness in her voice when she gave orders. It was said that in Texas all Mexicans were treated in such fashion, and Esperanza had been pleased to find that in the case of the Señorita Babcock, the information was wrong.