Bad Desire (27 page)

Sheila looked at him, full of uncertainty. “But what would I tell people?”

“You could say you bought it with the insurance money,” he told her. “But that's lesson number one. You should never tell anyone what you're doing.” His voice had hardened. “It's none of their goddamned business.”

“Okay,” she said and she smiled. “What's lesson number two?” And they both laughed.

The coastal town of Clementine was in deep shadow when they arrived; they could feel the melancholy of dusk in the air. To the west, the sunset still etched the tops of clouds, leaving the streetlights with the spent, empty glow of imitation pearls. They rode down avenues of palms, headlight beams flickering over gray trunks wrapped in ragged gauze.

“Where are we?” she asked.

He lit a cigarette and let the wind snatch the smoke from his mouth. “Far from home,” he told her.

They turned into a street that seemed hardly more than an alley. A mugginess hung in the air, a sticky heat that saturated their clothes. It was even worse when Slater stopped the car and the wind flowing around them suddenly ceased. In the stillness that rushed in, they could hear telephones ringing in houses half a block away.

The restaurant was called simply C'est Bien, its name written with small white lights across its tall brick front. “I think you'll like this,” Slater told her, opening her door. He extended his hand, and Sheila's grip tightened in his fleetingly as she swung her legs out of the car, oblivious to the flashing of a nylon-darkened thigh, so taut, so secret and quick it swiped his eyes.

They entered through a small courtyard, with a trickling stone fountain—a narrow walled garden where fig trees and roses and tiny-blossomed star jasmine grew. Vines grew up the walls and over the entryway; tendrils hugged the white awnings. It was quiet and discreet, with an oriental air of privacy. With his hand grazing the small of her back, he led her up the steps between topiary elephants to a black louvered door set in a large archway fitted with black shutters. As if on signal, a gaunt majordomo, his black twill uniform trimmed in gold, opened the door and stepped aside.

Sheila walked by him and felt a cocoon of breathtaking opulence wrap around her. The air was scented and cool; she felt the chill of the marble floor even through her satin slippers. From the corner of her eye, Sheila saw Henry Slater step inside and heard the shuttered door gently close behind them.

The majordomo went behind his large carved desk, hardly looking up as Slater spoke to him. He nodded, checked his reservation book and pressed a button. “Thank you, Matthews,” Slater said, watching her now to see her reaction as he came to her side.

“You're making me feel very grown up,” she whispered, delightedly. “Is everything all right?”

“Of course. What makes you think it wouldn't be?”

But Sheila hardly heard him, she was in such an excited state. “I don't know.” The aroma of hot baguettes, fresh and crusty from the oven, drifted toward her from the kitchen. “Is this a private club?”

“No,” he said, warmed by her enthusiasm. “If it were private I couldn't bring you here. I've got a little stake in it, that's all.”

“Are you serious?” Her face collapsed behind her hands in soft laughter. “You mean you own it?”

“No. I have an investment.”

“I don't believe you.”

He winked. “No one knows about my part in this, Sheila, except for the few people I do business with. And now you.” Odd the effect she had on him, as if, in all the world, there was not enough air. He felt tight inside, ready to burst out and say things he knew he shouldn't. He could see the enchantment waiting in her eyes.

“I love it here,” she said.

Whatever happens, he thought, it will be irrevocable. He knew he was coming to the end of something.

The lobby ran the full depth of the building to another archway, which was glass-enclosed. Three stories up, a long skylight let in illumination that died somewhere above their heads. The walls were lined with mirrored panels; huge crystal chandeliers hung suspended in the air.

A waiter led them down the long corridor past period furniture, plump sofas, soft lamps receding at intervals before them, and Sheila thought there must have been a thousand candle flames flickering—all multiplied a hundred times over in the cross fire of mirrors. And flowers: old fish carts laden with them, huge tubs and pots overflowing with ferns and gardenias, orchids, flowering fuchsia, hibiscus, delphinium and more.

Doorways stood open to large dimly lit rooms. Through the openings came the pleasant murmur of dinner being served, of subdued conversation and the tinkling of silver, glasses, ice. Huge tapestries covered the walls. Slater remained a step behind Sheila, watching for the unexpected familiar face, aware of the huge risk he was taking just by bringing her here tonight.

A waiter led them outside, across a terrace, down a small flight of steps and out a wide white gangway toward a maze of thatched huts some twenty yards offshore. Other waiters jockeyed past them, bearing trays of steaming bowls and chafing dishes. The floorboards creaked, sagged unnervingly under their steps now and then while below, against the pilings, the water lapped steadily. In the huts, behind layers of mosquito netting, figures drifted slowly and in secret, like ghosts.

Drawing the gauzy netting aside, the waiter showed them into one of the huts. It contained a single room, with a round table and a pair of fanciful bamboo chairs. The floor appeared to be covered in cream-colored marble; there was crystal and silver and unlit candles. Like a sacrificial offering, a great sheaf of flowers lay across an antique sideboard. The ceiling was open at the peak, a paddle fan circulated the ocean air. Helping Sheila seat herself comfortably, the waiter then tied back a panel of netting where it faced the Pacific and departed.

Slater moved his chair next to hers. With great propriety, they sat side by side. “I'm sorry about the heat,” he said. “We could still go inside if you'd rather.”

“But we just got here,” she said. “It'll be cooler when the sun goes down.”

In the middle distance, the silhouette of a fishing boat went by, its outboard sputtering, a myriad of silver splinters, like minnows, following in its wake. Long after it had passed from sight, its waves splashed against the pilings beneath them.

“It makes me want to dive right in. How about you?”

“Speak for yourself,” Slater said, clearly enjoying himself. “What would you like to have to drink?”

Sheila looked at him uneasily. “Can I … here?”

“No one's watching.”

“What are you going to have?”

“Maybe a martini.”

“Okay,” she said. “Then, that's fine with me.”

“They're fairly potent. Maybe you'd rather …”

“No, I want what you're having.”

When the waiter returned, Slater ordered champagne. Sheila laughed and waited until the two of them were alone again.

“What's the matter?” she asked. “Don't you trust me? Didn't you think I could handle one little martini?”

“It's not that. I thought champagne seemed more appropriate.”

“Oh, I don't care what we have,” she said, “except sometimes you treat me like I'm still ten years old. I can take care of myself.”

The sleeve of his jacket, that brushed her wrist, seemed to have the texture of some rich and delicate cashmere. It was immensely flattering to be here with him, to feel the attention he lavished on her. After all, he knew so much more about the world than she did. Sheila thought he couldn't really be so pleased with her as he appeared, or so interested in every word she uttered, but it made him wonderfully attractive. When she saw him again after sometimes weeks had passed, it always took her by surprise to discover that he remembered everything she had said the last time they had talked during some brief chance meeting. It was easy to understand why shop clerks and bankers and housewives voted for him, why sixty thousand people, who might have met him once and shaken his hand, called him by name as if they had known him all their lives.

Occasionally, she would see him downtown, the mayor on his way to lunch with other men—an influential man, distinguished and powerful. He seemed entirely different to her then, like a man she had never known and could never know; almost like her own father, whom she had no real memory of and could only imagine. Sheila liked the fleeting sensation of completeness and definition it gave her to think of Henry Slater that way. But tonight, she was happy to be with the other Mr. Slater—the one she had known over the years, who gave her things and didn't mind coddling her, a man whose gray eyes continually smiled upon her with approval.

Presently, a second waiter wheeled in a cart filled with small oval dishes containing hors d'oeuvres and served them, one by one, onto their plates. Sheila nibbled a fantail shrimp dipped in mustard so hot it took her breath and made her eyes water.

“Whooo,” she said, “now I've embarrassed myself.” She wiggled back in her chair. “I can't sit still. Do you mind if I get up and look around?”

He said he didn't mind. He asked if she still needed to call the McPhearsons, and Sheila told him she already had, while she had been waiting for him in Pacific Grove. It was almost enough then for Slater to unwind in his chair and let his mind become saturated with her—her fingers that ran along the old sideboard and then went to her throat as she bent to breathe the indolent flowers, her leg that peeped from beneath her skirt in a wild, reappearing surprise.

“What about your boyfriend? Won't he wonder where you are?”

“Don't worry about that,” she said. “I don't want to talk about him.”

“But you're in love with him.”

The light changed in her eyes; she was looking at a place in the air between them that he couldn't see. “Something's happened to me since my Gramma's gone and I really don't know if it's me or if it's him, but Mr. Slater,” she said gravely, “I don't think I love anybody anymore.”

“You're too young to be so cynical. Maybe you do and just don't know it.”

He saw her shrug. “I always thought when I really fell in love, I'd do it in a big way. I've known Denny since the seventh grade, almost as long as I've known you, and he's my friend, but we don't get along anymore. We fight all the time and it's—”

The champagne came, interrupting them. Curiosity lured her back to her chair; her manicured fingers lifted her glass in a toast. As they drank she smiled, watching him over the glass's transparent rim. Hers was a look that came with the speed of dreams, a look almost shy—but aware—that no experienced woman could ever duplicate.

They talked and drank, meandering through six courses. They watched the night overtake the Pacific, saw white sails turn gray-purple as the sundown collapsed. In the candlelight that followed, his thoughts revolved only on her. If only I could touch her, he thought. Slater reached out for her hand, and Sheila laced her fingers through his, spontaneously, like a child. At the same time, a photograph of Sheila as a child shown him once by a proud grandmother rose up in Slater's memory and, in an instant, faded. It rocked him. The touch of her, the fact that he always had to seek her out in secret, was a communion with the darkest tyranny in his life. Slater pulled his hand away.

He said, “Sheila, what would you do, if I said: let's go away somewhere? Come live with me and we'll leave all this behind?”

Sheila laughed and slumped back in her chair. “I don't think I could right now, tonight; I think I probably have to wash my hair. Where would you want to take me?”

“Where do you want to go?”

Her eyes were flashing with playfulness. He could see that she was carried away with the charm of make-believe. “I don't know. What would I be—your kept woman?”

“I wouldn't care what you were.”

“God,” she said, “it would be, wouldn't it—just like being married. Would you ever marry me, Mr. Slater? Would you divorce Mrs. Slater, throw everything away, just to go off somewhere and live with me?”

“What if I would? What if I did that and more?”

Her face, much like his own, was all aglow, a delicate pink in her cheeks. “But you're so much older than me,” she said. Then all at once, Sheila couldn't maintain the pretense any longer; slowly her beautiful head turned away. “This is making me really nervous, Mr. Slater. You've always been so nice to me. But I don't always know when you're kidding and when you're not. I think I know and the next minute I'm not sure. You shouldn't say these things unless you mean it, because I start to get carried away—I start wanting to believe it.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I sometimes start to believe it, too.”

After he'd had his coffee and Sheila the chocolate soufflé, while the waiter was clearing their table for the last time, Slater asked not to be disturbed again. Over the years he had stopped believing in simple happiness, only taking real enjoyment in hard-won successes. But with the night outside surrounding them and no one stirring in the dark hut next door, he felt safe for the first time all evening and relaxed completely.

Sheila insisted he undo his tie; she slipped out of her shoes, folding her feet up under her. He saw her toes sheathed in thinnest nylon, watched a wave of gray silk drape over a drawn-up knee. Slater thought he had never seen a girl so dangerous.

“Thank you for this,” she said tenderly, her splendid shoulders turned toward him.

Taking the champagne from the ice, she leaned close to refill their glasses, her face passing within inches of his, the tip of her tongue curled on her upper lip. “This is my last one,” she announced. “I don't want to get plowed.”

“I don't want you to, either.”

“Are you sure?” she said recklessly.

“You're really a nice girl,” he told her. “I thought you might grow up to be only gorgeous.” When he lifted his glass and drank, she watched his fingers, the clean, trimmed nails, the strength of their grasp. “I'm not always so nice,” she said.