"Oh poop," she cried. "If you really cared about me, you'd get Daddy to have my prison sentence reduced up here. That's all this place is, Olivia, a fancy prison for snobs. I haven't been able to make a single friend. I just see lots of nostrils. They hold their noses too high."
I had to laugh at that.
"I'm absolutely, terribly miserable. Even the male teachers are . . . are like old ladies. They don't give me a second look unless it's to teach me something stupid like how to correctly address someone for the first time."
"Just think of how accomplished you'll be when you graduate," I said.
"I don't care," she said and started to catalogue a whole new set of complaints.
"I've got to go," I interrupted. "I have too much to do to waste any more time."
"Then go. Go and have a wonderful time and then think of me locked up and chained by the rules," she concluded.
I heard the door buzzer and sucked in my breath.
"That's Clayton," Mother declared. She opened my bedroom door as if she were pulling back a stage curtain. "Have a good time, Olivia."
"Thank you, Mother," I said.
Carmelita had let Clayton in. He stood in the foyer looking up as I descended. I thought he resembled a bank teller in his suit and tie, waiting to receive a deposit. I hoped he would stop being so stiff when we were alone.
Daddy came rushing out of his office.
"Well, now, looky here. Doesn't she look beautiful, Clayton?" he urged.
"Yes, sir," he said and turned to me. "You look very nice."
"Thank you."
Carmelita stood off to the side, watching without expression. When I turned to her, however, her eyebrows rose and a look of genuine surprise formed on her face. It made me feel more confident. I guess I did look beautiful. I only wished Clayton would have been more demonstrative when he spoke and looked at me.
"Well," he said gazing at his watch, "we're on schedule. Shall we go?"
"Yes. Good night, Daddy," I said.
"Have a good time. Both of you," he called.
Clayton's car was immaculate. He opened the door for me and I got in and remarked about it as soon as he got in.
"It's five years old," he said without gratitude for the compliment. It was more like he expected it. "You really have to keep a car about seven years these days to make the most of your investment," he said, and then went on to talk about depreciation schedules.
When we sat in the restaurant and were given our menus, Clayton reviewed each entree, explaining the cost and value to me.
"We handle a dozen restaurants," he continued, "so we know what the best values are."
"Why don't you just order for me then," I said dryly and handed the waiter my menu.
"I would be very happy to do that," Clayton said and did. Finally, his conversation turned to something other than assets and liabilities. Or, at least I thought it did when he began to ask me questions about myself, the work I did for my father, and what I did to entertain myself.
Throughout the course of the meal, he glanced at his watch and commented about how we were doing. Most of the time, he concluded we were on schedule, but when the desserts he had ordered took longer than he anticipated, he became a little agitated.
"We really don't have to be there just when it all begins, Clayton," I said. He looked at me as if being late for something was a violation of the eleventh commandment.
"People are known by their sense of
responsibility, how well they keep to their schedules," he assured me. "That's why our clients feel confident about doing business with our firm."
"Oh. Well, not everything is business, Clayton."
"In the end," he insisted, "everything is business."
I didn't feel like arguing. We had our desserts and I let him rush me along. He remarked that we had arrived at the gallery two minutes later than he had anticipated, but it would be all right.
"Thank goodness," I said. "I was beginning to worry." He nodded, missing my sarcasm.
Many of the people who attended knew both Clayton and me. I saw the look of amusement in their eyes when they realized we were on a date. Many of them had nice things to say about my appearance.
Clayton did appear to know a great deal about art, but he managed to evaluate each piece in terms of its potential market value, deciding which would be a good investment and which wouldn't.
"Maybe some people want to buy it because they like it," I remarked, "and not for how much money it might bring them in twenty years."
"You should always consider what something's going to be worth down the line," he retorted. "No matter what you do from birth to death."
I was beginning to think Clayton Keiser had no emotions, no heart, just a calculator in his chest. However, after what he had planned to be our allotted time at the gallery, he surprised me by asking if I would like to see a piece of property he was considering purchasing.
"I think it's the perfect location for a house," he said. "Just far enough away from people to give you privacy, but not so far that you feel out of touch. And there is a view," he added, "which of course raises its potential value."
"Of course. Yes, I'd like to see it," I said. "Do we have enough time left on our schedule?" I kidded, but he didn't smile.
"I believe so, yes."
We drove about two miles out of Provincetown, south on the highway until he slowed down and made a turn up a side road. It was barely a road, with only a gravel bed, but it ended on land that rose and then sloped down toward the sea. There was a wonderful view of the night sky.
"Well?" he said.
"This is a beautiful place. You're right, Clayton."
"Thank you," he said.
"Should we get out?" I asked after a long silent moment.
"No. It might be muddy or rough out there. You can see it all from here anyway," he replied dryly, but he didn't start the engine. Again, a long silence passed.
"Clayton?" I said.
He turned quickly and before I could react, leaned forward and kissed me. It took me by such surprise I was speechless. I thought I might even laugh. It was the most awkward kiss in history, I thought. He missed my lips and kissed my cheek.
"Olivia Gordon, I do find myself attracted to you," he declared.
"What?"
"I think we could be very successful together." "Clayton, we've just gone out for the first time and I hardly think
He lunged at me again, this time seizing my shoulders so he could pull me toward him. His lips fell on my neck. I started to struggle. He held me tightly, surprising me with the strength in his fingers, and then he practically dove at my breasts, pressing his mouth to them and shoving his tongue into my cleavage, the hot wetness nauseating me immediately. He groped at my bosom and maneuvered himself until his weight was on me, his left leg trapping my right leg.
I cried out and continued to struggle, but he pressed on, pushing his pelvis against my hip. I felt his gyrations and heard his quickened breathing and moans. As he lowered more and more of his weight on me, I began to feel like someone drowning, someone being pushed under water.
I managed to get my right hand out from between our bodies where it had been locked against his chest and my own, and I began to pound the top of his head. He didn't seem to mind or to feel it. His movements grew more frenzied until he cried out like a man in pain and collapsed against me.
For a long moment we lay there, motionless. I was afraid to turn or straighten up, afraid he would initiate some new attack on me. His breathing grew more regular.
Then, he suddenly sat up, straightened his tie and wiped back his hair.
"Thank you," he said. "That was very nice."
"Take me home immediately," I said with as much command in my voice as I could muster. I was still so surprised and frightened, I couldn't stop my heart from pounding.
"Of course," he said calmly. "It's just the right time anyway."
He started the engine. I sat as far from him as I could, my shoulder against the door. He turned the car around and drove down the gravel road, not speaking until we were on the highway.
"So," he said, "you like the property. I'm going to buy it this week. I can build us a beautiful home there."
"Not me," I said. "You can't do anything for me."
"Pardon?"
"I don't know how or where you got the idea you and I could ever . . . Just shut up, Clayton. Just take me home."
"Really? I thought . . . Oh. Well, you should give consideration to the value of that property and the potential a marriage would bring to our families and ourselves."
I said nothing until we reached my house. He started to get out to open my door, but I jumped out of the car and slammed the door before he could come around.
"Good night, Olivia," he said. "Can I see you again?"
"See me again," I said nearly laughing. "I think you're a sick, disgusting individual. I don't want to ever see you again," I said and rushed up the steps and into the house.
Both of my parents were still up, my mother reading, my father watching the late news on television. He lowered the volume immediately after he set eyes on me. Mother put her book on her lap and smiled. A few moments after looking at me, however, that smile evaporated.
"What happened?" Daddy asked, his eyes small. I couldn't hide my emotions from him. Besides, my hair was messed and I looked like I had tumbled down a hill.
"Clayton is an oaf," I replied.
"What happened?" Mother asked, her lips trembling in anticipation.
"He was not the gentleman he pretends to be," I said. "Let's leave it like that. Okay?" I followed looking at Daddy.
"All right," he said. "No harm done, I suppose."
"Fortunately, no," I said and marched up the stairs to my room. When I looked at myself in the mirror and saw how disheveled I looked, how far I was from the pretty, put-together young woman I had been earlier in the evening, I started to cry. Then I sucked in my tears, telling myself this is just what Belinda would do.
Only, . . . Belinda probably wouldn't have put up as much of a battle.
In the days that followed, Daddy never mentioned my date nor asked any questions. Whenever I saw Harrison Keiser, I noticed that he looked away. I imagined Clayton had told a different story, blaming me for the failure of the relationship.
Mother concluded it just wasn't meant to be. Sometimes she had a fatalistic attitude, especially when it came to romance. About five days following my disastrous date, my only date in a year, she stopped at my bedroom and knocked on the opened door.
"How are you doing, Olivia?" she asked and immediately grimaced in anticipation of an unpleasant response.
"I'm all right, Mother."
"I'm sorry your date with Clayton wasn't a success." "I'm not. I'd hate to imagine what life would be like married to such a creature."
She smiled and sat on my bed. My mother and I had never really had what other daughters called their mother-daughter talks. Most of what I knew about men and about sex I had taught myself. On a number of different occasions, Mother had tried to get into an intimate conversation with me, but neither of us was very successful at it.
"Sometimes," she began this early evening, "I feel to blame for your . . . present situation. I feel I should have done more to help you find someone, Olivia."
"That's silly, Mother."
"No, no, it's not," she insisted. "My mother did a great deal to help me. She was a very understanding, very sensitive woman, a great companion."
"I'll be just fine," I said.
"Of course you will, dear. You are too intelligent not to succeed in every way. I know you're far more intelligent than I am, even more intelligent than your father, although I would never dare tell him that."
I started to protest, but she put up her hand.
"Sometimes, however, it's better for a woman to seem less intelligent, Olivia."
"What?" I started to smile, but saw an expression on her face I hadn't seen before. She looked suddenly wiser, more perceptive.
"Sometimes, a woman can't be as headstrong or as direct as a man. Most of the time, in fact. Instead, she has to be more subtle, a bit of a conniver. You have to learn how to play a man like an instrument to get what you want or get him to do what you want."
I sat back, a bit shocked..
"What are you saying, Mother?"
"That there's a secret to forming and
maintaining a good relationship with a man and that secret is simply to let the man think he's always in charge. Whenever I want something, really want something, I manage to get your father to think he wanted it first, that it was his idea. That way, he doesn't feel he's being manipulated, you see."
She leaned toward me and smiled.
"Even though he is."
I snapped back as if a rubber band held me on the seat.
"That's not true, Mother. Daddy knows exactly what he is doing all the time and he never does anything without evaluating the consequences thoroughly."
"Of course, he doesn't," she agreed. "But how he evaluates it and how he reaches a conclusion is my little secret. I think you have to relax more when you're in the company of men, Olivia. You act as if . . ."
"As if what, Mother?"
"As if you have to compete, to win something, to show them up, and men just don't appreciate that in a woman. You have to work on being more subtle."
"Be more like Belinda, is that what you're saying?"
"I suppose, in a way," she admitted, nodding.
"And get pregnant and pop out babies in my room in the middle of the night?" I shot back. She stiffened. "Of course not, dear. You have to know when to say no, when to be firm."
"As long as you give them the impression it's their idea to stop, too, is that it?"
"Yes," she said.
"Frankly, Mother, I don't want to be that sort of a woman, that sort of a person. I want to always say exactly what I feel and be as honest as possible and if a man can't stand that, he's not the man for me."
"Oh. Pity," she said softly, more to herself than to me.
"I don't think so, Mother."
She looked at me a long moment and then sighed deeply.
"I just want you to be happy, Olivia."
"I will be happy, Mother, but on my own terms, with self-respect," I insisted.
"Very well. You're so smart, Olivia. I'm sure you'll find the right man and make the best wife and marriage."
She stood up and gazed around my room a moment.
"You might do something about brightening your room, dear. Have the walls painted, get new curtains and a new bedspread. It will be easy to get your father to agree to that," she added.
"By making it seem his idea?"
"Yes, exactly."
"I'm fine, Mother. I'm fine as I am," I said.
She nodded and then turned to leave, pausing at the doorway.
"If you ever want to talk, Olivia, I want you to know I'll always want to talk, too."