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Miles fled from the kitchen and went into the lobby where the battered furniture had been pushed around to form two distinct groups. Agnes Partridge Keeley was holding court with the two elderly widows, Hildabeth McCaffrey and Dotsy Winkler, and Colonel Hildebrandt in attendance. Every few minutes the commingled chatter of feminine voices would be overridden and silenced by a great hollow braying sentence from the Colonel. After an awed pause the female voices would start again, tentatively at first, and then rising to full chorus.

In the opposite corner Gambel Torrigan consorted with Paul Klauss, Harvey Ardos, and the two young girls from Texas. Miles was pleased to see that the cool of the night had driven the two young girls into slacks and sweaters. They had arrived in an astonishing state of undress and, if he was not entirely mistaken, a little bit drunk. And they were still drinking. Torrigan and the girls and Harvey Ardos. There were two bottles and a bowl of ice on the wicker table. Miles noted that they all seemed to be talking at once. Torrigan was talking to the blond girl with the haircut like a boy. Elmore. Mary Jane Elmore. Paul Klauss was not drinking and he was talking to the other girl from Texas. What was her name? Babcock. Elizabeth Babcock. Bitsy, she said she was called. They ignored Harvey Ardos who seemed to be talking to all of them in a very excited way. At least Mr. Klauss was not drinking. Miles wished Gloria Garvey was there to help him handle this first meeting of the entire group.

Who was missing? He counted heads. Mrs. Barbara Kilmer, the nice quiet, pretty blond woman. And the young couple. The Wahls. He realized he had not seen the Wahls since they arrived. He hoped they weren’t under the weather. And Kemp, Barnum and Killdeering made thirteen. Just as he was wondering if he should start without them, he heard a car drive in.

As Alberto and Pepe carried Monica Killdeering’s luggage toward the lighted doorway of the hotel, John Kemp and Parker Barnum paused beside the station wagon, and John Kemp gave
Park a cigarette. They felt very close. They felt close in the same way as do two people who have ducked out the side door of a community theater after the house lights go down for the second act of some very bad amateur theatricals.

Paul exhaled a plume of smoke and said with a tired fervor, “Jesus H. Jumping Christ!”

“How many words a minute, Park? All the way back. Captive audience. She sat right between us. I feel as if I had been beaten to death with a tape recorder.”

“But did you get a good look at how she’s stacked, John?”

“That I did. It’s incredible. It’s beyond all reason. As if somebody took a big wonderful steak, and then smothered it in butterscotch sauce.”

They sighed in unison and trudged toward the door. As they went into the lobby, Parker Barnum looked across the room and saw a shoulder, a curve of cheek. His heart gave that familiar, sickening lurch, and sweat broke out on his body. Then he saw that it was not Suzie, and knew it could not be Suzie, and in fact the resemblance was very slight. She was younger and slimmer, with coppery hair.

The first meal of the assembled group consisted of a clear soup with a heavy sheen of fat floating atop it and, under the fat, a faint and elusive flavor of meat. It was served with flexible soda crackers. After the soup came boiled chicken, chicken so thoroughly boiled that all chicken taste had gone from it. But the boiling had not appreciably softened the sinews and muscles the fowl had acquired through a lifetime of running up and down the slopes of the barranca. There was a chopped leafy vegetable, unidentifiable, of a curiously vivid and sinister green. And mashed potatoes at room temperature, in an ominous shade of gray. The salad was guacamole, and could have been excellent had not Rosalinda become overly fascinated by a large bottle of green hot sauce made of small, crushed, green Mexican chili peppers. The universal reaction was a forkful of salad, a pause, a sudden bulging of the eyes accompanied by moisture, and a hasty heaping forkful of gray mashed potato. A black and gritty coffee was served and, for dessert, that breed of Mexican papaya which has the permeating and unmistakable taste of kerosene.

Conversation was general and somewhat confusing. Miles Drummond sat at the head of the long table facing Miss Agnes
Partridge Keeley at the other end. Drummond had Monica Killdeering at his right and Harvey Ardos at his left. Beyond Harvey was Dotsy Winkler, then Paul Klauss, then Hildabeth McCaffrey, then Gil and Jeanie Wahl and, at Agnes’ right hand, the colonel.

At Agnes’ left was Bitsy Babcock, then Park Barnum, then Mary Jane Elmore, then John Kemp, then Barbara Kilmer, then Gam Torrigan, and thus back to Monica Killdeering at Miles’s right.

John Kemp felt unduly pleased that the luck of the draw had put him beside Barbara Kilmer, but that advantage was canceled out by Gam Torrigan being seated on her left, a Gam Torrigan who, after twenty stricken seconds of exposure to Monica Killdeering, thrust his left shoulder forward and ducked behind it. Gam had brought a new bottle to the table. He hopped up frequently to replenish the drinks of Mary Jane, Bitsy, Kemp, Barnum, Ardos and the colonel.

Agnes Partridge Keeley felt curiously isolated from the group. At her left was the redheaded young girl who seemed to give all her attention to Mr. Parker Barnum. On her right was the colonel who, for the solemn purpose of eating, seemed to have turned off his hearing aid. And beyond the colonel were the young Wahls. They had pulled their chairs close together. They held hands as they ate, and they fed each other tiny little pieces of white meat. Further up the table Mrs. Hildabeth McCaffrey carried on a long conversation with Dotsy Winkler, talking right across that Mr. Klauss who sat wearing such an expression you might have thought he’d been served boiled rat. He glared across at the people on the other side of the table, quite as if they had betrayed him.

Miles thought the food tasted a bit strange, and he looked up and down the table. Only the colonel, Monica and Harvey Ardos seemed to be eating everything. He made a mental note to talk to Margarita and Esperanza about serving. It was unnecessary to bang things down so briskly.

After Margarita had made a round with a second pot of coffee, Miles braced himself and, with the feeling that someone had him by the throat, stood up and rapped on the side of his glass with a spoon. They all stopped talking and looked at him.

“Ah … I want to welcome all of you to … ah … the Cuernavaca Summer Workshop. I have … ah … met all of you. My name, as you know, is Miles Drummond. I am sure we
will have … ah … a productive summer. A … ah … worthwhile summer together … here in … ah … beautiful Cuernavaca, the city of perpetual springtime. Many of you have … ah … already gotten acquainted … but I think the best thing for us all to do is … ah … introduce ourselves. We will start with the faculty. First Miss Keeley and then Mr. Torrigan and then, starting on my left, go around the table. Just … ah … stand up and say … who you are … and maybe … ah … a word about your painting. First, Miss Agnes Partridge Keeley, renowned California painter and teacher.” He sat down and began to clap and all joined in.

Miss Agnes Partridge Keeley stood up and simpered until the clapping stopped. Then she looked most severe. “The first thing I am going to tell you all is that you are going to work. You are going to sketch, sketch, sketch. You will do hundreds of sketches, to train your fingers and your eye. This is a marvelous opportunity. We will go on little field trips together. I will give everyone individual criticism. Remember the name of this organization. The Workshop. Mr. Drummond has informed me that he has acquired a stock of materials for the artist, and will sell them to you at what I must say are very reasonable prices. I will expect to see every one of you at nine-thirty promptly tomorrow morning in the patio. Please bring sketching equipment. Thank you.”

As she sat down, Gambel Torrigan rose slowly to his feet. He went behind his chair and leaned big brown hands on the back of it and gave everyone a long meaningful glower.

After ten seconds of silence he said, “I am an artist. Do you have any conception of the word? What it means? What it involves? It involves dedication. Dedication, not to a routine of silly little finger exercises and lessons in perspective. Dedication to a way of thinking, a way of living. You can’t be a painter unless you are first of all a person. An organism of guts and blood and passion and fear and love and hate. A person who isn’t afraid to live, completely, fully, even recklessly.” He straightened up and thumped his chest. “I am going to make you cut your hearts out and spread them across canvas in raw, strong, powerful color.” He stood for several seconds with his eyes closed, and then in a much lower tone, in a weary voice, he said, “I will give a demonstration of painting tomorrow at two-thirty in the patio,” and sat down. Agnes Partridge Keeley stared at him with murder in her eyes. The students clapped.

Miles nodded at the rather alarming young woman on his right. He saw her throat work as she swallowed. She jumped up convulsively, and took a deep breath so deep that every male at the table found himself staring with awe and disbelief at the front of her blue sweater.

“My name is Monica Killdeering. I teach in a high school in Kansas. I’m not really a painter. I’ve had art courses. I think it is everybody’s duty to bring out the artistic side of himself. I do interpretive dancing. And music and photography, and creative writing. And I spend every summer trying to better myself.” She halted the torrent to suck in a deep breath. “I think this is going to be a wonderful summer for
all
of us, and everybody I have talked to is so stimulating, and I am so terribly excited about what Mr. Torrigan said about spreading my
heart
on the canvas, and I think this is a terribly
quaint
place and I can’t wait to see it in the daylight.”

She sat down abruptly, perspiring and pale. Barbara Kilmer stood up quietly. “My name is Barbara Kilmer and I am from Youngstown, Ohio. I took a Fine Arts course in college, but I haven’t done anything with it for several years.”

“I am John Kemp, an architect from New Orleans. I’m more or less a hobby painter, but I have had the good fortune to have my work hung in several national shows.”

“My name is Mary Jane Elmore and I’m from Fort Worth. I had some silly little old art courses in school, but I think this will be very different.”

“My name is Parker Barnum, from New York. A long time ago I was going to be a painter, but I ended up as the art director of an advertising agency—Sessions and March. I’m on a leave of absence.”

“I’m Bitsy Babcock and I’m full up to here on tequila and Mary Jane said what goes for me too.”

“I am Colonel Thomas C. Hildebrandt, United States Army, Retired. Since I retired in 1946, I have painted over two thousand oil paintings of battlefield terrain.” His large voice made metallic echoes in the big room. “My pictures show why battles were won or lost. When I die, my paintings will be willed to The Point.”

“What? Me? Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Gil and Jeanie Wahl. I mean this is my Jeanie. I suppose she’ll half kill me for letting the cat out of the bag but, well, this is a sort of honeymoon for us.”

“I’m Mrs. Hildabeth McCaffrey and I’m a widow and so is my friend Dotsy Winkler sitting right there. I can’t draw a straight line and neither can Dotsy, but we’re willing to make a stab at it. It might make a nice hobby, and it’s better than sitting up there in Elmira, Ohio, where we both come from, all summer, rocking on the porch.”

“My name is Paul Klauss. I am a businessman from Philadelphia. I am here to learn how to paint. I feel that it would be good relaxation for me. Thank you.”

“H-Hildabeth said it for both of us.”

“My turn now? A long time ago there was an orphan kid with no advantages and all that kid wanted to do was draw stuff. He got whopped plenty for drawing on the schoolbooks and the walls. Well, that orphan kid was me, Harvey Ardos. All I’ve ever wanted to do was be a great artist. And I’m gonna be. I know it takes a long time. I got a lot of time. They don’t discourage me. I know I got what it takes. You got to be sensitive. You got to use your eyes. You got to work. For me, the tough thing is supporting myself. I’ve had a list of jobs as long as your arms. Dishwasher, waiter, short-order cook, stock clerk, bus driver. Someday they’ll put in a book all the things I did so I could keep painting. I’ve took all kinds of courses all over the place. All in painting. I brought along a lot of pics of my work. I got a lot of stuff in storage and believe me you, keeping up the storage payments on that stuff is enough to break your a—back. I remember one time …”

Gam Torrigan stood up and said, “Nobody can doubt that we have a wonderful group here, sensitive, intelligent, perceptive. May I say that I feel proud of this opportunity to work with you. Miles, I guess our pretty little waitresses will want to clear all this up now, so I suggest we adjourn. Every man to his own devices until we begin to work tomorrow afternoon.”

“Tomorrow morning at nine-thirty sharp!” Agnes said shrilly.

Park Barnum followed Mary Jane and Bitsy into the lobby. It was nearly eleven-thirty. During dinner as he had talked to Bitsy he kept noticing the little ways in which she resembled Suzie. An immature Suzie, but with many of her same small tricks and mannerisms.

He caught up with them and said, “Think this town has any night life?”

“We could go check it out, hey, Mary Jane?”

“Okay.”

Bitsy linked her arm in Park’s. “This here one is mine. Who do you want?”

Mary Jane stood hipshot, frowning. “Not that big messy Torrigan type, and certainly not that oily little Klauss. Can you line up the architect, Park? He’s a doll thing, but he looks smote with the sad blondie.”

“Stick around and I’ll give it a try.”

He found John Kemp talking to Barbara just inside the door to the dining room. She was saying that she was tired and thank you anyway, but good night. After she left he told John the plan.

“Aren’t they a little young, Park?”

“Remember, you’re in the tropics. And I just heard you get a brushoff. So let’s go.”

They found the girls in the lobby being talked to by Torrigan and Klauss. Park joined them, looked obviously at his watch, took Bitsy by the hand and said, “Well, let’s be off. See you around, Mr. Torrigan. See you tomorrow, Mr. Klauss.”