“Maybe he can't swim well,” Lowell offered hopefully.
Black shook his head. “I saw him in the pool yesterday. He's good. He was diving off the side, showing off for some of his drunken buddies.” He smiled grimly. “I hated the man then and there. Some people you can just tell are assholes, even before meeting them, you know? And Blodgett is definitely an asshole.”
Lowell thought of that rude bullying voice and Rachel's missing panties. He imagined himself getting into an argument with Blodgett during the course of the volleyball game, taking it out of the pool, and then kicking the man in the balls and punching him hard in the face, breaking his nose, an absurd fantasy of physical prowess like the ones that had sustained him through his impotent teenage years. He hadn't had thoughts like that since high school.
High school again?
“So what do you make of this tournament?” Lowell asked. “When the activities coordinator first tried to recruit me, he said that it was just a little activity they set up for people who wanted to compete. But it doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun and, to be honest, it doesn't look like most of your team even wants to be here.”
“Damn right,” the elderly man said.
Black shrugged. “I don't know. I just . . . I sort of got caught up in it when he was talking, and then I agreed to play. I think I thought it was going to be this little half-hour diversion or something, not something that was going to take up my whole damn day. But I'd already given my word and couldn't back out . . .” He trailed off. “I don't know.”
“And did you see his name tag?” the gangly guy asked. “It says he's been working here for a hundred years. Did you catch that? And this is where he's from. His hometown is The Reata. What's up with that?”
There were nods and murmurs of assent.
He wasn't the only one who had noticed! The knowledge made Lowell feel strangely elated.
“It has to be a joke,” Black said.
“Maybe,” the bespectacled man admitted, but he didn't sound convinced.
“Look,” Lowell said, “my boys are over there waiting. I'll go back, put my trunks on, get them set up and then meet you guys here. Is that okay?”
“We're not going anywhere,” the gangly guy said glumly. “We'll probably be here all day.”
“Go ahead,” Black told Lowell. “We'll start practicing. Just jump right in whenever you can.” He smiled mirthlessly. “My guess is that we're going to need all the help we can get.”
Fifteen
In the bright light of morning, a room service breakfast delivered to their doorstep along with a copy of the
New York Times,
CNN broadcasting reassuringly over the television, yesterday's events seemed like a bad dream. It was impossible to imagine that any of it had happened.
Yet it had.
She knew it.
But somehow Gloria was not as upset as she had been last evening, and her resolve to leave The Reata as quickly as possible seemed to have faded overnight. Ralph, too, appeared much more comfortable and content here this morning, as though he'd taken a sedative to soothe his nerves.
Gloria finished the final bite of her eggs Benedict, the last sip of her orange juice, then settled down to read the paper. Idly, she wondered if that writer they'd met last nightâKevin Phillips? Bob Evans?âhad indeed abandoned The Reata for a resort closer to civilization. It was still not a bad idea, but it no longer seemed necessary, and though she remembered why getting away had been so urgent the previous evening, she could no longer muster the passion for it.
“Look at this,” Ralph announced from the other side of the table. He was perusing the Welcome folder he'd found on their nightstand next to the phone. “They have spa treatments. All day and half day.”
“I could do with some pampering,” Gloria admitted. She turned to the right, catching a glimpse of her face in the mirror over the couch. The dryness, the heat, something about the desert did not agree with her. She looked every one of her fifty-three years, and she knew damn well that when they'd left New York less than a week ago, she could have passed for forty. She pushed back her hair, palpated the wrinkles on the sides of her cheeks. “Make me an appointment,” she told Ralph.
“Full day or half?”
“Half,” she said. “I don't want to have to make friends. If it's nice, I'll do it again tomorrow.”
“It wouldn't kill you to talk to someone,” he noted.
She fixed him with a look.
“I'm just saying.”
Ralph made the appointment for her over the phone, and immediately afterward there was a loud knock at the door.
Who could that be?
she wondered as he went to answer it.
Gloria stood to see, moving around the side of the table to get a better view. A rather elegant and refined-looking man stood outside the doorway of their suite. “Good morning, Mr. Pedwin,” he said in a pleasant, slightly formal voice.
“Hello.”
“I am The Reata's activities coordinator, and I am here to inform you that you have been nominated to join our sporting league for the duration of your stay. Our
elite
squad is called the Roadrunners, and this is the group for which you have been selected.”
Ralph looked doubtful.
“I might add that we have guests who have been attempting to become Roadrunners since they first started making annual visits to The Reata many years ago. The fact that you have been invited to join your very first year is quite an honor.”
First and
last
year, Gloria thought, but she could not help but be impressed by their inclusion in the resort's most privileged group. Heaven knew Ralph wasn't much of a sports enthusiast, but judging from the appearance of some of their fellow guests, a lot of them weren't in peak physical condition, either.
The man seemed to anticipate her follow-up question. “It might interest you to know that participation in our league and enlistment as a Roadrunner entitles you to certain privileges not afforded to other guests. You will, for example, be able to dine at the exclusive Starlight Pavilion.”
“We didn't know there
was
a Starlight Pavilion,” Ralph said for both of them, though that was not something to which she would have admitted.
“That is because ordinary guests are not authorized to dine there and we don't want to offend them by acknowledging the existence of a dining room from which they are excluded,” the activities coordinator said with a small smile. “As a Roadrunner, you will also have access to the Winner's Circle Lounge, where free drinks, hors d'oeuvres and entertainment are provided to all players, members and family of the winning team. Granted, that means that the Roadrunners must win their tournaments in order for you to take advantage of this opportunity. But, confidentially, the Roadrunners
always
win.”
Ralph cleared his throat. “I'm not . . . particularly athletic.”
The activities coordinator spread his hands expansively. “You won't even be required to play. That duty is assigned to the younger, more physically active members of the team. No, just being part of the Roadrunners will be quite enough. There's strength in numbers, you know.”
She could sense Ralph hesitating.
“We accept your invitation,” Gloria said for him.
“Splendid,” the man responded. He held out his hand and Ralph shook it. She didn't like that. There was something official about it, as though they were cementing a deal or ratifying a contract. For some reason, she thought of the resort's managerâ
Mr. Cabot.
âand the image of his smiling face left her flustered. But the feeling disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced by a more familiar satisfaction at the realization that they were now part of The Reata's privileged elite.
“Are you busy right now?” the activities coordinator asked Ralph. “We could drop by the Winner's Circle and take a peek. More than a few of your teammates are there already.”
“May I come?” Gloria asked.
“Of course!”
“How's that possible?” Ralph wondered suspiciously. “They're already there? Did you have a game yesterday?”
“Oh no,” the coordinator assured him. “This afternoon will be the first.”
“Then these are people who just . . . live here full time?”
“Oh, I see what you're getting at.” The other man chuckled. “No, none of your current teammates have participated in tournaments before. Well, one has. But the rest are all new guests like yourself. But while the individuals may be different, team privileges still apply. They're allowed to stay in the Winner's Circle until the team loses.” The coordinator smiled. “Which it never does.”
They were both dressed, a habit Gloria insisted upon for breakfast, but she had not had time to do her hair or makeup. Sensing that the activities coordinator would not be one to wait, she quickly walked over to the closet, withdrew her sunbonnet and put it on, grabbing the appropriate shade of lipstick from the bathroom counter and applying it in the mirror. “I'm ready,” she announced.
“Very well then.”
They followed the activities coordinator down the corridor, then up the sidewalk to a building she had not noticed before, a modern angular cement-and-glass edifice adjacent to the low Santa Fe-style structure that housed the Saguaro Room and the Grille. Aesthetically, the two complemented each other, but the new building was very much visible, and Gloria wondered how she had not seen it before. She had the unnerving feeling that it was invisible to a lot of other guests as well, that it had been constructed in such a way as to hide in plain sight, revealing itself only to people who were specifically looking for it.
“Here we are. The Winner's Circle.” The activities coordinator opened the glass door and held it for Gloria, who walked in followed by Ralph. The interior of the building was one big room, and despite the jutting angularity of its exterior, the room was basically circular, with a few offset window seats. At the far end was a full bar and in between various chairs and couches and futons. There was a large sunken area on the right side of the room in the shape of a crescent, and it was here that most of the people enjoying the lounge's amenities had congregated, drinks in hand despite the early hour of the day.
But that was not the most distinguishing feature of the lounge. No, that honor went to the pole in the center of the room and the six men and women chained to it. They were dressed in the formal attire of waiters and waitresses, but they were tethered to the pole like horses to a children's pony ride, with long chains that fastened to metal belts around their waists. The pole itself, in contrast to the modern design and furnishings, was old and primitive, a single piece of weathered timber that reached all the way to the ceiling and at one time might have been the mast of a ship. Near the base of the pole, two squat, ugly brown menâillegal aliens, Gloria thoughtâwere being secured to additional chains, and as she watched, carpet sweepers and feather dusters were put into their hands, and they were ordered to spot clean the lounge.
At first Gloria was shocked, and for a brief moment she considered leaving the Winner's Circle to protest this gross injustice and clear violation of human rights. But Ralph and the activities coordinator were standing there talking as if nothing was amiss. A smiling young woman with a Middle Eastern accent brought her a complimentary glass of orange juice on a tray, another young woman offered her slices of melon on individual plates of dainty china, and she found that she became used to the situation very quickly. The tethered waiters and waitresses maneuvered smoothly around the large circular room to the ends of their chains, deftly avoiding entangling themselves in a manner that was almost balletic as they served the needs of the seated guests, and Gloria soon realized that this was quite an ingenious way to maintain control of employees and ensure that they remained at their posts.
No it wasn't, she told herself. It would be much more practical to have the staff able to freely move about and perform their duties with ordinary flexibility rather than be tied up like animals.
But that brief aberrant thought fled as a handsome, tuxedoed young man offered her a napkin then adroitly took up the slack in his chain as he headed toward the sunken section of the lounge.
“I could get used to this,” Ralph said.
“I thought you'd enjoy it,” the activities coordinator told him. He nodded at Ralph, gave Gloria a slight bow. “I have other errands I have to run, other work that needs to be done, so I'll let you two mingle. I'll be back later when it's time to start talking tournament strategy. In the meantime”âhe gestured expansivelyâ“enjoy.”
Gloria took Ralph's arm, and the two of them walked further into the lounge, past a tanned, fit couple seated on a love seat talking intensely, down the steps into the sunken area where they were greeted by a large fierce-looking man who introduced himself as the Roadrunner's captain. After the initial pleasantries, Ralph began talking shop with the man, who was apparently some sort of financial consultant. Gloria politely extricated herself and looked for a place to sit down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a wellcoiffed older woman approaching, the deliberateness of obligation in the pace of her step.
“Dana Peters,” the woman introduced herself archly. “President of the Springerville Historical Society.”
Gloria thought it odd that the woman would announce her occupation along with her name, but she assumed that it was one of those big-fish-in-a-small-pond things, a badge of honor in the hickville she called home, and she merely glanced at Dana Peters dismissively. “Yes,” she said, and turned away, gratified to hear a little insulted grunt from the woman.