MEMORIES

OF A HUMBLE MAN
by James Drought

Very powerful... a kind of Thoreau, standing outside the

marketplace.
--- PAUL PICKREL, The Yale Review

Makes me feel inferior... full of love, too...

--- PAUL JENNINGS, The Observer, London

A personality that thinks radically, and thinks for itself... Thoreau

and Whitman used to say much the same thing, and write for much
the same reason: we could use more of their likes today...
--- ARTHUR GOLD, Book Week,
New York Herald Tribune, Washington Post,
San Francisco Examiner

Some writers are blessed with the lyrical gift, some are blessed
with a keen eye and ear... James Drought has all the gifts and has
not abused them... His style is equal in crystal quality to that of F.
Scott Fitzgerald but his approach is much healthier.
--- Short Story International Magazine

Very lively and original...

--- DR. CARLOS BAKER, Princeton University
 All Characters are ficticious.

Copyright, 1964 by James Drought

Copyright renewal, 1992 by Lorna C. Drought, J. Henry Drought,
Sara Drought Nebel, W. Alexander Drought, and Carrie Drought
Ellsmore
 CHAPTER 1

I HAVE ALWAYS considered myself a humble man, fully

aware of my many limitations.
And --- now that I think of it, I suppose this
knowledge of myself does help me to burn the letters from
Connie, unread, unopened, and one by one as they arrive.
As an associate professor of history at Wellend
College in Iowa, I try to lead an uncomplicated life. I don't
like to be reminded of Lake Ohega and neither does my
wife Lee; and both of us are fully aware that this is what
the opening of these particular letters would do.
I see now that Lee and I were too young to own a
summer home immediately after I was discharged from the
army. (If Lee heard me say this she would inject that it
must be the first thing I have ever seen clearly in my life,
for even with thick glasses my vision doesn't carry across a
small room. Lee maintains that in our seven years of
marriage I have missed her lips more often than not with
my stabbing goodnight kisses; but then, I can hardly wear
my glasses to bed, can I. I see that we were too young, but
the letters keep arriving once every two or three months, no
matter what I see or don't see, now.
I always did think it odd the way Lee ignores the
letters from Connie. From the beginning she left them in
the mailbox without taking them inside to the desk with the
rest of the mail. Of course, they have always been
addressed to me. Still, you would think she'd take them
inside. She has never mentioned them. I walk home from
the college and the first thing I do is check the mailbox, and
if there is a letter that has been left, I take it out, carry it
around the house to the back, and then burn it in the wire
basket by the alley. It's a distasteful act, but then I'm not a
stranger to distasteful things.
My father always wanted me to be successful, and
probably still does. He owns a precision industrial tool
company in southern Illinois, and, naturally, expected me to
take it over. He was a demon at working hard and has
attained a position in the small town of Calvin City in
which he can draw himself up to his full height of five feet
and a half, speak sharply to his neighbors, and still leave
them with the impression he is a likeable man.
Once, when he found I was to start the last
basketball game for the local high school team --- which
was reasonable only because I was a senior and hadn't
missed a practice in four years, he astounded both Mother
and me by announcing he wouldn't be at the gym. This, in
spite of the way he had religiously observed my
contributions in the closing seconds of previous games.
But when I returned home later that evening I found the
reason. He met me at the door, shook my hand vigorously,
and handed me a package. He had arranged with Ernie, the
radio-repairman, to record the entire game from the
broadcast. I still have the six records, although in my
excitement that evening I missed fourteen shots and scored
only four points while we lost the game sixty-two to thirty-
nine; and the night has never been one of the highlights of
my life as it is of my father's.
I have never played the records and keep them
tucked away in a drawer where I never have to see them.
But at least I don't have to destroy them as I do the letters
from Connie.
But I want you to know, I respect my f ather. Six
years ago, when I was separated from the military police
section at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and returned home
with Lee, I revealed as gently as I could to him that I had
no interest in entering the tool business.
Fortunately, my younger brother had begun to
display a love for mechanics and had already started work
in the shop after school; so, although my father was
disappointed, he incorporated the company with himself,
my brother and me as stockholders, and told me my
dividends would total eight thousand dollars annually;
aside from that which, he said, would have to be channeled
back into the business. Then he calmly wrote me a check
for two years' worth of back dividends.
The first thing Lee and I did with the money was to
buy a summer home at Lake Ohega, forty miles northwest
of Chicago; and then I applied for admission to the
Graduate School of the University of Illinois for the next
fall.
I am one of those people who never fully recovered
from the college environment and my only aspiration when
I arrived home from the army was to be a college professor.
Not because I wanted to teach, but because I dreamed of
walking home at four o'clock in the afternoon, down an
elm-shaded sidewalk at a relaxed pace, toward a quiet
home in a quiet neighborhood. And from my few
observations at this time, it seemed that only by teaching at
a small college could I ever hope to accomplish this dream.
 CHAPTER 2

FORTUNATELY, LEE and I had almost finished moving

into our new home at the lake before Wednesday when
Mattie phoned and he accepted our invitation for a
weekend visit. However, Friday slipped up on us and with
Mattie's train due in from Chicago in a half-hour, I stood
watching Lee put the last of the glassware into the kitchen
cabinets. Although it was a hot day, even for early June,
she wasn't perspiring and still looked as cool as when we
had started that morning.
The blue denim shorts she had bought to wear for
the unpacking still looked crisp and new, and as I watched
her long slim legs firming evenly as she rose on her toes to
reach the top shelf I relished her tidy appearance. She had
tied her blonde hair back with a ribbon and the blue ends
switched back and forth on the matching denim blouse as
she moved. Suddenly she turned when the last glass was in
place and caught me staring, but as one who was used to
being observed she remained unimpressed, managing only
a cool smile.
"Don't you think you'd better shower before you
drive to the station, Will?" she said. She leaned her elbows
against the counter and bent back as if to appraise me in the
wrinkled pair of khakis and the army T-shirt with my name
printed across the front. "Or are we going native right off?"
"It would be easier," I said.
She walked past me into the living room, but then
gave a short laugh and came back and kissed my cheek.
"That's what I like about you, darling," she said, "your ...
your suppleness." She walked on to the stairway and
turned again as she stepped up on the first stair. "When you
come back I'll be out on the pier trying to catch what's left
of the sun."
"Be careful this time, will you?" I asked. She stood
with one leg slightly bent and her elbow leaning on the
bannister. "Remember the burn you got in North
Carolina?"
"Haven't you noticed I've been taking it gradually?"
She raised the edges of her shorts and I could make out a
vague line where the light tan coloring met the soft white
skin of her hips. She laughed and went on up the steps.
"Don't you want to come with me?" I called.
"What for?" she asked, without turning back.
 I didn't answer. I didn't like Lee's indifference
toward Mattie, but then she had never paid much attention
to him. Lee once told me the only reason I like Mattie is
he's the only person who has ever treated me as a superior.
Of course, I don't believe this, but now I keep thinking of it
every time I think of Mattie.
I picked up the keys to the car from the coffee table
and walked out to the garage. The black Thunderbird with
the cream nylon top had been the second thing we bought.
I had wanted something more conservative since I couldn't
imagine myself driving to graduate school classes, or for
that matter, to teach at my small liberal arts college, in this
car, but Lee had wanted a foreign sports car so we had
compromised on the Thunderbird.
"If you don't like it," she had said, after proposing
the compromise, "we'll buy you a sufficiently aged car to
drive. Or a bicycle." She had laughed. "Oh, a bicycle
would be perfect!"
I had to admit the car handled nicely, though. I
brought it down the steep hill and turned right on the
narrow brick road which wound down between the tall dark
hemlock trees toward the highway. I began to wish myself
that Mattie wasn't coming. I always find it hard to accept
change. Out of necessity I have resolved a minute-by-
minute attitude toward life which spares me thoughts of the
future and therefore eliminates change. Sometimes I slip
up. Now it seemed we were just becoming settled in the
new house, and I wished I had waited awhile before
inviting Mattie.
He had sounded good on the phone, a bit more calm
and not as quick perhaps, but then he'd probably had a few
drinks. Mattie had been a year behind Lee and me at
McClelland College, which is about forty miles north of
Calvin City; and when he had graduated had gone to work
for Telka Publishing Company. Telka maintained a large
staff of journalists at one office and published one weekly
newspaper a day for five different suburban towns near
Chicago. Mattie said that each day a large cardboard sign
was hung on the wall with the name of the town and the
newspaper the staff was to work on, and that he was slowly
going out of his mind. I suppose this was why I had
impulsively invited him to spend the weekend at the lake.
I slowed the car as I passed the fire station and then
the police station, and I had to laugh as I remembered the
story of why the two red brick buildings sat alone on the
edge of a cornfield right where the hemlock forest ended
abruptly. I waved to the two firemen who sat tipped back
against the brick wall in their wooden chairs. Low
factories with their sprawling asphalt parking areas began
to spring up on either side of the highway as I approached
the town of Ohega.
I parked near the train station, and as I walked up on
the brick platform I heard the diesel horn, a deep soft
wedge of a sound drifting from out of the blue afternoon
sky. I watched the track splitting through the flat cornfields
in the distance to where it disappeared in a slow bend.
Soon the glistening, stainless steel cars began flicking
around the curve; the engine was slowing as it passed me,
spreading its whirring sound over the small town. I eyed
the cars for Mattie, but I didn't see him. Then there was a
light tap on my shoulder.
"Lookin' for somethin', fella?"
I turned and took in his tan straw hat, which startled
me --- Mattie had never worn a hat, and the natty
seersucker suit appropriately wrinkled from the train ride.
But as usual Mattie had managed to slip across the line of
correctness with a loud red tie, which damaged the very
appropriate image he strove to create. As I remembered, he
always had victimized himself.
"Well, you look the same," I said warmly. As I
extended my hand I saw her standing a little behind him. I
hesitated to get used to the idea she was there.
"Connie was marooned in Chicago," Mattie
explained. "I knew you wouldn't mind if I brought her
along."
"My God, the celebrity."
She laughed at me, high and sparkling. "Will," she
told me, you're putting on weight."
"Well, this is ... great," I said, taking her arm.
Mattie seemed to relax, although I don't know why.
He couldn't possibly have convinced himself that I forgave
him for springing Connie Lundgren on me like this.
"'I can't wait to see Lee," she said.
She was thinner than she'd been in college, or
maybe it was the wide black hat which shaded her face, but
I was surprised to find New York hadn't changed her. I
suppose I had always justified her pictures on the magazine
covers with the belief she had become prettier since I had
known her; however, she was still merely a tall thin girl
with pleasant features and straight brown hair which was
cut short now and made her look taller than ever.
 "Lee thumbs through every fashion magazine she
can lay her hands on, looking for your pictures," I said.
She looked up, her face apprehensive. "I'm afraid
there haven't been many lately."
"'What do you mean?" I said. "The last one she
showed me, there you were all over the cover."
Connie laughed. "But that was months ago."
We get everything late in Ohega," I told her. I
thought she was wearing too much makeup, and finally
convinced myself this was the only change. I wondered
what Lee would think.
Lee and Connie had been sorority sisters at
McClelland, and Lee had taken Connie in hand, giving her
pointers on clothes and such after Connie had entered the
sorority. Connie was a year younger. Her father had
worked for the sawmill in McClelland and her mother was
a drab little woman who was always dropping things. Lee
gives herself most of the credit for Connie's success in New
York which is absurd and Lee knows it. Connie had fought
her way into the sorority before she had ever met Lee, and
had continued fighting ever since. She was an aggressive
young woman who would have quickly found someone else
if Lee hadn't risen to the opportunity.
"Where's the luggage?" I asked Mattie, and then
turned back to Connie. "If we waste any more time Lee
will have my head when she finds you're here."
Mattie pointed out the bags and we left Connie to
pick them up. "I have a bottle of champagne in my
suitcase," he cautioned as I bent over to pick up one of
them. I noticed one of the brass corner bracings had fallen
off so I knew I had his. "That is if the cork hasn't popped
out in all this heat," he added. When I didn't answer he said
hesitantly, ... for the house-warming toast."
As I looked up my eyes caught the mole on his left
cheek. It had always seemed to me that the mole, although
it was no bigger than a nailhead, unbalanced his face.
"Wonderful," I told him, when I noticed he was waiting for
an answer.
I picked up the suitcase and walked back, thinking
idly about Connie's real name, Coronella, which had
seemed so odd when she was in school but which now
fitted her perfectly in her profession. It was almost as if her
mother had burst out of the drabness twenty-three years ago
to make a prediction that had now come true; and,
although I was aware of some danger in completing a
prophecy so early, as I looked at Connie standing gracefully
by the car I had no trouble dispelling my fears.
"You remind me of a well-sharpened pencil," I told
her, as Mattie came up behind me.
She dipped down in a slight bow and when she
raised her head her laugh blazed out warmly. It plucked
something inside me which still quivered as she slipped
easily into a smile. I began to understand how she had
made the magazine covers.
"How's your father?" I asked, only then thinking of
him.
"All right," she answered quickly. The smile
disappeared from her face but returned just as rapidly. I
decided not to press the subject.
"This is what I've been doing all week in Detroit,
Will, she said wryly, exaggerating her stance into a pose
by the car. "I've sat on the hood, on the fenders; I've been
in and out of the doors, turned the key..."
I went around to the back, wedged the two bags into
the small trunk, and then squeezed into the front seat next
to them, thinking about the conventional car I could have
had.
As I pulled out of the station parking, I had the
impression I'd ignored Mattie so I asked how he was doing,
half-expecting to sit back and listen to the usual long listing
of his many projects which there had always been, and
which had never quite seemed to come off. Mattie
surprised me, though.
"Well, I'm not making fifty dollars an hour like
Connie here," he smiled slightly, "but I am plodding along
in my niche."
I looked over at him closely, hoping he hadn't had
too much to drink on the train. There was a bit of a tense
situation in the car, so I told the story of the two forlorn
brick station houses, pointing them out as we passed them
on the highway.
Old Man Gowdy, which is what everyone around
Ohega calls him, had owned most of the land around the
lake when he died fifteen years ago. And, as the real estate
agent had explained to me, one still didn't buy the land at
Lake Ohega. All property was leased from Gowdy's estate
which was tied up by an iron-clad will the old man had left
behind him.
When the summer inhabitants tried to install police
and fire protection a few years back, the will had resisted
all efforts ingeniously. It had been as stiff and unyielding
as the old man had ever been. Gowdy had an aversion for
towns, villages and cities, and had made it clear in the will
that his lake property was never to become thus organized
or have any community conveniences. Finally, the two
stations had been constructed out in the middle of nowhere,
between the town and the lake, right at the point on the
highway where Gowdy's property ended.
Although everyone had been furious, it was plain to
me that they also enjoyed the new avenue of escape which
the news of the will had unfolded.
"Yes, I'll admit the road could be in better shape,"
the real estate agent had admitted. "But Old Man Gowdy
wanted it this way and that's the way it's got to be. He left
a will that won't let us do anything, you know."
 CHAPTER 3

I ENJOYED CONNIE'S laughter over Gowdy so much I

almost missed my house.
All the white stone roads branched away from the
brick lane at the same angle, and you couldn't see the
houses because of the thick trees. Turning suddenly into
the drive, I made a resolution to place a rock at the corner
as soon as I could so I'd be able to tell which drive was
mine.
We drove up the hill and as we burst through the
dark foliage of the hemlocks into the small clearing, Connie
exclaimed, "Why, it's gorgeous, Will!" --- as if she had
expected something far less from me. "It's ... it's huge!"
The house did look large but I think it was because
of our approach up the hill. The front stuck out over the
hill on this side and about six feet of the white foundation
wall showed beneath the two-story base which was L-
shaped and rose in vertical side-boarding. Coming up from
below like this we could see the bottom of the eaves and at
the same time the top line of the red tile roof, and it did
look as tall as a castle.
I turned the car around toward the garage, and the
flagstone sunning patio (which Lee refused to use because
it was "too hot") came into view on the south side, covered
by a redwood frame with a large red awning which could
be rolled up or down depending on the weather. Single
pieces of the white flagstone stepped down the other side of
the hill to the green lake. On the white pier I could see
Lee's blue towel easily enough, but her figure in the white
swimming suit was hidden from my weak eyes by the white
wood on which she lay. Since she said nothing, I assumed
she hadn't seen us come up, and was looking out into the
lake.
"I don't see how I'll be able to leave Sunday," Mattie
said, smiling. He climbed out of the car and stretched his
arms. The sky above was blue and cloudless. Connie got
out after him but headed right across the patio and down
the steps, her black dress swishing behind her as she bent
her body slightly to see her way down the steep hill.
"Lee," she shouted, Lee!" And then when Lee
didn't hear, she hurried on without shouting.
I opened the trunk of the car, picked the suitcases
out of the small compartment, and Mattie and I went into
the house. I went over and set the bags at the foot of the
stairs, and then came back to where Mattie had stopped by
the wide window which looked down to the lake. As I
stood behind him, I could see Lee and Connie walking up
from the pier, talking and laughing in that tense quick pace
women have when they are suddenly confronted with one
another.
"Chip, chip, chip," I laughed. "I bet that's all they
do all weekend. The only way we'll be able to stop them is
throw one into the water."
Mattie turned away from the window. His jaw was
set tight and both of his cheek muscles were knotted into
lumps.
"What's the matter with you?" I asked him.
He didn't answer at first. Then he turned and
looked out the window again. "This is a very important
weekend for me, he said, finally. It sounded so trite and
forced I almost laughed, but his face was perfectly
controlled now and serious.
"Say, we forgot about the champagne. I went over
to Mattie's suitcase, more to get away from him, I suppose,
than anything. He was right behind me. He opened the
suitcase on the floor and brought out the wine.
"My contribution," he said, flourishing the bottle.
Then he laughed. "I'm glad I got champagne." He looked
around at the waxed oak floor and the two large braided
rugs. I didn't say anything, and by the time I had put the
champagne into the refrigerator, Lee and Connie had come
in through the open doors of the patio.
"... and he's been calling me every day from New
York no matter where I am. Three times he called Detroit
when I was held up there for a week," Connie was saying,
speaking rapidly and moving her hands. When she saw
Mattie she stopped suddenly, as if she had forgotten he was
with her.
"Hello, Mattie," said Lee, turning back to Connie
before he could answer.
"Hello," he smiled. His hand slipped down to the
captain's chair at his side. "What is this furniture?" he
asked me. "Early American?"
"Some of it," I told him. "My father collects Early
American and these are pieces he had stored in the attic out
at the farm. He has so much of it now, he doesn't have
room for all of it."
"Will!" Lee said suddenly. "This girl is making me
feel so dead and dull. Why don't you mix some drinks?"
 "Mattie brought a bottle of champagne but I think
we ought to save it for later. Scotch and water, okay?"
"Champagne?" Lee asked. She sounded as though
there might be something wrong in bringing champagne.
"Why, Mattie, you didn't have to do that."
"I'm a nice fellow," Mattie said.
Lee turned to Connie. "That reminds me of Bud
Horton. Do you remember? Bud always said, 'Mattie's a
nice fellow but he picks his teeth.' Remember that? And
the way he said it. Bud was priceless." Lee looked over at
Mattie and then smiled. "Oh, Mattie. You still don't like
that, do you? I had forgotten how much you disliked it."
"The trouble is," Mattie smiled, "it was nothing
more than a vicious rumor. I have never once picked my
teeth." He stood up and placed his hand on his heart.
Oh, come on, Mattie," Lee said immediately, "I've
seen you, sneaking around corners, and sometimes behind
your hand."
Mattie gave up, laughing, and sat back down. "Bud
created faults I don't have, and I have far too many as it is."
"What's Bud doing now?" Connie asked.
"He's successful, Mattie told her quickly. There
was a short silence and then he covered up the bitterness.
"Advertising. He's assistant account executive for an
electronics account."
I just love your furniture, Lee," Connie said.
"I don't think it's comfortable," she answered. "If it
were one period earlier we'd have nothing but blankets and
peace pipes. But, as you know," she smiled faintly, "Will's
father collects it."
"After all, he did give it to us," I reminded her.
Some of it is pretty valuable. Is it four scotch and
waters?"
"The medical profession claims I shouldn't drink
anything but water," Mattie smiled, "but what the heck -
scotch and water is fine. Need any help?" He started up
from his chair.
Lee laughed. "You mean you may not be
successful, but at least you have an ulcer, Mattie?" He
didn't answer, so as I stepped behind the high walnut bar
which separated one end of the living room from the
kitchen, she turned her attention to me. "Will has a sort of
badge too, as a reward for his efforts," she informed
Connie, waving her hand to the cabinets behind me.
"Those were all made with his human hands."
Connie smiled, "Not Will! --- a handyman?"
 "It took him over five days," Lee said, dispensing
with it.
Mattie came over to the bar to watch. "You know,"
he told me confidentially, "you may never get rid of me. I
brought enough socks for three or four weeks in case I
wanted to chuck everything and stay."
"Is that too much water?" I asked him.
"... but you haven't told me how it all happened,"
Lee was scolding Connie. "You can imagine how surprised
I was. You didn't write a line, and then one day you were
on the cover of Style. I think it was rotten of you to let me
find out that way."
"It all happened so quickly, I'm afraid I really didn't
know anything until you did."
"Fine, Mattie told me. "Here, I'll take Connie's."
We brought the drinks around the bar and then
Mattie and I sat across from the girls. The living room was
large but Lee and I had grouped the furniture into three
small conversational circles, which I thought had come off
nicely. We sat in the grouping near the bar.
I have Mattie to thank for my getting to New York
in the first place," Connie said. She sat sideways on the
couch, her knees drawn up and her ankles barely showing
from under the black skirt as they dangled loosely over the
edge of the seat cushion. Lee had put on her red beach
robe, but it was short and came only to her hips. She sat
next to Connie with her bare legs crossed at the knee.
"Aren't you warm?" Lee asked. "Wouldn't you like
to change into shorts or something?"
Connie wore a severe black blouse, and although it
was slit low in front there was a high collar which turned
up against the back of her neck and then gradually sloped
down into lapels in front. It made her neck look long and
her head small.
"No, I'm perfectly comfortable, really," she said.
"Anyway, I think the furniture does make the room seem
cooler." She smiled, poised and certain.
"Bud told us a little about it when we were in
Chicago on leave last summer," I said. "You were in New
York working for a magazine. You had won some
contest?"
"That's right. That's what Mattie helped me with."
"It wasn't anything, Will," said Mattie. "Anyone
with an I.Q. of a hundred and eighty could have done the
same."
 Connie ignored him and went on. "Style has a
contest for senior college girls. You simply send a sort of
prospectus in April which shows how you would handle
their fall 'coed' issue. If they like your ideas, you go to
work for them that summer. That's what happened."
"But you couldn't possibly have worked there long,"
Lee said.
"'I didn't. A fashion photographer asked me to pose
for him a few times, and three months later I was on the
cover of the magazine I was working for. It was really odd.
Then, all of a sudden I had an agent and plenty of work."
"See, Mattie said, getting up and walking toward
the bar, a little shove from old Mattie puts a person right
in the success stream."
"What are you doing now, Mattie?" Lee asked.
I was on my way to the bar then and I saw his jaw
tighten as she said it. He turned around, though, and
mimicked himself by tightening his jaw still further and
baring his teeth in a wide exaggerated grimace.
"Writing happy suburban happenings for happy
suburbanites," he said. "The water problem, the mosquito
abatement problem, the playground problem ..."
"Another drink?" I asked the girls. Mattie had
poured his own and was about to sit down. He caught
himself by his hands and sprang up to take the empty
glasses.
I must have gone on mixing drinks until the bottle
of scotch was about half-empty, and then I suggested to Lee
that our guests might be hungry. I knew I was hungry.
Whenever I drink I either get hungry or sleepy. I'm afraid I
have no repressed urges ready to spring out once my
inhibitions have been removed by alcohol.
Lee made hamburger sandwiches out of some
ground roundsteak she had; and, as Lee will do, she made
the meat patties so thick they were raw in the middle when
she served them. Mattie said he liked them that way,
however, and I remember Lee looked at him approvingly
for the first time.
After the dishes had been taken away and washed
we were all except Lee sitting by the bar. She walked in
from the kitchen, her beach robe flaring out from her hips,
and because I was stretched out on the couch and Connie
and Mattie occupied the two chairs, there was no place in
our grouping for her to sit. She stood in the center for an
instant. Then she said quickly: "I think we should have a
party."
 I moaned and got up from the couch to make room
for her, but it was too late.
"We could open Mattie's champagne; and then,
Will, we could go to that place in town and dance."
"It's called Lido's," I smiled at Connie, "and the
band leader's name is Harry 'Scoot' Mitchell."
"But how can you think of leaving," Connie said,
and with a wave ot her hand she took in the house and Lake
Ohega, "when we have all this right here?"
"We could have a beach party," I said tentatively.
"Wonderful," Connie laughed. "Why, look at Lee.
She's already dressed for it."
"It's frightening," Lee said, looking sarcastically at
me, being always ahead and waiting for the others."
"You won't have to wait long," Mattie told her. He
leaped up and started for the stairs. "I haven't been in the
water all summer."
"I think I'll go on ahead," Lee said, "then I can scare
you people with how cold it is."
I watched her walk through the patio doorway, the
lake breeze catching at her robe and tugging it back; then I
took the luggage upstairs and showed Mattie and Connie to
their rooms.
By the time I had changed into my suit they were
already downstairs waiting for me. It had begun to get dark
so I flipped on the patio light as I came through the living
room.
"We thought we'd have trouble finding the steps in
the dark," Connie explained. She had on a yellow suit with
ruffles around the bottom which added a few inches to her
severely slim hips. Mattie's suit was a red and blue plaid
which looked new.
I'm afraid I didn't have room in my suitcase for a
robe," Connie smiled, making me feel foolish, standing
there looking at her.
"I don't think you'll need one," I said, turning my
eyes to the towels in my arms. "It's been warm the last few
nights." I suspected she would never believe I had been
noticing her boniness and not her beauty.
I gave them the towels and then led them down the
steps to the pier. I didn't see Lee but I thought I heard her
splashing about a hundred feet out in the water. There were
no trees between the house and the pier and the tall grass
brushed against our legs as we walked down the hill. There
was a loneliness about the lake. The only sign of other
people were the few dim lights which shone through the
dark trees across the water. I heard music, too, drifting
across the black surface, but the sounds were so soft and
fragile I couldn't pick out the melody from the constant
rubbing of the breeze through the hemlocks.
I don't know how to swim, but I lowered my feet
into the water by holding onto the edge of the pier. The
lake became deep quite suddenly on our side and there was
very little beach. I thought I would get myself wet and then
go back up on the pier and lie down.
All right now, Mattie, cut it out, I heard Connie
say harshly.
I looked up but the edge of the pier was too high
and all I could see was the smooth dark sky above me.
They couldnt see me either. I wished I could swim away,
but my hands only tightened on the edge. Her voice came
from right above me. Thats all over with; you know that
Mattie.
He said, quite softly, I dont think it is.
She dove right over my head, jackknifing her body,
and then coming straight down into the lake. When she
bobbed up from the water, shaking her hair, she was
startled to find me right there next to her.
What are you doing here?
Dont tell me youve forgotten I cant swim, I
said. I thought everybody remembered that.
Hows the water? Mattie asked from above us.
Wonderful, Connie told him. Then she began to
laugh as she saw me more clearly, hanging in the water by
my hands. I laughed, too. Wheres Lee? she said.
Probably out at the raft.
Mattie dove over the top of my head and the water
splashed up into my eyes. I decided to go up to the house
and get the champagne, and it didnt take me long to get
out of the water. I like my water in the shower stall where I
can control it. Not until I arrived back at the pier was Lee
sighted.
Here she comes, Connie called out.
I pulled the champagne bottle from the ice-bucket
and tore the tinfoil from the neck. When I looked up once
from tugging on the corkscrew I saw Lees head bobbing in
toward the pier. She was a smooth swimmer and there was
hardly a ripple or sound from her arms as the slid easily in
and out of the black water.
Shes about ready to pop! I shouted. Better
come out and dry off.
 Youll never learn to swim up there on the pier,
Lee said from the edge. She paused to sweep her hair back
with her hands.
Ive been in the water. Tell her, Connie. My
thumbs were bending back about over my wrists but the
cork still would not budge. I braced the bottle between my
knees and it began to move slowly, so I knew I was not to
be embarrassed.
For about two minutes, he was, Connie answered.
She and Lee pulled themselves up alongside me on
the pier as the cork popped out of the bottle and splashed
into the water. Mattie must have heard it.
Hey, wait for me, he called.
I started to pour the champagne as Mattie appeared
at the edge of the pier. He climbed up from the water and
moved over toward where Connie was lying. She looked
up at him coolly.
Will you move away a little, she asked,
impatiently. Youre dripping water all over me.
 CHAPTER 4

I CAN'T SAY Mattie and I were inseparable when we were

at McClelland College, but I do remember some of the
times we had there.
My first year at school had been uneventful. I had
joined a fraternity, learned to drink with the brothers, and
been found to have a capacity which surpassed most of
them. I believe it was because as I drank I fought off
succeeding stages of sleepiness which made me appear
quiet and concentrating with a permanently sober
countenance. I had played with the freshman baseball
team, but had to quit when I wrenched my back one day
while carrying a canvas bag of bats out to the practice field.
It was the way I swung them to the ground, I believe, which
caused me the trouble.
I met Mattie for the first time during the winter of
my sophomore year. I had wondered about the laughs and
wise smiles from two fellows in the house who happened to
be from Mattie's home town of Freeport, Illinois, when they
had balled him as his name came up at our fraternity. But
then they were always smiling wisely about other things
which had no importance, so I'd never had the impression
Mattie was anything special. I had put the whole thing
away in my mind as some local high school incident they
remembered. However, one night I looked up from my
medieval history book and saw the snow falling in the
narrow corridor of light from my window, and it hit me so
hard I decided to walk down to Ole's for a solitary glass of
beer.
Mattie was with Bud Horton, one of our pledges, on
the other side of the horseshoe bar, when I came in. I sat
down unobtrusively by the door. The bar surface in front of
them was filled with salt shakers, empty beer glasses,
bottles and stirring sticks which they were eagerly
maneuvering for the benefit of the small crowd behind
them.
"... ay say, Colonel Blessington," Mattie was saying
loudly, "the bloody fuzzy-wuzzies have gotten us trapped
between the hussars and the blessed mountains."
Why, you're tremblin' like a queen's recruit,
Breechblock," Horton answered, equally as loud. "You
must know, damn it all, one of the queens men is worth ten
of the blessed fuzzy-wuzzies."
 Ay know that, Colonel, Mattie answered, but it's
what makes me so afrayed. The bloody savages ave us
outnumbered twenty to one."
"Breechblock! You aren't suggesting we ask
Colonel Riddlebut and his crew over for the bloody mess,
are you? Riddlebut near smashed me in cribbage at the
club last June and I'll jolly well be damned if I'll ave him
see me 'umiliated."
"Ay say, sir, it's ayther that or death for the
reg'ment."
"Ay say then, death for the regment. Breechblock,
bring me my fountain pen."
"Terrible thing, sir."
"They'll die bravely, Breechblock. The terrible
thing is the responsibility it places on me. The
responsibility of command, Breechblock, is the terrible
thing. There, I've done it. Scrawled the blasted note. Take
it to the field officers. And --- oh, Breechblock, tell them to
keep the noise down, will you? Splitting headache, you
know."
"Ay say, yes sir. And I must say, sir. Terribly noble
thing you're doing, sir, with those men's lives."
With that the two of them stood up from the bar
stools and recited the "Charge of the Light Brigade." When
they had finished, Horton looked up, his face flushed with
the applause and howls, and saw me sitting across from
them. He came over to my side of the bar, making a sort of
exit from the group and bringing Mattie along with him.
This was the night Mattie told me he had gone to a
private high school in Missouri; and, of course, the next
day I found out he had attended the public school in
Freeport. I never said anything to him about it, but I
believed very little of what he said from then on.
Once, in my junior year, Mattie and I took two prim
freshman girls to Peoria to see a burlesque show.
Afterwards, I remember, we sat up in my room on the third
floor of the fraternity house with a case of beer and laughed
for two hours as we recalled how their faces had looked
when the first act had dropped her skirt. That was the night
Mattie told me about his mother. I tried to avoid a serious
conversation because I could hardly hold my eyes open, but
it was no use. Mattie was determined to fill my ears with
his past. His father had died two years after he was born,
and his mother had taken in two boarders and gone to work
in a local factory to put both Mattie and his sister, who was
a year older, through high school.
 "She polished our manners until no one could tell
we were poor," Mattie said, "except our immediate
neighbors, and in a town the size of Freeport that's nearly
everyone. She told me over and over how things would
have been if Dad had lived ... he was a lawyer. She
couldn't understand why I didn't run with the country club
kids. I was certainly good enough for them, she would tell
me. Well, I tried but I never made it. She could never
understand. She worked so damn hard.
"We didn't have any money, we didn't have any
position, but I had been raised rich." Mattie had laughed. "I
was too sophisticated for the poor kids, and the rich kids
would never accept me."
I suppose I looked straight back at him soberly as he
said this. I know I was fighting very hard to stay awake.
By the time I was a senior I found myself with
Mattie more often than not. I had started going with Lee,
and he had begun to date Connie; and since the girls were
close friends, we doubled often. Mattie didn't have a car,
and I can't say I exactly minded giving him a lift now and
then, but I held quite a few campus positions by this time
--- at a college there is a premium on humble men --- and it
was hard for me to bear the antagonism which Mattie
seemed to create in other people. Yet, Lee and I were
becoming serious and the lighthearted company of Mattie
and Connie gave us a nice change of pace. The two of
them were good friends and never acted as though they
were anything else, although once or twice I did get the
impression Connie was holding herself back, and that the
relationship could have become something more.
As I remember, I got that same feeling again, as we
all four sat on the edge of the pier at Lake Ohega and
finished the champagne. Somehow it became difficult to
think of Connie and Mattie as just friends.
"How could you ever marry a man who couldn't
swim, Lee?" Connie was saying. Her rich laughter bubbled
out over the dark lake and hummed around the shore edge.
All I could see of her was the vague yellow of the
swimming suit and her arm which rested on the white pier
like a faint shadow.
"He has other qualities that are far worse," Lee
groaned. "Mother told me I loved him because he is quiet
and reserved like Dad, or at least that's what she said when
she didn't want me to go ahead with the marriage."
 I tipped up my glass and finished the champagne.
"What did you two do at McClelland that last year without
a car?" I asked Mattie.
"Well, we didn't go riding anymore," Mattie said,
laughing. "We'd take a blanket and usually a carton of beer
out behind the gym. We got along fine without a car.
"Anyway," Connie added, "I dated Mattie only on
the week nights." She stretched her arms out above her
head and lay back against the pier, her face outlined by the
sky.
"Connie, tell us about this man in New York," Lee
asked. "He sounds fascinating."
She didn't move as she answered, the water giving
her voice a slight echo. "His father is Thomas Michaels.
Of the Michaels Publishing Company."
"Of course. Michaels magazine," I said.
"And others too," she added quickly. "But there's
really nothing to tell, Lee. Terry keeps calling me, and
that's about all there is to it."
"What's so terrible?" Lee laughed. She rolled up on
her elbow and the black water outlined her white suit,
making it brighten suddenly in the darkness. Lee is more
solid than Connie, if you know what I mean; and I have to
admit I favor it no matter how many dollars an hour Connie
makes.
"Nothing's terrible," Connie answered lazily. "But
you don't know Terry. He's always had anything he's
wanted. All I have to do is say one nice word to encourage
him this early, and I'd never see him again."
"And we can't have that, can we?" Mattie said.
Although his voice sounded light and reasonable I
turned immediately to look at him. I had somehow
forgotten he was with us on the pier. It had always
happened. When Mattie was with a group the others would
become engrossed in something and before long Mattie
would lose touch with the conversation.
He stood up now, setting his glass carefully at his
feet, and looked at Connie. "Let's swim out to the float," he
said, excluding both Lee and me.
Connie raised her head and hesitated as she looked
up at him. He turned away from her and walked to the
edge of the pier, slowly but confidently.
"All right," she said finally, when he had looked
back for her. Her voice struck the same vibrant quality I
had noticed at the train station. I watched them dive,
Mattie first, cutting the water in a long flat lunge, and then
Connie right after him, slicing down into the lake like a
falling stick. Mattie waited for her to reach him.
"Swim straight out and you'll see it before long,"
Lee said, as they turned away from us and glided out.
"Why don't you go with them?" I didn't want her to
feel as if she had to stay on the pier with me because I
didn't swim.
"I've been out there once already," she answered.
"It can be very lonely." Then she leaned over and kissed
me for no apparent reason that I could see. Although I am
used to Lee's flashes of passion, I was set off balance by the
urgency of her mouth. Usually I can predict her desire
because it almost always begins after something she has
seen or heard which has stirred her deeply.
This time, however, I must admit she surprised me.
I could remember nothing that might have touched her.
An hour and a half later neither Connie nor Mattie
had returned from the raft. I thought something might have
happened, a cramp maybe to one or both of them, but Lee
talked me into going up to the house.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Will," she said furiously,
they are both good swimmers. Stop worrying."
I spent a sleepless night, tossing until I finally was
able to shut my eyes just as the yellow streaks of dawn
spread thinly across the sky. I slept through most of the
morning, but when I went downstairs the three of them
were having a late breakfast so I didn't feel as sheepish as I
might have.
They sat on last night's bar stools, which now in the
bright sun of late morning had become breakfast chairs.
Lee, who was on the kitchen side of the counter, put two
pieces of bread into the toaster when she saw me on the
stairs.
So I've been thinking I might go to New York and
knock around for awhile," Mattie was telling Lee. He kept
glancing at Connie, but she stared down at her toast as if
she wished to retract some right she had given him.
"Well, look who's awake," Lee said. She added to
Connie, He fell asleep last night on the pier and when he
awoke he was worried about you and Mattie. I think he
wanted to call in the Coast Guard."
Connie changed the subject. "That's some
sportshirt, she said, pointing.
I had put on one of the Italian jersey shirts with the
wide horizontal blue and yellow stripes, and the neck
opening which slants across the chest. I hadn't been able to
find anything else.
See? Lee told me. "I bought four of them,
Connie, and this is the first one he's worn."
"I feel as if I should rip off someone's skirt," I
growled. Connie and Lee laughed, as if that could never
happen. "It feels funny, as if it were on sideways."
"Well, don't keep pulling at it," Lee said. "You'll
stretch it out of shape."
I sat down and drank my tomato juice, and then four
glasses of water, but I never did eat the toast. Then we
wandered into the living room for a restless few minutes.
There was some talk about sunning on the patio, but no one
moved.
Connie rose from the couch. "I can't seem to wake
up." She yawned and stretched her arms. "I think I'll get
into my suit and run down to the lake for a swim."
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Mattie said. He
stood too.
She looked at him calmly and turned to Lee. "I
suppose I really should help with the dishes."
"Come on, Mattie, I said. "I'll show you around Old
Man Gowdy's retreat."
We went outside to the patio and turned away from
the lake until we found the wide path which ducked down
through the trees under the thick branches where there was
little wind or sun. Mattie said nothing as we walked on the
thick needle blanket which spread out between the trunks
making it hard for me to tell whether we were on the path
or not.
"Beautiful place, Will," he said finally.
"Funny thing about these trees, though," I told him.
"If they were ever cut down they wouldn't come back.
Beech or maple could grow but never again hemlock. I
guess if it hadn't been for Old Man Gowdy the hemlocks
would have been gone long ago. The will won't allow any
of them to be cut down."
Mattie shrugged his shoulders and we walked a
short way in silence. He reached out and brushed the
branches with his hand as we went by them.
"It must feel good, Will, to get out of the army and
settle down in a place like this."
"I'll tell the world it's great to be out of the army."
But then, remembering Mattie, I added, "Consider yourself
lucky you didn't have to go in. I only hope there are more
like you."
 Mattie considered this. "I don't know," he said,
abruptly. "Sometimes I don't feel as lucky as you make me
out to be. All right, so because of my ankle, I didn't waste
any time in service, but still everybody I know has been in.
When I walk into a bar and my friends begin talking about
the army, what am I supposed to say? Nothing. There isn't
anything I can say. It's something I've missed, Will. And
I've missed too goddamn much already."
We headed down toward the lake, where I expected
to pick up the shore path and go back to the house. We
passed the yellow brick place, cantilevered impressively a
few feet out over the water's edge.
"Lee and I looked at this one first," I told Mattie. "I
guess they still haven't sold it."
"Big isn't it?" Mattie grinned.
"That's one reason we didn't take it. Then, too, it's
too close to the water for me."
We took the shore path back along the lake to reach
our house, and as we walked in through the patio doors I
heard the phone ringing. I answered and a man's voice
asked for Connie.
"Can you see if they're down by the pier, Mattie?" I
asked. He walked over to the big window by the patio.
"I can see Connie on the pier, but Lee must be in the
water."
"Just a minute, please," I told the man. I went over
to the patio doors and called for Connie.
In a few minutes she arrived, breathless and in
bright red shorts, and I handed her the phone.
Mattie stood next to her and showed no inclination
to move, so I offered him a drink and guided him toward
the bar. "How about some scotch and milk?" I asked
gently. "It'll knock the dust out of us."
"What's all the excitement about?" Lee asked. She
stood in the doorway of the patio, her hair wet and the
white suit dripping water on the rug. She saw Connie by
the phone, murmured a soft, "... oh," and came on over to
the counter to join Mattie and me.
"Scotch and milk?" I asked her.
She nodded as Connie's high-pitched laughter
glided across the room from the phone stand. I passed
Mattie his drink and he took two large swallows and then
stood with his cheeks bulbed out while he held a third
swallow in his mouth.
After one final bright laugh, Connie said something
very low which I couldn't hear, and then replaced the phone
in its cradle. She stood silently, away from us, as if she
wanted to think about something. I watched her while I
mixed Lee's drink. Then she gave an impatient jerk and
walked quickly over to where Mattie and Lee stood in front
of me at the bar.
"That was Terry," she smiled, before anyone could
ask. She nodded at me for a drink.
"Wonderful," Lee said. "Was he begging for a
date?"
Connie laughed. "He's in Chicago on some new
magazine idea. Found out from my roommate I was in
Chicago; found out from my folks I was here," she chanted.
"He's enterprising, is he not? He called to ask if I'd fly
back with him to New York in his company plane."
"You don't think he'll pull an out-of-gas routine over
Pennsylvania, do you?" I asked.
"He sounds wonderfully eager," Lee smiled. "How
do you do it?"
By being available every other time he calls. If I
can go on doing it for another year, I think he may stick.
"That sounds cruel, Connie.
"Well, we could be married in three weeks, but in a
few months I'd be 'that woman' who plans meals for the
cook." Connie glanced at her glass pensively. "I don't
want that, Lee."
"Well, don't be silly about it, Lee said.
I noticed Mattie's glass was empty. "Like another?"
He nodded and I poured him a drink f rom the shaker.
"That house you like is still vacant, Lee. Mattie and I
walked over that way.
We looked at a beautful nine-room house before
we saw this one," Lee explained to Connie. "Will said it
was too big for us, but I wanted to take it anyway. The
most gorgeous yellow brick."
You wanted it because we couldn't afford it," I
smiled.
Could we see it? Connie asked.
"I don't see why not."
I'll change into shorts, Lee told us, and you go
on ahead.
I wanted to wait, but Connie and Mattie had already
started for the door as Lee ran up the steps to her bedroom,
so I decided to go ahead.
And, as my luck would have it, when we got all the
way over there we found the house locked up tight. I left
Mattie and Connie peering in through the dusty front
windows, while I went around to the lake side. I
remembered a door near the pier and alongside the brick
boathouse. It was locked, too.
I could hear Mattie laughing when I returned to the
front, and as I came around the corner of the building I saw
them standing on their toes looking in through the wide
front window. There were two small windows on either
side.
"I'd want everything yellow," Connie said. Her
voice sounded flat as it rebounded from the glass pane.
"Yellow ceiling, yellow walls, carpets and draperies. It
would be like living on a raft in the sun."
I suggested we hurry back so as to catch Lee before
she left the house and save her the useless trip. We got
there just as she was emerging from the door. She stood,
one foot on the stair, one foot on the porch, and waited for
us to reach her. "What's the matter?"
"Closed up tight," I answered. "No way to get
inside unless we break down the front door."
Mattie came up with Connie. She looked nervous
and her face strained into a smile. "I'm awfully sorry," she
said quickly, "but I have to call and see what train I can get
tonight. Terry's leaving early tomorrow morning and if I
want to go back with him I'll have to be in Chicago
tonight."
"You mean he won't wait for you?" Lee smiled.
"I'm sorry. I'll come up again the very next time I'm
in Chicago."
Of course, Mattie decided to leave with Connie, but
only after she was packed and ready to go, so we almost
missed the train. It was one time I was happy to have the
Thunderbird. No one said much on the way.
And, as Lee and I drove back with the back seat
empty, and passed the two brick buildings which stood
alone on the edge of the cornfield, I had to admit I was
relieved Mattie and Connie were gone. It did feel good to
get into the shade of the tall hemlocks and drive down the
narrow, odd brick road, after feeling the heat of the cement
highway.
"Connie certainly has changed," Lee observed.
What do you mean?"
"She's so calculating. It seems as if now she
measures everything so carefully."
"Didn't she always?" I said.
Lee never did answer me. She went into one of her
silent moods for nearly three days.
 CHAPTER 5

IT WASN'T LONG before I received notice I had been

accepted at the university for graduate work. But by this
time I had got quite used to Lake Ohega and I knew it
would be hard to leave, if only temporarily.
We had joined the small inexpensive Ohega
Country Club, located halfway between the town and the
lake; and while the flat unimpressive golf course occupied
Lee, I spent most of my afternoons in the clubhouse bar
waiting for her and staring at the two huge oil paintings of
"Coon Hounds On The Scent" and "The Treeing Of A
Coon". Tom Harper, the fellow who had sold us the house,
was usually in the clubhouse and from him I learned a little
more about Old Man Gowdy.
"Gowdy stipulated in the will," he told me one day
late in June, "that if his property were ever subdivided for
rent, no industry would be allowed and no lot could be less
than two acres."
We sat at one of the six round oak tables which
occupied the oak paneled bar and grill. The late afternoon
sun filtered through the trees and high windows of the bar,
speckling the surface of the table and the back of Tom
Harper's freckled hand which rested in the middle, holding
a cigarette. Lee was playing in the semi-finals of the Class
A Women's Tourney and had called from the halfway
house, saying she would be late.
I leaned back in the oak chair and sipped at my old-
fashioned. Harper was the sort of fellow you didn't have to
answer. He would keep right on talking.
"It's not as if I wanted to turn the place into a city. I
merely want to add a few more homes around the lake, a
small shopping center --- which would be rustic, of course,
and a more convenient network of country lanes. I'm sure
the old man wouldn't mind if he were alive." He smiled, as
he saw the ash had fallen from his cigarette. "I certainly
wouldn't do anything to destroy the flavor of the place."
I shrugged. "That might not be too easy."
"I have something like Pinehurst, North Carolina, in
mind. Have you ever seen Pinehurst?"
"Yes, I have. I was stationed at Fort Bragg. We
saw General Marshall the day we went. He was retired
there."
"Well, I've talked to the trustees of the estate in
Chicago and they agree, but there is the will. There are
provisions against any merchandise being sold, and, of
course, in order to make the shopping center pay we have
to build a slightly larger population. There will have to be
a few more homes. The lots will have to be less than two
acres. Oh, I'm not saying there won't be any changes."
"What was Gowdy's business?
Harper laughed shortly. "He was a lawyer in the
beginning and then a judge. The old man knew all the
angles all right. That's why his will is so tight."
"Why is it you're so confident?" I smiled.
He dragged slowly on the cigarette, letting the ashes
fall, before he answered. "Well, the son is on our side, so
are the trustees. The times are changing, and that always
makes a difference.
Lee arrived then, and although she had changed her
clothes she was still breathless and excited as she walked to
our table. She had won her match and was now in the
finals. Golf does not excite me very much so Im afraid my
lukewarm enthusiasm disappointed her when she burst out
with the news.
Oh, I played golf once or twice that summer, but
gradually I began to stay at home as Lee became more and
more involved with her tournaments, placing in all of them
without trying too hard. I did get tired of knocking around
in the empty house, so I invited Mattie up to the lake for his
vacation, but his mother became ill at the last minute and
he had to spend his second week in July at Freeport. He
felt so bad that I set a definite date for next summer.
We didn't hear from Connie until the third week in
July, and then it wasn't a letter which we received. It was
an invitation to Connie and Terry's wedding. You can
imagine how surprised we were.
Lee and I went down to Chicago the first weekend
in August and the two were married in a garden ceremony
at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. I could understand the
efficiency of being married at a hotel since Connie's parents
could hardly have accommodated the crowd of people
which had been invited. I did think it was a shame her
father couldn't make it, but her mother came and the little
woman smiled constantly. Lee and I did not have much
opportunity to see or talk with the newlyweds. Terry was
short and small-boned and talked at people rather than to
them, so I wasn't disturbed at having little time with him.
Lee told me later that he had been an officer in the
paratroops, and although she couldn't understand what I
meant I told her I thought it fitted his personality perfectly.
He certainly impressed Lee. All the way back to Lake
Ohega she kept talking about the "quiet electricity" she had
felt when he spoke.
I had to struggle to keep a straight face.
"Did you notice it, Will?" she asked me, and then
went right on without waiting for my answer. "It was a
certain strength I felt whenever he spoke. I think Connie
has done all right for herself."
Well, I didn't say anything. There didn't seem to be
anything to say, and anyway I was concentrating on the
highway. You know how it is when you're passing those
semi-trailer trucks at night. And then when we finally did
arrive at the house, Lee became sullen and paced around
the living room for a few minutes while I had a glass of
milk and settled down in a chair to do some reading. She
stalked upstairs then. I'll never understand women, but I
imagined it to be the wedding. I thought the wedding had
made her tired. Women seem to feel the strain of weddings
more than men do.
Lee recovered, though. The next morning she went
out and shot her best game of golf for the summer --- an
eighty-seven, to win a large trophy and some championship
which the various private clubs of the area had worked up.
Terry and Connie went to Europe for a long tour;
about nine months, Connie wrote. Lee and I found an
apartment in Urbana near the university and I began study
for my degree. We found a furnished place so we didn't
have to move any of our furniture from the summer home.
I think I was taking first semester exams when we received
a postcard mailed from Brussels where, in Connie's words,
they "were looking at the most adorable crystal."
"Also," she wrote, "I told Terry about the summer
cottage next to you. And, Lee, when I mentioned how
sympathetic you were to his phone call last summer, he
decided you were his favorite of all my friends. So we're
buying the yellow brick place. Terry thinks it will be
wonderful and different to have a summer home at Ohega,
and the whole thing is already settled. Meet your new
neighbors. Hope to see you soon..."
But if Lee and I were surprised by the marriage, and
the decision to buy the house at Lake Ohega, we received
an even greater surprise one day in the middle of April. I
was sitting on the overstuffed couch with my typewriter
resting on an old leather hassock in front of me. It was a
dismal morning and a fine mist blew in against the back of
my neck through the slightly opened window. I could hear
the cars sluicing along on the wet pavement two floors
below; and, as usual, I thought about where they were all
going instead of concentrating on the paper I was trying to
write. Lee had gone downstairs to get the mail.
I typed three words, but then Lee arrived back and I
looked up to see her holding a small square envelope which
she had already opened.
"A birth announcement from Connie," she said.
"It's a seven-pound boy. She says he doesn't look like
either of them and must have sprung from one or another of
the grandparents."
"A baby..., I said. "Why, it doesn't seem possible.
"What doesn't seem possible?"
"It doesn't seem possible that Connie would be one
to...," I began.
Lee cut in before I could finish. "Oh, Will," she
said defensively, "half the girls I went to school with
succumb to marriage this way. Necessity is still the prime
mover, you know."
"It's hard to believe," I said.
0h, I don't know," Lee smiled slightly. "It shows
she's human. A person can't figure out everything."
"Well, at least now we know why they decided to
rush into the marriage," I told her.
When we arrived at Lake Ohega at the beginning of
June to open the house for the summer, I had received my
master's degree and was making plans to teach the next
year at my elm-shaded small liberal arts college, if I could
find one. I disliked applying for a teaching job because it
meant overstepping my limited concern for the immediate
moment and I had to cast out into the future --- and that's
when a person builds up too much hope, when he casts out
into the future. Still I had to apply so I wrote to a teaching
agency which sent me a list of openings, of which I
endorsed three.
It was mid-June before Connie arrived. Lee and I
were out on the pier dangling our feet in the cool water and
sipping iced tea when we caught sight of her running down
the flagstone steps toward us, her bright red summer dress
flaring out behind her in the wind.
"Hello, neighbors!" she shouted.
"Well, hello," Lee said. Connie came out onto the
pier. "Where's the baby?"
"I left him at home." Connie placed her hand on her
stomach, lifting and breathing deeply. "That's some hill!"
She looked at me. "Hi, Will."
 Hi, I said. "There should be a law against people
running around at the beginning of summer in a foreign
suntan.
"Italian Riviera," she smiled. She turned slowly for
us to see. "We were there three months and I'm afraid, with
all due respects to Lake Ohega, that I could have stayed
forever."
"Will the baby be all right?" Lee asked.
"Oh, for a few minutes. I thought you might like to
come back with me and peek at him."
Lee got up quickly. "I've been dying to see him."
I followed along behind them on the path next to the
lake. I was anxious to see what had been done to the
interior of their place, but I could tell as we came around
the boathouse that they hadn't finished moving in.
"Come right through here," Connie said. She
guided Lee by the arm as we stepped between empty boxes
and the litters of paper waste which covered the back lawn.
Four men were unpacking the crates which stood in
scattered bunches. Two more men made rapid trips in and
out of the house, carrying small furniture, lamps and
paintings. Connie led the way to the front where there was
a large moving van and more men unloading chests,
dressers, and the larger pieces of furniture. We followed
Connie in through the front door.
"I had the workmen finish Paul's room first and it's
the only part of the house that's done."
"Where's Terry?" I asked. There was a general
confusion of boxes and scattered furniture. Canvas had
been placed down around the walls and in two of the rooms
I saw the painters working on scaffoldings.
"He won't be up until this weekend," Connie
answered. She looked away quickly and shouted out some
instructions to one of the workmen. I thought it was
strange Terry wasn't with her, especially after the way she
answered, but then I remembered he'd be busy after being
away for nine months honeymooning.
"How is his project?" Lee asked. "I can hardly wait
to see the new magazine."
"Everything Terry does turns out all right," Connie
said, "at least in business." She turned and went up the
stairway without looking back. We followed her, passing
two painters who were turning the hallway green, and then
walked into the large room.
Everything was yellow: the crib, the crib sheets,
curtains, two round wool rugs; and even a stuffed rocking
chair had been covered with a yellow flower pattern. The
windows on both sides of the room were open and a cool
breeze blew in from the lake. The brightness stung my
eyes at first; light rebounded from every wall and corner.
"Oh, he's so precious," Lee said. She bent over the
yellow crib. "May I pick him up?"
"Of course," Connie said, laughing. "That's what
he's for. He's been spoiled already by half a dozen
European nurses."
"If this isn't the brightest room I've ever seen," I
said, rubbing my eyes.
Connie looked at me oddly, but turned back to Lee.
"I'd offer you a drink but I don't know where anything is.
There'd be no place to sit."
"When do you think you'll finish?" Lee patted the
back of the baby's head.
"They promise by tomorrow." Connie took the
baby from Lee and returned him to the crib; and as she
bent over and tucked the yellow sheet around him, she
asked casually, "How is Mattie?"
"He's fine, I said, at least from all he says in his
letters. But then you know Mattie in his letters --- he's
always bitching about our apathy toward world affairs.
He's coming up to stay here with us on his vacation."
Connie looked up from the bed and I felt as if I had
to explain. "You know Mattie, he never forgets an
invitation."
She laughed sharply and turned to Lee. "Isn't he a
wonderful baby?" she said. "I can yank him out of a sound
sleep and he doesn't fuss."
"Maybe he has a low metabolic rate," Lee smiled.
"Now, Lee. You can't say that about everyone who
is quiet. Look at your husband. He certainly doesn't have a
weak thyroid."
"No," Lee answered softly, "and he is quiet and
gentle, isn't he?"
"I think it must be refreshing to live with him,"
Connie added.
"All right, stop it," I said, as they both burst into
laughter.
I left them in the baby's room and went back down
the steps past the moving men and out into the yard. There
were even two men out painting the pier, I discovered, as I
went on by and followed the lake path back to our house.
We didn't hear anything from Connie until she
called on Friday and said Terry would be driving up that
afternoon, the house was finished, and would we come over
for dinner and drinks.
I don't think either Lee or I knew why, but we both
dressed for dinner. I suppose it was merely the beginning
of the many changes that Terry's presence was to make.
Connie looked lovely when she opened the door for
us. But she had dressed in sports clothes and looked
flushed and shocked when she saw Lee and I were formal.
Terry appeared in the silence behind her. He wore a white
dinner jacket with black tie.
"See, Connie," he said softly over her shoulder. Lee
and I stood uncomfortably in the doorway. "I told you."
He looked up at us, "Come in, come in. You have to invite
the people in, Connie. My wife is apparently flustered; I
hope you'll excuse her."
Connie turned suddenly, pushed past Terry, and then
ran up the stairway. Lee went after her.
"For some reason," Terry said pleasantly, "the girl
had the impression you two wouldn't dress. I told her it
was silly but she insisted." He smiled. "She said
something about 'going native'."
"She was nearly right about us," I said evenly.
Terry's lack of height made me feel clumsy as I towered
above him, and his pinched-in cheeks and sharp thin face
made him look as though he were constantly in the act of
sizing me up.
"How's that?" he asked, cocking his head as though
it were a favorite expression he was exercising.
"I said we almost didn't dress."
He considered this and then said quietly, "I suppose
you do get out of the habit up here." He took me by the
arm and led me into the living room where he stepped over
to a glass coffee-table. "Would you care for a manhattan?"
he asked.
"Fine." I fished for something else to say. "How's
your magazine doing?"
"Oh? Has Connie told you?"
"Not really. She mentioned you were working on
an idea for a new magazine, but that was last summer."
He handed me the manhattan. "Well, it's hard to say
whether it's going well or not," he smiled. "My idea was to
put out a magazine that would appeal primarily to the
suburbanite. What we still lack are some clear ideas about
who these suburbanites are and what they want to read."
"Can't you ask one?"
 "No, that's the trouble. People who live in the
suburbs don't know what they want, all they know is that
they want something. We already knew this much when we
thought of the magazine."
He didn't say any more but remained standing as he
stared at his glass. I sat on one of the French Provincial
chairs and sipped at my manhattan. All of the furniture
cushioning was a rich maroon velvet. The walls had been
painted a deep maroon and there was a large thick oriental
rug which was splashed with maroon and yellow figures. I
thought the house hardly looked like a summer home.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Terry said. I noticed he had
been watching me. "We picked up most of the furniture at
auction in Chicago. One of the north lake shore homes.
Also the rug. Fantastic prices. You wouldn't believe it.
The bidding was low and there wasn't anything we didn't
want to buy."
Connie and Lee came down the stairs and into the
room. Connie had changed into a stunning red formal
which brought out the dark tan of her skin and deepened
the brown in her eyes. Terry smiled at Lee.
"I remembered you as being beautiful, but my
memory didn't do you justice."
Lee laughed and the brown sheath formal she wore
hugged around her stomach as she did so, shaping a firm
protruding roundness between the sharp angles of her hips.
"Why is it, Connie, that you can never find a dress
like that?" Terry smiled blandly at me. "Connie always
manages to look as if she's going to a college prom."
Without answering I looked at Connie, but she was
smiling steadily at her husband, so I smiled too.
"Grass is always greener..." Lee laughed merrily.
She took her drink from Terry's hand.
"You know, sometimes I believe it is," Terry said.
Connie took her drink silently and walked to the
other end of the room. "I suppose we all realize our
mistakes too late, Terry," she said softly, looking at one of
the thick yellow draperies which had been drawn across the
wide front window. She walked back smiling. "I thought
there was a spot already, but it was just a shadow."
I felt a strong urge to walk out the front door and go
home. I hate to have my nose rubbed in unhappiness, and I
see no reason to allow it. But of course I stayed. I jabbered
and smiled, all through dinner, feeling as if my face were as
firm as glass.
 After dinner we went back into the living room
where we sat holding our manhattans. Except Terry, who
was standing. He would stand when he spoke for any
length of time.
"Everyone tells us he's the biggest boy for three
months they have ever seen," he was saying. "But I
wouldn't say he's big. He makes you think it because he's
so solid."
"Maybe we should change the subject for five
minutes," Connie smiled.
"You know," he said slowly, "sometimes I can
hardly believe you're the mother of that boy. There's no
reason to be ashamed of him, is there?"
She laughed uneasily. "Because I don't talk about
him all the time, I'm ashamed of him. That's typical of
your criteria, Terry."
"Damn it, take putting him in that room. Did you
see the boy's room?" he asked us. "All yellow. Paul might
grow up to be a butterfly." He sat down stiffly.
I laughed sharply, but then looking at Connie I felt
suddenly ashamed for laughing, and so I coughed.
"Why don't you tell us about your plans, Will?"
Connie asked. "Are you going to teach next year?"
"I suppose so."
"Do you have any idea where?"
"He hates to be pinned down about that," Lee
smiled. "He is afraid he might be refused and then where
would he be."
"I've told the teaching agency I was interested in
three offers. Two of them are from small schools in Iowa
and the other is from a small school in Illinois."
"You aren't going on for your doctor's degree then?"
Terry asked.
"No, not right away. I want to teach for a few years,
then I may want to do more graduate work."
Terry was obviously bored with the subject of me.
Say," he said, "how is the fishing at this lake?"
"Don't tell me you're a fisherman?" Lee asked.
"Yes. But why are you so surprised?"
"Where did you ever find him, Connie?"
"Anyone need a good college teacher?" I smiled at
Connie.
"I'll have you know I hold the muskie record for
Minnesota," Terry added. He rose to his feet again.
Connie laughed. "He has a guide at this lake in
Minnesota, she said, "and when spring arrives Terry goes
up for three days and the guide, after studying the fish for a
solid year, tells Terry right where to go, and then even rows
the boat so he won't miss the spot." She laughed again.
"Terry's held the record now for three years."
"It isn't as simple as all that. I'm not the only man
who has a full time Indian guide."
Oh, it's an Indian. I didn't know that. I thought
you believed all non-whites were inferior."
Terry turned to us. "We all have guides. It's a
fishing lodge I belong to," he said. Then he sat back down
in his chair. "Oh, what does it matter."
"I haven't fished since I was a child," Lee offered.
"My father took me with him all the time. Will doesn't like
to fish, she smiled. "He's afraid to go out in a boat."
"Naturally I'm afraid to go out in a boat," I said.
"You remember the last time I got into a boat with you?" I
turned to Terry and Connie. "First thing she did was giggle
and rock it. I can't swim."
"Well, that's good," Terry smiled. "The old boy
won't bother us, Lee, when we go out for them. There's
nothing as mean as a jealous husband with a fish hook."
"Can you get a boat?" Lee asked.
"There's a boat out in the boathouse. It's supposed
to be all set to go."
"Wonderful."
"When do you want to go?
"I'll be up early tomorrow morning," Lee said.
Fine, Terry answered. "I'll bring the boat down to
your pier at five-thirty. You and I are going to have to
stand together against these two non-fishermen."
 CHAPTER 6

A FEW WEEKS later Mattie wrote, saying he would be up

the next Tuesday to begin his vacation. Lee, who had
thought all along it was a poor idea to have Mattie around,
had suddenly changed her mind, and now began to look
forward to his arrival with more enthusiasm than I could
believe. However, a few days before he came, Lee
received word from her mother that her father was ill, and
immediately insisted she should go down to Chicago to be
with him. The whole thing to me sounded like nothing
more than an upset stomach, but Terry offered to drive her,
since he was going back that Monday morning (he had
been spending his weekends at the lake and during the
week he worked on the forthcoming magazine in Chicago).
And so she went.
The day Mattie's train arrived, I drove along to the
station, disappointed that Mattie wouldn't see the change in
Lee's attitude toward him, at least not immediately.
He was wearing the same seersucker suit he'd been
wearing last year, when I found him at the station; and it
still looked rumpled, though not from the heat this time.
Because of a few well-placed spots it now looked weary
from use. He also wore the same straw hat and stepped
with that jaunty confidence which had always slightly
repelled me.
He explained how his job was "coming," and it
seemed to me as I listened that his job wasn't "coming" at
all. I don't know why but this didn't surprise me. Although
no one had ever spoken about it, I had the feeling most of
Mattie's friends had always known he would slip into a
minor job and never slip out again.
When we got to the house I mixed him a drink and
tried to explain where Lee was.
"Did you know that Connie and Terry have the
place next to ours?" I asked him, as I handed over the
highball.
"Matter of fact, I do."
"No regrets?"
"You know me better than that, Will, he smiled.
"Since when have I been able to afford regrets. Anyway, I
have a damn strong feeling it's better this way. Connie and
I are good friends, nothing more and nothing less."
 "Good." I shrugged and explained, "Lee was
worried about their being next door and your coming up. I
told her it was all in her head."
"Well, it was nice of Lee to think of it anyway,"
Mattie said pleasantly.
That was like him. He could always be counted on
to control his emotions, and although I'd known all along
he'd be all right about it, I suppose Lee's sudden change had
upset me. After all somebody has to worry about these
things and when she doesn't, I do.
Mattie had never had good luck with girls, even in
school. He dressed well enough, but the women never
seemed to care for him. The closest I ever got to a reason
was once when I had asked Lee. She had answered
vaguely that it was a lot of things. When he swears, for
instance, she had added, it sounds vulgar the way it does
when you hear a small boy say his first ugly word. Well, I
had never been impressed with this offering, but I did
accept it as an example of Mattie's unpopularity. There had
to be some reason, and from my estimate of the girls at
McClelland, Lee's reaction might just as well have been
theirs. But at least, Mattie had learned to be a good sport
about it and this was what I had counted on. Mattie had
become the world's best loser.
"How about a swim?" I asked him.
He looked up from his glass as if I had startled him.
"Fine, he answered. He tipped up his drink, finishing it in
one quick swallow. Then he shuddered. "God ... someday
this stuff will kill me!"
"Listen, that 'stuff,' as you call it, cost me eight
bucks," I said. "If you can't drink that, you can't drink
anything."
When I came down the steps Mattie was waiting for
me on the patio in his blue and red plaid trunks. We went
down to the pier where he dove into the water immediately,
laughing at me while I lowered myself into the lake to get
wet. I was sitting on the pier, watching Mattie's head
bobbing in and out of the water about a hundred yards
away, when I heard her come up behind me.
"Hello," she said.
"Hello, Connie." Connie's skirts always managed to
cling in the right places and the black one she wore now
was no different.
"I thought I'd drop over and see how you were
doing without the guiding care of a female. Lee isn't back
yet, is she?"
 "No," I answered. I turned away from her tan
shoulders, bared interestingly by a white peasant blouse,
and looked out at the water for Mattie. His head had
vanished. "I expected her back today, but I guess she felt it
was better to stay."
"Was there someone in the water when I came?"
Mattie, I told her.
"Then he did decide to come up, she smiled.
"Why don't you get your suit on and join us?"
"I couldn't leave the baby that long. Terry has been
trying to find a nurse in Chicago, but no success so far."
She smiled. "I'm afraid I'm burdened with responsibility."
"You could bring your responsibility over here and I
could sit with him. If you remember, I don't go very far out
into the water."
"Yes, I remember," she grinned. "Well ... I suppose
a little sun would do him good. I'll tell you what, while I'm
thinking about it, I'll go home and put on my suit.
"Fine," I said. I watched her long tanned legs as she
went up the steps to the top of the hill.
When I looked out toward the lake again, Mattie
was almost back to the pier. I watched him pull himself
half out of the water, resting with his elbows on the white
deck.
"She coming back?"
"Yes, she's bringing Paul."
"Now who in the hell is Paul?"
"The baby."
"Oh, yes." Mattie laughed. "I heard." He brushed
the black hair from his eyes. "What's he look like?"
"Like they all do, I suppose," I answered. "Red and
shriveled in spots, and not very pleasant.
A warped view if I ever heard one," he smiled.
"Say, why don't I go in and bring the scotch bottle
out here to the pier?"
I don't know," Mattie said. "Why don't you?"
I went up the steps to the house. By the time I came
back with the scotch, Connie had returned with the baby
and a wicker basket which she had placed on the pier.
"What do you think of him?" she was asking Mattie.
She leaned down with the baby in her arms to where he
hung from the pier by his elbows. Her legs looked very
long and straight from behind.
"Fine. Looks good," he answered.
"Not half as well built as his mother," I said, coming
up from behind.
 Connie straightened. "I should hope not." She put
the baby into the basket, and then she looked as if she were
about to jump right in the water.
"Now, wait a minute," I said, brandishing the bottle.
"Why don't you two have a drink and be sociable before
you go off into the lake and leave me here." I poured a
fingerful of scotch into each of the three glasses I had
brought, and handed two of them over.
Connie drank hers down right away and a few
minutes later it must have hit her because she looked up
suddenly and said, "This is wonderful, isn't it?"
"Isn't what?" I asked, grinning at Mattie.
"Being together again. It's like old times. I do wish
Lee was here, though."
I was embarrassed, but Mattie put an end to the
situation admirably. "I think we ought to find a single girl
for me," he said, smiling. "What will happen to my
reputation if I'm always to be paired off with young
mothers." He didn't say any more but dropped off the edge
of the pier and pushed out into the water.
Connie got up quickly. "Take good care of Paul,"
she ordered me, and then she dove off the pier to join
Mattie, who was now rapidly pulling out into the lake away
from her. "Hey, wait for me!" she shouted to him, but he
didn't even look back. I wished Lee could be there to see
how well Mattie was behaving.
I watched them thread their way along a sun-
glistened strip of water, their arms flashing briefly out of
the silver. It wasn't long before she caught up to him. She
had always been the stronger swimmer. But when she
edged up to his shoulder, he saw her and with a sudden
burst of energy he drew away again.
"Take it from me, Paul," I said, leaning over the
basket. "When you grow up learn to swim, or you'll always
be left at the pier with the scotch bottle."
When I looked up again they had reached the raft
and had pulled themselves out of the water. I watched the
two specks as they appeared and disappeared on the screen
of tall dark trees which stretched up from the opposite
shoreline behind them; and the slim yellow raft was visible
only for instants above the water.
Along the beach on my side, which ran in a tight
yellow band of sand between the grass hill and the water,
there was a stirring or shifting I could hear. I reached over
and rocked the baby in his basket.
 I wanted everyone to be here at Lake Ohega in stead
of popping down to Chicago as Lee and Terry had done,
which seemed to ruin the solid atmosphere of
changlessness.
There had been one afternoon, I remembered,
during the final spring Lee and I were at McClelland, when
with Connie and Mattie we had driven out to a small quarry
about five miles north of the school. The water had been a
pale green color, and we turned off a dirt road which
paralleled the rusted steel tracks of an abandoned railroad
spur.
I stayed up on the rocks; but after diving into the
water still lighted by a low twilight sun and swimming
awhile, the three of them rejoined me on one of the rust-
specked rock ledges which jutted out above the green
surface.
"I don't know," Connie said, carrying on some
conversation they had begun in the water, "I think marriage
should be gay." She tossed her hair back from her face.
"Second the motion," Mattie said, laughing. "Marry
me and we'll live in a tree house and swing on the
branches."
"You always exaggerate everything I say," she told
him, "until it sounds absurd. What I mean is, marriage
should never become a mutual drudgery."
"Heavens no," Lee laughed. "Who wants to be a
drudge?"
"But it does happen. Sometimes it happens without
the two people realizing it."
"Then they must have been drudges already," Lee
responded quickly.
Connie lapsed into silence. "Maybe you're right,"
she said finally.
"Say, is Horton going with us to the formal
tomorrow night?" Mattie asked.
This was the fourth time I'd had to assure him that
we would be with Horton. I knew it would be difficult,
because Mattie was sure to be sensitive to a change in plans
Horton had told me about before I had picked up Mattie,
Connie and Lee. Bud had said he and his date would drive
out to the country club dance with Bill Simmons; however,
they would still meet us at the hotel bar for cocktails
before, and we could all decide where to meet after the
dance. We had it down to two choices: a picnic at the
quarry, or a party at Minnie's, an after-hours barbeque out
in the country where we could raise as much hell as we
wanted.
I told Mattie the new development and all I received
in return was a worried nervous look.
"I thought so," he said. "We won't see much of
Horton tomorrow night, I'll bet." Mattie tried to laugh but
it was obvious he was disappointed.
I thought if we didn't see Horton we'd be lucky,
since I knew he had a date with one of the more fast nurses
at the town hospital, and I was certain Lee and Connie
would react to that and maybe spoil the whole evening.
"Well, six people in one car wouldn't be
comfortable anyway," I said. "I only offered Bud a ride if
he couldn't get another lift."
"Horton's the only guy who will know where
everyone's going after the dance." Mattie added softly,
"Where Bud goes, that's where everyone will be."
Connie stood up quickly. "Will you please forget
about Bud Horton, and think of me?" she said. "Let's go
back in the water for awhile."
He joined her at the edge of the rock and they
disappeared down into the water twelve feet below. I lay
back with Lee, but I kept thinking about Mattie.
He'd worked hard his freshman year and made
quarterback on the frosh team. The next year there had
been a hole at quarter on the varsity and Mattie had gone
into it as a sophomore, with a board job in the school
cafeteria. But it had all ended right in the beginning.
Mattie had hurt his ankle in the first game and hadn't
touched a football since.
"What are you thinking about so hard?" Lee smiled.
She rose up on her elbow, leaning over me as she kissed my
forehead and then my cheek.
"I was thinking about Mattie," I answered. I
thought that maybe things would have been different for
him if he hadn't been hurt.
"Oh, Mattie," she said. "Why does he press so
hard? What's his trouble, anyway?"
"I'll be damned if I know," I told her. "But there are
more important things than Mattie." I reached up to her,
and she smiled just before I kissed her.
And then, naturally, someone shouted my name.
"Will! Hey, Will!"
We looked up but we couldn't see anything in the
dusk, so we rose and stood up on the rock. The lights of a
car beamed out above us and I could see a figure coming
down the hill from the tracks.
"Over here!" I shouted.
Bud Horton stumbled down to where we were.
"I've been looking all over for you, he said. "Isn't Connie
with you?"
"She's down in the water. What's the matter?"
"Something's happened to her father. Mrs.
Lundgren has been phoning all over trying to get her. I
guess she hasn't been home all day."
I went over to the edge of the rock but I couldn't see
anyone in the water. "Hey! Connie!"
On one of the lower ledges a dark shape moved and
then broke into two figures.
I watched them scramble up the rocks toward me.
"Hello, Bud," Connie said. Mattie had boosted her
up, and Horton had taken her hand and swung her onto the
ledge.
"Something's happened to your father, Connie.
Your mother's been trying to reach you."
Connie froze into stillness.
"It's all right," Horton added quickly. "He's at the
hospital now and he's all right. Your mother said if I could
find you to say you should go home and not to the
hospital."
Well, I drove her to her house, and when we got
there Mattie went inside with her. Lee and I went on back
to the campus. The next morning Mattie told me what had
happened. Mr. Lundgren had been running some lumber
through the circular saw at the mill where he worked. One
of the boards had caught, flipped into the air, and rammed
him in the small of the back.
Connie couldn't go to the formal --- her father was
partially paralyzed from the waist down, but she wanted
Mattie to go on ahead without her. Lee tried to get him
another date but it was too late, and it was always hard
enough to fix Mattie up with a girl anyway. So Lee and I
took him along with us and the whole evening worked out
rather badly. We missed Horton at the hotel bar. (I found
out later that he had rented a room at the hotel and never
made the bar or the dance.) Lee seemed to take the whole
business of the dance nicely, although she must have
danced every number either with Mattie or with me.
 CHAPTER 7

I SUPPOSE I should have seen it all coming. When Mattie

and Connie came back to the pier they both looked as
though they had convinced each other they were back at
McClelland College.
Even when Lee returned from Chicago the next
morning, it made no difference to them. They remained
together, either swimming or cavorting around the raft. Lee
didn't seem to care either and stayed close to the pier with
me. I didn't understand it because I knew she hadn't had
much chance to talk with Connie. But then there was a
tenseness between the two girls too, which I also didn't
understand. I tried to ask Lee about it, but I guess I didn't
phrase it too well.
"Don't you appreciate my company?" she smiled.
She sat on the edge of the pier with one leg dangling into
the water.
"You know it isn't that, Lee," I told her. Since she
had come back from Chicago she'd been impossible to talk
to. I thought she was worried about her father. "It's ...
well, I feel as if we should do something."
She laughed loudly. "This is something new for
you, isn't it? This feeling responsible for everyone all of a
sudden?"
"I was thinking of Mattie.
"They're old enough to know what they're doing,"
Lee said. "Anyway, there isn't anything you could do even
if you wanted to, which I don't believe you do."
"Look, Lee," I said, trying to be calm. "I realize
you're upset about your father, but it doesn't help anything
to take it out on me."
She sat there silently, looking stiffly at the water.
"How is he?" I asked.
"Who?"
"Your father, of course." I was convinced now she
was simply upset.
"He's getting better. But I'll have to go down again
soon."
"Why is that?"
"He seems to get along much better when I'm there
with him."
I could imagine him wanting her there. Her father
treated both Lee and her mother like a school teacher treats
pupils --- always with the correct amount of deference, but
always with a definite objective in mind. He would get
more and more brusque if there was any reluctance toward
immediate and complete agreement. Lee maintains that I
was the first fellow she went with whom her parents didn't
like and that this was one of the reasons she married me.
Sometimes, I honestly believe her. She made up her mind
fast enough. It's as if I would be licensed to you like a dog
or something, she would tell me whenever we spoke of
marriage; so we had never made any serious arrangements.
Then, after an argument with her parents, Lee flew down to
North Carolina one weekend and we were married at Fort
Bragg by an army chaplain. I suppose the thing which
prompted her was that by chance I had stumbled on a five-
room apartment in a pleasant section of Fayetteville, a
nearby town. We were married with little ceremony, as she
wanted, with none of the parents present. Her father had
been infuriated, and, by proxy, her mother also.
Connie popped her head up above the edge of the
pier and shook her hair, spraying water all over us.
"What do you two look so serious about?" she
asked, smiling. "Is the mortgage due, or something?"
Lee answered swiftly. "We were wondering if you
would ever come back from the raft."
Mattie pulled himself out of the water and then
helped Connie up on the pier. She went over to the baby
and lifted him out of the basket. I felt Lee's arm, which
was resting against my leg, shiver slightly and then she
pulled it away.
"Look at him," Connie said, by the end of the
summer he'll look black." She leaned over to me. "Has he
been good?"
"Perfect," I told her. "I forgot he was here."
"You won't have to act as nurse much longer, Will.
Terry called today and said he's found a woman. He'll
bring her up with him Friday night."
"I never thought he'd find anybody to satisfy him," I
said.
"He certainly adores the child," Lee said quietly.
"Say," I remembered. "There's a watermelon in our
refrigerator. Who's for watermelon?"
"Damn it, Will," Lee said. "Must we always be
eating or drinking something?"
No one spoke for a few moments as Lee's swearing,
coming out of nowhere as it had, was slowly absorbed.
"I'll tell you what," I said finally. "Who votes for
watermelon instead of supper. It's almost six anyway."
 "Let's have a watermelon party," Connie suggested.
"The kind we used to have out at the McClelland quarry."
"You mean with gin," Mattie said.
"I don't feel hungry myself," she went on, "and Will
is getting too fat to eat. We could solve everything by
drinking the juice and throwing away the melon."
"I don't think we have any cheesecloth," I told her.
Lee laughed. "Why don't you use a pillowcase?"
"All right, a pillowcase." I rose from the pier.
"Will, are you insane? I was kidding."
"I'll use the one you burned with a cigarette."
"Shall we have it right here on the pier?" Connie
asked.
"Why not?" Mattie answered.
"Why not!" Connie chanted after him.
I went in to get the watermelon, leaving before Lee
could object. But then halfway up the steps to the house I
heard her laughter ring out, so I knew she was accepting the
party.
I set a newspaper on the counter and then went
upstairs for the pillowcase. I couldn't find the one with the
burn in it so I just grabbed one off the top of the pile and
came back downstairs. I cut a plug in the top of the melon
and scooped out the insides, setting the whole mess on the
newspaper and leaving the shell intact except for the hole in
the top. Then I put the meat of the melon into the
pillowcase and worked the lump to one of the corners,
squeezing it over the melon until the pink liquid filled the
shell halfway. I added a fifth of gin and cracked some ice,
sprinkling it in before I replaced the plug. Before I left
with the melon under my arm I found a handful of straws
and a pencil, and then walked out and down the steps of the
hill.
I could see Connie changing the baby's diapers, but
she was finished by the time I got to the pier.
"Here it is, iced cold, I said. I set it down and
Connie poked four holes through the sides with the pencil.
I shoved the straws through the holes.
Mattie got a little drunk after only a little while, and
he rolled over on the pier, turning his head away from his
straw. "I never learn," he said. "When that stuff warms up
in your stomach it's lethal."
"There must be a hollow on your side," Connie told
him. "I can't seem to get any more over here." She moved
next to where Mattie lay stretched out on his back. He
leaned up on his elbow when she sat down.
 "You always did have a hollow leg," he said to her
back.
"I come from a long line of Swede brew drinkers."
I leaned back from my straw to get my breath.
"How is that Swede father of yours, Connie?" I
asked.
"He's fine," she said between sips. "Folks have just
moved into a new house."
"He working again?"
"No," she answered abruptly. "Say, there is!"
"There is what?"
"There is a hollow over here on your side, you
crook." She sipped quietly through the straw, her cheeks
puffing into knobs.
Mattie was staring up at the sky. "Do you
remember, Connie, two years ago when I came out to New
York and we both went up to Boston for Barbara Went's
wedding?"
"How could I forget," she said, laughing.
"Remember the odd fellow she married. White socks."
She turned to Lee. "This fellow Barbara married went to
the church in a tux and white socks. Can you imagine
that?" Connie roared and rocked back and forth on her
crossed legs.
"White socks?" Lee said. "That must have been
something."
"What's wrong with it?" I said.
"Oh, Will," Lee said.
"It seems he had poison ivy on one of his ankles and
he was afraid he would get an infection," Connie added, her
laughter continuing to bubble through her words.
"Who was he?" Lee asked.
"Bentley something, Connie answered. "Someone
she knew in Boston. He graduated from M.I.T., I think
electrical engineering, or something like it. He had red
hair, too." She began laughing again.
Mattie interrupted slowly. "What I was going to say
was, do you remember the dance afterward?"
"Yes ... why?"
"Why? There we were at a beautiful country club
after watching these people get married, dancing to soft
music, all mellowed on scotch --- not regular scotch, but
fifteen-dollars-a-bottle scotch; no offense, old man --- and
a photographer from the newspaper sees us, walks up with
his camera and says, 'If you aren't the gayest two people
here you certainly look it. Mind if I take a picture?' And
what do you say? 'No, not at all, but of course my fee is
fifty dollars'." Mattie hesitated. "Would you mind telling
me why you said that?"
"I belonged to an agency. The rules were no
pictures without the fee. It was for our own protection."
"Why the devil didn't you just risk getting fired?"
"Mattie, you're drunk. Why don't you cool off."
With a sudden movement she turned and rolled him off the
pier into the water.
"Why is it," Lee asked, laughing, "that Mattie
drinks too much?"
"It isn't that he drinks too much," I told them, it's
just that he can't handle very much, and he'll never admit
it."
Mattie's head appeared at the end of the pier, but he
didn't come up immediately. Instead he hung there by his
elbows with his dark hair plastered down across his
forehead and his chin dripping water.
"I'm sorry," Connie told him, trying to stay any
thoughts of punishment.
"That's all right," Mattie smiled. "Somebody has to
fall in afterwards, doesn't he, otherwise it isn't a real party."
He pulled himself up on the pier then, and Connie went
back to her straw.
But she pulled away suddenly and got up. "I'd
better take Paul into the house. It's getting cool."
Set him in the chair just inside the door, I told her.
"The windows are open and if he starts to cry you'll be able
to hear him down here."
Connie was halfway up the hill when Mattie turned
to me. "What sort of fellow is Terry anyway?" he asked.
"Short ... blond ... fairly aggressive. Out to make
his mark on the world, and he has a lot of money. A fellow
at the club told me he has three trust funds. One from his
great aunt, one from his grandmother, and one from his
father. He seems to have an obsession to accomplish
something, though."
"Don't you think you're being too harsh," Lee said.
"He's just one who won't let his money lead him into
inactivity."
"Still, it doesn't seem as though he and Connie get
along too well."
No, Lee admitted, but most people don't get
along."
"I don't know about that."
 0h, you know what I mean, Will." She leaned over
to her straw.
"I was surprised at the marriage," Mattie said. "I
went home to Freeport one weekend, and when I came
back they were married. Did she say anything about it
when we were here last summer?"
"Everyone was surprised," Lee said. "We went
down for the wedding and we didn't meet anyone who had
any idea. They certainly kept it secret."
"I could understand if she had changed," Mattie said
tensely, "but there's no change in her at all. If I didn't know
we were all sitting here at Lake Ohega, it might be the
quarry at McClelland."
Connie came back down the flagstone steps and out
to the pier. She sat right next to the watermelon shell.
"I'll be glad when the nurse gets here. I never
appreciated a nurse, but I certainly will now."
Lee leaned back and stretched her arms. "We were
just talking about Terry," she said. Mattie and I both looked
over at her but she didn't say anything more.
Connie broke into laughter. "What about him?"
"Didn't you say he was working on some sort of
magazine?" Mattie asked her.
"Yes. It will be a kind of suburbanite's companion."
"Now there's something that's going to be tough,"
Mattie said.
"That's what Terry told me," I said. "It seems that
nobody knows what the man in the suburbs wants to read."
"I think I do," Mattie answered. And when there
was a silence, he repeated, "I really do."
"Well, Lee said, laughing, now we have that
problem all solved." I began to realize she was a little high.
"Let's talk about Mattie," Connie said. "How are
you, Mattie? How's your job? How are all the folks at
home?"
Just wonderful," he said.
Lee laughed again, bending her head and shoulders
back and stiffening her arms against the pier. "Well, that
ends that, she said merrily.
"Not exactly," Mattie added. "I've been thinking of
quitting; pulling up stakes and shoving off for New York."
Always at McClelland Mattie had been on the verge
of transferring to some "large university which had all the
courses he desired.
"New York is no different from Chicago," Connie
said softly.
 "That isn't what you told me once, he answered.
"You remember when I took the job? 'You'll rot in the
suburbs, you told me, 'you'll erode'." Lee and I couldn't
restrain our laughter. "Well, now I think you were right,"
he went on, ignoring us, "and the only thing I can do is
leave.
"I might have been wrong," Connie said carefully.
"I don't think so."
"It's awfully hard to get started in New York."
Mattie laughed. "You didn't seem to have any
trouble, and with a helluva lot of my ideas, too."
"What ideas?" Connie scoffed.
"The contest. You know yourself I did more than
help you with that prospectus, I did the whole thing myself.
Remember? When you got out to New York you were
going to fix me up fine. That was the plan."
"I explained about all that. When I arrived in New
York I spent most of my time keeping my own job."
"Is that how you ended up a magazine covergirl?"
"That was a lucky break. You're trying to blame
your failures on me, and you can't do it. You know it, too."
"Will," Lee broke in calmly. "Please take this
watermelon into the house. It's beginning to smell.
I got up to get the watermelon.
"Just one thing," Mattie said, smiling. He rose, too,
then turned suddenly and rolled Connie off the pier into the
water, where she splashed, surprised and frantic. "I'm one
of those eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth people," he called
down to her.
But when she had pulled herself back up on the pier
Connie wasn't angry. "First thing I'll do when Terry comes
is ask him to buy those suburban newspapers of yours and
fire you," she said.
"You aren't serious."
"Yes, I am."
I left them and began walking up the steps, trying to
hold the watermelon away from me.
"I'd better get back home," I heard Connie say. She
started for the house with me. "Say," she added, stopping
and turning to face Lee and Mattie. "I forgot to tell you;
you're all having dinner with Terry and me tomorrow
evening. Outdoor barbecue --- and don't dress."
"Nice of you to let us know," I told her as she ran on
past me.
"I'll expect you at seven."
 By the time I reached the house, she had already
taken Paul and gone.
"Goodnight," Lee said immediately, and she left
Mattie and me alone and went right upstairs to bed.
We decided to have a nightcap, and after a few
minutes of useless talk Mattie got right to the point. "Look,
Will," he said, "I'm serious dammit, I'm made for that
magazine and you know it."
"All right, so you're made for that magazine." I was
beginning to feel tired myself, and I wished I had dutifully
followed Lee upstairs. "But now what?"
"You know Terry. Put in a good word for me."
I laughed and sipped my drink slowly. "That makes
two of us who'll be plugging for you, Mattie. I don't see
how you can miss."
"What do you mean, two?"
"I have a feeling Connie doesn't want you to leave
for New York. So --- "
"Don't depend on Connie. There was another time
when she was going to do me a lot of good. Put in a word
for me yourself, Will, and we'll see what she does."
He twirled the ice in his glass and stared at it
silently.
"Like another?" I asked him. I rose and walked to
the bar. As Mattie got up and brought his glass over to me,
I noticed he jerked involuntarily, as if he were in pain, and
he caught his weight with his hand on the bar or he might
have fallen.
"How's your foot?" I asked him, taking his glass and
adding a fresh ice cube.
"Fine. I don't know it's there anymore."
"It was a lousy break, getting hurt like that."
"I don't know. In a way I'm glad everything worked
out the way it did."
"Glad? I think it was lousy.
"It was a great feeling, playing that game after the
coach had given me the fix. I think it was the only time in
my life I felt as if the world couldn't get along fine without
Mattie Rourke."
I had no desire to talk about it, especially this late,
so I bade him goodnight and began cleaning up the glasses
and mess. But it was not so easy to put out of my mind,
when I was left alone.
Mattie had been a smooth fish at quarterback, and
his skill had been obvious even to me. A bunch of us from
the fraternity house had gone down one fall day to the
practice field, as I remembered, to watch the final
scrimmage before the first game. I wasn't supposed to be at
the football field. Every fall the sophomores and juniors
had to put the house in shape after the long summer lapse.
Of course, every year a few of the juniors would skip out
on the work and I was one of these.
Although the grass hadn't returned too well on the
field, and there were some bare dirt spots, most of the area
between the goalposts was that smoky dark green of early
fall. A girl stood alone in a starched yellow cotton dress at
the far end of the field, leaning against the tennis court
fence, and I remember being surprised. It was something
you didn't see much: a girl watching a football scrimmage
alone.
"How about that?" Horton said, shading his eyes
with his hand and peering out at the field. "It looks like
Mattie will start Saturday." He turned to Whitey Locke and
Ron Freeman, the two seniors from Freeport. "And we
could have had him too, if you rumdums hadn't balled him.
He's making you look pretty stupid out there, isn't he?"
They didn't answer Horton.
But then when Bud had turned to look out on the
field again, Whitey said, "You're supposed to be back at the
house helping with the cleanup, aren't you?"
Horton kept his head turned toward the field.
"What are you doing here, then?" Whitey continued.
"Don't think because you're a member now that you've got
this group made, Horton. Until we get some pledges, you'll
do the work. You'd better head back or I'll sock a fat fine
on you." Whitey was the house treasurer.
Horton, still without turning back, got up and
walked slowly toward the house, and when he was only a
few yards away Whitey and Ron nudged each other and
laughed.
A group of girls walked by in front of us, wearing
bright fall colors, and I noticed Lee Hoppenrath among
them. Since I had dated her a few times the last spring, I
decided now to ask her for a date to the game, and I wanted
to leave anyway before Whitey remembered I was
supposed to be back at the house, too.
"Hey, Lee," I said. I got up and walked over to her
slowly so she would drop back away from the other girls.
She stopped and the others walked on, which was always a
good sign.
"Hello, Will." She waited for me to reach her and
then waved her hand to the field. "How do they look?"
 "Fine," I said, but I already knew that Lee
understood football more than I did. "This fellow Mattie
Rourke looks damn good at quarter. They might do
something this year."
"You look skinnier." She laughed slightly.
"I worked building silos all summer," I said.
We had started walking when she noticed the girl all
alone at the end of the field. "What's she doing down there
all by herself," Lee said.
"Who?"
"Come on, Will. I want you to meet somebody we
pledged last spring. I bet you don't know her."
I had dated girls in Lee's sorority for two years, and
I thought I knew all of her sisters, but as we neared the
single figure I realized she was the same girl I had seen
earlier. She stared intently out on the field, watching the
play, and she didn't notice us until we were upon her. Then
she turned, and seeing Lee she smiled as if they were close
f riends. I was more baffled than ever.
"What are you doing out here all alone?" Lee asked
her. "I thought we agreed this year would be diff erent.
She turned to me. "Will, this is Connie Lundgren.
"Hello, Connie."
The girl nodded and turned back to the field. But
she gasped suddenly and her body seemed to sink away
from the tennis court fence. I looked out on the field and
the players were already beginning to gather around
somebody on the ground.
Lee studied the girl distastefully. "You aren't still
carrying the torch for him, are you?"
It appeared to be Mattie, but I had no idea he was
seriously injured as I watched him limp off toward the gym
with his arm slung around the coach.
I don't believe anyone knew that Saturday Mattie
was starting the game loaded with codeine and with his
ankle taped solidly so he wouldn't notice the pain. Football
was never stressed at McClelland, but then I guess
everybody wants a winning team, and as far as the coach
knew Mattie was his only quarterback.
I say that no one knew about Mattie, but that is
probably wrong. There must have been a lot of people who
knew. I never paid much attention to football. It wasn't
important to me whether the team won or lost. In fact, the
dances after the game always seemed to be more fun if the
team did lose.
 This particular game they won, however. Mattie
played a steady capable game. But Sunday morning it was
all over the campus that none of the fellows at the cheap
rooming house up the street --- the one where Mattie stayed
--- had been able to get any sleep Saturday night. Mattie
had screamed steadily until morning as the effects of the
codeine wore off. I still don't know what's the matter with
his ankle, but the rumor was that he had permanently
damaged some nerves.
By the time Mattie was up and around two weeks
later, everyone had almost forgotten about him. If he'd
been up the next day things would've been different; but as
it was, the left halfback Angeldorf was moved to quarter
and he made all-conference that year. Of course, the team
did take the conference championship which they say helps
in the selections for individual
Mattie was slipped quietly out of his job waiting
tables. There was a quick blast of student resentment, but it
all blew over in a few weeks. The school's position was
that, after all, Mattie couldn't very well walk with that bad
ankle and it wouldn't do to have him waiting on tables.
Mattie couldn't walk until late in winter quarter. It was a
bad year for him all around.
Since he was unable to work, his hair got a little
long between haircuts, just enough so a person would
wonder about it. And he made a general pest of himself in
the student union, bumming money for coffee, and asking
everybody for cigarettes.
Whitey had a great time needling Horton about it.
"See, boy," he'd say, winking at Ron Freeman. "You just let
us handle these things. We aren't wrong very often." And
then the two of them would laugh, and Horton would laugh
with them.
I didn't worry about it myself. I didn't know Mattie
then. He didn't start dating Connie until early that spring.
 CHAPTER 8

THE NEXT MORNING when I was shopping in the

supermarket at Ohega, I bumped into Connie at the frozen
foods counter. I asked her to have a coke with me at the
drugstore.
"We'll do better than that, she told me. "Let's have a
drink at Lido's."
We walked out and across the street, and then went
underneath the huge cardboard figure of Harry "Scoot"
Mitchell. There was a small mustache under his nose
which looked oddly out of proportion with his large
cardboard face, and his cheeks were all puffed out as he
blew on the yellow cardboard saxophone. Below him was
printed: "The World's Greatest Dance Band!"
It was cooler as we passed into the blue dimness of
the bar. The sliding doors which separated the bar from the
dance floor were closed and the bartender stood alone
behind his counter, staring intently at Arthur Godfrey on
the television. He glanced at us as we picked our way
between the empty tables, Connie finally settling on one in
the corner. I felt the strong breeze of air-conditioning on
the back of my neck as I sat down, but I said nothing to her.
"Good morning," the bartender called cheerfully.
"Well, good morning!" Connie said, laughing.
She pointed to the shopping bag which I had stood
alongside the table. "Haven't you heard of the division of
labor?" She smiled. "Where's Lee?"
"She's playing golf," I answered. "Some
tournament she will no doubt win."
"Oh? Does it have something to do with Rumpus
Day?"
"I don't think so," I said.
The bartender arrived and Connie ordered a
manhattan, which I thought sounded as good as anything,
so I ordered one too. I had a slight headache from last
night's scotch with Mattie. I knew I was better off than he
was, though, and this was a consolation. Mattie had stayed
in bed this morning.
"Just what is Rumpus Day?" Connie asked
sheepishly.
"It's a golf holiday at the club with some humor
thrown in. All sorts of stunts and so on. Rumpus Day is
the big event of the year at Ohega."
"It's a strange club, isn't it?" she asked slowly.
 0h, I think any country club will have something
like a Rumpus Day every summer." I smiled. "Ours
happens to be on the Fourth of July."
"No, I didn't mean that," she added quickly. "I
mean the club is so ... well, quaint."
"It was a hunting club at one time, before the
summer homes sprang up around the lake. I think the golf
course was built because of pressure from the new summer
residents."
"It does seem like they think they're doing us a
favor by letting us join," Connie smiled. "But when Terry
found the dues were only a hundred dollars a year he could
hardly believe it."
"The townspeople really think they're soaking us. It
only costs them sixty, you know."
When the bartender came with our drinks, I poked
at the cherry for awhile and then popped it into my mouth.
She sipped her drink slowly.
"Connie?" I said finally.
She looked up smiling. "Ummmm?"
"What's going on?" I asked, and then I shrugged and
added, "Maybe it's none of my business..."
"What do you mean?" she smiled. "What's going
on where?"
"What are you trying to do to Mattie?"
She didn't answer at first. She sipped some of her
drink and then carefully returned the glass to the table. "I
love him," she offered simply.
My face must have shown the surprise.
"Oh, it isn't as bad as all that," she smiled
reassuringly. "I love him, but I can't stand him. Can you
appreciate that?"
I couldn't imagine what she wanted me to say.
"That last year at McClelland when you were in
North Carolina, I didn't realize we were becoming serious
until it was too late. As soon as I did see it, I began dating
Bud Horton, and I didn't see Mattie much after that."
She stopped and sat silently as of she were waiting
for me to say something. "Did you hear about the fight?"
she asked. "No, obviously you didn't. Who would tell
you!" She laughed sharply.
"There was a big picnic at the quarry late that spring
during final exam week. I went with Bud, and don't ask me
how Mattie happened to be there. He came alone and, of
course, he was so out of place all evening. We were all
sitting around the fire, pretty high, because the party was
almost over, and Horton had one of his bright ideas to liven
things up.
Let's de-pants the girls!' he shouted."
Connie laughed and took another sip of her drink.
"The whole thing was so silly," she continued. "Of
course we had our swimming suits on under our shorts and
Mattie should have known this. I can't help laughing now,
even though I know it isn't funny. Bud and I were rolling
in the grass when Mattie appeared out of nowhere and
yanked Bud to his feet. Mattie said a few idiotic things
about womanhood and then knocked Horton into the fire. I
was so embarrassed I could have died on the spot.
"Mattie stood in front of the fire, shouting at Bud,
and when he wouldn't get up Mattie started to cry. Right
there in the middle of the firelight with everyone watching.
Then he passed out.
"Well, of course, Bud wanted to leave him there,
and when I wouldn't do that he went with everyone else and
left me alone with Mattie. I finally caught Whitey Locke
and talked him into helping me. We took Mattie back to
the campus."
She laughed with a slight bitterness. "That was the
last time Bud Horton ever spoke to me."
"How did the rest of the kids feel about it?"
She looked down at her drink. "Nobody asked any
questions or even commented about it the next day. It was
as if they didn't want to know any more."
"That's funny," I said.
"I don't think anyone knew what to make of
Mattie," she said. "He's so odd, Will; you know. He'd get
all dressed for a formal and then put on a pair of old
scuffed shoes. He'd never even think of shining them. Or
there would be something else. He would forget to get a
haircut and pick me up looking like an Indian. There was
always something weird about him."
She stopped suddenly. And, after a strained silence
where there seemed to be nothing more to say, we got up
and walked outside. I left her in front of the bar and went
into the adjoining liquor store and bought three more fifths
of medium priced scotch.
With Mattie at the lake, we all seemed to be
drinking more than usual. Life is so sad anyway that it
doesn't help to have a sad person around to remind you of
it.
I suppose I was slightly nervous about going over to
Connie's for dinner that night, although I never did admit it
to myself. It was a warm night and hot air splashed in
through the open windows of the bedroom while I put on
my slacks and one of the Italian sport shirts Lee was so
fond of.
The fact that everyone was back at the lake again
did have a sort of holiday effect on me, though. Lee
hummed "I Only Have Eyes for You" as she stepped into
the new brown sunback dress she had brought home that
afternoon, and which was slightly too small for her. She
seemed more relaxed, as if she had forgotten about her
father.
I finished tucking in my shirt and then walked out
into the hall and down to Mattie's room, where I tapped
lightly on the door. "You about ready to go, Mattie?"
"Come on in, Will.
I opened the door and there was Mattie with three
different changes of clothing thrown across the bed. He
looked up and, as he saw what I was wearing, he grinned,
evidently making up his mind.
"Be with you in a minute," he said casually. He
went to the bed, and after picking up a pair of slacks and a
sportshirt, dressed rapidly. Remembering what Connie had
said that morning I glanced down at his shoes. They
sparkled in the glow of the dresser light. I watched Mattie
buckle his belt and then carefully comb his hair. "All set,"
he said finally.
But then as we walked down the hallway, he asked,
rubbing his chin, "You don't think I need a shave, do you?"
Before I could say anything he answered himself. "Well,
we'll be eating outside," he said. "Nobody will notice."
We went down into the living room and while we
waited for Lee I mixed two drinks. Mattie came around the
bar with me.
"How do I look?" Lee laughed from the stairs and
twirled around. "Am I casual enough?" Lee was always
sure of herself, so I didn't even answer.
"Wonderful," Mattie told her. He gestured with
mock politeness to a chair, and when Lee came and sat
down he served her his own drink with a flourish. Then he
came back to the bar and asked me to make him another.
"Make it a stiff one," he said, smiling.
"All right," I said, "but really Terry isn't that
formidable."
"He's a very nice person," Lee added. "Do you
know what he's doing for Connie's parents?" She answered
herself, "Three hundred dollars a month. And he really
doesn't have to, you know."
"Where did you find out all this?"
"He told me about it on the way down to Chicago."
I walked out from behind the bar. "The new house
that Connie mentioned. Is that Terry's idea too?"
"Yes," Lee said. "He says her father is still
paralyzed and her mother can hardly do anything, she's so
nervous."
Mattie looked at his watch. "We'd better be going.
It's almost five after seven."
We finished our drinks and then went outside,
following the path which ended at the Michaels' front door.
An old woman answered our knock and invited us inside to
the hallway where Terry was standing, waiting for us.
"Terry, this is Mattie Rourke," I said.
His eyes sharpened but all he said was, "Oh yes,
I've heard a lot about you." They shook hands. "Connie
claims that you are something of a journalist." There was a
dark tense look about Terry's face, I thought, although his
voice was perfectly smooth and casual.
"Connie is getting everything ready to go outside,"
he added pleasantly. His body was rigid as he turned and
led us into the living room.
Although I couldn't know what was wrong,
everything suddenly appeared to have a pleasantly coated
absurdity about it --- the people, the room, the
conversation. This was a feeling that was strange and new
for me; after all, my life may have been fairly meaningless,
which I'm always the first one to admit, but at least until
this point it had always been aboveboard. I felt like a man
standing waist deep in water who has just felt something
touch his leg.
"Henrietta is an absolute diamond," Connie was
saying. "Paul loves her; you should see him smile when
she comes into his room. I think she tickles him. She
must, really."
We had finished eating and I had asked about the
woman. Warm air blew off the lake, carrying with it a soft
piano melody from someone's hi-fi set on the other side of
the water.
I looked up and saw Henrietta framed in the open
doorway. She came forward hesitantly out onto the lawn
and stopped in front of Terry. "Paul is asleep, Mister
Michaels. Do you mind if I retire?" she said crisply.
 "Asleep?" Connie broke in quickly. "But I haven't
said goodnight to him." She turned on Terry. "See here,
things aren't going that far. At least I can be allowed to say
goodnight to my own child."
Terry attempted a smile. "Why, of course," he said
slowly, and then his voice quickened. "I think we should
all go up and see him. Youve never seen the boy, have
you, Mattie?"
He rose from the lawn chair. "You won't believe
how big he is," he smiled. "No one can believe it."
"Oh, stop it, Terry," Connie said.
We all trooped into the house and up the stairs. I
began to feel a little silly as we stood outside the dark
room, but Connie found the light switch and flipped it on.
The whole room suddenly shone yellow. Paul woke up and
simpered slightly. Connie bent down to him and Terry was
right behind her, looking over her shoulder. The baby
blinked at the brightness as Connie picked him up. "Here,
give him to me," Terry said, and he took the bundle and
showed the baby to Mattie.
"He does look big," was all Mattie could manage,
and then he stared down into the folds of the yellow
blanket.
Terry observed Mattie closely for a second, and
then, of course, both Lee and I had to see the baby. Paul
ended up in Lee's arms. She held him up above her head,
saying, "Wheee!" and then returned him to his mother. I
thought the whole thing was comic, and I gladly led the
way back down the steps and out onto the lawn.
Terry had remained in the house for some reason, so
since we didn't know quite what to do Connie took over the
lead and we followed her to the pier, where we found a few
butterfly-chairs. Connie sat next to Mattie.
"Well, what do you think of Mister Michaels now?"
she asked; and then added, "Don't answer. I'm sure you
don't have to."
"I think he's all right," Mattie insisted. He looked to
Lee and me for confirmation.
"All right?" Connie asked. She laughed at him.
"Oh ... don't worry, Mattie boy," she added suddenly,
youll get your precious job."
"What is the matter with you, Connie?" Lee said.
Connie said nothing, but leaned back in her
butterfly-chair as if she were pouting about something.
"Feel that breeze," Lee said to me. "Why is it we
never get a breeze like this on our pier?"
 I had to laugh. "Because they have the more
expensive house, my dear," I said.
Mattie struggled up from the silence where Connie's
outburst had placed him. "I don't know why you people
can't be satisfied," he said. "You should see my apartment.
On one side I have a view overlooking the tar and gravel
roof of a supermarket. On the other, I have a gas station on
a busy street where there is one small tree wrapped in white
tape. Across the street I can gaze at a bank, a bar and a
drugstore."
Terry came with a tray on which he balanced a
pitcher and five manhattan glasses. As he poured, Lee held
the glasses for him and passed them to us.
How long have you worked in the suburbs,
Mattie?" Terry asked. He took his seat on the other side
and leaned out so he could peer around her.
Oh, about three years."
I thought it was two, Lee corrected. Will and I
have been out of the army only one year.
I suppose you know Im trying to put together a
magazine for suburbanites. Terry smiled and looked at
Connie. Everyone seems to know that.
Ive heard something about it.
Well, I might be able to use a man like you, Mattie.
We will have to get together and talk about it.
Connie sighed. See, she said, I told you there
was nothing to worry about.
What do you mean? Terry turned in his chair and
faced her angrily.
I didnt mean anything. I simply told him he could
probably help you, thats all.
Please, Lee said, can we forget about job
opportunities. I feel like Im in an employment office. Its
spoiling the party, really.
I have an idea, Terry said, smiling to Mattie. I
havent played poker since Connie and I were in Europe.
How about a game? Lets say Im challenging you. I
always say you can tell more about a man in one poker
game than if youve known him all your life.
"I think I'd rather go for a swim," Connie said
carefully. She looked at Mattie, waiting for him to agree,
but he said nothing. "Anyway, Terry," she added, still
looking at the silent Mattie, "you make poker so unbearably
serious."
I was ready to do anything to stop talking, so I
suggested, "We'd have to set a limit."
 "Leave it to old pinch-penny Will," Lee said,
laughing.
"Fine," Terry said. "What do you say, Mattie?
"It makes no difference to me."
"I said I wanted to go for a swim," Connie said.
Terry grinned and got up. "Poker it is then."
"Well, I'm for it," Lee said. "I'd play anything to get
away from these mosquitoes."
Oh, no," Terry said. "No ladies allowed. You can
kibitz."
I've been told I play my poker too close to the chest,
but in this game at least I managed to stay even. Mattie
was the obvious winner at first; his chips were heaped in a
loose pile in front of him. I knew Terry had lost but I had
no idea how much, because he had begun the game with
twenty-five dollars' worth of quarter chips, and his neatly
stacked piles still looked formidable.
"I'm the big loser so far," he said between hands,
so since we're all playing with my money let's raise the
stakes."
I agreed and Mattie followed suit. I didn't care how
high the stakes went myself, because if I lost the twenty
dollars that I planned to lose I would drop out immediately
anyway. I always set a limit on my losings in the
beginning. Then it's a question of how long I'll play and
never how much I lose. I always do lose this way, but then
I always lost before too. I just don't lose as much as I used
to.
We made it a dollar a chip, and Terry passed the
cards to me for the deal. I am a fumble fingers and I know
it, so I wasn't surprised to discover after dealing that Terry
had six cards instead of five. He passed the extra one back
to me and I placed it on the bottom of the deck. I had
called five-card draw.
"I'll open," Mattie said. He placed a single chip in
the center of the card-table's maroon pebble-grain surface.
Terry, after a long thoughtful look at his cards, said,
"I think I'll raise you three." He placed out four chips.
I looked at my cards. A pair of fives, a deuce, a jack
and an ace. I dropped out. I knew both of them had better
than a low pair and I could see no reason to go into the
draw at a handicap. Never take chances, that's my motto. I
picked up the deck and both Terry and Mattie asked for
three cards. After I gave them their draw, I leaned over and
looked into Mattie's hand. He'd broken into his openers
and had tried for a flush in hearts, and although he had
caught two hearts on the draw he had also been stuck with
the king of diamonds. Terry picked up his cards and
smiled.
"Well, it looks like I may win a pot," he said,
closing his cards and covering them with his palm.
Mattie smiled and threw his cards into the center. "I
think you're right," he said.
It was Mattie's next deal so I gathered up the cards.
Terry threw his hand in without showing it, and I passed the
deck to Mattie. He turned the deck upside down and
fanned out the last five cards, which had been Terry's hand.
All Terry'd had was a pair of threes. Mattie was obviously
sorry he had looked, but Terry glared at him.
"I'm afraid Terry wins because he can afford to
lose," Connie said. She popped a potato chip into her
mouth.
I knew it was getting late because I could hardly
keep my eyes open. I don't know why it is but I can never
really get interested in a card game; I suppose I have none
of the necessary sense for competition, and I am devoid of
the vain drive blind for victory. I sat back and watched
Mattie deal a hand of five-card stud, which he ultimately
won with a pair of tens.
As far as I can remember that was the last pot he
won that night. Terry won steadily and when he missed a
pot, I somehow managed to take it. Connie became more
and more indignant and tried to stop the game.
"Don't you think you've taken enough of their
money, Terry," she said, although why she said "their"
instead of "his" I don't know because I had pulled ahead
slightly. I could see why she was worried about Mattie. He
had made some clumsy excuse about having left most of
his money at our house, and had borrowed heavily from me
when he had gone broke.
I dealt the last hand, and for desperate want of
variation to keep me awake I decided on five-card stud with
deuces wild. Both Mattie and Terry moaned at this but I
ignored them and dealt the round of hole cards. On the
second round Mattie had a nine, Terry a jack and I gave
myself the ace of spades. I bet one, Mattie raised one,
Terry saw and then raised Mattie. I suppose if it hadn't
been the last hand I would have thrown in my cards, since I
had only the six of hearts in the hole and I couldn't see any
possibilities.
Connie rose suddenly. "Let's go into the other
room, Lee," she suggested.
 "This is the last hand," I said. "It'll be over in a few
minutes."
When Lee showed no inclination to follow her away
from the table, Connie sat down.
I dealt Mattie a ten, Terry a nine, and myself the
three of diamonds. There was no raising this time, since I
bet my ace-three for three chips. Then Mattie got another
ten, Terry the king of diamonds, and I handed myself a
useless five of spades. Mattie bet three for his pair and
Terry came right back and raised him three. I almost
dropped out right there, even if it was the last hand, but
since I was still playing on winnings I went ahead. I dealt
the last cards down. Mattie must have been pleased with
his card because as he lifted it a sigh squeezed out between
his lips. He fingered his small pile of chips without raising
his eyes.
"Pair of tens bets," I told him.
"Bet three," Mattie said. He put three in the middle
of the table and then looked at the five remaining chips in
front of him.
"I'll see that and raise you two," Terry said.
"I'll see and bump you three, and that's all I've got,"
he answered quietly.
Mattie watched as Terry and I saw his raise, then he
dropped his fingers to the table and turned over his two
hole cards. He had three tens --- all natural.
Well, I had absolutely nothing, only staying in
because it was the last hand, as I told you. I threw my
cards into the center with the chips and then waited for
Terry. He flipped over his cards. His two hole cards were
deuces --- that's right. He had a straight, king-high.
"I hate to win with wild cards this way," he smiled,
"but, if you remember, it wasn't my idea." He folded his
cards up and threw them over to me. I was collecting the
deck.
What? I said. Did you have six cards?
No, he said. I must have picked one of yours up
when I passed them to you.
Now, can we go into the living room? Connie
urged.
Mattie followed her through the doorway. But
Terry lingered at the table, showing Lee a trick with
matches. I hesitated, and then finally went into the other
room. Connie and Mattie were speaking quietly to each
other, and as I came up Mattie was nodding agreement to
something. When they saw me they both stepped away,
and Connie greeted me, smiling.
I thought you and Terry might have started the
game all over again, she said.
Oh, no, I told her. I dont think I could stay
awake any more than the time it takes to walk home. We
should be leaving.
I feel tired too, she answered. I think it was that
horrible game.
Terry and Lee entered the room, and he groaned.
No, you arent leaving so soon?
Lee looked at me and then added, Im afraid we
must. Its past Wills bedtime.
Say, heres an idea. Why dont we all team up for
Rumpus Day tomorrow at the club?
I suppose I could fix it with Tom Harper, I said,
if we wanted to.
Well, lets do it then. Itll give Mattie a chance to
win some of his money back. And think of it yourself,
Will. You'll have the women's champion for a caddy. Did
you know the women have to caddy for their husbands?"
"No..., I said thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why Lee
hasn't said a word about going."
"Tomorrow at nine then," Terry concluded.
Although I felt as though I had just taken an order
from a company-commander, I was just too tired to offer
any resistance. Anyway, holiday celebrations, like this
Fourth of July Rumpus, have always been so innocuous to
me that to save my sanity I must blank out, grin and bear
them, with my only assurance the fact that they will soon
be over. I suppose it is much the same attitude I used to
have toward those idiotic football and basketball games of
long ago I tolerate them, but I never enjoy them. So it
made little difference to me whether I celebrated the Fourth
at the club with a golfstick in my hand, or sat home waiting
for it to be over with.
As we returned to our house, Mattie seemed glum
and bitter so I told him not to worry about paying me back
the money he had lost. And I mentioned that I could lend
him fifty until he got back to Chicago. With this
information his spirits picked up immediately, and he
insisted on going for a swim before taking to his bed. He
looked white as a ghost, and I thought that perhaps a dunk
in the lake would do him some good. Lee and I had a glass
of milk and soon went upstairs, leaving him to find his way
alone down to the water.
 Then, standing by the window in my bedroom, I
could have sworn I heard voices floating in from the raft. I
called to Lee. "Do you hear anything? attie must be out
there talking to himself. Do you suppose e's all right?"
"Oh go to bed Will, she said, "for heaven's sakes!
I left the window and climbed into the large
canopied bed, but I could still hear happy voices and wild
splashings, drifting through the room on the dark breeze.
Still I was simply so tired that I went to sleep in a minute.
 CHAPTER 9

WE ALL FIVE went in Connie's blue and cream

convertible and she put the top down so Lee, Mattie and I
in the back seat could feel the hot air racing against our f
aces as we rolled down the brick road and out into the
highway toward Ohega. We passed the abrupt end of the
hemlocks, and before us stretched the flat cornland,
obstructed briefly by the police and fire stations casting
their squat square shadows. When we pulled into the
country club, the land remained as flat as the farms, and the
color had simply changed from yellow to green grass kept
short for the benefit of golfers. There was a thin, parched
creek which we drove over on a white wooden bridge, and
then there was a winding white stone drive up to the small
clubhouse.
Tom Harper, who was chairman of the committee
for Rumpus Day, called to me as we passed by where he
stood on the first tee, busily scheduling events. He held a
sheaf of papers in one hand which he waved at the car. I
had phoned Harper early and I took his wave to mean that
everything was all set for us.
When Terry had brusquely picked out a parking
space and had guided Connie into it, we got out and walked
into the clubhouse hallway, passing under the huge darkly-
stained rafters, and then turned down the steps to the small
bar which was on the lower level. Lee went straight to an
empty table in the center of the room, and although Connie
suggested one in a corner Lee was already seated and the
rest of us capitulated to her selection.
Some of the club members wore comical pioneer
costumes. Dark brown bib pants with heavy coarse blue
shirts appeared incongruous beneath the well-scrubbed
smiling faces peeking out from shaggy, hastily-grown
beards. And, of course, some of the men had soaked felt
hats the night before and stretched them on broom handles,
so they now wore them proudly, looking like gnomes.
Terry went to the bar to order manhattans, and had to
carefully pick his way between photographers stationed
there clicking their cameras constantly to catch the antics of
members.
Its a wonderful release, isn't it, Connie said gaily.
Her eyes shone with the sudden excitement.
"I suppose so," Lee smiled. "It's probably the one
day of the year when these people have any fun at all."
 "What is it the Fourth celebrates?" Mattie asked.
"The Revolution, or is it the Constitution --- I can never
remember." He smiled slightly.
Lee looked at him with disgust. "Oh, Mattie, for
god's sake. Let's not ruin the party right off the bat!"
Terry arrived with the manhattans.
"Here you are, podners," he said, and after he had
passed them around he sat down next to Mattie. "You
know, we haven't arranged yet how you'll win some
money."
But Mattie wasn't listening. He watched Connie's
face as she turned it eagerly from group to group.
"Say," Terry repeated, laughing and touching
Mattie's arm. "We haven't decided what we're going to play
for."
Mattie turned to him.
"I said, Terry informed him, "I'll play for anything
you like."
"What are you talking about?" Connie asked him.
"I just told Mattie I would gamble anything on the
golf game, but he doesn't seem to want anything I have."
"Maybe he already has everything he wants," she
said, and she turned away again to watch the others. One
of the costumed members was filling a large glass jug from
the beer tap behind the bar.
"Look here," I said, trying to sound indignant,
youre forgetting I'm in this match too. I realize I'm not
worth one of Bobby Jones' knickers but I hardly think I
should be counted out. You have to admit I have the best
caddy."
"Who's going to caddy for Mattie?" Connie asked.
There was a prolonged silence. No one had really
thought about it before.
Connie smiled at the confusion. "Oh, I guess I can
handle two men," she said, looking at each of them in turn.
"That is if you promise to be easy on me and lighten your
bags."
I saw Tom Harper come through the double wooden
doors and into the small bar. His face was reddened with
activity. I called over to him. "Hey, Tom. What's our
starting time?"
He came over to our table and I introduced him,
first to Mattie who had stood to shake hands, and then to
Terry who nodded and remained seated. Tom checked
through the papers in his hands, then picked one paper out
and scanned it hurriedly.
 "You go off in fifteen minutes, he answered. "Five
in your party, right?
I nodded. "Put Mattie here down as my guest.
"It's going to cost you to have a guest today," Tom
grinned, marking something on his paper.
The heavy-set man, who had filled the glass jug
with beer, now approached Tom to ask when he could go
off the first tee. Tom turned back to us.
"This is Ben Inger," he said, and then proceeded to
remember all of our first and last names as he introduced
us. Mattie rose again to shake hands. The man smiled at
the rest of us, appearing to feel a little foolish in his
costume, and he made some excuse and went away.
"Who is he?" Connie asked.
"Inger, steel, Tom answered impatiently, as though
he thought we should know. "Largest steel rolling mills in
the country," he added. I noticed Lee's smile growing wide.
"Terry, could we have another round?" Connie
asked. She lifted her glass to him.
"Certainly, certainly," he answered. He ignored her
empty glass and walked to the bar. She set the glass back
on the table.
"I can't seem to get into the spirit of things," she
said. "I wish we had dressed like pioneers, too."
"We should have come as a wagon," Lee smiled,
"and Mattie and Will could have been our oxen."
"It won't be long now and things will start popping,"
Harper assured Connie. He looked at his watch. "It's ten
now. In fifteen minutes the Cockle Dancers will be out on
the first tee."
Who?
"From New York," Tom explained, as though that
were enough. But then on seeing Connie's blank look he
continued, The modern dance team from New York.
They'll dance tonight, but they consented to help us start
the program out on the first tee this morning. Connie
looked perplexed, as if she couldn't believe him. "Ten
lovely girls who dance barefoot," Tom finally added.
Connie had completely unnerved him.
"Wonderful!" Connie screamed.
"Connie ..., " Mattie asked.
Well, I think thats wonderful! These ten girls
have come all the way from New York to dance barefoot on
the first tee for us. I think thats wonderful!
 Tom immediately aligned himself with her. "They
are good," he said. "They're one of the best teams in the
whole country."
But Connie continued to laugh. Finally, the
embarrassed Tom Harper left, just as Terry was arriving
with five more manhattans.
They're probably just an orchesis group from some
eastern university, Lee said.
"What did I miss?" asked Terry.
"We just found out that ten girls will dance barefoot
on the first tee," Connie told him. It struck me as funny
then, because of the way she announced it, and I began to
laugh too.
"Oh?" Terry said. You should see what they have at
the bar. Exploding cigars and everything. I'm not to be
responsible for anything I do the rest of the day."
Connie bit petulantly on her lip. All right," she
said. "I hereby relieve you of all your responsibilities.
"She slipped off her rings and plunked them into Terry's
manhattan. The wedding ring settled on top of the cherry,
looking almost like a crown on some red-cheeked king.
Terry didn't know what to say. He tried to smile
finally, making a weak joke. "Does this mean I have to win
you all over again?"
"My God, I just thought of something," Connie
said.
"What?"
"I may end up sleeping on the raft tonight," she
grinned.
"Oh, that's all right," Lee said. She toasted Connie
with her glass. "I mean, after all dear, you've slept there
before."
"All these two girls need are some comic hats,
Will," Terry said.
"Could you?" Lee asked, her voice low.
"Could I what?"
"Get us hats. I'd like a tall one, brown... and with
holes for my ears."
"Maybe I could ask Tom Harper," I said, beginning
to rise.
"Stay right where you are," Terry smiled. "I was the
one commissioned. Anyway, in matters like these you
should always see the bartender. I saw a box of hats at the
bar."
We all watched as he went up and spoke to the
bartender who kept pointing under the bar. Then, finally,
Terry leaned over, his feet rising from the floor, and when
he came back up his hand clutched a mass of grey and
brown felt. He walked proudly back to the table.
"Here we are," he said. He put the hats in the center
of the table. "But you'll have to cut your own holes. When
I asked him if he had one with holes, he said I must have an
ass at the table."
Lee screamed with laughter. "Will, I've been
offended. Go right over and punch that old bartender right
on the nose.
"He probably thought I was the one, Lee," I said.
"Is that right, Terry?" she asked. "Is that right?"
"For all I know, he smiled, I made the whole
thing up.
You didn't."
Yes I did. I made the whole thing up. There really
isnt even a bartender.
You may be right, Lee said laughing and
squinting her eyes, all I can see is a blurry white apron.
Everyone seems to be leaving," Mattie said.
We all immediately grabbed for the hats and put
them on, as we hurried through the doors. We didn't want
to miss the dancers.
I stopped off at the pro-shop to get balls and tees,
and to arrange for clubs for Mattie; and when I returned to
the crowd at the first tee the dancers had begun moving
about in their bright orange leotards.
They appeared to be imitating woodsprites or
something, and they leaped around in their bare feet,
gesturing to the grass, the trees and the sky; and then some
would kneel down on the grass and bend backwards,
waving their arms at the sun. It all struck me as odd.
"Not bad, I said, trying to make the best of it as I
came up behind Mattie. "Not bad at all."
"Woodsy, aren't they," Lee said. "None of them
look over sixteen years old."
"I believe there's a limit on their ages," Mattie said.
"When they pass eighteen, out they go."
"It must be frightening to be a has-been at
eighteen," Connie said.
"I don't know, Mattie smiled slowly. "Some
people are has-beens the day they're born."
"Wasn't there a girl at McClelland who had been a
Cockle Dancer?" Connie asked him. "That small blonde
girl with thick legs?"
"Mary Britton," Mattie answered.
 "Didn't she transfer or quit or something?" Lee
asked.
"Don't you remember?" Connie said. "She arrived
at school with that beautiful platinum hair, almost pure
white, and none of the sororities would pledge her.
Everyone said a girl who would bleach her hair that
color! ... well!"
Oh, yes," Lee said.
She came back to visit one weekend a year after
she had quit school, and someone asked her why she
bleached her hair such a shocking white. I felt so sorry for
her. She went through her wallet for pictures. She was
almost frantic. Her hair was actually natural, can you
imagine? She showed us a picture of her, taken when she
was about six, and another at thirteen. Her hair had always
been actually white!"
"Why didn't anyone ask her before she quit school?"
I said.
Well, no one had wanted to hurt her feelings, Lee
explained. "What is she doing now?"
Someone told me she worked in a dress shop in
some little town where she grew up," Mattie said. "I think
it was Pekin."
Hey, Terry said suddenly, look over there. That
old guy with the jug of beer is trying to make up to one of
the dancers."
"No... !" Lee said.
I looked over to where Terry pointed. The man with
the jug knelt on the grass near one of the girls who was
standing with her back to him. He leaned out with a golf
iron, stretching the club out toward the girl's thin leg. A
murmur ran through the crowd as the people watched,
about to burst into laughter. The girl obviously didn't know
the man was there. She stood up on the toe of the leg
which he reached for, and stretched the upper part of her
body as she moved her hands in rapid gestures. I could see
that three other girls near her were coordinating their
movements with hers.
When I turned back to look at the crowd, I was
startled to find Tom Harper standing a few feet from me.
He came over when he saw me looking at him.
"That's like old Inger," he smiled, pointing to the
man. "Never says a word when he's sober, but he's pulled
more stunts than any member I can think of. He's full of
the old nick."
 The crowd roared suddenly and both Harper and I
turned back to see. Inger, still holding his jug in one hand,
had hooked the girl's leg with the golf iron. He jerked the
club playfully and the gentle tug was enough to set the girl
off balance and spill her on the grass. She fell in a sitting
position, her arms supporting her shoulders and her legs
spread out in front of her. She looked over her bare toes at
the crowd of people who were now roaring with laughter,
as if she were incapable of understanding what she was
doing in an awkward position on the ground. She looked at
Inger, her face bewildered and frightened.
The man dropped his jug and bent over her, helping
her up. When she regained her feet, he waved his hands
excitedly as if he were explaining he was sorry. The crowd
now turned its laughter on him, and somebody came out to
the tee and handed him back his jug, and then turned
around, laughing to everyone and pointing back at old Ben
Inger.
"Say, Will," said Harper, "hadn't you better be
limbering up?" He checked one of his papers. "Yours will
be the second group off the tee after the dancers finish."
I looked around for Mattie and the others. They had
moved off ahead of me into the crowd in order to see better,
so I walked over to them.
What sort of shape are our caddies in, Terry?" I
asked.
Id say theyre in good shape," he answered,
stepping back and looking at the girls. "Wouldnt you,
Mattie?
"Extremely, extremely," Mattie said. At first I
thought he was mocking Terrys tendency to repeat, but his
attention was on the girls and I knew he had picked up the
habit unconsciously. Connie had noticed it too, and she
looked angry.
"I hope so," I said. "We go off in a few minutes.
"Where are the bags?" Connie asked.
Theyre by the metal rack," Lee said, pointing
them out. "They'll be moved up to the end when our
foursome is due.
Tom Harper was out on the tee, talking to one of the
men in the group before us. Tom seemed to finish and turn
away, but then dug his hand into his pocket and brought out
a golf ball, offering it to the man. The man took the ball
and teed it up on the front edge of the grass tee. He smiled
slightly, as if Tom's action had surprised him, but Harper
had already turned his back and was moving off the tee
area.
The man continued to watch him and finally Tom
raised his arm as if it were a sign, and the man stepped up
to the ball. The crowd, which had not fully dispersed after
the dancers left, now solidified around the tee to watch the
drive. The man waggled his club and looked down the
fairway, then again waggled his club and looked. As he
went into his backswing his short body seemed to crumple
almost to the grass, and he whipped his wrists around
mightily in an attack on the ball.
There was a loud explosion and a puff of smoke.
No one knew exactly what had happened. A woman
shrieked and as I turned toward the sound I saw Tom
Harper doubled up over the white ball-washing rack,
laughing and slapping his papers against his thigh.
The man on the tee was temporarily befuddled and
stood on the grass, frozen, his driver slung oddly over his
shoulder. When he understood, his face broke into
movement slowly and took shape in a sheepish grin. The
crowd had recovered and was already laughing. The man
reached hurriedly into his pocket, found a golfball, and
threw it on the ground. He swung at it with no preparation
and great speed, and the ball bounded crazily a little ways
off to the left.
There was no explosion as the other three men
drove, and the crowd soon wandered away. The four men
walked off the tee and down the fairway, and four women
broke away from the waiting group, talking and laughing
excitedly, as they trailed their husbands down the long
expanse of grass, carrying light canvas golf bags.
I went over to my bag and pulled out a driver.
Mattie and Terry followed me, but had to wait while our
bags were moved to the front of the rack. Then they took
out their drivers, Mattie stooping over momentarily to
check his ball pocket. He straightened up.
"Say, I thought the balls came with the bag," he
grinned.
I have some extras," Terry said. He dug into his
bag and then handed Mattie four golfballs and a few red
tees.
Lee and Connie came over.
"Which ones are which?" Connie asked.
I pointed to the tags on each bag. "The one without
the tag is Mattie's," I said.
 Terry hit a long drive which melted away to the
right and dropped into the edge of the rough. Mattie's drive
was low and down the middle but ten yards behind Terry's;
and mine was straight down the center of the fairway but
far short of both of them. Nothing happened to us: there
were no tricks or explosions. I was a little disappointed,
because I had the feeling we were being ignored.
As we walked off Terry said, "What shall we make
it for, Mattie?"
Mattie shrugged his shoulders. "Makes no
difference to me," he said.
"Five bucks a hole?"
"Terry," Connie said, for Christ's sake!
It isn't much," he told her. "We'll even out and I
bet the five bucks will go on the last hole.
"But why can't you just play?"
Oh, you have to play for something," Terry said.
Otherwise the game gets dull."
Well, you can let me out," I told them. "I know
when there's a scheme on to take me to the cleaners."
Terry smiled. "What do you say, Mattie?"
"Makes no difference to me," Mattie repeated.
"Whatever you want is all right with me."
"Terry plays quite a bit," Connie warned.
"Oh, I don't think Mattie is any stranger to the
game," Terry said good-naturedly. "And look at him, he
already has everyone's sympathy and the best drive. I'm the
real underdog."
I stopped and shot my second: a low brassie hit
which careened off the top of a bunker and scampered
down the other side into good position for an approach to
the green. Both Mattie and Terry were on the green with
their seconds and they halved the hole wih two par fours. I
took a five, and had to sink a fifteen-foot putt to do it.
"You made women's par, Will," Lee said, as we
walked to the second tee.
"Maybe I could have been women's champ," I
grinned.
"There would be too much pressure for you,
darling," Lee smiled. "Imagine being trapped on a golf
course, listening to the chitchat of three women for four
hours."
"I think you're right," I said.
"It must be unbearable, Lee," said Connie.
Lee looked quickly over at Connie. "Almost," she
said. "I suppose there are other things far worse."
 "What on earth could be worse?"
"Oh, Lee speculated, ... a house full of screaming
children, I suppose.
Connie was surprised. "Why, I thought you liked
children."
Terry teed his ball and hit a low straight drive into
the wind. Mattie followed him, and although his ball had a
faint hook, it didn't get him into any trouble. It settled to a
stop about fifteen yards ahead of Terry.
"Very nice," Terry said. He looked at Lee and me.
"See? Now who's the underdog?"
"I hope he pins your ears back," Connie said.
I was about to address my ball but I stepped back
and waited until they quieted. Then I took a hefty swing
and dribbled one off the front of the tee. Well, I could tell
Lee was embarrassed.
"Take another one," Terry advised. "We're not
looking."
I pulled out another ball, and this one I succeeded in
lofting down the fairway.
"I thought the wind would blow that right back at
us," Lee observed, as we walked on.
"I can't believe it," Connie was saying. "You of all
people."
"What?" Lee said, irritably.
"... don't like children."
"Oh, I do enjoy other people's. Just because I don't
want a houseful for myself doesn't mean I dislike them."
"I can't believe it. It just doesn't sound like you."
"I have all the children I can handle right now," Lee
said, laughing nervously and looking at me.
"Insults," I smiled. "It's a lucky thing I'm used to
them."
I had thought all along we wouldn't play more than
nine holes, but as we came up to the number eight tee,
Mattie and Terry were even up and the match had gotten to
the point where there was no stopping. I had quit playing
after I took a ten on number six and then put three balls into
the creek on number seven. I had become the scorekeeper,
and since Connie and Lee were about dead I also ended up
carrying the bags. I was sure the match would go the full
eighteen, but I didn't know how wrong I was. The match
stopped right there on the eighth tee.
I had seen Mattie go over to where I had laid the
bags by the tee. He had taken out a new ball and then
walked up and teed it between the white markers. He
swung in that smooth gliding stroke that he had, and the
ball exploded.
None of us could hold back the laughter as we
gradually saw Mattie, standing in the thinning smoke, with
a twisted grin spread across his face.
"I almost died ... " Terry said, his laughter breaking
in, "...waiting for you to take out that ball."
Mattie stood silently at the tee. The aching grin still
on his face.
Ill make it up to you, Mattie," Terry said, still
barely able to speak through his laughter. "I'll give you the
hole and the five dollars. I couldn't possibly play
anymore.
We all decided there was no use in playing
anymore, so we walked across the course to the clubhouse.
Harper was still on the first tee, looking something like a
traffic cop as he directed the foursomes with his handful of
papers. When he saw us, however, he walked over, his face
breaking into a big smile.
"I'd have given a million dollars to see, he told
Terry. "Did it go off all right?"
"Perfectly."
"You can never tell, Harper added. "Sometimes
they're duds."
"Well,, this one went off all right," Connie said
stiffly, as if she had begun to regret her laughter.
"Mattie," Terry said, putting his arm around Mattie's
shoulder, any man who can take a joke the way you did is
all right in my book. When can you start working for me?
You can have any job you want."
Mattie looked up with a puzzled expression as if he
expected another joke.
I'm serious, Terry assured him. "I already know
about your ability." He smiled. "Both my wife and Will
are fans of yours, you know. I can promise you plenty of
work."
"I don't mind work," Mattie smiled slowly.
"Can't you let him think about it?" Connie asked.
"Think about it?" said Mattie. "I'll phone my boss
tonight and give him my notice!"
"Splendid," Terry told him. "Splendid."
 CHAPTER 10

I CAN'T SAY the next morning began too badly, except I

awoke with a slight headache and didn't remember Lee had
gone until I had already asked her for the aspirin. Upon
arriving home the night before, she had decided to go down
to Chicago this morning with Terry to see her father.
I opened the bedroom door, my hand massaging my
head, and I decided against waking Mattie until I had
started the coffee. It was the least I could do, I thought,
since he had been fairly ill with excitement over his new
job last night and had refused to go to bed until all hours.
But as I went down the stairs to the living room I heard the
knocking at the f ront door, and I went over and opened it.
"Hurry up," Connie told me. I opened the door
wider and she rushed by me with a large grocery bag. The
sound of her quick clicking steps bit into my sore head.
"Aren't you even dressed yet?" she said.
By the time I caught up with her she had set the bag
on the kitchen counter. She turned to face me.
"What is it?" I asked sleepily.
"The biggest watermelon I could find," she said,
beaming. "We're going to celebrate."
Oh, no." I tried to grab my head with both hands.
Connie ignored me. "Did Lee get off all right this
morning?" she asked.
"I guess Terry picked her up early. But, really, what
I want to know is how did you carry that watermelon all the
way over here?"
Oh, I didn't, she smiled. "I drove here from
Ohega." She hesitated slightly. "Where's Mattie?"
"I was going to begin the coffee before I got him
out of bed. He's been looking pretty bad the last few
mornings. He can't take it anymore, I guess."
"You go upstairs and get him up, and while you're
both dressing I'll make some breakfast."
I was already on my way up the steps. If there's one
thing my stomach won't stand it's preparing food in the
morning.
When I went into Mattie's room, I found him awake
and sitting on the edge of his bed. I believe I startled him.
What's the matter?" I asked him. "Sick?"
"No," he answered slowly. I just looked in the
mirror and saw Mattie Rourke, editor of ... of ... What does
he call the magazine?"
 I don't think he has a name for it yet, I said. "Fact
is, youre working for a nameless enterprise."
"Don't joke about this, Will," he told me. "You're
looking at a man who at long last has made it. Do you
realize what an opportunity this is?"
I suppose I should have been happy for him, but
when I tried to say something I found I didn't feel one way
or another about his job.
"Connie's downstairs making breakfast," I said,
finally.
When Mattie and I came down the steps, Connie
had bacon and eggs ready and the coffee poured. Mattie
went out on the patio and stretched his arms.
"Well, the hemlocks are still out here," he called
into us.
"They'll be there forever," I said.
Mattie came back inside. "'They make it seem like
the beauty and privilege of Lake Ohega will go on and on
with nothing to worry about."
There was an urgency in the way Connie served us
over the counter. It was as if she wanted to get breakfast
out of the way as soon as possible. I had barely finished
my last forkful when she whisked the plate away.
"Did you tell Mattie about the watermelon?" she
asked me.
"Watermelon?" Mattie said.
I thought that Connie had passed the point of
propriety in her crude attempt to recapture the past, and I
was determined that a watermelon was not to be forced on
me today. But as I was about to say something I heard car
tires strike the stone of the driveway and then slide to a
stop. When I went over to the window I didn't recognize
the car, which had parked behind Connie's convertible. I
went to the front door and opened it, just in time to see Tom
Harper step out.
What's up, Tom?"
Oh, I was out this way." He walked to the door. "I
thought as long as I was here ..."
"Come in," I said. I noticed the envelope under his
arm as he stepped past me and inside. "You remember
Connie and Mattie."
"Of course," Harper said quickly. "I thought I'd
drop these off," he added. He took the envelope and
opened it. "The photographer made these up for me last
night and I noticed this one of your party. Thought you
might like a preview. Of course, you'll get a complete set
of the pictures later, when they're made up in booklets." He
lay the picture on the table.
Mattie picked it up, and Connie and I peered over
his shoulder. Ben Inger was shaking Mattie's hand in the
photo, I was a blur at the left, but the rest of the people had
come out well.
Say, Mattie said, his face lighting up immediately.
How about that!
Connie smiled. "Just you, Mattie, and Ben Inger,
steel.
I didn't particularly care about the picture but it was
a nice feeling that Tom had stopped to give it to me. I felt
as if I had been singled out as someone special. Of course,
I had no more than thought of it and I realized that Tom
Harper would be dropping off pictures to everyone in the
Lake Ohega area, giving everyone a feeling of preference.
I couldn't help but admire him for it; it seemed a smart
thing for a realtor to do.
"I'd like a couple prints of this," Mattie said.
"Why don't you take that one then, and I'll have a
few more made up? Could you see to that, Tom?" I said.
"Certainly," Harper answered. He turned over his
empty envelope and made a note on it with his pencil.
"I'd like to send it home," Mattie smiled. "My
mother thinks I'm a bum sometimes."
Well, got to be going," Harper said. He walked
ahead of me to the door.
"Thanks, Tom," I told him. "Thanks very much."
As we went outside, I asked, Howre you coming
in your battle with Old Man Gowdys will?
"Fine," he said confidently. "It's a tough one but
everybody's on my side." He climbed into the car, waved,
and then backed down the drive.
Connie met me at the door as I came back into the
house. "Come on, Will," she said. "Let's fix the
watermelon. I want to get gloriously high."
"Now?" I moaned.
"Right now. Yes, definitely."
I went into the kitchen but walked back out
immediately. "Can't do it," I smiled.
She looked at me suspiciously.
"You didn't put the melon into the refrigerator, and
it's warm. But the most important thing, you forgot the
gin."
"I thought you would certainly have gin."
 "Why don't we just eat the watermelon," Mattie
said. "My stomach feels like it was under my foot all night.
Anyway I have to think about all the things I'm going to do
on this new magazine. Wow!" he shouted. "Imagine ...
we'll put some zing into things, telling people about the
bomb, political graft!"
I took one look at Connie's face and decided to go
downtown for gin. "It'll only take a few minutes, I
explained. "Be just what you need, Mattie."
"We can go for a swim while Will is gone," Connie
said. "I just happen to be wearing my suit under this
dress."
"Sounds like a perfectly planned plot," I smiled.
I had a feeling that buying two fifths of gin and
having a watermelon was probably the worst thing we
could do on this particular day, but I couldn't find the
reason or explain it to myself, so I went right ahead to the
liquor store. I did have a good idea why Connie wanted to
get "gloriously high" and I couldn't help thinking it might
be good for her. With Mattie going to work for her
husband, it seemed she deserved to get good and tight. The
only thing I objected to was having to get tight with her.
When I arrived back at the house I noticed the
watermelon still sat on the counter. Connie had failed
again to put it into the refrigerator.
I decided it might speed things up if I cooled the gin
too, so I placed the two bottles alongside the melon in the
refrigerator and then went over to the double glass doors of
the patio and looked out at the lake. Mattie was lying on
the pier and Connie stood on the edge as if she were about
to dive into the water. She turned and seemed to urge
Mattie to dive with her but he shook his head lazily. She
dove in alone.
I could only see her head occasionally above the
water's surface, green and shimmering in the steady
sunlight. Specks of yellow glistened in spots as the waves
lapped over and were glazed by the full force of the sun for
a second and then leveled out as the water slid toward the
thin beach. She turned then and came back to the pier,
pulling herself up and standing above Mattie who jerked
and rolled over as the water splashed down on him from
her suit. She knelt down and kissed him, and seeing this I
decided to busy myself in the kitchen for awhile.
I went and poured myself a glass of milk and drank
it, but in spite of all my good intentions returned to the
living room and the window. Connie was now standing
above Mattie, gesturing wildly with her hands as if she
were angry, but he merely rolled back to his stomach and
cradled his head in his arms. Connie started to come up
toward the house, and then turning on one of the steps she
shouted something ugly that I never expected to hear from
her. Mattie got to his feet and followed her. He made no
attempt to catch up to her, but moved slowly as if he were
reluctant to leave the lake.
I moved away from the window and went over to sit
in one of the captain's chairs to wait for them. Connie
came in laughing.
"Guess what happened to me?" she said. "I just
offered myself to your friend Mattie out there, and he
refused. My self respect has just been shot to hell."
She looked at me and hesitated. I was embarrassed
for her and could think of nothing to say.
"Is the watermelon ready?" she asked.
"It should be cold enough in a few minutes."
Mattie came in through the double doors, looking as
though each step were an effort.
Connie stood completely still and her face turned
almost white. "Oh, Mattie," she moaned, "please..."
I tried to think of what could have happened out
there, so I would know where I stood in this.
"We could leave today, right now," she pleaded.
"We could go in my car. It wouldn't matter where we went.
We could just leave together, Mattie. We could go right
now."
Mattie turned away and walked to a chair where he
dropped down heavily.
"What is there to stop us!" Connie shouted. "Will
you please tell me what's wrong with you!"
Mattie threw up his hands. "It's just that you hit me
with it so suddenly," he explained. "I don't know what to
think."
"If we're ever going to do it, if we're ever going to
get away and live for ourselves, it has to be done right now.
Can't you understand that?" She laughed shortly, as if to
relieve some of her anger. "Look at me, Will, I'm begging
him and he still won't go!"
"But there are so many things to consider," Mattie
said. "What about Paul? What will happen to him?"
Connie smiled slowly and her face hardened. "I
don't think we have to worry about Paul, at least as far as
his father is concerned."
 "But why not?" Mattie said. "You say we don't
have to worry about this and that. Why don't we have to
worry about Paul?"
Connie turned away and stood looking out the
window toward the lake. "Because Paul is your baby,
Mattie."
Now that I had heard her say it, I had the feeling I
had known all along and had never quite managed to admit
it. Mattie took it pretty hard. He looked at her, first in
disbelief, and then I could see the shock slowly clouding
his face as he began to accept it. A few drops of
perspiration came out underneath his hairline. He tried to
put up a pathetic, pitifully small fight.
"If I leave now, I have to give up everything," he
said slowly. "If you could wait ..."
"The same old Mattie," she said bitterly.
"I just don't know," he said miserably. "I don't
know what to do." He put his head into his hands. I knew I
should say something, but he began to sob, and I decided to
leave the room and go upstairs. But Connie turned
suddenly and ran out the front door before I could get to the
stairway.
"Connie, will you wait!" Mattie shouted. "Oh,
God!
"You had plenty of time!" she called. The door
slammed behind her. By the time I got to the doorway, her
car was speeding down the winding driveway, the tires
scraping on the white stones.
When I looked back at Mattie he had put his head
between his hands again.
"I'd better follow her," I said.
He said nothing.
"I think it would be a good idea," I added.
I ran out to the Thunderbird, climbed in and turned
it around in the driveway. I sped down the hill, but when I
came to the road there were no cars in sight either to the
right or left, so I couldn't tell which way she had turned. I
sat for a second, and then decided the last place Connie
would go would be to her home. I turned the car right on
the brick road toward the highway and Ohega.
I watched the speedometer move up to eighty as I
wound down the slow breaking curves of the brick road
toward the highway, and when I passed out of the shade of
the hemlocks and onto the white concrete I ignored the
stop-sign and pressed a little more on the accelerator as I
took the curve. I did slow down as I passed the two brick
buildings, but there was no one outside and the garage
doors of the police station were closed, so I opened the car
up again.
It was a few miles after the station that I caught
sight of a car ahead of me. I crept up to it slowly until I
could see it was a convertible and then I pressed my foot
down all the way. I wanted to catch her before she went
into the town.
I tried to lean over as I drove, and roll down the
window on the other side, but every time I would take one
hand from the wheel the car would veer out to the center of
the road. Finally, I got it down, almost losing control of the
car once. The wind blew in and whipped around so fast my
eyes began to tear, and I couldn't understand how Connie
was able to keep up her speed, driving with the top down.
Gradually I pulled up behind her, and I honked the
horn. She kept right on. I couldn't even count on whether
she knew I was the one behind her or not. I tried flipping
the lights on and off, hoping to get her attention, but the sun
was too bright and I knew it was useless. Finally I pulled
out into the middle of the highway and began to draw up
alongside her.
I leaned over toward the open window, as much as I
dared. "Connie!" I shouted. "Pull over!!" I felt like
adding: before I kill myself; because the car kept veering
off onto the edge of the highway.
She made no movement to look over at me, and I
thought my shout had been carried away by the speeding
wind between the two cars. I shouted again.
"Connie! For God's sake, pull over and stop!"
She turned her head slowly, glanced at me there,
racing along beside her, and then looked back to the front
as if she were trying to decide whether I was really there or
not. I shouted again.
"Pull over, will you!"
She didn't stop right away. She slowed the car at
first and I moved back in behind her and waited for her to
stop. She speeded up again, and I honked the horn at her
frantically trying to remind her I was there. Then, finally,
she veered sharply off the road onto the shoulder and
skidded to a stop. I had to slam on my brakes to keep the
Thunderbird from going right into her.
I sat there for a few short moments to regain my
breath. Then I walked over to her car and climbed in
beside her. She did look odd, sitting there stiffly in her
swimming suit, her bare feet on the pedals.
 She sat still, looking through the front window, and
made no move to look at me or say anything. I didn't know
what to say either. We both sat with the queer dead silence
between us being shattered every now and then by the
rippling cry of a meadowlark which sat on the barbed-wire
fence just off the highway.
When she did move finally, she put her hand on the
door handle and opened her door.
"Shall we go to your car?" she asked me.
"All right," I agreed, climbing out my side. "I'll
send someone out later for this car." I followed closely
along behind her, afraid that at any moment she might
decide to run away again.
That uncomfortable silence returned as we drove
slowly back to the lake. Yet I knew the only thing I could
do was wait patiently until she said something, and then try
desperately to keep her talking.
"You know, Will," she said evenly at last, "even if
Mattie had agreed to go with me, I don't think I really could
have done it --- for good, I mean."
"I don't understand, I said, trying to make my voice
as casual as possible. I turned off the highway and
continued on the brick road toward Lake Ohega.
"I suppose it does sound odd after I've just made a
complete fool of myself."
I thought of Mattie back at the house, sweating out
a decision without knowing one of the alternatives had
never existed.
"There was something about his being here at the
lake with you and Lee ... well, that fooled me," she
continued. "But he's the same as he always was. I can tell
you one thing, Will. I'll never be fooled again." The
nervous quiver had disappeared from her voice and I knew
she was all right.
I turned into her driveway up the steep hill and
stopped in front of the white garage. The garage door was
open and we sat in the car for a moment, after I had
switched off the engine, and looked at the unpainted walls
of the inside.
Connie laughed. "It does look as if I left in a hurry
this morning, doesn't it?"
I looked over at her and she smiled at me.
"Yes, it does," I said. I opened my door and
climbed out of the car. "If it's all right with you I'll have a
drink."
 "Of course," she said, stepping out and joining me.
She placed her bare feet gingerly on the stones. "You've
had quite an experience." She took my arm, laughing
again, and we walked into the house.
When we came into the living room, Connie walked
on to the liquor cabinet. Her suit was still damp, I noticed,
and tugged across her seat.
"Would you like a manhattan?" she asked.
"No thanks," I smiled. "Friend of mine makes them
all the time. Won't let anybody drink anything else."
"I think I know him," Connie smiled.
"Scotch and water would be fine."
She poured the scotch into a glass without
measuring and then walked into the kitchen. I heard her
opening a tray of ice cubes.
"Where's Paul?" I asked.
"Henrietta probably has him out at the pier. She's a
demon about sun for kids."
She came back and handed me the drink. "Taste it
and see if there's enough water."
I tasted and nodded my head. I sat for a few
moments and sipped my drink silently. When I looked up,
Connie held a glass with a small amount of scotch in it and
no ice. She sat down on the couch across from me.
"Does Terry know about the baby?" I asked her.
She appeared surprised as though she had forgotten she had
said anything about it. Then she smiled.
"Does he ever," she said softly. "When Paul was
born he refused to accept it at first. He almost begged me
to tell him the baby was premature. What could I say? I
certainly couldn't lie to him."
"But did he know about Mattie?"
"I think he guessed it as soon as he came to the lake
and met Mattie. After all, Terry and I hardly saw each
other before we were married." She thought for a minute.
"Now, he's trying to take Paul away from me. I know it."
Oh, I don't..."
"Yes, he is, believe me. Oh, I don't mean legally.
What would he do with a baby? I mean he sneaks around
trying to alienate Paul from me."
"But Paul is just a baby, Connie."
I splashed the remains of my drink around the ice
cube in the bottom of the glass. "I suppose I shouldn't say
this, Connie, but I do feel sorry for you."
Her eyes glistened suddenly with fury. "You're not
being sorry, Will," she said sharply. "You're being smug."
She threw back her head and laughed bitterly. "Someday,
I'll comfort you, Will."
"What do you mean by that?" I think at this
moment I pitied Connie more than I have ever pitied
anyone in my life.
She rose from the couch and walked to the liquor
cabinet, holding her drink firmly in both hands.
"Did you know Terry keeps an apartment on North
Michigan Boulevard?" she asked.
"I imagined he stayed somewhere during the week."
"Where does Lee spend her evenings when she's in
Chicago, Will?"
I sat there, pressing my hands against my glass and
staring at her. It was impossible for me to turn my eyes.
"I'll try to forget you said that, Connie," I told her,
my voice shaking.
"There you go, being smug again," she smiled.
"Terry usually does get what he wants."
"I just had a phone call from Lee while you and
Mattie were swimming," I said, emphasizing each word
slowly. "She said her father is getting better, but not as
rapidly as the doctors would like."
Connie walked out of the living room and up the
stairway. I sat waiting for her until I realized she wouldn't
be coming back. Then I walked out the front door and
drove home. The late afternoon sun was still warm, but I
noticed a cool breeze had begun to blow in off the lake.
 CHAPTER 11

WHEN I ARRIVED back at the house, Mattie was sitting

in the same chair, his hand resting loosely on one of the
bottles of gin which he had placed on the table next to him.
I suppose I should have told him about Connie, but I didn't
want to hurt him any more than he'd been hurt already, so I
thought it better not to say anything.
I went over to the phone and gave the operator the
number of Lee's parents. It was Lee's mother who
answered.
"Hello," she said. Her voice broke the way Lee's
does when she answers the phone.
"Hello, Mrs. Hoppenrath," I said. I could never
bring myself to call her anything else. "This is Will."
"Oh, hello, Will. How are you?"
"Fine. How is Mister Hoppenrath?" I tried to find
things to say before I would ask to speak with Lee.
"He's much better. He went into the office today.
He should be back any minute."
"That's fine," I managed finally.
"You youngsters must have an enormous phone
bill."
"Why is that?" I asked, feeling as if my voice were
speaking by itself, apart from me.
"Well, Lee called only a half-hour ago. Didn't she
say anything to you about it?"
"She must have forgotten to mention it."
There was a long silence while Mrs. Hoppenrath
considered this. I didn't care much whether she believed it
or not.
"Is everything all right, Will?"
"Sure. I just ... ah ... came home," I added, "and I
wanted to find out how Mister Hoppenrath was feeling. I
guess I can get any other information from Lee."
"All right," she said hesitantly. "But you and Lee
had better get together on your phone calls. Long distance
costs money."
I said goodbye and hung up the phone, then stood
there by the table for a minute. I thought I heard Mattie
mumble something behind me and I turned around. He had
tilted the gin bottle to his mouth and I watched his throat
muscles gulping deeply, but when he replaced the bottle on
the table he said nothing. I left him sitting there and
walked out onto the patio and down the steps to the pier.
 The people across the lake had their hi-fidelity set
on again. I sat down at the edge of the pier, listening to the
single piano and the controlled jazz which drifted to me
over the dark water. There was a cool breeze which chilled
me, and looking down I realized that my shirt was soaked
through with perspiration. My mind filled with memories.
After Lee and I were married on that bright summer
afternoon in North Carolina, we drove off the army post to
nearby Fayetteville, into the older section of the town
where the huge white wooden homes lay on sweeping
green lawns. We had avoided a reception of any kind,
although I had gone into town the day before Lee had
arrived, and had bought two bottles of sparkling burgundy,
some Italian sausage and a loaf of hard rye bread, and had
brought them to the apartment. It was what Lee had
stipulated in her letter. I did have trouble locating the
sausage, but had seen one finally in the window of a small
delicatessen on the downtown main street.
Our apartment was behind one of the big white
homes in the older section, above a garage, and looked like
converted servants' quarters. The elderly lady who had
rented it to me had delicately pointed to the trim flower
areas, the pecan trees, and had said her backyard would be
my front yard and to please feel free about using it. The
only thing she worried about, she had added, was that she
did not rent to enlisted men. I had worn my civilian clothes
so I showed her my identification and from then on she
addressed me as Lieutenant Able, and everything had been
all right.
Now, as I drove Lee into the circular white stone
drive, past the wide front porch of the mansion and by the
long short-cropped hedge, and stopped the car at the side of
the large white garage, I felt rather proud of myself for
having found the place. I pointed out the pecan trees to Lee
as we climbed from the car.
"Will, it's wonderful," she said. "Why, think of it,
we can have lawn parties. We won't even know we're in
the army."
"You mean you don't feel like an army wife?"
She laughed. "Of course not. Not here."
Wait until you call on the colonels lady, I told
her.
Ill say: How do you stand being married to the
old duff, my dear, really'!" She laughed and curtsied in her
straight gray suit. "'My dear, it must be awfully boring'."
 "You say that and I'll be a second lieutenant for the
rest of my time here."
"But what should I say?" she smiled, looking up at
me. We were both only now beginning to feel our
marriage.
"Don't say anything," I said. "You can never not
say anything wrong."
Yes, dear," she said, smiling broadly.
I took her hand. "Wait until you see the inside.
Windows on all sides and there's always a breeze."
"Well, lead on, lieutenant. Let's get the inspection
over with and get on with the war."
I led her up the narrow stairway and opened the
door into the large living room which had windows across
the far wall. The furniture was low and modern-looking,
and a chocolate color.
There were also two bedrooms, a kitchen and a
small dinette. Lee went immediately into one of the
bedrooms, picking the large airy one which looked out
toward the northwest and the back of the white home. She
returned to the living room without her jacket.
"I thought you'd like that bedroom best, so I took
the other one," I told her.
She looked surprised and was silent for a moment.
Its just perfect," she said then, and sat next to me on the
couch. "I expected a shanty of some kind. I had my mind
all made up for a shack in the worst part of town." She
smiled. "In a way I'm disappointed. I was all set to be a
brave little martyr with firm little chin."
"Well, we could find a shack. There are plenty of
them."
"It's too late." She kicked off her shoes and curled
her legs underneath her. "I'm spoiled already."
I rose and walked toward the kitchen. "Would you
like a glass of burgundy?"
"Did you get it? she said. "Did you find the
sausage too?"
"Of course."
"I didn't think you'd ever be able to find Italian
sausage in North Carolina."
"Like some now?" I repeated.
"No," she smiled. "And I really don't want any
wine either. It was all just a test to see if you really loved
me."
I came back to the couch and sat down. "You mean
you told me to get those things just to see if I could?"
 "Yes, she smiled again, "it was a kind of quest."
She reached over and took my hand. "You know, Will," she
said slowly, "in a place like this the only thing I can
contribute is children."
I didn't answer. I was thinking of all the stores I had
gone to before finding the Italian sausage.
"Will? she repeated.
"Yes."
"The apartment is large enough for a baby, and I
understand they're free in the army."
"My God," I said, "we've been married for
threequarters of an hour and you want children." I slipped
my arm around her shoulders. "You're amazing, Lee."
"I'm serious," she insisted.
"All right," I said.
"All right what?"
"If you want to have a baby, I don't see any reason
why you shouldn't have one."
"Don't you want one, Will?" she asked softly.
"If you do, I do. I want anything that you want."
She stood up nervously and smiled. "I suppose it is
silly," she said. "Having a baby so soon." She waited for a
few seconds and then continued when I said nothing.
"Most people do wait a year, at least."
"I suppose so," I said.
"But we don't have to be like most people, Will. We
certainly must have a choice."
"Yes, I guess we do."
"What do you think, Will?" she asked finally.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you want to have a baby? Right away, without
waiting?"
"I thought I told you." I couldn't help smiling at her
seriousness. "I don't see any reason why we can't, if you
want one."
She laughed suddenly. "Oh, I suppose the whole
thing is just a silly impulse." She rose from the couch.
"Why don't we open the wine, Will. Let's get high as
kites."
"It's going to take time to get used to you," I said
laughing. I walked over and squeezed her shoulders.
"But every minute of it will be wonderful."
"I know it will be," she said, kissing me. "It will be
wonderful," she repeated.
"There's no reason why it won't be," I said.
 CHAPTER 12

THE SUDDEN SILENCE startled me. The music across

the lake had stopped and the lack of noise, aside from the
insistent lapping of the waves against the pier posts,
pressed into my attention. White foam slid on the edge of
the water along the sand, and glistened in the pale yellow
light of the half-moon over the other side of the lake. I
watched it disintegrate, then reform slowly, but I could not
stop remembering.
There was the way Lee looked late at night in the
pale glow of the bedroom dresser lamp when she sat on the
edge of the bed and brushed her blonde hair down to lie flat
against the white lace of her slip. In the low yellow light
her arms shone gold, and the white tucking at the small of
her back folded in small arches as she drew the brush back
and forth vigorously.
There was a lot to remember; and I sat for some
time and looked out across the lake, hearing the small
noises which poked up occasionally through the large
inclusive silence.
Finally the time did come when I got up from the
pier and walked the long way back to the flagstone steps
and on up to the patio. When I came into the house there
were two empty gin bottles sitting on the table by Mattie's
side.
He was slumped down in the chair, his feet
stretched out and his chin settled on his chest. I suppose it
was more because of Lee than anything, but I felt irritated
at him, sitting drunkenly in my house, and on my liquor
too.
Two puddles of water enclosed the base of each
bottle which rested sweating and damp on the surface of the
table. It wasn't until I saw this that I remembered I had put
the gin into the refrigerator and realized it had been ice-
cold when Mattie had been drinking it. I reached over and
tried to shake him out of his stupor, and I suppose I
panicked a little.
"Come on, goddamn it, Mattie!" I shouted at him,
trying to make him understand. "If you think I'm going to
carry you upstairs, you're crazy! I've had enough for
today!" I thought he seemed almost dead.
His head shook crazily in my hands. I thought it
funny his eyes were open, and I suppose this angered me
even more because, almost without knowing it, I slapped
his face vigorously between my hands. I couldn't seem to
accept that a man who sat and stared at me could not hear
what I was shouting to him.
"Come on! Get up, goddamn you!" Nothing.
Still his eyes stared, unseeing and without life, and
when his mouth opened and blood trickled out I suppose
the horrifying idea that Mattie had passed away sank into
my mind slowly. He was dead --- gone!
I went through the motions of calling a doctor, and
by the time the man arrived I was having a drink, sitting in
a chair across from Mattie and looking at him as little as
possible. He still wore the plaid trunks.
The doctor proclaimed him dead, swiftly enough,
explaining that Mattie's ulcer had begun to bleed and in his
drunken stupor the swelling blood had strangled him. The
doctor went over to the phone, assuring me in his harsh
business-like voice he would take care of everything,
although I couldn't for the life of me imagine what there
was to care for now. It seemed that everything that
concerned me had burst to bits and now I sat, surrounded
by fragments that I must somehow put together.
When the doctor finished calling the police and the
hospital, I went to the phone and dialed Connie's number.
The phone rang a long time before she answered, and I
stood there listening to the clicks from the earpiece,
stupidly feeling the effects of the drink.
"What's wrong, Will?" Connie asked immediately,
when she found out it was me.
I had trouble answering, but finally managed to
push the words out. "It's Mattie," I told her. "I left him for
awhile and the damn fool sat down and drank himself to
death."
"Mattie is dead?"
"Yes, he's dead," I said, a little angrily. "That's what
I said."
She said nothing for a long time. I began to worry.
"Connie?... Connie, are you still there?"
I heard her voice catch, and then there was silence
again.
"It's so strange, she said finally. "Why is it I feel
nothing, Will? Absolutely nothing." She answered herself,
adding, "I guess it was all over this afternoon."
"He drank the gin I put into the refrigerator for the
watermelon party."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked, after
another long silence.
 "Yes..., I hesitated. "There is something."
"I'll be right over, she said. "I'll be dressed in a
minute.
No, that won't help anything. There'll be more
than enough people here in a minute. The police have been
called. I don't think you should get into it, Connie. There
isn't anything you can do over here."
"Did you call his mother?"
"Mattie's?"
"Yes, his mother in Freeport. Has she been called?"
"I suppose someone will take care of it."
"But haven't you?" she insisted. "Haven't you
called her? Really, Will, you should call and say
something."
"What would you like me to say? Do you want me
to tell her Mattie drank two fifths of gin in a few hours and
then died? How am I supposed to tell her that?"
"I'll be right over, Will, she said.
"There's no need for you to come, Connie."
"I think I better anyway," she added, with a note of
finality.
"All right, all right. But I want you to do something
for me before you come.
"Anything."
"Get in touch with Terry ... and Lee. Tell them
what's happened. You must have a number for Terry."
There was another long silence. I had wanted to ask
her to do this, hang up the phone, and not have to see her, at
least until the next morning.
"I have the number, she said softly.
"Tell them to come as soon as possible.
"I'm so sorry, Will," she said.
"There's only one person over here who deserves
your pity, Connie, and he's dead."
I hung up the phone before she could answer.
The police arrived before Connie did, and they
asked all sorts of silly questions: Did he have any reason to
kill himself? Of course not. Do you think it was suicide?
Of course not; it was simply an unavoidable accident.
Where were you, Mister Able? I was sitting out on the pier.
Was he a heavy drinker? No, I don't think so ... well, fairly
heavy. I don't really know.
Then I had to tell them four times how I had
happened to put the gin in the refrigerator. I admitted it
sounded silly; but then, of course, Connie came and she
vouched for the proposed watermelon party. The two
officers were finally satisfied, at least on that point.
I'm afraid I lost my temper with them.
"Look here," I said suddenly. One of them had
asked me for the tenth time how I happened to leave Mattie
alone. "The man simply drank the cold gin without
thinking about it. Maybe he was trying to forget
something, or figure something out, or one of a million
things we all do when we drink. He drank too much too
fast, without being aware of it, and it killed him. I don't
believe there's anything else to say."
"I'm sorry, sir," the fat one said.
It may be that the police at Lake Ohega naturally
feel uneasy because their station barely clings to the area
they are supposed to protect; but, whatever it was, after my
outburst the two of them decided to leave.
"I think we have everything now," the other said.
"We won't bother you again, Mister Able. These things
happen far more frequently out here at the lake than you
can imagine. It's unfortunate."
And with that, they left.
The doctor left too, soon after Mattie was taken
away by a mortician's ambulance from Ohega. "Scotch all
right?" Connie asked. I nodded and dropped into a chair as
she went to the bar and poured two drinks.
On the floor beside me I noticed the picture of
Mattie shaking hands with Ben Inger. It was half-under the
chair, and I thought he must have dropped it there because I
remembered it last being on the table.
Connie brought the drink over to me. "I still can't
believe it, Will, she said softly. "These things just don't
happen. It seems like any minute he'll come around the
corner of a doorway, and everything will be explained as a
horrible joke that we'll always tell when we get too drunk."
"It's a joke all right, Connie, but the joke seems to
be on us."
"I don't see how you can sit there and say that."
"Well, Mattie's out of it now; and we seem to be
left here with the mess."
"Poor Mattie," she said. She began to cry. It took
me by surprise: she had done so well up to then. "Poor
crazy Mattie," she repeated.
I did what I could to comfort her, but I must confess
I wasn't much help. I could think of no comforting things
to say. When she did stop crying it was more from fatigue
than any kind words I had offered her. I was thinking
mostly of the ugly situation that would occur when Terry
and Lee arrived.
Connie was on the phone, talking to Mattie's mother
in Freeport when they came in the door. Terry pointed out
clumsily that they had made the distance up from Chicago
in forty-five minutes --- a record.
"Where is he?" Lee asked. She turned away from
me a little when she spoke.
"They took him to a funeral home in Ohega," I
answered. "The police will move him up to Freeport
tomorrow morning.
"Has his mother been notified?"
"Connies talking to her now. I pointed over
toward the phone stand. Lee and Terry glanced at her, and
she nodded at them in the middle of a sentence.
"I don't understand how it happened," Terry said.
"Connie wasn't too coherent on the phone."
"He drank too much gin in too short a time," I said.
I felt as if I were reading that line in a play; I had told it so
many times to the police. "The doctor wasn't surprised at
all." I felt as if I had to defend myself, so I added, "He said
Mattie must have been bleeding internally for some time.
Connie hung up the phone and came over to us.
Her face was pale and her eyes were still red and swollen.
"How did she take it?" I asked.
"The police had already notified her." She sat down
on a couch and I thought she was going to cry again, but
she suddenly smiled. "She didnt even cry. She said she
expected something like this would happen some day
because Mattie had always associated with the wrong kind
of people. She thought I was phoning from a bar."
The smile seemed frozen on her face. "She kept
asking me where I was. I don't think she ever did believe
me."
No one said anything for a few minutes. We simply
sat and stared at each other.
Finally Terry broke the silence. "It's a shame," he
said. "He seemed so pleased with the job."
"Will you shut up!" Connie shouted. "You gave
him that job so you could stick pins in him, and you know
it!
Lee got up in the silence which followed that, and
walked out into the kitchen.
"I'll make some coffee, she said. She tried to
smile. "Terry rousted me out of bed. Mother got up, and
she wasn't able to make anything out of our explanation.
She must be worried sick."
I looked over at Connie. She said nothing, but
looked down and concentrated on her hands. I was glad
Lee had decided to say this, even though there wasn't a
person in the room who didn't know she had never been at
her parents' house. I thought it was a very brave thing for
her to say.
She came to the counter, and all the strength seemed
to slip away from her. "I'm afraid we're out of coffee," she
said simply. Then she took a deep breath. "Would anyone
like a drink?"
There was no need to ask.
She turned back to the refrigerator, and soon placed
ice in four glasses, then put them on top of the counter and
poured a small amount of scotch in each. I suppose we all
watched her because there was nothing else to do. She
served the drinks without water and no one protested.
"How is your father, Lee?" asked Connie. I could
tell by her face she had asked it before thinking.
"He's much better. I wouldn't be surprised if he
went back to the office in a few days. He's determined not
to retire you know."
"My father retired when he was a young man,"
Connie said, laughing slightly. "Of course not because he
wanted to..."
The piano music from across the lake filtered in
through the open doors of the patio. Some notes came
more loudly than others, and sometimes there wasn't a
sound at all for a few seconds, as we sat silently, waiting
for the breeze to resume.
Terry rose. "We'd better go, Connie," he said. "I
have to leave early tomorrow morning."
Lee and I saw them to the door and I took Terry
aside and told him where Connie's car was. I didn't want to
remind her of it. He nodded, as if it were the most normal
thing in the world to leave a car by the side of a highway.
They went out and down the path by the lake shore. It was
the last time I saw either of them.
When I turned back from the doorway, Lee was
already picking up the glasses. I walked over to her and
placed my hand on her arm, stopping her before she could
walk into the kitchen.
"Lee," I said. She looked down at my hand, and I
removed it from her arm. "I think we should go away from
Lake Ohega as soon as possible," I continued. "I know I'm
going. I'd like you to come with me."
I thought for a second she was going to laugh, but
she said nothing for awhile. Then she said, as if there had
never been any doubt about it:
"All right, Will."
At first I could hardly believe her. "You mean you
will go with me?" I asked again.
"Of course," she smiled. "I will have to say
something to Terry, though, don't you think?"
I wanted to say I didn't care what she did, as long as
we left Lake Ohega together.
She stepped back when I tried to put my arms
around her. "Not now, Will. Please not now. She moved
on into the kitchen and I could see her placing the glasses
in the sink and running water over them. She came back
out then and walked straight to the phone.
"I'll call and ask him to stop here before he goes
down to Chicago tomorrow," she told me. I stood there
while she phoned.
I heard her ask Terry if she could see him early the
next morning, and then I felt foolish standing right there so
I went outside on the patio. Their conversation faded away
from me before I had gotten to the second flagstone step.
The music had stopped now, and there was only the
calm deep sound of the breeze sliding through the
hemlocks and pushing up the water in small ripples against
the pier posts. A fish jumped out of the water's surface a
few yards from where I sat, and then flopped back into the
lake causing the disturbed surface to shimmer in the glow
of the moon.
I tried to imagine what Lee was saying to Terry, but
I knew she would ask only that he stop by the house to
meet her before he left for Chicago. What else was there to
say? I hoped I wouldn't have to see him in the morning,
but even as I wished this I knew I wouldn't have to. Lee
would be sure to take care of everything, all alone.
There was the constant chattering of crickets in the
grass of the hill behind me, and I could see a few swarms of
bugs moving slowly over the water, but holding their
distance from the pier where I sat watching the world with
all the objectivity of a man who had been through hell.
I couldn't help but laugh as I thought of Terry two
nights ago, sitting there behind the table and coolly
cheating at poker. I wondered if Mattie had seen or known
that Terry had an extra card on the last hand, but I didn't
have to think long about it. If Mattie had known he would
have said something immediately, of course; because he
never would have been able to quite accept that a man
could cheat. Mattie would have wanted to clear up the
mistake.
I had a firm suspicion that Connie knew, however,
and that it explained why she had protested so much over
the poker game. I suppose she thought that only by
stopping the game could she keep her husband from
cheating.
The breeze blew more evenly now, but was still as
warm as it had been earlier. I reached down and rubbed my
hand in the water below, finding it warm too. Then I
decided that Lee must be finished and I rose and walked
back to the house.
The lights had been left on in the living room I
noticed as I came up on the patio, but when I entered the
house I didn't see Lee anyplace. I turned off the lights and
went up the steps in the dark. The door was open between
our bedrooms and I tould see she was asleep. She moved
slightly and I stood perfectly still in the doorway, afraid I
had made some noise which had awakened her, but she
settled her head in the pillow again.
I could still my own movements, but I could not
still the noises of the lake beneath the window. The sounds
of the crickets in the tall grass and of the locusts in the tall
trees swept in through the rooms; and I stood there silently,
listening to each noise, afraid it would be the one which
would cause Lee to lift her head from the pillow.
Somewhere across the lake a dog barked at some sudden
light or movement, but Lee didn't stir again.
I began to undress, watching Lee's shoulder through
the doorway between our rooms, watching the smooth silk-
covered line of her hips, and listening to her breaths which
seemed to me to be short and convulsive as if she had a bad
cold.
It wasn't until I lay down in my bed that I distinctly
heard her sobbing.
I lay there listening to her. I even imagined I heard
the shouts and splashing sounds riding through the window
again from somewhere out on the lake. I knew it was too
late, that no one could be out there, but still I heard
something, mixed in with Lee's piteous quiet crying.
I listened in the darkness until I couldn't lie still any
longer and I had to get up and wander to the window to
assure myself. I looked out and saw, far below, the lake
which was surprisingly visible in the moonlight. I could
just barely pick out the raft, a dull square floating on the
gray water. There was someone on the raft.
Someone sat in the center, all huddled up. I couldn't
tell who it was; but of course, I convinced myself it was a
woman's figure, and that I did recognize her.
 CHAPTER 13

I WAS BARELY awake the next morning when I heard the

car horn. I watched Lee slide out from her bed and put on
her robe, and then I heard her go into the hallway and pad
down the steps in her slippers.
I was determined not to go downstairs, because I
knew this was Lee's affair and I could cause her nothing but
trouble. I heard them speaking at the front door, although I
couldn't tell what was being said; but they didn't speak
long. It was only a matter of minutes before I heard the car
pull away f rom the house and turn down the drive. Lee
didn't come back immediately and I could hear her
downstairs in the kitchen. I must have lain there for half an
hour as I tried to decide whether to wait or to join her
downstairs, and I slipped back to sleep undecided, hearing
and seeing nothing until she called me for breakfast.
When I got up and came to the top of the stairs, I
smelled the coffee and toast, and since everything seemed
normal I went back and dressed. She was still in her robe
and slippers when I finally entered the kitchen. I kissed her
neck before she could turn around.
"Everything all right?" I asked her.
Oh, yes," she smiled. She turned with the coffee
pot in her hand and poured two cups, her hand shaking only
slightly. "Terry took it all very well."
"Good," I told her, although I certainly couldn't feel
sorry for him.
She set the coffee pot back on the stove and then sat
down with me at the counter. She laughed sharply. "He
thought I wanted to go into Chicago with him this
morning."
I didn't say anything but concentrated on my coffee
and toast. Lee always made the coffee too strong.
She took a deep breath. "In fact, he told me before I
could tell him."
"What do you mean?" I asked softly.
"He said it was over and done with." She laughed
again nervously. "He thinks he and Connie will be all right,
now that Mattie is gone."
I looked down at my toast. "I think he's wrong
there, Lee. I think he's very wrong. Connie thinks he's
trying to turn Paul away from her."
Lee said nothing.
 "Well, I'm going to phone that agency," I said
finally, "and see if they've had any word."
She looked up blankly.
The teaching agency," I explained. "I'm anxious to
get away from here and start working." I smiled. "If we
knew where I'll be teaching we could move any time."
I finished the toast and then got up and went over to
the phone. The sky outside was clear and the sun glared off
the patio floor, making my eyes water as I dialed the
number and sat down to wait. I have never had strong eyes.
When I reached him the man at the agency said they
had received an offer from one of the schools in Iowa ---
Wellend was its name, and although they hadn't heard from
the others, they expected to at any time. Wellend had
offered forty-six hundred dollars a year and had stated they
could locate housing for the applicant. I told him to wire
the people at Wellend I was taking the job, and to tell them
to expect us in a few days. The man said I was fortunate
because Wellend, being as small as it was, had trouble
attracting teachers, and therefore I would have no trouble
receiving the appointment.
"Well, I told Lee, hanging up the phone. "You're
looking at Wellend College's new medieval history
teacher.
"Where's Wellend College?" she asked suspiciously.
"Wellend is a beautiful town in Iowa," I told her.
"You'll like it, Lee."
"But you said 'a few days.' It will take us weeks to
pack everything."
"Nope. I'm going into town to see Harper now."
"But what will we do with the furniture?"
"We'll try to sell it with the place. Early American
seems to fit here. I'm afraid we wouldn't have any place for
it."
Lee smiled. "I won't be a bit sorry to sell it."
"Where's the problem then?" I asked her. "We'll
leave in two days. We'll pack the trunks and leave them
here, and we'll take only enough clothes to see us through a
few weeks. We'll leave everything packed and in the living
room and then Dad's hired man at the farm can come and
pick it up in the truck. He can ship everything to us when
we get settled."
I gave her no chance to think about our plans. After
all, I knew she was upset, and I had decided to take a firm
hand and settle everything as quickly as possible, so we
could leave Lake Ohega far behind in a hurry. I thought
only of getting away, and I was willing to make any
sacrifice.
Harper's office was in the center of town, between
the drugstore and the supermarket. There was a large
redwood sign which jutted up from the sidewalk at the
curbing and then slanted over the roof, saying Lake Ohega
Realty" in large white letters, placed vertically. The roof
overhung a solid glass front pinioned between two colorful
stone pillars which rose on each side. There were potted
plants across the floor in front to obscure the inside from
the steady gaze of shoppers through the glass.
Tom Harper rose from his desk behind a frosted
glass screen when he saw me come in. He walked over and
stuck out his hand.
"Hello, Will," he said. "I heard the bad news. If
there's anything I can do..."
"There is something, Tom."
"Sure, sure," he said, guiding me with his hand on
my back. "Step into the office."
I sat down in a chair near his desk. The three-sided
screen of glass made it seem warm, and I pulled out my
handkerchief and wiped my face.
"I'd like to sell the place, Tom," I told him quickly.
We're moving out to Iowa, so we want to unload the place,
furniture and all."
Harper considered this silently and folded his hands.
"Shouldn't be too hard," he said finally.
"Fine," I said. "I expect to leave in two or three
days and I'll drop the keys off at your office before we go."
I stood up. "I won't take any more of your time."
"You're not in trouble or anything, are you, Will?"
he asked.
At first I couldn't believe he was serious. I tried to
laugh about it, but he simply stood there looking at me as if
he were offering his help.
"Of course not," I said. "Lee's taking the
circumstances pretty hard, but I think she'll be all right
when we leave Lake Ohega."
Harper smiled. "Well, I'll take care of everything,
Will, he said.
I must say I felt more relaxed when I had walked
outside and climbed into the Thunderbird. And, I regained
my exuberance slowly but steadily as I drove along the
highway toward the lake.
For the next two days, Lee and I spent our time
packing, and in driving back and forth between the lake and
the town, paying forgotten bills and winding up our credit.
We gave little attention to our neighbors and the
townspeople. I never did see Tom Harper again --- all my
transactions with him have been completed by mail; and
we didn't see anything of Connie and Terry. I was surprised
at first that Connie didn't stop over, but then I concluded a
visit would only have embarrassed both her and Lee.
Because of what happened later I know Connie didn't hold
anything against me.
I think it was best that Lee and I were able to
concentrate on leaving Lake Ohega as soon as possible, and
this is certainly the way I wanted it at the time. Lee never
once mentioned Terry's name or Connie's, and even seemed
to go to great lengths to avoid it. In all of our conversations
she referred to their house as "that yellow place we almost
bought," the way she had before they had come. We spoke
of Mattie easily enough, and as a matter of fact, it was once
when we were discussing him that Lee came the closest to
admitting our close friends of a few days ago.
"I think Mattie is fortunate, in a way," she said,
"that he was never able to take the job he was offered."
This was the nearest thing to a reference to Terry
which I ever heard from her. I must say I didn't mind at all.
I was willing myself to forget Terry as soon as possible. It
did bother me that in order to forget Terry we had to lose
complete touch with an old friend like Connie, but then that
seemed to be the way it does happen. You never seem to
gain anything that you don't lose something in the process.
The day we left (we had traded the Thunderbird for
a station wagon so as to gain more room for the things we
had to carry with us), Lee was doing the final powdering of
her nose, and I had wandered down to the lake front to take
a last look at the water, after I had waited futilely in the car
for her a good fifteen minutes.
I stood on the pier and looked out across the water
at the tall trees rising up from the opposite shore, and I
became almost irritated by their quiet dignity. The forest of
hemlocks at Lake Ohega had reached a state of equilibrium,
and carried on its business of life with an amazing amount
of grace and power, protected only by God and an old
man's will. I believe it was the first time I had ever really
seen the hemlocks, and I had to recognize that maybe all
those poets were right when they spoke of sweeping things
like "the great glory of nature," and so on. I thought
perhaps the old hemlocks, and Lake Ohega too, were
almost like remnants from earlier happier days --- or, at
least, I realized that I would always think of them like that,
as remnants from my youth, as green memories of happy
times which now seemed ruined and over.
Lee honked the horn for me and I walked back up
the hill to the car.
I found her beautiful in her new flowered sun dress.
She had combed her hair back and tied it close to her head,
letting the ends flow loosely down around her neck, the
way I liked it. She didn't say anything to me as I turned the
car around and drove down the drive, turning right on the
narrow brick road. It wasn't until we pulled out of the
shade of the hemlocks and turned toward Ohega on the
state highway that she did speak.
"Do you know what we're going to do as soon as we
reach Wellend, Will?" she asked.
"What?" It made me happy to hear Lee making
plans again.
"We're going to get started on having a baby," she
told me. She was silent for a minute. "I want one very
badly, Will," she added.
"Then you'll have one," I said, reaching over and
squeezing her hand. I was in no mood to deny her
anything.
"Do you know what I'm going to do after we have
our baby?" she asked again. And without waiting for me to
speak, she said, "I'm going to have another one."
I thought she was joking at first and I started to
laugh, but as I turned to her I saw she looked straight ahead
at the highway, her face serious and composed.
"I believe you're right, Lee," I said, instead. "It's
time we began our family."
"I'm going to have so many children I won't have
time to think," she concluded fiercely.
Well, it didn't take us long to become settled at
Wellend. The people at the college were wonderful to us,
and one of the professors who was moving to a large
university after having been at Wellend for ten years, sold
us his house for an extremely reasonable price, saying he
didn't mind losing a few dollars if he knew the old house
would stay in the Wellend family.
Lee, I found out, was serious about starting a
family. It was only a year after we moved to the town that
we had our first child, Barbara. And an even year later our
son, Franklin, was born. Then came Harold.
With three young children in the house now, Lee is
kept on the go every minute, and hardly has time to sit
down for a cigarette. I've suggested many times that we
could afford some help. I've had a few raises at the college
and with the annual sum I receive from my father's
business we could certainly afford it. But Lee won't hear of
anyone watching the children or doing any of the
housework, so I've pretty well given up suggesting.
I have even tried taunting her with the humorous
accusation that she's scared to death to be still for a second,
but absolutely nothing works.
 CHAPTER 14

I BELIEVE WE had been at Wellend a year and were

awaiting our first child, when I received the first letter from
Connie.
I suppose it was simply luck that I happened to be
the one who emptied the mailbox that day. The letter was
addressed to me.
I didn't say anything to Lee about it, because I didn't
want to upset her at this particular time. But she must have
found out about it soon after. Maybe she found the letter in
my desk drawer where I kept it for a few months before I
finally threw it in the wastebasket. Anyway, I do know she
has never said anything about it; and, as I mentioned in the
beginning, has left the letters which followed, in the
mailbox for me.
Oh yes, I opened the first one, and I remember it
too. I don't know whether I can repeat the wording, but I
do know the substance will be exact. I can still close my
eyes and it comes back to me; and although I know my
memory betrays me occasionally there are times when I
could swear that I actually see the words exactly the way
they were written in that neat large hand of Connie's:

Dear Will,

I have felt the need to write to someone for

many months now, and recently I saw Bud
Horton in Chicago and he gave me your
address. I hope you won't mind. I don't expect
you to ever answer me, but I hope you will
allow me the use of your address so there can be
times when I may sit down and talk some things
out in the open.
I don't see Terry anymore. He spends all of
his time in New York now, and seems to have
finally lost interest in us. I realize there is
nothing I can do for Terry now, and I am
beginning to accept that I will never see him. It
has been a long battle and he did not give up
easily, but I have the child. I suppose I should
be thankful that he does send money regularly.
You wouldn't recognize Lake Ohega. There
is a great deal of construction going on, and
 from my window now I can see the bulldozers
leveling the area which is between the two
houses. New homes are springing up all around
the lake, and the noise has been unbearable
especially when those big trees come crashing
down. Sometimes it sounds like the whole
country is going to pieces.
I let Henrietta, Paul's nurse, go soon after
you left. I found I could not bear to leave Paul.
He is not a very strong boy, and seems to go
from one cold to another; so I have moved into
his room, where I can watch over him as closely
as I wish.
There are times when I think of Mattie.
Sometimes I can't help it when I look at Paul.
The resemblance becomes more striking every
day. I do try not to think of Mattie, honestly, but
there are times when there's nothing I can do.
The, sun is shining in through the window of
the room right now, and although everything has
faded a little it is all very bright and yellow
here, just the way it used to be.
There, it was a good idea. I feel better now
that I have set a few things on paper. Maybe
someday I will get to the point where I won't
have to mail these letters. I hope so. I only
know that I will have to mail this one.

Cordially,
Connie

I must admit I feel sorry for her. And I do feel sorry

that Tom Harper won the battle with Old Man Gowdy's will
for Lake Ohega. But there is something else I feel. And
this is mainly what keeps me f rom opening any of Connie's
other letters, I suppose.
I feel responsible in some way. In spite of whatever
I say to myself.
Oh, I know it's silly.
I know that no matter what I might have done,
nothing, absolutely nothing would have been different.