Peter Abrahams - Crying Wolf

She rose, dropped the towel, ran down the beach, dove in with a whoop. Nat ran down the beach too, dove in too, even gave a whoop, though he wasn’t one for whooping. She was already thirty or forty yards out, her stroke effortless, her speed astonishing. Nat splashed after her.

Izzie treaded water over a reddish bottom. “That’s my favorite coral head,” she said, gazing down.

“How deep is it?”

“Forty feet, on the bottom.”

“You use scuba, right?”

“Scuba’s for wimps,” she said. The next moment she did a duck dive and kicked down; became blurrier, smaller, and stayed that way for what seemed like a long time; then grew bigger and clearer again. She came bursting through the surface, took a deep breath, handed him something.

“What’s this?”

“A sand dollar. Keep it for luck.”

He tucked it in the pocket of his trunks. “Are you on the swim team?” he said.

“Swim team?”

“At school.”

Izzie looked incredulous. “Sis boom bah,” she said.

“But you’re an incredible swimmer.”

“You should see Grace.”

They rose and fell with the sea. Again, it seemed to be pushing her toward him. The reply to her last remark had come at once, but he held it in, held it in, while the sea moved them closer and closer, and the sun made gold sparkles all over the surface, just like those gold sparkles in her eyes, and finally it came bursting out, as though he too had come up from a deep dive.

“I want to see you, ” he said.

One more swell and they were touching. This time Izzie didn’t back away. Her arms went around him; his circled her; they kissed, warm and salty.

After, lying in the sandy patch between the rocks, they were thirsty. Nat climbed a palm tree, not a tall or particularly straight one, but still a palm tree, plucked a coconut-“no, no, the one to the left”-smashed it open on a rock. They drank its milk. Smashing a coconut! Drinking the milk! Some ran down his chin and she licked it off.

“One thing,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“It might be a good idea to keep this a secret, at least for now.”

“Why?”

“Grace can be funny.”

“How?”

“Trust me. Who knows her better?”

“What is it we’re keeping secret, exactly?”

“Whatever’s going to happen with us.”

“Keeping it from Grace means keeping it from everybody, doesn’t it?”

“You’re so smart.”

Smart, sweaty, coated here and there with sand. Did keeping it from everybody include Patti? He had to tell her soon, didn’t he? Whether or not he had to morally, he knew that he would tell her the next time they spoke; he couldn’t lie to Patti. At the same time, he thought: Our best ideas should sound like follies.

He said yes.

One more vacation note. There was a birthday party for the twins on the thirty-first. Boats overflowed the natural harbor, four or five planes landed, perhaps a hundred party goers came in all, although not Mr. Zorn, en route to Zurich, or possibly Lahore. Nat learned that Grace had been born on the thirty-first, at 11:53 P.M., but Izzie hadn’t arrived until 12:13 A.M., on the first. They hadn’t been born on the same day, not even in the same year.

Saul Medeiros had an auto body place called Saul’s Collision on the outskirts of Fitchville. An auto body place, not a high-tech store: because of that, Freedy left the HDTV in the van-that rusted-out VW van of his mother’s, with the stupid flowers painted on the front-and went into the office.

An old son of a bitch with hairs growing on the top of his nose-no shit-sat behind a greasy desk, and a woman in a quilted parka stood on the other side.

“Will it be as good as new?” she was saying.

“Oh, sure,” the old guy told her, rubbing his chin, unshaven for three or four days. “Hunnert percent.”

“That’s a relief,” she said, leaning over the desk and signing some paper; the old guy’s eyes followed the movements of the pen. “I know it’s crazy, but I’m really attached to that car.”

“Yeah,” said the old guy, “it’s crazy.”

She left. Freedy lounged against the doorpost, cool. The old guy lit a cigarette, looked him over, dropped the match on the floor. It came down to who was going to talk first, although Freedy didn’t know why. He talked first.

“You Saul?” he said.

“Depends who’s asking.”

“Says Saul on the sign on the roof.”

No answer. The old guy folded his stubby arms over his gut.

“Freedy’s asking,” said Freedy. “Me.”

The old guy nodded. “Ronnie mentioned you. My nephew, up the valley.”

“Right.”

“What d’ya think of him?”

“Who?”

“Ronnie. My nephew up the valley.”

“What I think of him? You know, he’s just… he’s Ronnie, right? We played football.”

“How was he?”

“Huh?”

“Ronnie. At football. Any good?”

“You know Ronnie. He’s a pussy.”

Saul Medeiros smiled; his teeth were the color of nicotine. “And you? Were you any good?”

“I was a fucking leg breaker, Mr. Medeiros.”

“Attaboy,” said Saul Medeiros. He took a deep drag from his cigarette. “What’s the story with this girl Cheryl Ann?”

“Huh?”

“You and Ronnie and this piece of ass, Cheryl Ann.”

“That was a long time ago, Mr. Medeiros. How do you even know about it?”

“One of those family legends. All families have them. Maybe it’s kind of a legend in your family too.”

“It’s not.”

“No? Don’t think I know your family, comes to that. Know a lot of families in the valley, but not yours.”

“We’re not really from the valley. I am, like. Born here. But my mom came from out of state, back in the sixties.”

“And your old man?”

“Fucked off.”

“He from here?”

“Don’t know where he was from. He was just some hippie, with one of those hippie names.”

“Like what?”

“Walrus. They called him Walrus.”

“Googoogajoob,” said Saul Medeiros.

Freedy, suspecting that Saul Medeiros had lapsed into Portagee, remained silent.

“Lot of hippies came here back then,” Saul Medeiros said.

“Must have been a fucked-up time.”

“Hell, no. Never got laid so much in my life.”

That surprised Freedy. Then came another surprise: a mental picture of this toad with the hair on his nose putting it to his mother. “What was your nickname back then?” he asked.

“Some people don’t get nicknames,” Saul Medeiros said. He stubbed out his cigarette. “That it, then?”

“What?”

“Just getting acquainted, or you got something for me?”

“The second one.”

“Thought so. Let’s go out back.”

Saul Medeiros offered him seventy bucks for the HDTV.

“What’s this,” said Freedy, “the Comedy Channel?” A good line, real quick, real cool, showing that California polish.

“Seventy bucks,” said Saul Medeiros. “Take it or leave it.”

Just what Ronnie had told him, probably where Ronnie had got it from. Freedy decided right then he didn’t like negotiating with the Medeiroses, didn’t like negotiating at all, when it came down to it. For a second or two there, he’d had enough, enough of negotiating, which always meant somebody-like the spics at A-1-cutting a piece out of him. Come to think of it, what was the difference between a spic and a Portagee? Not much, which had to be a brilliant observation, made him feel better and forget all about the speedy little movie that had just flashed through his mind, a movie that ended with Saul Medeiros on the floor. No matter what, bottom line, he himself was no spic or Portagee. He was… whatever the hell he was, kind of depended, it suddenly occurred to him, on who his father actually was. What the fuck: he could be any goddamned thing.