Эд Макбейн - Last Summer

“Well, I wouldn’t do it,” Rhoda said, and got immediately to her feet.

“Well, don’t get excited,” I said, “I wasn’t suggesting that you actually do it.”

“I’m not at all excited.”

“Then calm down.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” she said.

She walked to the edge of the beach, her back to me, her hands on her hips, and stood there looking out over the water. I got up and went down to where she was standing.

“Would you like to try swimming again?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“What would you like to do?”

“Go home.”

“To Greensward?”

“Yes.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because David and Sandy aren’t back yet.”

“Then let’s go find them.”

“They went around to the other side of the island. You can’t swim, so how can we...?”

“We can walk,” she said.

“Okay, let’s walk.”

“Fine.”

“I’m sorry I upset you,” I said. “I didn’t realize I was saying anything so terrible.”

“It’s only that you didn’t understand anything I said.”

“I understood every word of it.”

“You were laughing at me all along.”

“I was not.”

“Inwardly.”

“Rhoda, I don’t see how you can know that I was laughing inwardly.”

From the high ground behind the beach, we could see most of the island where it fell away clear to the pine forest on the opposite end. There was a surf to the north, rolling in against the shore in cresting white breakers. On the eastern end, we could see Sandy and David bobbing on the surface, their faces in the water, swimming back toward the cove where we were anchored.

“They’re on their way back,” I said. “No sense going after them.”

“I’m sorry we argued,” Rhoda said.

“That’s all right.”

“I’ll try swimming again, if you want me to.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Peter...”

“Yes?”

“I just get very frightened sometimes. Forgive me.”

“That’s all right. We all get frightened sometimes.”

“But not by the same things.”

“No.”

“Let’s never argue again, Peter,” she said, “I’m too fond of you,” and suddenly kissed me on the cheek. Blushing, she took my hand, and we started down toward the beach again.

A man and a woman were lying on the blanket, on their stomachs, the man wearing blue trunks, the woman wearing brief red pants. Her back was naked, she had undoubtedly loosened her bra straps. The man had dark curly hair, and the woman had straight blond hair clipped short. The man’s hand was on the woman’s back. Their heads were very close together. We saw them as we came over the crest of the dune, and we both stopped dead in our tracks, not wanting to intrude, yet at the same time wanting to get back to the beach and the water. The man kissed the woman on the cheek and then playfully slipped his hand inside the back of her pants and moved closer to her on the blanket.

“Oh, this is awful,” Rhoda said.

“Shhh,” I cautioned.

“Let’s walk a little more.”

“No, wait,” I said.

The woman rolled over and sat up, facing the dune. Rhoda’s hand tightened so spasmodically on mine, I thought she would crush my fingers in her sudden grip.

“Oh, Peter,” she moaned, and I nodded wordlessly because the blond woman was not a woman at all, the blond woman was a slender, narrow-hipped, well-built young man who moved into his partner’s arms now, gently stroked his face, brought his lips to the other man’s cheek, trailed them over to his mouth, and then kissed him.

“Oh my God, let’s go,” Rhoda said.

“No, wait,” I said again.

She dropped my hand suddenly, quickly walked away from me over the dune, and sat apart with her back to the ocean. I continued watching the men on the blanket below. They caressed and fondled each other the way a man and a woman would, oblivious to their surroundings, very much concerned with the apparent effect of their mutual caresses. I suddenly thought of what Rhoda had said, It would be like kissing myself in the mirror , and then, oddly, all I could think of was the broken gull on the floor of the forest.

I watched them for a long while.

They broke apart only when they heard Sandy and David splashing around the point into the cove. The blond man brought his hand to his hair and patted it into place, turning his back to me. From the rear, he looked exactly like a woman again, his back slender and tanned, his hair coiffed in windblown carelessness. He was wearing a large ring with a green stone.

“Rhoda?” I whispered.

“What is it?” she said.

“Come on. Sandy and David are back.”

“Are... they still there?”

“The faggots?”

“Yes.”

“It’s all right now, come on.”

She took my hand, and I helped her to her feet.

“Why did you watch?” she asked. Her eyes were puzzled, her face was squinched up tight, the way it had been that day on the beach when she’d protested against our treatment of the gull.

“Because I wanted to see,” I said, and we walked down toward the beach to join Sandy and David.

“If you’ve seen one regatta, you’ve seen them all,” Sandy said that Wednesday, and promptly trotted Rhoda off to the mainland.

The regatta, as it turned out, was not a very exciting one at all. David and I watched it from the point, together with three dozen other islanders, all of whom began cheering when a boat with a striped blue sail took the lead. But that was the high point of the race. None of the other boats even came close to being in contention, and the outcome was foregone from the starting gun.

Sandy and Rhoda caught the three o’clock boat back to the island and joined us at the point. The race, such as it was, was still in progress, but the number of spectators had dwindled to perhaps a dozen or so, including David and myself.

“Who’s winning?” Sandy said.

“Guess,” David said, and pointed out to the horizon where the blue-sailed boat was a good hundred yards ahead of the trailing pack.

“How dull,” Sandy said. “Wait’ll you see what we’ve got. Come on, Rhoda,” and they disappeared over the dune.

David began humming. He always hummed very intricately, doing all the parts of whichever symphony happened to be in his head, getting thoroughly involved, and sometimes forgetting there was anyone with him. I kept watching the race and listening to him, trying to place the melody. And then suddenly, he stopped humming in the middle of a passage, surprising me, and said, “You think we should try to lay her, Poo?”

“What?” I said.

“ Lay her,” he repeated.

“Who?”

“Her,” he said, and gestured toward the dune.

“Gee, I don’t know,” I said. This was the first time we’d talked alone together since almost the beginning of the summer, and I felt a little strange. David began humming again. Out on the water, one of the boats heeled way over and seemed in danger of capsizing. The small crowd on the beach let out a yell. I got to my feet and watched as the crew righted her.

“Close one,” I said.

“What do you think, Poo?” David asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I think she’d let us,” he said.

“Who?”

“Sandy.”

“Oh. I thought you meant Rhoda.”

“No. I don’t think Rhoda would. Do you?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But I think Sandy would.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, we can give it a try, anyway,” David said.

“Suppose she says no?”

“Well, let’s give it a try.”