Эд Макбейн - Last Summer

“I’m a little scared to,” I said.

“I am, too. But let’s give it a try.”

“She’s liable to get sore,” I said. “We’ve got a pretty good relationship with her. I’d hate to see anything...”

“She lied about the bird, didn’t she?”

“Because she was embarrassed, that’s all.”

“Still, she lied about killing it.”

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“Only that she’s kept things from us,” he said, and shrugged.

“This is different.”

“How?”

“It’s like plotting against her.”

“Okay, why’d she let us feel her up in the movie?”

“I don’t know. I think it was the picture.”

“No, I think she’d have let us, anyway.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s try it.” David paused. “Wouldn’t you like to?”

“Yeah, sure, I’d like to.”

“She drives me crazy sometimes,” he said.

“Yeah. But I like her a lot, Dave, and I wouldn’t want to do anything that got her upset, you know.”

“We won’t, don’t worry,” David said.

“Also, we’ll have to be careful.”

“Oh sure, we’ll need protection.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“I don’t know, just careful.”

“Yes, but we will need protection.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Very definitely,” David said.

“Maybe we ought to just forget the whole...”

“No, we can get what we need over on the mainland.”

“Who?”

“Well, we could go in together.”

“You look older than I do,” I said.

“Maybe we could draw straws or something.”

“I’d be embarrassed going in a drugstore.”

“So would I.”

“You look older,” I said again.

“You sound more mature, though.”

“You sound very mature, too.”

“Well, let’s figure it out,” David said.

“Look at that goddamn blue boat. Still in the lead.”

“Yeah. Does your father use them?”

“Gee, I don’t know.”

“I think my mother’s on the pill,” David said. “Why don’t you scout around?”

“What do you mean?”

“In his dresser, take a look through the drawers.”

“Gee, I’d hate to do that, Dave.”

“Would you rather go into some drugstore?”

“Well, no, but...”

“Take a look, then. Maybe he’s got some.”

“Suppose he counts them or something?”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they count them.” I shrugged. “Look at that damn blue boat.”

“Yeah,” David said. “Will you scout around?”

“I think maybe we ought to forget the whole thing,” I said.

“No, I want to do it.”

“So do I, but suppose we go to all this trouble, and Sandy says no?”

“Why would she say no? She loves us. She keeps saying she loves us, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t mean she loves us.”

“Sure she does.”

“Do you love her?”

“Sure I do,” David said.

“I mean, love her.”

“Well, not love her. But I do love her.”

“That’s what I mean. I don’t think she loves us, either. I mean, Dave, we’ve got a really fine relationship here, I’d sure hate to screw it up.”

“How can we screw it up? All she can do is say no.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like the idea of that , do you?”

“She’s a nice girl, she’d do it in a nice way.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Let’s give it a try,” David said.

“Well, okay,” I said, and sighed.

“You’ll look?”

“I’ll look.”

“And if he hasn’t got any, we’ll just have to go over to the mainland, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” I said.

The girls came back about twenty minutes later.

Sandy climbed over the dune first in a bikini we had never seen on her before, a wild sort of Gauguin print, skimpy in the top, very brief in the pants. It was Rhoda who thoroughly surprised us, though, Rhoda who stepped through the beach grass shyly and stood above us like a slave girl on the block, waiting to be inspected, dreading rejection, terrified that we’d laugh at her. She looked naked. She was wearing a dark-green bikini certainly no more revealing than Sandy’s, and yet I was shocked, and then embarrassed, and then puzzled by my own shock and embarrassment.

“Well, how does she look?” Sandy said, grinning proudly.

“Beautiful,” I said.

I thought we did a very good job with Rhoda, if I must say so myself.

To begin with, the new swimsuit brought about a remarkable change, liberating her body (I was alternately afraid and hopeful that she would fall completely out of it), and creating what seemed to be a more natural bond between flesh and water, allowing her to feel the element through which we were asking her to move. But at the same time, it seemed to free her mind as well, as though by changing her appearance, by forcing her into an alien costume, we had also forced her to awaken a dormant skill. We sailed out to Violet’s island on the day after Rhoda bought the bikini, and the change was apparent at once. The moment we entered the channel, she put on the life jacket without urging or instruction and then grabbed her nose and jumped over the side even before I was in the water. She waited for me to come in, obediently rolled over onto her back so I could tow her into shallow water, ran onto the beach, removed the jacket and dropped it to the sand, and then splashed into the water again, coming in up to her waist and waiting for us to begin the kicking exercises.

We spent all day teaching her, each of us taking turns. It was dreary work. For all her enthusiasm, Rhoda couldn’t seem to understand that we didn’t want her to bend her legs at the knees, that we were attempting to teach her the straight-legged kick she would need for a powerful Australian crawl, so she kept flapping her feet around in the water as though her legs were broken.

“She’ll catch on,” Sandy kept saying.

I wasn’t so sure.

To my surprise, though, she kept trying, seeming to gain a little more knowledge with each attempt, and at last realizing that we were trying to sidestep anything as elementary as the dog paddle in an attempt to move her directly into a strong crawl. Once she understood this, she straightened her legs ramrod stiff, and kicked with speed and determination, churning up a furious froth behind her, beating the water tirelessly.

“I think she’s got it,” David said.

“By George, she’s got it,” I said.

Whereupon Rhoda wearily dropped her legs to the bottom and then, puffing, trudged through the shallow water to the beach, where she collapsed as though dead.

“You’ll be a good swimmer,” Sandy said. “You’ll see.”

The very next day, our good swimmer practically had to be pushed over the side of the boat. She balked at putting on the life jacket, complained that we had anchored the boat too far from shore, told Sandy to keep her hands off her when she tried to help with the ties, and then resisted all our efforts to lure her into the cove, where I was patiently treading water. When Sandy threatened to knock her unconscious and throw her in, she grasped her nose with one hand, clung to the top of the jacket with the other, closed her eyes and leaped in with her legs apart, as though she’ were jumping from a burning building. Once in the water, she refused to roll over onto her back, pummeling me with both fists as I came close to her, her eyes closed, damn near drowning me, and forcing me to remember all the training I’d ever had in lifesaving courses.

“Slug her,” Sandy said.

“Don’t you dare!” Rhoda shouted, and opened her eyes.