Cloud Nine (8 page)

Then we went on to beachwear. Sonya picked out a bikini, yellow with red lacing, yellow beach shoes, and a red beach cap. Then for me she picked out blue trunks, beach shoes, and a duck hat. Then I picked out robes for us both, and a beach blanket. That all called for another box, so then we had two, one for her to carry, one for me. It all came to $275, and I gave the woman a check, first showing my credit card. She disappeared to phone, though what she’d find out I couldn’t think, as it was Saturday and the bank would be closed. But it turned out she had her own system. We heard her call Information and ask for my number. Then we heard her say: “Yes, both numbers, please”—and realized that for free she’d found out I was listed as Graham Kirby, Residence, and Graham Kirby, Inc., Real Estate—a pretty good credit reference.

She came back all smiles and put my check in the register. We asked for a jewelry store, and she directed us to one.

But then annoyance set in. Sonya picked out two rings, one for our engagement, a diamond solitaire, and a wedding ring, platinum with chasing cut in it. The tab was a bit over $1,000, but the jeweler shook his head. “Sir,” he said, “your card entitles you to five hundred dollars’ credit, but beyond that it’s Saturday and I have no way to check—the amount is too large for me to take a chance on. Monday, if you’ll come in, I’m sure we can work something out.”

I drew breath to explode, but Sonya said: “Please, please, forget it—they have jewelry stores in Rockville, and we can pick up my rings there.”

As we went trudging back to the motel, I was growling like a bear, and she joined in in her own way: “He’s a bastard, a creep, and a crumb, but let’s not let him ruin our day.” Pretty soon, not wanting to, I had to laugh, and we were happy again. When we arrived once more in our suite, I opened the box full of things, and we went in the bedroom to dress.

She made it touch, of course, parading around with no clothes on, and laughing at me when I turned my back to put on my trunks. Still, she got into her bikini, hat, and shoes, and I got into my trunks, shoes, and hat, and both of us put on our robes. Then I picked up our beach bag and blanket, and we went downstairs. Beach clothes are allowed in Ocean City lobbies, not in Atlantic City or Rehoboth. We left our key at the desk and went out to the beach. It was filling with people and the guards were coming on duty, as it was after twelve o’clock. We had forgotten a beach umbrella, but the boardwalk cast a shadow and we sat in it awhile, first spreading the beach blanket. Then she wanted to sunbathe, so we moved out in the glare.

“Now,” she said, “you have to rub me with lotion, and then of course I’ll rub you.” She had taken a bottle from the beach bag and handed it to me. So with her, if it wasn’t one thing it was something else, and with her pointing to all sorts of intimate places, and saying: “No, not up and down,
circular.”
And the thoroughness with which she rubbed me was really a thing to remember.

Pretty soon I said: “I think it’s time we went in.”

“Back? To the room? So soon?”

“To the ocean. For a swim.”

“Oh! Then okay.”

We kicked off our beach shoes, and I tossed my hat on the blanket. Then we went hand-in-hand to the surf, which was just the least bit high, as a sea breeze was coming in. But she was expert at going through it. First, she waited until a wave smashed down at her feet, then waded out in the wash to brace for the next one, standing sidewise, her arms in the air. But she was just a bit further out than the spot where it would crest, so when it came it rocked her, but didn’t smash her down. As soon as it passed she leveled out and started to swim. By the time the next one came, she was out past the whitecaps. I did exactly as she did, not too successfully, alas. One comber knocked me down, and I was a minute or two getting out to where she was swimming. She grabbed my hand and gave it a shake. Then she started swimming with me, side by side.

First we swam with trudgen strokes, then on our backs, floating. It gives you a funny sensation, as all you can feel is the lift of the swells, as they raise you and lower you down, and all you can see is the sky.

She looked up, pointed, and asked: “See that?”

“...That cloud?”

“Cloud nine—where we’ll be Tuesday night.”

“It’s quite a handsome cloud.”

“Mr. Kirby, I could be happy with you.”

“...Tuesday will tell the tale.”

“Could you be happy with me?”

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I’m’n do my best to make you.”

That’s what she said,
I’m’n,
meaning, I suppose, “I’m going to.”

I told her: “All’s fair in love or war.”

“That’s it, I’m’n
try.”

We began swimming again, still on our backs, but headed out to sea, and the further we went, the longer the swells got, and the smoother they were. It was us and the sea and the sky, as though she and I were suspended in wet eternity. I thought about God, the second time I had, around her. Then cutting the air came a whistle. She cocked her head up, waved, and blew a kiss. I turned in time to see the lifeguard blowing a kiss, and waving at her to come in. I asked: “Since when did you get so chummy with
him?”

“Oh he’s cute.”

“And when did this intimacy start?”

“He was watching, while you were smearing me up.”

“Observant little cuss.”

We swam in, and at a certain point she looked behind her. Then she stretched out flat, and she rode it as though on a surfboard. It carried her in to the sand, where she dug in with her hands and then pulled her feet up. Then she was staggering clear.

I tried to copycat, and got washed a few feet toward shore. I stood up only to be smashed down on my face, in a mix of gravel and water, as a wave flattened me. I stood up and it happened again. Next thing I knew, she had me by the hand and was pulling me out.

“You’re
fighting
it—you mustn’t do that. You have to go along with it.”

“I’ll remember that, next time.”

“We better shower, before the salt cakes on.”

She put on her shoes, put mine on me, and rolled up the beach blanket. When we climbed up on the boardwalk, the guard was disagreeable to her. “Hey, smart guy,” he called, “There’s sharks out there, you know.”

“Oh, they’re nothing but fish.”

She tossed it off very saucy, and if there was any trace of the twenty-five-year-old woman, with slightly graying hair, that she had been the night before, I couldn’t see it myself. In her red cap and yellow-and-red bikini, she looked like what she was, a sixteen-year-old brat with a shape to write home about.

“That’s right,” the lifeguard said, “but they’re hungry fish, and the thing they’re fondest of is a good-looking chick, all white meat.”

“Oh my, you’re making me nervous.”

“I hope I’m getting through.”

“Okay, now I know.”

“Dad, can I date her up?”

“...Well, that would be up to her.”

“
What do you mean, up to me?”
She ripped it, in a kind of a scream. And then, to him: “He’s not inny Dad, he’s my husband!”

“You got to be putting me on!”

“You heard me,
my husband!”

We put on our beach robes, and I heard him mumble, “Is that a lucky son of a bitch.” We went in the lobby, picked up our key at the desk, and went on up to the suite. We were hardly inside when she yelled: “Is that all I mean to you? That it’s up to me if I date?”

“That’s all—date any time you please.”

“Well thanks. I’ll remember that.”

“Date and stay dated, for good!”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means that guy didn’t ask for a date, all on his own think-up—he got encouragement, plenty.”

“Says who?”

“Goddam it, I saw you blow him a kiss!”

“You call that encouragement?”

“What do you call it, for instance?”

I guess there was more, anyway till she had the beach robe off, and slipped out of her bathing suit. I fired one at her bottom that went off like a pistol shot. She laughed, wrapped me in her arms and kissed me. When we went in the bedroom it was all done up, and my five dollars, that I’d left for the maid, was gone. “Okay,” I said, “let’s wash off the salt—then get dressed. In separate rooms.”

Her answer was to unbuckle the belt of my trunks, strip them off, and pull off my shoes. That left us with nothing on, except that she still wore her cap. She laughed and sicked her finger at me, especially my male anatomy. She had told me quite a few times “we had it in sex education,” and yet it seemed to excite her, partly I think from plain adolescent curiosity.

I said: “All right, let’s get it over with,” and she took me by the hand, leading me to the bathroom.

She led me to the tub, and when we had both stepped in, dropped the shower curtains and pulled them together. Then she turned on the water and adjusted to medium hot. Then, standing belly-to-belly with me, she held her face up, letting the water pour over it. “Nice?” she asked.

“Would be, if it was Tuesday.”

“It’s only three days off.”

“Only?
Only?”

She dropped her head to my chest, and we stood there a long time, like Adam and Eve in the Garden. Then at last she turned off the water, took a towel, and dried me off, with care—a little too much care, I thought. Taking another towel, she dried herself off, and if you think I got out of the tub, you’re wrong. I just stood there, drinking her in. She was painstaking and thorough, in all kinds of intimate places, at last putting a foot on the side of the tub, to give it proper attention. She said: “First one little tootsie, then the other little—”

But she never finished. The other foot slipped and she fell, in a loud flub-a-dub crash. I was over her in a second, lifting her, asking: “Little Sonya, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

“No, no! I’m all right!”

“Lock your fingers back of my neck, so I can lift you!”

She did and I raised her up, so she could stand with me, still in the tub. “Are you all right?” I asked again.

“Yes.”

But then: “Something’s happened inside.”

“Hold everything.”

I lifted her, got one foot outside the tub, then the other foot, still holding her, but almost slipping myself. Then I carried her into the bedroom, turned down the covers on her bed, and eased her down on it. “Get me a towel,” she whispered. “I’m bleeding.”

I got the towel, tucked it under her, and picked up the phone, ready to tear the place apart to get a doctor there, quick. But I didn’t have to do any tearing—a doctor had offices right there, and when the girl found out what the trouble was, she said: “The doctor will be there in just a few minutes.”

“What’s his name?”

“Sandoval.”

I hung up and we stared in each other’s eyes. “I think you’ve aborted,” I said.

“I’m sure I have.”

We stared at each other again, I so excited I couldn’t talk. But she looked away, closed her eyes, and started to cry, sad, hopeless crying, with little shakes of her shoulders, as she held her hands to her face.

I
T MADE NO SENSE
to me, but she kept on, while I tried to figure it out. And in spite of my fighting it back, a suspicion entered my mind. I mean, if she had aborted, if this was what we thought, why was she crying about it? And why didn’t she turn to me, instead of including me out? And if she was crying because it was gone, that thing she had inside, what meaning did that have, in regard to all the rest? Was she actually raped, did she find Burl repugnant, and was this marriage all an act?

But when I got that far with it, she suddenly burst out: “Give me my wig! It’s in the top bureau drawer!”

I did, and she pulled it on. Then she grabbed her bag from the night table, took out the liner, and marked up her face once more. She was barely down when a knock came on the sitting room door, and I opened it to let in the doctor, a young guy, with kind of a Spanish look and the usual zipper satchel.

I said my wife had had an accident, and took him into the bedroom. Then I left him alone with her, so she could do her own talking, apparently giving details. I heard him go to the bathroom and come back, and then pretty soon he came out, into the room with me, and closed the door.

I said, “What do I owe you, Doctor?”

“Twenty-five dollars, please.”

I wrote the check, then asked: “What next? I mean, do I have to take her to a hospital? And if so, which is the nearest one?”

“She’s in luck. Hospital’s not indicated.”

“Well, give. What happened?”

“She lost the child, that’s all. But she aborted clean—foetus and placenta were both there, on the towel. When the placenta doesn’t come, there has to be a curettage. However, it did come, and that’s it. The bleeding has stopped, but I packed her with gauze, which she can take out whenever she wants.”

“You greatly relieve my mind.”

“I also gave her a hypo.”

“You mean, she’s in pain?”

“No—so she can sleep. It’s an awful shock, it jangles the hell out of them.” He hesitated, then went on: “They take it in various ways—some want nothing to do with the husband for weeks—others take it opposite: they want him at once, it’s the one thing that calms them down. How she’ll feel I don’t know, and you shouldn’t force yourself on her. But if she
should
feel in the humor, don’t withhold it from some mistaken idea of duty. What she wants is what she should have.”

“I’ll remember what you say.”

He picked up his check and left, and I tiptoed in to her, hoping to find a change, now that she knew for certain what we’d been guessing at, so she’d be in a different humor. But she was crying again, and wouldn’t look at me. “Hey!” I said, shaking her. “What is this? What are you crying about? Didn’t he tell you? It’s what we thought—you miscarried. It’s all over, it’s what we’ve been praying for! You won’t have that dream anymore, we don’t have to go to New York!”

“And you don’t have to marry me!”

“...Is that what’s been bugging you?”

“It’s enough, isn’t it?”

My mouth was trying to say she was just being silly, but the words wouldn’t come. Actually, it was the first I’d thought of that angle, and somehow, now that she’d brought it up, it didn’t seem silly at all. I swallowed a couple of times, then told her: “Listen, one thing at a time, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. The main thing is, you’re rid of that horrible thing that’s been making your life hell. Now, get yourself some sleep, and then we’ll take it from there. Decide what we’re going to do.”