“Don’t you want to do anything? Change anything; preserve anything; find any…” He stopped because he felt distinctly uncomfortable.
“No.” She said it very firmly.
“I mean, maybe that would make it easier to solve some of the outside problems, anyway. You know, maybe you’d feel happier if you could get another dress.”
“No,” she repeated. “I want wonderful and fascinating and marvelous things to happen to me and I don’t want to do anything to make them happen. Nothing at all. I suppose that makes you think I’m a superficial person…no, you’re too intelligent. But a lot of people would.”
He was confused. “You’re a marvelous, deep, fascinating person,” he said, “and therefore you should be world-famous this instant.”
“For twenty-three, I’m famous enough, considering I haven’t done anything. But you’re right.”
“How are you famous?”
“Oh, not really famous. I just have lots of famous friends.” She rolled her head once more to her chin. “It said in that article that Newboy had been nominated three times for the Nobel Prize. I know three people who’ve actually won it.”
“Huh?”
“Two in the sciences, and Lester Pearson was a good friend of my uncle and would come spend weeks with us at my uncle’s summer place in Nova Scotia. The one in chemistry was very pleasant—he was only twenty-nine—and connected with the university. We were very close for a while.”
“You went out on dates and things. With all your famous friends?”
“No, I hate that. I never go on dates. These are people I met and I talked to and I liked talking to, so I talked to again. That’s all.”
“I’m not famous. Would you be happy in a place like Calkins’, living with me?”
“No.”
“Why not? Just because I’m not famous?”
“Because you wouldn’t be happy. You wouldn’t know what to do there. You wouldn’t fit.” Then he felt all her muscles, thigh to shoulder, tighten on him. “That isn’t true! I’m being awful.” She sucked her teeth. “Do you know, I was terrified to go up to Roger’s with you. It had nothing to do with what I was wearing: I thought you’d behave dreadfully—you’d either Ooooh and Ahhh the whole afternoon to death, or you’d shut up and be a big silent hole in the day.”
“You think I’ve never been in any nice places before?”
“But you weren’t like that,” she said. “That’s the point! You were perfectly fine, you had a good time, and I’m sure Mr. Newboy enjoyed it. If anyone spoiled it, it was me with my silly dress. And I’m a mean, small, petty person for worrying about such things in the first place.” She sighed. “Do I get points at all for keeping it to myself this long?” She sighed again. “No, I guess not.”
He blinked at the wild sky and tried to comprehend: he could follow her logic, though the emotions behind it confused.
After a while she said: “I grew up in some awfully big houses. Some were almost as big as Roger’s. When I was at boarding school, once, my uncle said I could have some kids out to his summer place for my birthday. It came on a long weekend and they said I could have ten kids up from Thursday night till Sunday afternoon. There was one boy at the Irving School—the boys’ school next to ours—named Max, whom I thought was just great. He came from a poor—well, poorish family. He was on scholarship. He was intelligent, sensitive, gentle…and gorgeous—I was probably in love with him! I would have been perfectly happy to take him off for the weekend all by himself. But I had to plan a party: so I planned it all for him. I got two girls who just loved to listen to intelligent boys talk—I wasn’t a very good listener at the time, and Max could go on. I invited this perfectly dreadful colored boy who Max said he’d admired because he was second on the debating team and never did anything wrong. I scoured four schools for the most marvelous and charming people—people who would entertain him, complement him, offer just the right contrast. No two people from the same clique, you know, who would stick together and make a little indigestible dumpling in the stew. The weekend was dreadful. Everyone had a fabulous time, and for the next two years kept asking me when I was going to do it again. Except Max. The plane ride, the horses, the boats, the maids, the chauffeurs, they were just too much for him. All he said the whole four days was, ‘Thank you,’ and, ‘Gosh.’ About forty-four times each. Oh, I guess we were just very young. In another couple of years he would probably have been a socialist or something and might have attacked the whole thing. That would have been fine! I had people there who could have argued. At least there would have been communication. I don’t know—maybe I’m still young.” Suddenly she turned over. “I could be the older woman in an eighteenth century French novel right now.” She turned back. “Twenty-three! Isn’t that awful? And they say the twentieth century has a youth hangup.” She giggled against his chest.
“You want to hear a story from me, now?”
“Um-hm.” He felt her nod.
“About when I was twenty-three. Your age.”
“Sure thing, gramps. That’s about three years after you got out of the mental hospital?”
“No, it’s about going to nice places.” He frowned. “One summer I was working up and down the Gulf coast, as a header on the shrimp boats.”
“What’s a header?”
“He washes dishes and pulls the heads off the shrimp. Anyway, I’d just gotten fired in Freeport and was waiting around to get on another boat—”
“Why’d you get fired?”
“I got seasick. Now shut up. Anyway, I was sitting in front of this café, which was about the only thing there to do, when these two guys in black Triumphs came hauling ass around in the dust. One yells, Did I know where he could get a traveler’s check cashed in this God-damn town. I’d been there three days, so I told him where the bank was. He told me, Get in, and I showed him and his friend where to go. We got to talking: he was in law school up in Connecticut. I told him about going to Columbia. He got his check cashed and asked if I wanted to come along with them—which was better than a room for two bucks a night I didn’t have, so I said, Yeah. A whole bunch of kids were staying out on this island just off the coast.”
“Like the commune?”
“One of the kids’ fathers was the head of a land development company down there. The company had moved the fishermen who lived on the island someplace else, built a bridge to the mainland, dug a canal, and built a whole bunch of hundred-and-fifty-thousand, two hundred-thousand dollar homes, lawns in the front, swimming pool on one side, garage on the other, and boat house in the back on the canal so you could get your boat out to sea. They were all for the executives of Dow Chemical, who just about owned the city. So prospective buyers could check them out first, the houses were furnished, the freezers were filled with steaks, the closets stocked with liquor, towels in the bathrooms and all the beds kept made. The executives could bring their families in for a weekend to try out the house before they bought it. On Monday, a truck would come by with maids, carpenters, plumbers, and supplies to replace anything that had been used up, to clean out the mess, and fix anything broken. There wasn’t anybody on the island, so the doors had all been left open. The kid’s father had told him since he was in the area, why didn’t he stay there. So the kid, with about twenty of his friends—they went from about seventeen to twenty-five—had moved in. They’d start on one house, drink up all the liquor, eat up the food, destroy the furniture, break the windows, tear up everything they could, then move on to another one. On Monday the maids, carpenters, and plumbers would fix the damages. I stayed with them for two weeks. I’d pick out a room, lock the door, and read most of the time, while all the noise went on outside. Every once in awhile, you know, I’d come out to get something to eat—wade through the beer cans in the kitchen, scrape the grease out of some pan and fry a piece of steak. Then I’d go down to the swimming pool maybe if it wasn’t too bad and, if there wasn’t too much furniture floating in it, or bottles, or broken glass around, I’d swim a while. Pretty soon, when it would get too crowded, I’d go back to my room. There’d be people screwing in my bed, or somebody would’ve gotten sick all over the bureau. Once I found some little girl sitting in the middle of the floor, out of her head—cocaine all over the rug, and that is a lot of cocaine: she’d pulled down the drapes and was cutting paper-dolls out of them. So I’d take my book and go lock myself in another room. A couple of days after I got there, the two guys who’d brought me suddenly decided to fly back to somewhere else. They gave me the keys to the Triumphs and said I could have them. I don’t even know how to drive. One of them had got the front smashed in by now, but the other one was still good. The police came twice. The first time the kids told them to go fuck themselves and said they were supposed to be there, and the police went away. The second time, I thought it was better I split. When the shit came down, I wouldn’t have any rich Texas relatives to run home to. There was one girl there who said she’d buy me a ticket into Houston if I would fuck her and stay on more than five minutes.”