“Now, listen,” I said, “this has gone far enough.”
“I can’t help it if I don’t want to hurt that poor man,” Rhoda blubbered.
“Who’s trying to hurt him?” Sandy shouted.
“You are!”
“I am not! Peter, tell her I don’t intend hurting him!”
“She doesn’t intend hurting him, Rhoda. Now stop crying.”
“Then why does she want me to go out with him and pretend I’m her and make fun of him?”
“I don’t want you to make fun of him! It’s only a joke, haven’t you got a sense of humor?”
“I have a very fine sense of humor,” Rhoda said, sobbing.
“Here’s a handkerchief,” David said, “don’t gook it all up.”
“I write jokes in my column,” Rhoda said, blowing her nose.
“I’ll bet they’re side-splitting,” Sandy said.
“Peter, tell her to stop.”
“Stop it, Sandy, can’t you see she’s upset?”
“She’s upset? How about me?”
“You’re both upset,” I said.
“You’d think I suggested something heinous!” Sandy shouted, pronouncing it “high-nous.”
“Hay-nous,” David corrected.
“Don’t you start!” Sandy shouted.
“Everybody shut up!” I shouted.
“I’ve never been out with a boy in my life!” Rhoda shouted.
“All right, everybody, shut up!” David shouted.
“We said we’d go with you, didn’t we?” Sandy said.
“Yes, but...”
“You think we’d let you go alone?” David said.
“No, but...”
“So what are you afraid of?”
“Don’t be so afraid of life, Rhoda.”
“This is only a joke, Rhoda.”
“We’ll tell Gomez all about it when the night’s over.”
“We’ll all have a good laugh together.”
“Including Gomez.”
“We’ll tell him what a good joke it was.”
“He sounded very nice on the phone.”
“He’s driving all the way out here, Rhoda, he must be very nice.”
“Am I really uncoordinated?” she asked, sniffling.
“No, you’re swimming beautifully. Isn’t she swimming beautifully, Peter?”
“Beautifully,” I said.
“Will you go, Rhoda?” Sandy asked.
“Will you come with me?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you’ll stay with me? You won’t leave me alone with him?”
“Not for a minute.”
“And you promise we won’t try to make a fool of him?”
“Why would we want to make a fool of him?”
“I don’t know, but...”
“Say yes, Rhoda.”
“I...”
“Say yes.”
“All right,” Rhoda said, “but...”
“You’re a darling,” Sandy said, and hugged her. “Come on, let’s get in the water. I want to show you something.”
She spent the entire afternoon with Rhoda in the shallow water, painstakingly instructing her in the use of the mask and snorkel, showing her first how to wash the inside of the face plate with spit so that it wouldn’t cloud underwater, and then showing her how to fit the mask to her face, and how to quickly lift it to release any water that might seep in, showing her how to pop her ears in case she ever went into deeper water and the pressure started to build, showing her how to blow water out of the snorkel, working patiently and calmly and gently, allowing Rhoda to progress at her own speed, without any insistence, until she was swimming freely around the cove, face in the water, and at last taking a few tentative dives with Sandy, who held her hand while they explored the bottom together.
On the boat, David said, “Did you look?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you check out your father’s stuff?”
I hesitated. The thought of going through my father’s belongings had scared hell out of me. I had tried to bring myself to do it, telling myself there was nothing to fear. But each time I started into the bedroom, I had the feeling I might discover something that would shock me, and I didn’t want that to happen. So I hadn’t done it. And here was David, asking about it.
“Did you?” he said again.
“Yes,” I said. This was the first time I’d ever lied to him in all the time I’d known him. I felt as if he could see clear into my skull, as if he knew instantly that I wasn’t telling the truth.
“And?” he said.
“I guess he doesn’t use them,” I said.
“Mmm,” David said, and shaded his eyes to watch the girls as they surfaced. “I want to get moving on this,” he said.
“Yeah, me too,” I said.
“We’ll be on the mainland Saturday night,” David said, “when we go to meet Gomez. We’ll have to get them then.”
“Okay,” I said.
“It ought to be a riot,” David said.
“Well, I don’t think we ought to make fun of him,” I said.
“No, no, of course not,” David said.
“I mean, we promised Rhoda.”
“Sure.” Looking out over the water, he said, “She’s really coming along nicely.”
“Mmm.”
“You still feel the same way?”
“What do you mean?”
“About her.”
“What do you mean?”
“That there’s no chance.”
“Oh. I don’t know.”
“She’s got great tits,” David said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Is something the matter?”
“No.”
“You sound funny.”
“No. I’m okay.”
“If you’re worried about Saturday night...”
“No, no.”
“... I’ll do the asking.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you come in with me, I’ll do the actual asking.”
“Oh. Okay. Sure.”
“Then maybe we can try it sometime next week.”
“Okay.”
“Right here. This’d be a good place, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
That was on Wednesday.
By Friday, we had Rhoda diving from the boat in the deeper water just outside the cove and spending half the afternoon below the surface. The water was exceptionally clear, and very warm now that it was August, but otherwise as disappointing as the cove itself had been, with little or no marine life to observe.
Our routine was unvaried.
We floated on the surface, masks in the water, until one or another of us spotted something that looked interesting. A finger pointed, a head nodded, the original discoverer jack-knifed into a surface dive and headed for the bottom, the rest of us following in formation. A glistening explosion of tiny bubbles trailed behind the kicking fins, I could see Sandy’s long blond hair flowing free in the water like a live golden plant, David’s powerful arms thrusting, Rhoda beside me. And then the discovery, whatever it was, a gleaming bottle top, a fishing lure and broken line tangled into a smooth piece of driftwood, a lumbering horseshoe crab, a school of tiny shiners, a pink bathing cap. Each new discovery delighted Rhoda; she would nod her head vigorously and then break into a wide grin around the snorkel mouthpiece, scaring me to death each time because I kept thinking she’d take in a mouthful, and choke, and panic, and forget everything we’d taught her.
Our underwater world was silent and exclusive.
We moved through it like conspirators.
Aníbal Gomez looked like an accountant.
He was wearing a simply tailored brown tropical suit, a pale-beige shirt, and a dark-brown tie. His socks were brown, as were his shoes, and he wore brown-rimmed spectacles. We identified him on the dock at once, the only individual there that Saturday night who looked even remotely civilized, standing apart from the ferry company personnel, who wore dungarees and chambray shirts, and the islanders coming and going in varied colorful and sloppy attire, and the sports fishermen in white shorts, windbreakers, and yachting caps.