It had all seemed quite different by the bright morning light of the next day, the sky a high and cloudless blue, power and phone restored, a wrecker on the way to lift the undamaged car clear, the flood waters rapidly lowering.
Adult conversation. We shouldn’t have. It isn’t good practice. Can’t maintain efficient business relationship, employer and employee. Can’t afford to lose you, Anne. Depend on you for too many things, businesswise. Adult agreement. Go on as if it had never happened.
Would have been possible, he thought, if it had turned out to have been merely an average experience, or even a little better than average. But he had found himself tapping an entirely unexpected store of sexual energy and vitality in that narrow, brunette, small-breasted body. Wiry, limber, and demanding. Strong demands create strong responses. So it had been a lot better than very good.
So after the second violation of the pact, the tired old vow of going on as if it had never happened seemed idiotic. New agreement in order. Never never will the boss use the sporadic physical relationship as any kind of duty-hours leverage, and never never will the secretary take equivalent advantage. If it is there, and good, why waste it when the occasional opportunity presents itself? Don’t create opportunity. Let it happen in the course of business. Everybody is grown up. We’re not hurting anybody. And the usual risk was nonexistent, because his wife (now divorced) — after one experience of childbirth — had insisted he have a vasectomy. In fact, a welcome release of commercial tensions. Nothing wrong with affection. Under the circumstances, the only concession was the fifty-a-week raise which at first offended her so deeply he thought he had blown the whole ball bame. He asked Miss Faxton if she enjoyed the increased responsibilities he had given her in the operation and administration of his several corporate ventures. She said she did indeed enjoy them. He pointed out that he had given her raises commensurate with her increased duties because, enjoying the greater demands, she performed well. He pointed out that in this new area of mutual personal gratification she gave every impression of enjoying herself, and he could certify that her performance was excellent. Also, it did consume time which otherwise would be her own to use as she wished. She had stared at him, narrow-eyed, then wide-eyed, then suddenly guffawing in that genuine, open-throated, bawdy way that only the sensuous woman can properly carry off.
She came along the beach, stopping to stoop and pick up a shell from time to time. She took a deep tan readily, and she wore a navy blue bikini with narrow trim of white lace.
When she was near he waved his big arm in slow signal to her. She did not pretend not to see him. She looked up at him and then looked away, and continued her slow pace past the small sailboats pulled far above the high-tide line.
Can fix, he thought. Will have to fix, or really lose her this time. Get this over and get the banking arrangements put through, and have Cramer make the transfers and put the after-tax proceeds into high-rated municipals with a good yield. Would figure out at probably sixty-five thousand income-tax free, after paying the preference income tax. Nice liquidity while I go shopping, taking my time, because the money squeeze has to loosen up. February next year would be a good time to go to Montevideo and check out the project Perez outlined. It’s summer then. She likes summer, likes the heat and the sweat of it. Too far in the future, though.
Something real quick. Hell, I should have remembered Winkler’s sloop. Perfect. Use it any time, Aldo. Feel free. It just sits there. Crew of three. Marvelous area, the Virgins, to just cruise around aimlessly. Swim and fish and loaf.
So I can send Lee Rountree and his big wife back to Miami aboard the Lear with Roy, and Miss Faxton and I can take a little feeder flight from here to St. Thomas. She will be very cold, distant, disapproving. And one night under the right moon at the right anchorage, we’ll sit on the deck and I will tell her how, at precisely five thirty on this day, I remembered my grandfather and the woodchuck. I will tell her the story and she will understand a little more about me, maybe, that little bit more I think I understand today.
She had understood the first part of it too quickly, he remembered. He had checked over the details of the trip with her, the papers they should bring along. They were in his tower suite of offices in the new bank building in Tulsa, and the rest of the staff had gone home an hour ago.
“Can you think of anything I’ve forgotten? Larssen is a very thorough guy.”
She said, “Can’t think of a thing. Four days you think it will take?”
“Minimum three, maximum a week. Should give you some good beach time and sun time while that sleepy Swede tries to steal half my equity.”
She smiled. “I can use it, Aldo. After too many ten-hour days.”
“Know something? It might be a good chance to reward another job well done. Lee Rountree really did one hell of a promotion job on moving those units.”
She looked skeptical. “And so?”
“He could tell the Swedes the methods he used, the kind of media that got the best results. He and his wife could fly down there with us. Give you some girl-type company on the beach.”
“Aldo! God’s sake!”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I don’t need girl-type company or girl-type talk. She’s just a kid, Aldo.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Item: You had it all set to give the Club de Playa promotion to Newcomb. In fact, I think you had started briefing him. Item: You happened to run into Lee Rountree when he was accompanied by his wife of one year at that time, of a year and eight months now. Item: Lee is a very nice big amiable diligent guy six foot four, age twenty-six. Mrs. Lee Rountree, Elizabeth, known as Liz, is at least five foot ten and a half in her bare feet. She is a big, merry, jolly, happy blonde, age twenty-two, lively and bouncy and beautifully stacked, and she assumes everybody is a perfectly wonderful human being until proven otherwise. Item: You suddenly give the Club de Play a promotion to Lee Rountree instead of to Newcomb. And with Lee, it’s such an earn-as-you-learn bit, you have to wet-nurse him personally until he gets far enough along to handle it on his own. Item: This involves dropping in on the happy couple quite often, even after he is all straightened away and doing well. Item: They have no kids. Item: You are the big kindly boss-fellow giving the young husband the big break. Item: If your ex-wife had been delivered of a daughter one year after you married her, the daughter would be the same age as Liz Rountree. Item: I have watched the same game a lot of other times. Remember? Item: All of a sudden you think I need a girl companion.”
“That’s quite a presentation there, Miss Faxton.”
“Just don’t give me injured innocence. Okay?”
“What is it? Jealousy all of a sudden?”
She had not gotten angry, as he thought she would. Instead she had frowned, looking beyond him, her lean face thoughtful. “No, Mr. Bellinger. It isn’t that. I think really it’s a problem of my own self-respect. I am involved in a relationship with you. We have no exclusive claims on each other. I guess I just want to believe that I could not willingly keep on giving myself to a man who... is not merciful.”
“Merciful!?”
She shrugged. Sad, sour little smile. “You’re a clever man, Aldo. And you are watchful, patient, and as charming as you decide to be. You understand people and what motivates them. But I wonder if you have any mercy. She loves him, you know.”