She had her phone to her ear as she came in. With her free hand she switched on the light. Afraid she might look up and see him between the wooden slats, which were carved at their edges in the shape of ornate brackets, Matthew sat clenched and unblinking.
“Wade,” she said into the phone.
He saw her pick the key from the ledge where he had left it, examine it a moment and set it down again.
“No, I’m at the house… Your house, Wade… I thought you might want to come say goodbye one more time.”
She was wearing one of her thin, patterned skirts with a short-sleeved top, tailored at the waist.
“I know. I’ll call her.”
She moved in quick steps through the room with the phone to her ear, placing her hand lightly on the love seat, the armchair, the side of the ladder. As she moved toward the back of the house, disappearing out of sight, Matthew let himself breathe again. Very carefully, he backed into the corner of the little space, as far as possible from view.
He heard her laugh.
“You know you want to, Wade… You know you do… Yes, but they never start before ten… I know, but this is Aurelia. All the bands in town have to do their Jimi Hendrix impressions first…”
Then she was directly below him, in the bedroom.
“Oh, Wade,” he heard. “You really are leaving, aren’t you? I’m looking at your suitcase… Yes, there’s an early bus, around six; easier than driving… I know… I know, Wade, I do too, but Lily’s coming, and anyway, I just can’t.”
She came back out of the room, closing the door.
“Be quick, then… Okay, but don’t feel you have to charm the entire restaurant on your way out. Anyway, did you see Matthew?”
The sound of his own name hit Matthew like an electric shock.
“Yeah, that was him… He did? Probably went to the fireworks… Well, thanks for going anyway… Okay, I’ll wait till you get here.”
Something her lover said made her laugh.
“I know. But he can’t help that, can he?”
She laughed again, more tenderly. “Yes, but you’re good at sizing people up. Anyway, I thought it might interest you to take a look at him… Okay, see you in a bit.”
Back in the living room, she turned off the overhead light and switched on a small table lamp.
Matthew watched her, trying to fathom the implications of what he’d just heard. Now she was on the love seat, facing in his direction, making another phone call.
“Jana? Hi. Listen, I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to be a little late. Some things have come up…”
The polite hostess smile Matthew had seen when Jana came to visit reappeared on Chloe’s face. Her small teeth showed like a row of pearls.
“Oh, that’s sweet of you… No, no, I definitely want to come. I’ve hardly seen you all summer… Thanks, Jana. I shouldn’t be too long.”
She stood up and drew the shades down over the living room windows. Sitting again, she held the phone in front of her face, adjusting her hair and rearranging the rounded collar of her blouse, opening a button to reveal a lacy edge of bra. It took Matthew a moment to realize she was using the phone as a camera to see herself. She put it away in her canvas bag, crossed her legs and waited. After a few seconds she stood up again and went toward the back of the house, returning with a lit candle in one hand and a small plate in the other, with kumquats on it, and chocolate. She placed them on the glass table, and switched off the lamp. In the candlelight the gray furnishings took on a warmer tone. She stretched, popped a kumquat into her mouth, and lay down on the love seat, closing her eyes. But she was still restless. Standing up again, she slipped her underwear off from under her skirt in a swift, practical motion. Coming around the coffee table, she sat back down-this time on the armchair- and tossed the pale garment onto the floor beside her.
Matthew looked down through the thin gaps, feeling like an animal in a cage. His mouth had gone dry. In the distance he could hear an electric guitar. Closer, katydids had begun their nighttime chorus. She had sent her lover to the bar to check him out. Why? he wondered. Am I such a mystery, even to her? Is there something in me I don’t see? The question, unanswerable as it was, sent a ripple of anxiety through him.
Headlights pierced through the shades, blading in vertically through the gaps between the balustrade, moving across Matthew’s face like a pair of scanners. A moment later the door opened and Grollier stepped inside.
He paused in the entrance, taking in the little tableau Chloe had prepared for him. In silence, he smiled at Chloe across the small room with its flickering gold light. Closing the door behind him, he moved toward her, stooping midway to pick up her discarded panties and fill his lungs with their scent.
Above them Matthew stared down through the slats in the balustrade, scarcely breathing; wanting and not wanting to see.
nine
An hour later he was still there, his limbs stiffened into position as if he’d been turned to stone, his mind a near-blank. Chloe had left, driven off to her cousin, but Grollier was still down there, sprawled naked on the love seat.
Matthew stared down at him. If what he had seen had extinguished any lingering hopes concerning the extent of Chloe’s involvement with this man, what he’d heard had spread a deeper, more insidious ruin. It was so disturbing, in fact, that for some time he couldn’t bring himself to summon any of it back. He was in a state of benumbed shock. Only some minor functionary of consciousness continued about its business, assessing the practicalities of the situation in a businesslike way: catching the far-off strains of someone’s imitation of a Hendrix guitar solo, observing that Grollier would have to leave soon if he was going to make it to the fireworks, noting unexcitedly that this would make his own exit from the house possible.
Grollier stretched and yawned. A smile appeared on his face and he rotated his shaggy head slowly from side to side as if in disbelief at something. Pushing down onto the love seat, he hauled himself up and padded off. Light appeared from the bedroom and Matthew heard drawers being opened and closed. He was getting dressed to go out, surmised the same detached mental functionary. Dully, Matthew projected forward; saw himself finally able to move again, slipping out of the house, driving back up the mountain, continuing with his life. The evening would take its place in the chain of significant episodes that had given his existence its singular character, and there would be no more possibility of forgetting it than there had been any of the others. At the same time it would make no practical difference to anything.
But he was mistaken about Wade getting dressed. The man was still naked when he returned to the living room, and now he began ferrying odds and ends back to the bedroom. It became apparent that he was simply continuing with his packing.
He was flying out to Indonesia tomorrow-Matthew had gleaned this from the post-coital talk-interrupting his stay at the house in order to salvage an agreement with an orangutan wrangler. Or no, not the post-coital talk: this part had actually come mid-coitus. They’d had a lull during which Wade had reiterated what appeared to have been an earlier attempt to persuade Chloe to go to Indonesia with him. She’d told him, with all too evident reluctance, that it was impossible, and the renewed sense of imminent separation had started them up again. “Don’t come,” she’d said as Wade’s groans began to indicate critical levels of excitement.