She was all girl. Her breasts formed tan half-moons where they peeked out above the top of her bathing suit. Her stomach sank flatly back from her rib cage and then rounded out nicely to her thighs. Her legs were long and she would stand at least five-seven in heels. It was all there, nicely shaped and molded, in almost perfect proportion, and she seemed totally unaware of it.
When she was twenty feet away she made the smile warmer and said: “Hi, there.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Would you mind watching my things while I go in? The last time I was here a couple of the kids made off with them and I had to drive back in my suit.” She spread the black and red towel on the sand and dropped the bag down on it.
“I’m Anne Kidd,” she said and extended her hand. I took it.
“Peter Upshaw.”
“You American?”
“Yes.”
“I couldn’t tell by the way you speak, but then I haven’t given you a chance to say anything, have I? But your hat’s a dead giveaway. I haven’t seen a hat like that since Daytona.”
“It’s been in the family a long time.”
She smiled at me. “I’m just going in for a little while. Please don’t go away.”
“I’ll be here.”
She ran towards the water, and she ran well in the sand. She caught a wave and dived through it and then began to swim with a smooth, effortless Australian crawl. She swam as if she had spent a lot of time in the water. I liked to watch her. She swam for fifteen minutes and then she came running back up the beach, just a little pigeon-toed, but not much, her sunbleached hair hanging wet and straight to her shoulders. She remained lovely.
“You remind me of a fish I once knew,” I said.
She laughed and picked up the towel, shook it, and began to dry the water from her body. I watched with interest. “When I was three,” she said, “they threw me into the pool at home. It was during a party. My parents thought it was fun. I learned to swim for self-protection.”
“You weren’t frightened.”
“I didn’t have time to be, I suppose. Daddy jumped in and my mother followed him, fully dressed, and then all of the guests jumped in and they passed me back and forth like a beach ball. It was hilarious, they tell me. I don’t remember it.
I offered her a cigarette after she had spread the towel out and was sitting on it, her knees tucked up to her chin. She refused, but said; “Could I have a swallow of your beer? I’m terribly thirsty.”
“It’s warm — I’ll be happy to get you one from the stand.”
“I’m used to it warm. All I want is a swallow.”
I handed her the green bottle and she drank and handed it back.
“Where do you drink your warm beer?” I asked.
“In Ubondo.”
“You live there?”
“I teach there. I’m with the Peace Corps.”
“I never met a Peace Corps before,” I said. “Do you like it?”
“After a while you don’t think about whether you like it or not. You just do it.”
“How long have you been here?”
“In Albertia?”
“Yes.”
“Fifteen months. I came down to Barkandu to have my teeth checked. The Baptists have a good dental clinic here. How are your teeth?”
“My own.”
“Somebody told me once not to think about yourself anymore than you do about your teeth. That started me thinking about my teeth all the time. Do you think about yours often?”
“Every morning; also every night.”
“I like my teeth,” she said. “They seem to be the most permanent thing about me.”
“How many Peace Corps people are in Albertia?”
“About seventy. Some are up north. There are about twenty of us around Ubondo and there are about forty-five over in the east. You haven’t been here long, have you? I can tell because you’re still so white.”
“Just got in.”
“From the States?”
“From London.”
“For the Consulate or AID or what? I don’t think you’re a missionary.”
“Not an ecclesiastical one. I’m down here to stir up some interest in the campaign.”
“Oh. You’re one of those Americans. There will be two of you, won’t there?”
“Yes.”
“They’re talking about you at the university in Ubondo. The students are.”
“They speak well of us, I hope.”
“Not very.”
“What are they saying?”
“Let’s see — there is something about Madison Avenue techniques—”
“That’s to be expected.”
“American imperialism disguised as political counsel. Then you’re also supposed to be connected with the CIA. Are you?”
“No.”
“I’m glad. I really am. Isn’t that strange?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you down here really?” she asked.
“It’s my job. I make a living doing things like this.”
“Aren’t you embarrassed.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Why should I be?”
“I mean joining the Peace Corps. Doesn’t that embarrass you?”
“I’m one of those who don’t mind caring,” she said. “I don’t mind if people know about it either. So I’m not embarrassed.”
“Why did you join?”
“Kennedy.”
“You mean the ‘ask not what your country can do for you’ thing?”
“That was part of it. I was in Washington when he was sworn in. Daddy was invited because he had made a donation or something.”
“This the same daddy who tossed you in the pool?”
“The same.”
“It was a good speech,” I said.
“So that’s why I joined. I thought I could help.”
“Have you?”
She looked at me, and then out at the ocean. A breeze had come up and it felt cool against my sweat. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m involved, anyway. I was never involved before. Perhaps I’ve only helped myself. Maybe that’s where you have to start.”
“But you don’t feel the same?”
“Not since Kennedy died. I joined more than two years after he was shot to prove that it was as much me as anything else. But it wasn’t really. It’s different somehow.”
“He was younger,” I said. “That made a lot of difference.”
“There was something else,” she said. “They talk and write a lot about his grace and style. He had all that and he had a beautiful wife and two nice children. They looked like something out of a bad ad. Yet he didn’t seem to think about how he looked — I mean he didn’t think about himself so much—”
“Like the teeth,” I said.
“Yes. He knew he had what everybody else wanted, but he didn’t really care anymore about having it. I’m not making sense, am I?”
“Go on.”
“They killed him because he didn’t care about what they care about; because they couldn’t stand him not being like they were. They killed him not because he was good, but because he was better than anything else around and they couldn’t stand the contrast.”
“Who’s they?”
“Oh — Oswald, all the Oswalds. There’re millions of them. And they were secretly glad when he died. I know they were. I don’t mean that they were Democrats or Republicans or anything. But they weren’t comfortable with Kennedy around and now they’re comfortable again. They’re got the old shoe back, the Texas tacky, and they can snicker and make fun of him and feel superior or just as good, and they couldn’t do that with Kennedy.”
“It’s a theory,” I admitted.
She looked at me and the smile that came my way was chilly. “You’re not one to go overboard, are you Peter Upshaw?”
“I said it’s a theory.”
“I don’t mean about that. That’s what I feel. I don’t give a damn whether you agree with what I feel or not, because I can’t change the way I feel. I just said that you’re not one to go overboard about anything, are you? You’re cautious. And if you’re cautious enough then you’ll never get caught and if you don’t get caught, then you’ll never feel anything.”