The gin-and-tonic had moved by swallows from the tall glass to Nancy’s stomach, where it was beginning to glow. She deposited the glass on the bedside table and threw herself down on the bed.
She began to wish that David would come home. But he had said five o’clock, and it was now only about three-thirty. An hour and a half was a long time for a girl to lie on her back wishing for her husband, Nancy thought drowsily, and the next thing she knew her eyes flew open and there he was, on the edge of the bed, contemplating her navel. She sat up and put her arms around his neck and the situation immediately became fraught with possibilities.
“Darling,” Nancy breathed in David’s ear, “here you are at last.”
“Here, as a matter of fact,” he said, stroking her back, “we both are.”
“Have you had a good day?”
“No. My day has been hellishly hot. Also frustrating.”
“How frustrating? You don’t have classes on Saturday.”
“But I have papers to grade that are the work of classes. It’s absolutely fantastic how little can be learned by a conscientious blockhead if he really tries.”
“You mustn’t expect too much from students who are forced to take corrective English, darling. It isn’t reasonable.”
“True. Thank God for the curve,” David said, tracing one of Nancy’s with an absent finger. “It’s a wonderful device. By applying it, you can change an F to a C and a C to an A in the wink of an eye.”
“David, that tickles!” Nancy giggled, slapping his hand.
She leaned shamelessly back against the headboard and observed him with what might have seemed excessive enthusiasm. To be honest, David wasn’t exceptional to observe; Nancy’s overenthusiasm was the effect of some mysterious affinity she did not understand. She had felt it from the first instant of meeting. She still felt it, and she was ready and willing to feel it forever, even though his short hair was a color you could only call neutral, his hands and feet were a good deal larger than the rest of him called for, and his nose was almost as crooked as his smile. David was nothing, in short, that should be considered a threat to a girl’s chemistry or modesty; but here was hers in pleasant peril nonetheless. It was altogether a satisfactory state of affairs.
“Darling,” Nancy murmured, her eyes half-closed, “what time is it?”
“Five-thirty. Why?” asked David, reaching.
Nancy rolled swiftly over out of range.
“I am merely budgeting what is left of the day. At seven we’re expected in the Richmonds’ backyard for the barbecue. Meanwhile a great deal can be accomplished. Would you like to take a shower to begin with?”
“I’d rather not,” said David hungrily, “but I guess I’d better.”
“As a favor to me, darling, make it... quick?”
So David leaped for the bathroom, and Nancy waited until she heard the shower. Then she slipped off the bed and over to her dressing table and drew a brush through her fair short hair three or four times with an air of abstraction. Afterward she peered through the curtains at an angle up the macadam street. At the curb in front of the Richmonds’ stood the delivery truck of a local beer distributor. The driver was pushing a small hand-truck up the Richmond walk bearing a metal keg of beer with a spigot and pump attachment for drawing the beer under pressure, as at a bar.
Altogether, Nancy thought, what with David here and the keg there, the day was looking up. Then she had no time to think of anything but the immediate present, for David was coming at her, still toweling himself, with a leer of purest lust.
“Defend yourself, baby!”
“Who needs it?” murmured Nancy, opening her arms.
2
The party, as it turned out, wasn’t a barbecue at all. No deception was intended, of course; it had merely become a tribal tradition to refer to backyard cookouts as barbecues. It was actually a hamburger fry, or broil, or whatever — they were cooked by Jack Richmond on a grill over charcoal. Dr. Jack Richmond was positively paranoid about his ability to cook hamburgers just right on a charcoal grill, and it was verboten to help him or interfere in any way. The fact that he wore a starched chef’s cap and an apron was misleading; his hamburgers were really as good as he claimed.
Nancy in shorts and David in slacks, having accomplished a great deal in the meanwhile, went over at seven. They cut across the Connors’ backyard, and while they were on the way a window was opened suddenly and Larry Connor’s voice shouted out.
“Hey, you guys! We’ll be with you in a few minutes.”
Nancy and David waved at the window, which immediately closed, and went on across a second low hedge into the Richmonds’ yard and onto the terrace where Dr. Jack was watching a beautiful bed of glowing coals with stern concentration. He turned and raised a coal tongs in salute, and Nancy was forced to admit — to herself — that he was probably the handsomest man she had ever known. She wondered how she could be so objective about it. Maybe it indicated a kind of perversion or something. Was it abnormal to prefer a crooked nose to a beautifully straight one?
“Welcome, neighbors,” Jack said. “Wasn’t that old Larry bellowing at you?”
“Yes,” Nancy said. “He said he and Lila would be here in a few minutes.”
“I must say he sounded in good humor. Let’s hope it lasts.”
“Oh, Larry’s all right,” David said.
“Sure, and Lila’s a great gal, and they’re a charming couple. But when they get to cutting each other up, it makes things a little tense.”
Nancy had to concede that it did, but she conceded it silently, to herself. She didn’t think Jack Richmond ought to talk about Lila and Larry Connor like that, even though it was true. There was certainly a bitterness between them that exploded unexpectedly, especially when they had been drinking. Nancy supposed it was because Lila wasn’t particularly choosy in exploiting her sex appeal, which was considerable. Although Larry wasn’t exactly inhibited in certain circumstances either, as Nancy could testify from a couple of personal experiences. Anyhow, she didn’t think there was any real nymphomania in Lila. In fact, Nancy suspected that Lila was on the chilly side, under that almost feverish exterior; sometimes Lila gave her the impression of a rather cruel duplicity. Take, for example, the way she worked on poor old Stanley Walters. Stanley was no woman’s dream, that was for sure, and there was something sickening in the way Lila deliberately excited him so that he lost the use of the few wits he had. In Nancy’s opinion, Lila did it to irritate Stanley’s wife; it probably didn’t occur to Lila how cruel it was to Stanley, who got nothing from Lila and hell from Mae, and so was the victim of both. Nancy shrugged. She liked Lila in spite of everything, and she had no wish to continue the conversation Jack Richmond had begun.
Fortunately, at that moment Vera Richmond came out of the house toting a large wooden bowl full of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and onions in sweetened vinegar. Vera set the bowl down on a table, and Nancy went over to greet her and see if she could help. Vera said she could.