Carl turned to Avery. “You’ll have dinner with us, of course.”
“Oh, no, thanks. I’ve intruded long enough.”
“It’s no intrusion at all. We’d love to have you, wouldn’t we, Lisa?”
“Of course.” Carl and Avery were both looking at her as if something more were expected of her, so she added, “Please join us. We’re only going into the dining room here.”
“Well, I’ll accept on one condition. I pick up the check.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Carl said.
“I insist. I can’t accept unless you agree.”
“All right.” Carl shrugged and finished his last daiquiri in a gulp. “If you put it that way.”
They got up and went out of the bar and into the dining room and were escorted to a table. An orchestra was playing something with a Latin rhythm, and a few couples were dancing at one end of the room on the small dance floor directly in front of the elevated place where the orchestra sat. The opposite end of the room was open to the terrace, and a few couples were dancing out there too.
“What are you going to have?” Carl said.
Lisa looked at the menu, and Avery said, “I’m going to have the pompano. It’s very good.”
“I think I shall too,” Carl said. “It’s something different. You don’t often get pompano at home.”
“There’s a place in Corinth that serves it now and then. Em Page’s restaurant.”
“Really? That’s rather surprising. It must be a pretty good place.”
“It is. Em built it up from practically nothing, and he’s very proud of it. It takes pride to make something good.”
“Come to think of it, that’s true. Pride works wonders.”
“I’ll also have the pompano,” Lisa said.
Looking up from the menu, she saw that Avery was watching her with an odd intentness. He was apparently on the verge of saying something to her and was struggling against an impediment of some kind, just as a stammerer will hang up sometimes on a particular sound. The orchestra had begun a medley of tunes with a simple rhythm that required no mastery of intricate steps, and she understood suddenly that he was about to ask her to dance, and she wished that he wouldn’t. Not, however, that she really felt strongly about it. She would prefer not to dance, but if he asked her, she decided, she would accept. She was feeling, as a matter of fact, quite assured. The certainty that she could cope with the small initial contacts of a normal routine filled her with inordinate pride.
“Would you care to dance?” he said.
“If you like. I’m not very good, though.”
“Neither am I. I can only manage the simplest steps. If the orchestra gets off on a mambo or anything like that, I’ll have to capitulate.”
They stood up and threaded their way among tables to the dance floor and began to dance. He held her loosely, their bodies brushing lightly, and she was grateful for this. Neither did he try to talk with her, and she was grateful for this too. She moved gracefully, following his lead with ease, but in her grace there was a kind of paradoxical rigidity, as if it developed from the movement of her body as a unit and not from a harmony of parts. When the music ended, they returned to the table and found Carl beginning on his salad.
“Thank you,” she said to Avery.
“Not at all. It was my pleasure.”
Which was not true. He had obviously not enjoyed the dance and had only asked her out of courtesy. She recognized this and was not in the least disturbed by it.
They sat down and began eating their own salad. After a while the waiter brought the pompanos on a little cart and boned them beside the table and poured melted butter over them. Carl had ordered a bottle of sauterne. The waiter poured the sauterne and served the pompanos and went away. The sauterne was mediocre, Lisa thought, but the pompano was very good. It worked, however, against the lift. As a kind of depressant. She was beginning to feel imperiled, her assurance slipping, and she wished for another drink. As a drink, the sauterne was unsatisfactory. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and wished for a strong daiquiri.
“Won’t you reconsider your condition?” Carl said. “About the check, I mean.”
Avery shook his head. “No. I insist on the terns of the agreement.”
In response to a signal, the waiter brought the check and left it on the table on a small tray. Avery picked up the check and examined it and put it back on the tray with a bill. He always tipped about fifteen percent and knew that the bill would just about cover it. His ability to compute rapidly in his head was something he was secretly proud of, and at the same time he was secretly ashamed of the pride. It was such a little thing, after all, to feel so strongly about.
“How about a drink on the terrace?” he said.
“No, thanks.” Carl pushed his chair back. “I’m pretty tired, really. Guess I’m not fully recovered from the pneumonia. I think I’ll go up to bed, if you’ll excuse me. Perhaps I’ll read for a while.”
He was clearly making no impromptu excuse. His tiredness was evident in the ravishments of his face, the ruts and shadows and gray flesh, and even in the quality of his voice, which had developed a soft windiness, each word expelled with an effort on a slight burst of breath. Standing, he brushed a hand over his thin, fair hair. Avery stood too and helped Lisa.
“Must you run off too?” he said. “Could I interest you in another daiquiri?”
She did not want to remain alone with him, but on the other hand she wanted the drink very badly. She said that she would stay because the drink and the company seemed in present circumstances to be concomitants.
“If it’s all right with you,” she said to Carl.
“Of course. I want you to enjoy yourself.”
He looked at her in a way that seemed to suggest a significance under the surface of his words that was vastly greater than their literal meaning, and she thought, after he had said good-night and was walking away, that he had meant to be subtly compelling, that he was actually urging a conversion from aberrance to orthodoxy. She wondered if he understood the enormity of such a conversion, the perils entailed, and she was sorry for him and frightened for herself, and again she was conscious of a dry inner weeping.
“I would like that drink very much,” she said.
They went into the bar and got the drinks and carried them out onto the terrace. The beach and the ocean were bright in the moon, and on the bright beach between her and the bright ocean were the appropriate bright people. Washed in moonlight, they were like characters in a phantasy. They were not real, she thought. They did things to one another and with one another and were very gay in their phantasy world, and they filled her, in spite of their quality of unreality, with fear and a conviction of proximate personal disaster. She had completely lost her recent assurance, and she wished suddenly and bitterly that she had stayed in Midland City with Bella. With Bella there was no security and no salvation, but there was at least the semi-peace of acceptance and submission.
She finished her daiquiri quickly and said, “I am tireder than I thought. I think I had better go upstairs after all.”
“Must you really?”
“I think I had better.”
“In that case, I’ll see you to the elevator.”
“No. Please don’t bother. I thank you very much for everything.”