“Molly!” he called, as though surprised to find her there.
She rolled over in response to his voice, propped herself on one elbow, and turned to face him.
“Hello, Ralph,” she said. “Good morning.”
“It’s afternoon already,” he said, and sat on the towel beside her.
Bare-breasted, as casually as if she were the vicar’s wife entertaining one of the local gentry who’d dropped in for afternoon tea, she sat in conversation with him, exchanging words David could not hear. He watched them from the window above. In a little while, they both rose from the towel. Molly was still bare-breasted. She made no effort to retrieve her discarded top. Instead, she walked together with him to the boat. He helped her to climb into it, offering his hand. He got in himself and started the engine. He pulled in the anchor. He came back to the wheel. The boat backed away from the beach and then roared forward around the point of land, out of sight.
They did not return until almost two hours later. Lonigan dropped anchor again, and they both waded ashore and stood chatting at the water’s edge for another ten minutes. Lonigan took her hand at last, said his farewells, waded back to the boat, pulled in the anchor, and then gunned the engine and backed out of the cove.
David was ready to kill her.
He kept waiting for her to come in to apologize. She did not. At a quarter to five, he packed the pages he’d revised — only three of them, small wonder considering his anger — and went out to the living room. She had put on a hooded caftan she’d bought in one of the Porto Cervo boutiques. She looked cool and sleek in the white cotton; pale horse, pale rider dressed like an Arabian princess, all shrouded and secret after parading naked for a stranger! She was reading. A paperback. He could not make out the title from where he loomed large and menacing in the arched doorway. Her legs were crossed under her, hidden by the voluminous folds of the caftan. Only her bright painted toenails showed at the hemline. The hood was up over her head, partially hiding her face. The ceiling fan rotated idly. There was the sound of buzzing flies in the room. She turned a page.
“Well, well,” David said, “look who’s here.”
Molly looked up. She said nothing.
“How was your boat ride?” he said. “Have a nice little boat ride?”
“Very nice, thank you,” she said.
“How do you compare getting laid in a boat...”
“I didn’t get laid in a boat.”
“...with getting laid on a roller coaster, for example?”
“I’ve never tried either.”
“What did you try? A little deserted beach someplace?”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Molly said, and went back to the book again.
“If you don’t mind...”
“I do mind.”
“Put down the book, Molly.”
She slammed down the book.
“Where’d you go?” he asked.
“What business is that of yours?” she said.
“Where’d you go with him?”
“I am not in the habit of being called a cheap cunt,” she said coldly, “a cheap middle-aged cunt, no less, by anyone in the world, and especially not by someone who’s supposed to love me so terribly much he won’t let me breathe!”
“Where’d he take you in that boat?”
“None of your business,” she said, and rose suddenly and went into the bedroom. He heard her opening and closing drawers in there. He stood in the living room for a moment, and then he followed her. An open suitcase was on the bed. She was throwing underwear and blouses into it haphazardly, packing blindly. Turning to the dresser, she took a hairbrush from its top and then stared at it as if forgetting why she had picked it up.
“You going someplace?” he asked.
“Away from here, that’s for sure,” she said.
“What the hell are you so angry about?” he asked. “You’re the one who went off naked in a boat...”
“Oh, big deal. I had my top off. This is Italy! Half the women in the world walk around here without...”
“That’s not the point!”
“Well, what is the point, because I seem to be missing the point! What was I supposed to do when he came driving up in the boat? Jump up like a dumb virgin and reach for my towel and start shrieking? If you want to know something, that would’ve been worse than just sitting there without my top on. You goddamn jackass, don’t you think I know the difference between teasing a man and just sitting there in the sunshine? I’ll tell you what this gets down to, if you want to know what it gets down to. You’re a guilt-ridden Jew who...”
“It gets down to you sending out signals!” David said.
“I did not send out any signals!”
“Then why did he come here today?”
“Because he wanted to talk to me, as peculiar as that may sound. He really had an interest in knowing who the person Molly Regen...”
“You’re not Molly Regen anymore.”
“I wish I was!”
“You’re not twenty-two anymore, either. ‘So young, so vital!’ I’m surprised he didn’t jump on you right at the table last night. I’m surprised he waited for...”
“Jesus, you’re infuriating!” she shouted, and hurled the hairbrush to the tiled floor, shattering its plastic handle. “Don’t you think I have anything to say about it? Don’t you think it’s my business who I choose to, who I, who I, you bastard, you’ve got me stuttering! This is my body,” she said, cupping her breasts fiercely, “and I’ve got a mind up here,” she said, bringing her right hand up and hitting her forehead with her open palm, the slap smacking home the word, “and if you think that you or anyone else...”
“Tell it to Betty Friedan,” he said.
“Sure.”
“Or Gloria Steinem.”
“Sure, you prick.”
“Or Erica Jong. Why don’t you go tell Erica Jong?”
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself?”
“If you goddamn women libbers think being faithful to someone is the same as being owned...”
“I am faithful to you,” she said coldly.
“Are you?”
“No,” she said. “Okay?”
“What?”
“Are you?” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You did go to bed with him, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then what...?”
“No more lies,” she said, “I’m tired of all the lies. You know what you’ve been doing, I know what I’ve been doing, let’s stop the lies! For God’s sake, let’s stop them!”
“I haven’t been doing anything,” he said.
“Stop it,” she said.
“I haven’t.”
“She called from Philadelphia.”
“What? Who called from...?”
“Your lawyer friend.”
“Molly, I swear to God...”
“Jesus, stop it! I’m about to walk out of here, can’t you please stop lying?”
“A dumb call from Philadelphia...”
“And others. You’ve been sleeping around, David, okay? Ever since...”