“Sit down, Bunny. What’s on your mind? Drink? I’m afraid I can give you only about ten minutes. This is one of those days.”
“I’d like a scotch and water, thanks.”
As Oldbern mixed the drinks he said, “What’s on your mind, Bunny? Contract for next year? I think I can personally reassure you that the membership wants you to stay. You’re doing a marvelous job with the kids. In fact, we’re going to raise the ante a little. We don’t want to lose you.”
He handed Bunny his drink. Bunny looked up and smiled and said, “It isn’t anything like that. It’s just that Betty and I want to get married.”
Oldbern stared down at him incredulously. “What! Betty? She’s just a kid.”
“She’s over twenty-one, sir.”
“How old are you, Hollis?”
“Thirty-five, sir.”
Oldbern went behind his desk and sat down slowly. “What kind of nonsense are you trying to pull? What the hell is going on?”
“The usual thing, I guess. Love.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“Nearly two years. But we thought it was wiser to wait until we were both sure.”
“You mean to wait until she was twenty-one.”
“It happened to come out that way.”
“Yes, it happened to come out that way. Hollis, you’re a dirty, back-stabbing thief.”
Bunny looked down at his drink. “Sorry to have you take this attitude, sir. Betty and I have been hoping there wouldn’t be too much friction.”
“You’re a tennis bum. I knew your reputation back when we hired you. I was dubious about you. I had a hunch. I guess I should have blocked it. Well, I’ll never permit this marriage.”
Bunny took long calm swallows of his drink. He shrugged. “Betty says we’re going to get married no matter what. Being twenty-one, I guess she’s her own boss on that. You can certainly try to change her mind. But if she doesn’t change it, I don’t know how you’d go about stopping it, sir.”
Oldbern waited long moments. He leaned back in his chair. “Betty is not a pretty girl. She isn’t even close to being pretty. She happens to have three million dollars.”
“She knows I won’t marry her for her money. She knows I have ideals.”
“You have as many ideals as a mink.”
“We hoped there wouldn’t be friction.”
“How do you like this? I’m going to put a firm of investigators on you. I’ll get a report on you that’ll make Betty’s eyes stand out on stalks.”
“I guess you can do that. But it won’t surprise her any. I haven’t been near another woman in two years. And I haven’t touched Betty. I’ve told her everything I can remember. I guess you couldn’t shock her much. She knows why I’ve changed. And she’s helped me work with the kids out at the club.”
“You’ve had two years to work on her, haven’t you?”
“Love can change a man.”
“How much, Hollis? How big a check do I write?”
“That wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t be a gift. It would be income. And it would all fall in this year, no matter how big a check. Then there wouldn’t be much left after taxes, and I’d be out of a job. Anyway, I’m not interested in money. I’m in love with your daughter. As they say, I’m asking for her hand. She knows I’m here. That’s putting it pretty straight.” Bunny finished his drink and stood up.
Oldbern had begun to look older. “Sit down, Hollis. I want to think.”
Bunny shrugged. “I’m not a bad guy. You got to know me.”
“There isn’t anything anybody can do, is there?”
Bunny permitted himself his likable grin. “If there is, sir, I haven’t been able to think of it, and neither has my lawyer.”
“She should have done a lot better.”
“Maybe you could think about this. Maybe she’s doing as well as she can do. We’d like a small quiet wedding. Just the family.”
“When do you want it?”
“One month from tomorrow, sir.”
The capitulation was easier than Bunny had expected. He stuck his hand across the desk. Oldbern looked at it. “You did a neat job, Hollis. But I don’t have to shake your hand. There’s nothing to make me do that.”
“Suit yourself, Mr. Oldbern.”
And it had been a quiet wedding, with even the gift of the Mercedes from the bride’s father as a concession to the normal courtesies. They had driven down to Miami, with stops at Nags Head and Myrtle Beach. They had taken a boat to Havana, had flown to Nassau and then back to Miami where they had left the car...
He walked back into the bedroom. She slept in the same position as before. He looked at her with fondness. He had expected to be bored by the honeymoon, by the constant aura of adoration, by her emotional vulnerability. And he had expected to feel somewhat apologetic about her appearance when they walked into strange hotel lobbies and restaurants.
But, ever since she had become assured of his love, months before the marriage, she had made strenuous efforts to reduce. Her skin was marvelously clear and unblemished and fragrant. She was tidy as a cat. In a dark room, her brown hair would crackle, and there would be faint bluish sparks when he ran his fingers through it. During the last week at odd moments he would happen to notice her with half his mind when she moved, when she turned away from him, when she walked toward him, when she pulled herself onto a swimming float or dived into a breaking wave — and he would find her desirable. And he learned that under the shyness was a perceptive sensitivity, intelligence and ardor.
He knew he did not love her. Yet he was becoming surprisingly fond of her, of her own special quiet sense of fun. She was sure in her conviction of being loved, and she had begun to blossom for him. He knew how easily he could change all that with an angry or contemptuous word. He enjoyed the quiet feeling of power that gave him. This was a structure he had built, and one he could collapse at will.
He sat on the bed and put his hand on her waist and shook her gently. “Come on, fat lamb.”
She came blurred and drowsy from sleep and found him with her eyes and smiled and said, “Not so daggone fat. And good morning.”
“Good morning.”
Her eyes were a pale gray. He had talked her into using dark pencil on her colorless brows, into touching up the eyelashes that were like fine gold wire. Now her washed face was defenseless and too vulnerable, yet after she used make-up she would look confident and all-of-a-piece.
“In exactly two months,” she said, “according to my master plan, I shall be down to one-fifteen and I shall be wondering why I wasted all this unearthly beauty on such a weary old type.”
“Not too weary,” he said...
They got into the car and headed north in the dusky gloom of the constant rain. The sports car was built like a low, fleet, expensive boat. It squatted low on the road, thrillingly responsive. The hard wind out of the west did not make it sway. But Bunny saw the tilt and dip of the pines and palms and wondered about the hurricane. They had felt disappointed in Miami when it had veered away to the west below Cuba.
When they stopped in a roadside restaurant for a late breakfast, the few customers were all talking about the storm. An old man with the long sallow knotted face and pale narrow deep-set eyes of the cracker was saying, “They say they know where it is. I ain’t fixin’ to listen too hard to them, with their planes and charts and all. You get this here rain, and it comes right at you like you had the bar’l of a gun aimed down your gullet. Nobody knows where it is. Where do you think all them birds went? I got me all boarded up and ready, by gosh. Try to breathe thishyeer air. There ain’t enough goodness to it. You got to keep a-fillin’ your chest. That’s one sure sign.”