Down by the water the boy in the parka tramped past. For a moment his furious black gaze swept the beach. Elizabeth saw his lips draw back in mockery, in disdain.
“Don’t stare at him,” said Dr. Halstrom.
“I’m not staring at him,” said Elizabeth, startled; angry. She was furious. Blood beat in her neck.
“It only serves to attract his attention.”
And suddenly an extraordinary thing happened. The furious boy reached back over his shoulders and put up his hood. He plunged his hands back in his pockets and stared out of his hood with black broken-glass eyes, mocking and furious. Sweat poured along his face and shone in the sun. He tramped past. Rage consumed Elizabeth. She was a black flame. She felt the hood over her head, she tramped on waves. Sweat poured down her cheeks. Sun-people on beaches: laughter in the sun. Glittering people on beaches laughing. She swept them with her furious black gaze. The beach glittered in the sun. Hate welled in her heart. It was all a lie. Out with the sun! People on beaches caught up in the lie of the sun. Deniers! She mocked them. She trampled the water. Hate raged in human hearts. The beach lied. She was alone in the dark.
“Beach like that.” Elizabeth was startled into her skin by her mother’s voice. Her heart was beating quickly, she felt a little faint. Sweat trickled along her neck.
“I find the entire subject—” her father was saying.
The dark, hooded figure was far down the beach. People lost interest in him as he moved farther away. The excited little girl was sitting down in the water, splashing about and laughing. Far down the beach he seemed a small, dark animal on a brilliant expanse of snow.
“But why would anyone behave like that?” said Mrs. Halstrom.
“He wished to attract as much attention as possible and he succeeded admirably. The subject is not interesting.”
When he reached the jetty he leaped up onto a rock and looked back at them: he was so far away that Elizabeth could no longer see his face. Then he climbed to the path at the top of the jetty and strode toward the parking lot. He was gone.
“I hope you locked the car,” said Mrs. Halstrom, turning her head and shading her eyes.
“The parking lot is policed. I suggest we drop the subject.”
“But why on earth,” said Mrs. Halstrom, still shading her eyes.
“He was clearly disturbed. I asked you to drop the subject.”
“I never saw anything like it. Never.”
“I said drop it.”
“He was mocking us,” said Elizabeth.
Dr. Halstrom turned to her angrily. “Just what do you suppose you mean by that?”
“There’s no call to be angry,” said Mrs. Halstrom.
Dr. Halstrom closed his book. “Well, my day is ruined by this constant squabbling.” His eyes were blue fire. Elizabeth felt tired.
“I meant he was mocking us — them — all this.” She raised her arm and made a slow, sweeping gesture, including the sand, the water, and the sky. For a moment she looked at her arm held gracefully against the sky. Far out on the water the barge had moved on, quite a distance.
“All this? I trust you can be a little more articulate.”
“All of it.” She dropped her arm. She looked at her hand lying on the blanket. “He was protesting.” It was impossible to go on. “Against all this. Against the sun.” She was a fool. She had no words. She felt drained.
“Good heavens, Bess,” said Mrs. Halstrom.
“Protesting against the sun, eh?” Elizabeth looked up. His voice was no longer angry. She didn’t understand anything. “Well by God he didn’t succeed very well.” He pointed. “It’s still there, I notice.”
“What a conversation,” said Mrs. Halstrom. She began to comb her hair.
“Though if it comes to that, I confess I agree with him. It’s hot as blazes.”
He laughed lightly, at ease, showing his boyish smile with the two handsome hollows like elongated dimples.
“Why don’t you take a little dip, if you’re hot?” said Mrs. Halstrom. “It’s a good time of day.” She pulled the comb slowly through her dark sunshiny hair.
“Your hair is so lovely,” Elizabeth said.
“Why, thank you, Bess.” She stopped combing. “What a dear thing to say. Yours is too.”
A line of low waves fell gray and green and white along the far edge of the sandbar. Low slow water fringed with white slid lazily forward, stopped in different places, and silkily slipped back. A little girl in a brilliant yellow bathing suit stood looking down at her feet.
“Oh, Daddy,” said Elizabeth suddenly, leaning back on the warm blanket and stretching out her arms along her sides, “do you know I can’t even remember what brand of bread it was? Isn’t that awful?”
“The tide’s coming in,” said Mrs. Halstrom, shaking out her hair. “You’ll feel much better, after a dip.”
“Silvercup,” said Dr. Halstrom decisively.
The Sledding Party
Catherine discovered that it was really two parties. The indoor party took place in the warm, lamplit playroom, with its out-of-tune piano that did not quite conceal a folded-up ping-pong table, and the outdoor party took place on the snowy slope of the Anderson back yard. From the top of the slope you could look down across the floodlit driveway to the dark, open garage at the side of the house. Under the floodlight the snow-lumped bushes, glazed and glistening, looked like crusted pastries with rich, soft centers. Now and then the inner door leading to the playroom would open, and there would come a burst of voices, laughter, and rock-and-roll, followed by sudden silence. A few moments later a shadowy, winter-coated figure would step from the garage into the glare of the floodlight, revealing itself to be Linda Shulick or Karen Soltis or Bill Newmeyer or Roger Murray or anyone else who might want to leave the hot, crowded room and come into the fresh winter night. The figure would cross the driveway, trudge up the hill, and join the group beside the willow for a smoke in the cold air or a ride down the path in the snow. The good thing about two parties was that you could pass back and forth between them. You never felt trapped.
The sledding path itself was simply a wonder. The path began at the top of the slope, beside the willow, and after a sweeping curve it headed sharply down. Then came a second, lesser curve, and a little more than halfway down, the path forked abruptly. You could steer to the right and continue down to the high snow and half-buried hedge near the bottom of the driveway, or you could steer to the left and pass the wild cherry and end up in the high snow near the mountain laurel in the flat part of the yard. From the bottom of the path you could look up at the yellow windows of the playroom. To everyone who arrived, Len Anderson explained that he and his father had shoveled the path all that day; and after dinner, when the temperature had fallen to twenty-six, Len had carried out pot after pot of water, coating the path carefully with a layer of ice. That was to ensure maximum speed. Mr. Anderson was a mechanical engineer, and Len always said things like “maximum efficiency” and “ensure maximum speed.” But Catherine thought it was a lovely path anyway. The snow on both sides was a foot and a half deep.
A new white Studebaker turned into the driveway, and at the same time, from the bottom of the hill, came shouts and laughter: Bob Carwin and Bonnie Baker tumbling into the snow. “Hey, Bobby boy, none of that, now!” “He did that on purpose.” The night sky was a rich, dark blue. It seemed to Catherine, taking deep breaths, that she smelled the richness and freshness of the dark-blue winter night. She wondered whether it was possible to know a winter night by its smell, the way you could know a summer night or an autumn night by its smell. The Studebaker stopped at the top of the drive, and under the floodlight Sonia Holmes got out. Perhaps it was possible to smell snow. It would be a white, cool, fresh smell, like the smell of a cool white sheet. Or was snow simply an absence of smelclass="underline" of the sharp green aroma of grass, the faintly acrid smell of moist earth? Bev Carlotti came over to Catherine. “I can’t believe it. Do you see what she’s wearing?” Sonia Holmes went into the garage.