At sunset she’s there barefoot in a tangerine sleeveless blouse and frayed shorts made of cut-off jeans, sitting on a folded blanket with her back against a rock, holding a drugstore steno pad against her upraised knees, checking off items in yet another of her lists of things to do, things to get right.
You could live in a place like this. A kid could grow up here. Mild sunshine all year round. Ocean, mountains, the San Diego Zoo.
Maybe you shouldn’t think that far ahead. Maybe you’d better not dare to hope.
There’s a bronzed teenage couple on a patch of sand beyond the next lump of stone; she had a glimpse of them when she arrived and once in a while she hears the energetic vocalizations of their love-making between strikes of the gentle surf.
It brings up the thought that she didn’t exactly have a celibate life in mind when she began all this but she supposes it could hardly be otherwise right now—it’s only that she never stopped to think about it. She recalls how she used to envy some of the other models at the agency their hedonistic capacity to luxuriate in extracurricular evenings with randy photographers or half-drunk ad agency men or conventioneering fabric and fashion buyers. An expensive dinner; drinks in a skyscraper lounge with a view of the park; a hundred dollars for the powder room and a few hours in a hotel. Strangers before, lovers during, strangers after.
That was long before Bert. She was young and not confident of who she was; it seemed best to be one of the gang, to look as they looked and behave as they behaved. She remembers one veteran’s acerbic counseclass="underline" “There’s forty or fifty of us for every job. Think about it. You go along or you go under.”
But she didn’t go along. After the first few print-ad jobs she went her own way and found it didn’t really make much difference. Maybe she lost a few shots here and there but mainly she still got the jobs, or got passed over for them—it depended mostly on what sort of face and body they were looking for. They’d make passes of course; that was part of the ritual; but most of them were grown up about it if you didn’t put out. That was up to you.
She has never been at ease with one-night stands. Sexuality has never seemed that casual. Nothing feels quite so vulnerably intimate as sharing her naked body with a man: it’s just not the sort of thing she can do comfortably with a stranger.
She’s thinking now of Charlie. His burly gentle power. No longer a stranger; a father, a flyer, a barbecue cook. A friend; and the sensual pull is strong—clearly he feels it as much as she does.
But she knows another thing as welclass="underline" that in a few days she’ll be turning her back on him.
The thought stirs a restless unease. She should not have accepted his invitation. Dinner in San Francisco inevitably will lead to an invitation to his hotel room.
In the dusk she looks at herself in the mirror of her compact. The dark new coloring, the hairdo—is it enough? She’s been scanning the newspapers for two weeks now, looking for Graeme’s byline, expecting every day to see a blown-up telephoto picture of herself and a caption, Do You Know This Woman?
No one knows this woman, she thinks. Not even me.
But she knows someone else. Or at least she knows him this welclass="underline" Charlie’s no more easy with one-nighters than she is.
Whatever we might do, it would mean something.
It wouldn’t be the kind of thing we could just forget.
I like you, Charlie. I really do. But I don’t know what the hell to do about it.
37 In twilight the teenage lovers depart. The temperature drops quickly. She is startled when several people materialize from various nearby hidden pockets and climb the few yards to the road.
With the shore to herself she begins to feel chilled but it takes energy to move. This is such a lazy place. A sense of peace: something she hasn’t felt in God knows how long.
Thinking reluctantly about stirring, she delays her ascent to watch ribbons of pink dwindle to grey, on the horizon.
She feels very tired. So many things to make sure of. What has she overlooked?
She holds the steno pad against her knee and moves the pencil down the margin.
The diamonds? Check them off the list. Transferred to a safety deposit box in Capistrano Beach. In the name of Dorothy Holder.
Previous car? Sold for cash in Calexico. If Graeme’s curiosity leads him that far perhaps it will give him the notion she was on her way out of the country into Mexico.
Back-up identity? Initiated ten days ago. Took an early plane to Salt Lake City. Obtained a birth certificate for Carole A. Fry. Applied the same day for a Social Security card and a Utah license.
She knows the drill now; she knows what lies to tell; they sound natural on her tongue—an advancement in glibness that pleases her perversely. She knows she ought to feel ashamed of herself. But it’s far down the list of concerns.
God help me now—how many times am I going to have to go through this? Is Ellen going to have to grow up in a new town every year—a new school and new friends every season and a new name to get used to?
Stop it. Got to assume there’s room for hope. Must behave as if it’s going to work this time.
Back to the list in the notebook: pay attention now. Hard to read in this bad light …
Jennifer’s two apartments? Check; check. Both landlords notified of departure. One security deposit forfeited.
Bills? Current and paid. Nothing outstanding.
All this is important because it would be stupid to attract the attention of bill collectors or skip-tracers.
Doyle and Marian? That’s taken care of, at least for a while. On the phone to them last week she contrived to sound breathless and a bit incoherent: babbling about going back to her ex-husband, a trial reconciliation, a long trip together to the Orient and the South Seas to see if they can’t patch it up and get it working again—got to run now; got to catch the plane.… My investment in the bookstore? Let it ride, good friends, and keep me on the books and if you make any money put my share in an account. I’ll be in touch when we get back—oh, it may be months, six months, eight, hell I don’t know. Love you both. Must absolutely run …
A patchwork solution but it’ll have to do for the moment; at least it’ll keep them from calling out the Missing Persons squad.
And when they repeat the story to Graeme—as Marian inexorably will do—it won’t give him leads to follow. What’s he going to do, hunt all over Asia and the islands?
Must remember tonight or tomorrow to reserve a rental car in Plattsburgh. Have to do it in the name of Jennifer Hartman because it would be suicidal to leave traces of Dorothy Holder that close to the lion’s den. Put it on Jennifer’s Visa card and remember to send in a money order to cover it because you’ll never receive the bill.
The car must be something with four-wheel drive.
Better do it tonight.
What else?
The hardest part has been making sure she wasn’t followed during the three days in Los Angeles when she drove from bank to bank, clearing out Jennifer Hartman’s accounts, taking the money in cash. Every last account emptied—even the retirement account, although the man gave her a look of stern disapproval and warned her of dire consequences from Internal Revenue.
Now the money is redistributed around this new city and its cluster of satellite towns. Jennifer Hartman’s assets are gone: liquidated and untraceable.
It’s so difficult to create a life—and so easy to destroy it. All it takes is a few signatures. Or a bullet.
A bullet …
She flashes on an image: Bert with his gun collection. Unlocking the chain, taking down a revolver, showing it to her, trying to explain its operation. His exasperation when she doesn’t seem to want to understand it.