”You want to give me a hint of what your problem is?“
”No,“ she said. ”Just meet me where we said.“
”I’ll be there.“
We hung up. It was ten-thirty. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour to drive to Plymouth. Susan’s clothes were still in the closet. She’d come back for them, and the make-up kit. She must have been incensed beyond reason to have left that. She’d probably checked into another motel. Maybe even another room in this one. I could wait an hour. Maybe she’d come back for her clothes. I got a piece of stationery and an envelope from the drawer of the desk, wrote a note, sealed it in the envelope and wrote Susan’s name on the outside. I got Susan’s cosmetic case from the bathroom and put it on the desk. I propped the note against it, and sat down in a chair near the bathroom door.
At eleven-thirteen someone knocked softly on my door. I got up and stepped into the bathroom, out of sight, behind the open bathroom door. Another knock. A wait. And then a key in the lock. Through the crack of the hinge end of the bathroom door I could see the motel room door open. Susan came in. Must have gotten the key at the desk. Probably said she’d lost hers. She walked out of sight toward the desk top where the note was. I heard her tear open the envelope. The note said. ”Lurking in the bathroom is a horse’s ass. It requires the kiss of a beautiful woman to turn him into a handsome prince again.“ I stepped out from behind the door, into the room. Susan put the note down, turned and saw me. With no change of expression she walked over and gave me a small kiss on the mouth. Then she stepped back and studied me closely. She shook her head. ”Didn’t work,“ she said. ”You’re still a horse’s ass.“
”It was the low-voltage kiss,“ I said. ”Transforming a horse’s ass into a handsome prince is a high-intensity task.“
”I’ll try once more,“ she said. And put both arms around me and kissed me hard on the mouth. The kiss held, and developed into much more and relaxed in post-climactic languor without a sound. Without even breaking the kiss. At close range I could see Susan’s eyes still closed.
I took my mouth from hers and said, ”You wanta go to Plimoth Plantation?“
Susan opened her eyes and looked at me. ”Anywhere at all,“ she said. ”You are still a horse’s ass, but you are my horse’s ass.“
I said, ”I love you.“
She closed her eyes again and pushed her face against the hollow of my neck and shoulder for a moment. Then she pulled her head back and opened her eyes and nodded her head. ”Okay, prince,“ she said. ”Let’s get to Plimoth.“
Our clothes were in a scattered tangle on the floor and by the time we sorted them out and got them back on it was noon. ”We are late,“ I said.
”I hurried as fast as I could,“ Susan said. She was putting on her lipstick in the mirror, bending way over the dresser to do it.
”We were fast,“ I said. ”A half-hour from horse’s ass to handsome prince. I think that fulfills the legal definition of a quickie.“
”You’re the one in a hurry to go see Plimoth Plantation. Given the choice between sensual delight and historical restoration, I’d have predicted a different decision on your part.“
”I’ve got to see someone there, and it may help if you’re with me. Perhaps later we can reconsider the choice.“
”I’m ready,“ she said. And we went out of the room to my car. On the drive up Route 3 to Plymouth I told Susan what little I knew about why we were going.
Susan said, ”Won’t she panic or something if I show up with you? She did say something about alone.“
”We won’t go in together,“ I said. ”When I find her, I’ll explain who you are and introduce you. You been to the Plantation before?“
She nodded. ”Well, then, you can just walk down the central street a bit ahead of me and hang around till I holler.“
”Always the woman’s lot,“ she said.
I grunted. A sign on my left said Plimoth Plantation Road and I turned in. The road wound up through a meadow toward a stand of pines. Behind the pines was a parking lot and at one edge of the parking lot was a ticket booth. I parked and Susan got out and walked ahead, bought a ticket and went through the entrance. When she was out of sight I got out and did the same thing. Beyond the ticket booth was a rustic building containing a gift shop, lunch room and information service. I went on past it and headed down the soft path between the high pines toward the Plantation itself. A few years back I had been reading Samuel Eliot Morison’s big book of American history, and got hooked and drove around the East going to Colonial restorations. Williamsburg is the most dazzling, and Sturbridge is grand, but Plimoth Plantation is always a small pleasure.
I rounded the curve by the administration building and saw the blockhouse of dark wood and the stockade around the little town and beyond it the sea. The area was entirely surrounded by woods and if you were careful you could see no sign of the twentieth century. If you weren’t careful and looked too closely you could see Bert’s Restaurant and somebody else’s motel down along the shore. But for a moment I could go back, as I could every time I came, to the small cluster to zealous Christians in the wilderness of seventeenth-century America, and experience a sense of the desolation they must have felt, minute and remote and resolute in the vast woods.
I saw Susan on top of the blockhouse, looking out at the village, her arms folded on the parapet, and I came back to business and walked up the hill, past the blockhouse and into the Plantation. There was one street, narrow and rutted, leading downhill toward the ocean. Thatched houses along each side, behind the herb gardens, some livestock and a number of people dressed in Colonial costume. Lots of children, lots of Kodak Instamatics. I walked down the hill, slowly, letting Pam Shepard have ample time to spot me and see that I wasn’t followed. I went the whole length of the street and started back up. As I passed Myles Standish’s house, Pam came out of the door wearing huge sunglasses and fell into step beside me.
”You’re alone.“
”No, I have a friend with me. A woman.“ It seemed important to say it was a woman.
”Why,“ she said. Her eyes were wide and dark.
”You are in trouble, and maybe she could help. She’s an A-l woman. And I had the impression you weren’t into men much lately.“
”Can I trust her?“
”Yes.“
”Can I trust you?“
”Yes.“
”I suppose you wouldn’t say so if I couldn’t anyway, would you?“ She was wearing a faded denim pants and jacket combo over a funky-looking multicolored T-shirt. She was exactly as immaculate and neat and fresh-from-the-shower-and-make-up-table as she had been the last time I saw her.
”No, I wouldn’t. Come on, I’ll introduce you to my friend, then we can go someplace and sit down and maybe have a drink or a snack or both and talk about whatever you’d like to talk about.“
She looked all around her as if she might dart back into one of the thatched houses and hide in the loft. Then she took a deep breath and said, ”Okay, but I mustn’t be seen.“
”Seen by who?“
”By anyone, by anyone who would recognize me.“
”Okay, we’ll get Susan and we’ll go someplace obscure.“ I walked back up the street toward the gate to the blockhouse, Pam Shepard close by me as if trying to stay in my shadow. Near the top of the hill Susan Silverman met us. I nodded at her and she smiled.
”Pam Shepard,“ I said. ”Susan Silverman.“ Susan put out her hand and smiled.
Pam Shepard said, ”Hello.“
I said, ”Come on, we’ll head back to the car.“
In the car Pam Shepard talked with Susan. ”Are you a detective too, Susan?“
”No, I’m a guidance counselor at Smithfield High School,“ Susan said.
”Oh, really? That must be very interesting.“
”Yes,“ Susan said, ”it is. It’s tiresome, sometimes, like most things, but I love it.“