“That’s right,” Janet Kava said. “Eleanor and I love each other. We love each other emotionally and physically just like you and your brutish husband love each other. But we don’t have squabbles for all the world to hear.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Mrs. Fourchet said.
“Meredith,” Mr. Fourchet said.
“Ladies, please,” Mack said.
“We are women, Mack,” Janet Kava said. “Not ladies. Especially not one of us.”
“I’ll say,” Mrs. Fourchet said. “The ladies I know like men.”
“I’m ten seconds away from coming over there and demanding an apology,” Janet said. “And it won’t be very lady-like, I assure you.”
Mrs. Fourchet wiped under her eyes. “I must look a mess,” she said innocently. She stood up. “I think you’re right, Jean-Marc, I think it’s time to come in.”
Janet Kava glared at Mrs. Fourchet until she disappeared, then she slammed her own screen door shut.
“Good night,” Mack said.
Mack ran past the side deck rooms. He looked in Andrea’s window but it was dark; she was probably already asleep. All of the lights on the side deck rooms were out and it was difficult to see as he made his way down the boardwalk toward the lobby. When he reached for the back door, he felt a strong hand on his shoulder. Mack swung around. Vance.
“How’re you doing, man?” Mack asked. “I had a few words with the people in four. They seem to be settling down.”
Vance’s expression was strained, as though he were lifting a heavy weight.
“Are you all right?” Mack asked.
“I need to talk to you a minute,” Vance said. His hand rested firmly on Mack’s shoulder.
“Okay,” Mack said. Vance was acting even stranger than normal, but this sometimes happened. Lots of little things bothered Vance and they built up once a summer to the point that he exploded and Mack had to placate him with an extra day off or a small cash bonus.
“I need to talk about you and room eighteen,” Vance said. “I saw you in there just now, man. Pretty incriminating.”
Mack’s relief at finding Mrs. Fourchet instead of Maribel drained away. The four drinks he’d had at Lacey’s kicked in; his head swam. “I know it probably looked bad, man, but it’s not what you think.”
“If it’s not what I think, then what is it?”
“We’re friends,” Mack said. “I’ve known that lady a long time.”
“I’ve known her just as long as you have, but you don’t see me lying on her bed with my shirt off, now do you?” Vance asked. His fingertips dug into Mack’s shoulder blade. “How do you explain holding this woman’s hand and she’s not wearing very many clothes herself?”
Mack took a deep breath. He tried to shrug Vance off. “I wish you’d just forget about it, okay? It’s perfectly innocent.”
Vance’s nostrils flared. “You are so full of shit.”
Then Vance raised his hand. He was holding a gun.
Mack’s shoulders froze, except for the spot where Vance’s hand rested, that spot was very hot and bright. “What are you doing?” Mack said.
Vance poked Mack in the chest with the gun. Mack couldn’t move, his knees were locked. Mack was sweating; he felt the cold breeze coming off the water.
“You’re going to tell Maribel,” Vance said. His voice gurgled. “You’re going to tell Maribel what you’ve been doing or I’ll tell her for you.”
“You don’t know the first thing about it,” Mack said.
“I know what I saw,” Vance said. “I know what it looked like.”
“I already told you, that’s not how it is,” Mack said.
“You’re going to tell Maribel,” Vance said. He pressed the gun deeper into Mack’s chest. In the dim light, Vance’s skin looked purplish. “You are such an idiot. You have a gorgeous, perfect woman like Maribel and you screw around on her. Total fucking idiot.”
The nose of the gun stuck into Mack’s chest. He thought about the hot, sharp pain of taking a bullet to his heart. His heart would explode and bits and pieces of Maribel and Andrea would splatter everywhere. He was an idiot, thinking idiot thoughts.
“I could fire you,” Mack said.
“I could fire you,” Vance said. “No dating the guests, remember? Not only breaking the rules, but showing yourself to be the hypocrite I always knew you were.”
“But you have a gun,” Mack said.
“That’s right,” Vance said. “I have a gun. And so I have a choice. I can fire you or I can kill you. Or I can hope you act smart and go home and tell Maribel that you’ve been in another woman’s bed tonight.”
Mack’s mouth was dry. “Why are you threatening me? We work together. We’ve worked together since the beginning. We’re, I don’t know, buddies. Aren’t we?”
Vance laughed, a sharp bark. “You have no idea how much I hate you. You really have no idea. Unbelievable. You step off the boat thirty fucking seconds sooner than I do and all of a sudden you’re the white prince and you assume everyone loves you. Maribel loves you, room eighteen loves you, Bill and Therese and all the guests whose asses you kiss love you. No such luck, buddy. You push me right to the edge, Petersen, to where I can see myself doing something like this. I can see myself taking you out and saying it was an accident, saying I found the gun in a room and was fooling around and oops, it went off. So they send me to Walpole for a year or two. So what? It might be worth it, brother man.”
“You’re crazy,” Mack whispered.
“Are you going to tell Maribel?” Vance asked. “That’s all I’m really concerned about in the here and now. Are you going to tell her?”
Mack nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Vance said. He took the gun away from Mack’s chest and studied it. Mack exhaled and the muscles in his legs tingled. “This baby is fully loaded, ready to go. But if you tell a soul, I’m just going to say I was playing a joke on you.”
“For Christ’s sake, Vance.”
“Hey,” Vance said, pointing the gun in Mack’s face. “I’m serious about Maribel. Either you tell her what’s going on with you and room eighteen or I’ll tell her what I saw. Which was you lying on that woman’s bed, and the woman half-naked and you grabbing at her.”
“I wasn’t grabbing at her,” Mack said.
“Tell Maribel,” Vance said. He lowered the gun. “I would shoot you if I thought I could get away with it.”
“Why do you hate me?” Mack asked. “I apologized for taking your job back when it happened. It had nothing to do with our skin color and you know it. Besides, Vance, that was another lifetime ago.” Mack reached behind him for the doorknob to the lobby. He wanted to be in the warm, bright lobby with Tiny, although for all Mack knew she could be hiding around a corner waiting to club him with a tire iron.
Vance spat at the ground near Mack’s feet. “Get out of here,” he said.
By the time Mack pulled into the driveway, Maribel had finished drying the dishes and putting them away. She had changed out of her white shorts and soft beige half sweater and into a T-shirt and boxers. She had washed her face and her neck with Noxema. By the time Mack walked in the door at midnight-which was late even for a Lacey Gardner night-Maribel was pretty sure she had eliminated all clues that Jem Crandall had been there for dinner.
Or sinner, which was what she started calling it as soon as they arranged the time and the place. Her sinner with Jem. A small, intimate sinner party.
Having Jem over had been the result of two things. The first was that Maribel kept thinking back to the day she spent with Jem at the beach. It felt like they were somehow meant to have run into each other in the parking lot of Stop & Shop. And Maribel instinctively took Jem to the nude beach in Miacomet. Why? They could just as easily have gone to Cisco. But Maribel had wanted to show herself to Jem. And show herself she did-all look and no touch-but the looks Maribel was unable to forget.