But in the end it was only a partial score, girl, because you turned soft and sweet and trusting. And that was the final lesson. The long years shot and no time to work on any score that would take more years. No time for mercy, girl, and who showed you any? The thing about this score, it had developed out of the Senator thing. You could say it was even a part of it — a chance to more than make up for not having really put the pressure on that old goat sooner and harder. Should have put security on a pay-as-you-go basis right from scratch, when finding out I could turn him back into a man was such a miracle to him, I could have made him crawl on broken glass all the way from his twenty-six thousand acres to where he had me stashed. Every year, old man, you lay fifty thousand on good, fat, blue chips in little girl’s name, or the fun stops.
Spilled milk. Oh God, Garry, if you messed up my second chance at the jackpot...
She heard the latch of the sliding glass door and turned her head and saw the boy, Oliver, peering in at her and sliding the door open as she had told him to do.
As he came in, closed the door, turned to her, she held both her hands out, her smile brilliant, and whispered, “Darling, darling, darling. Come here, dear. Sit right here where I can look at you.”
The shyness of translating last night’s intimacy to broad daylight made him approach her with a most curious gait, partially a humble shamble, partially a self-conscious strut.
She took his hands, turned her face upwards, eyes half closed, soft mouth demanding the kiss. He bent hastily and clumsily, got his nose in the way, managed to kiss the corner of her mouth and, in sitting back on the chaise lost his balance, squashed his weight down onto her knees, shifted off them, apologized hoarsely, sat there blushing sweatily and intensely. She noted the way he was dressed, and guessed it had been the result of anguished decisions. He wore sand-colored skinny stretch jeans, and a dark blue sports shirt with the sharp creases of brand-newness still in it, buttoned down the front with small brass buttons. He seemed able to look everywhere except at her.
“Olly, my darling, I have been sitting here waiting for you and trying to believe that what happened really happened. It all seems so fantastic and incredible. It was so — completely unplanned. When you woke up did it seem as unreal to you?”
“Yes. I guess it seemed that way to me too.”
“What is happening to us?”
“It — sort of just happened.”
She gave a sharp tug at his hands. “What’s the matter? Can’t you look at me? Can’t you say my name? Can’t you tell me how you feel?”
She saw him force himself to look into her eyes. His deep tan was suffused with the pink tinge of his blush. With his somewhat indistinct chin, and with those eyes set a little too closely, he looked at her fixedly with an expression of such wondrously enthralled goofiness, she came dangerously close to laughter. His adam’s apple slid up and down his throat as he swallowed. In a huskied and very uncertain voice he said, “I... love you, Crissy. I love you.”
It was what she wanted to hear him say, and it had come sooner than she had expected.
She leaned, lifted his right hand to her lips, kissed the heavy knuckles one by one, feeling him tremble. “I don’t know whether I love you, Olly. Love is a very precious thing. It is a lot more rare than people think. But when you find it, and it’s for real, it is worth the most terrible sacrifices. I don’t know if — if we’re strong enough.”
“Strong enough?” he asked, puzzled.
“If you think I’m going to keep us some kind of a state secret, dear, if I decide I do truly love you, then you are making a mistake about me. I am going to be proud of us. People are going to know about us. And they are going to say very cruel things. Are you strong enough for that? And for the pressure your family will put on you? We have to be so terribly sure, Oliver. After all, I’m twenty-eight years old, and I’ve been married. And widowed.”
“I’ll be twenty in July.”
“The world will say wicked things about us. And a lot of people will even laugh at us. That’s why we have to be so sure.”
She could sense that it alarmed him. Poor bunny. So many things to alarm him and fascinate him all of a sudden. In empathy her memory went all the way back to Phil Kerna, and the strangely dazed, swooning, hypnotic feeling she’d had after that first time with him, when after that night and day and following night in the Reno motel he had left her there alone and gone back to the poker table. Having been married to Johnny for a year had left her as innocent as a child in comparison with what Phil had been able to make her experience. Now it would be just the same with Olly Akard, who had come to her with only the experience of a couple of years of furtive intimacy with his little steady girl, Betty, had come to her with that curious conviction of the male of limited experience that his role was that of sole aggressor, full of determined anxiety to perform properly just as it was written in the books, and with the pitiful belief that the one small pleasure he had always achieved was all his body was capable of.
She knew how deeply he had been confused and frightened, first by her, and finally by the unexpected and wild and savage intensity of his own guided response. Curious guilts and shynesses made him feel very awkward to be with her in daylight, knowing she too remembered all the tumbled deliriums and grotesqueries of the unending night.
Though she knew she had brought him far enough for there to be little danger of his being frightened away now, she laughed softly and fondly, hitched herself closer to him, put one hand on his powerful shoulder, laid her right hand against his cheek and with her thumb stroked the furry sheen of his eyebrow.
“But no need to look so scared already, dear little bunny rabbit boy,” she said. “I won’t want to parade you on display until I am absolutely certain. And meanwhile we will be dreadful sneaky sneaks. Like the page sneaking into the quarters of the sexy old queen. My little maid is discreet. And this home of mine was designed to frustrate nosey people.”
He said with overly casual and clumsy curiosity, “I... I suppose that’s the way the Senator wanted it.”
She looked at him in blank astonishment. “I beg your pardon?”
“I mean — well, I guess he wouldn’t want people to know he was...”
She narrowed her eyes and firmed her lips. Then she got up quickly and strode away, whirled and pointed a finger at him. “See? See what they do? So that’s what they made of it, eh? My God! Really! And you had to find out if those dirty little fibs were true, didn’t you?” She moved closer. “I built this house to suit me! I built it with money from my husband’s estate. Ferris Fontaine was an old and dear friend. When he asked if he could use my home for little political meetings now and then, I was glad to say yes. I was honored! That’s the reward for friendship. My God, it’s really pathetic! What foul little minds people must have to really believe I was dear Fer’s mistress. A man so old! How could you believe it, Olly?”
“I didn’t,” he said earnestly. “Not really. Before I ever even met you, I didn’t believe it.”
She sat by him, smiled, patted his knee. “Thank you, dear. Let’s change the subject. It makes me angry. Are your people curious about why you got home so terribly late?”