She had asked who.
“Kind of a famous restaurateur here,” Paul Schuster had said.
When she came downstairs not long after seven Elena could see Paul Schuster and an older man sitting outside by the empty pool, but because the two seemed locked in intense conversation she picked up a magazine on the screened porch, where Evelina was already setting the table.
“Stop hiding in there.” Paul Schuster’s voice was imperious. “I want you to meet our guest.”
As she walked outside the older man had half risen, the barest gesture, then sunk back into his chair, a rather ghostly apparition in espadrilles and unpressed khaki pants and a black silk shirt buttoned up to the neck.
“Enchanté,” he had murmured, in a gravelly but clearly American accent. “Bob Weir.”
“I’m frankly surprised you haven’t run into Bob before,” Paul Schuster said, a slight edge in his voice. “Bob makes it his business to run into everybody. That’s how he could turn up here one morning and by dinner he’s the best-known American on the island.” Paul Schuster snapped his fingers. “He was at it before he even cleared customs. Running into people. Wouldn’t you say that was the secret of your success, Bob?”
“Make your point, don’t do it the hard way,” Bob Weir said.
In the silence that followed, Elena had heard herself asking Bob Weir how long he had been here.
He had considered this. “A while now,” he said finally.
There was another silence.
She was about to ask him about his restaurant when he suddenly spoke. “I believe I saw you at the airport this morning,” he said.
She said that she was at the airport every morning.
“That’s good,” Bob Weir said.
This enigmatic pronouncement hung in the air between them.
She noticed that Paul Schuster was leaning slightly forward, tensed, transfixed.
“I don’t know that it’s good exactly,” she said finally, trying for a little silvery laugh, a Westlake Mom tone. “It’s just part of my job.”
“It’s good,” Bob Weir said. “Because you can take Paul with you tomorrow. Paul has something to do at the airport tomorrow morning.”
“Oh no I don’t,” Paul Schuster said. It seemed to Elena that he had physically recoiled. “Uh uh. I don’t go to the airport.”
“At ten.” Bob Weir addressed this to Elena as if Paul Schuster had not spoken. “Paul needs to be there at ten.”
“I do not need to be there at ten,” Paul Schuster said.
“We can be there whenever you want,” Elena said, conciliatory.
“Paul needs to be there at ten,” Bob Weir repeated.
“Let me just lay one or two home truths on the table,” Paul Schuster said to Bob Weir. “Paul doesn’t need to be there at all. She’ll be there if and when I tell her to be there. And believe me, there’s still a big if in this situation, and the big if is moi.” Paul Schuster snatched up the empty pitcher of rum punch. “And if she’s there, you know who’ll be there with her? Nobody. Nul. Period. Now let’s just change the subject. We’re out of punch. Get Evelina out here.”
Elena stood up and started toward the porch.
“In my personal view you don’t have as many home truths in your deck as you think you do,” she heard Bob Weir say to Paul Schuster.
“What do I see on that porch,” she heard Paul Schuster say, an accusation. “Do I see that Evelina has already set the table?”
Elena stopped. The hour at which dinner was served, meaning the hour at which Evelina would be free to go back to the cottage with her grandchildren, had become during the preceding week a minor irritation to Paul Schuster, but he had not before made an issue of it. It occurred to her that she could be witnessing some form of homosexual panic, that Bob Weir might know something that Paul Schuster did not want him to know.
“Evelina,” he called. “Get out here.”
Evelina had appeared, her face impassive.
“I sincerely hope you’re not planning to foist dinner on us before eight-thirty exactly.”
Evelina had stood there.
“And if you’re about to tell me as usual the fish will dry out by eight-thirty,” Paul Schuster said, “then let me cut this short. Don’t bring it out at all. Forget the fish. Pas de poisson.”
Evelina’s eyes flickered from Paul Schuster to Elena.
“Don’t look to her,” Paul Schuster said. “She just works here. She’s just one of the help. Same as you used to be.” Paul Schuster picked up the empty pitcher and handed it to Evelina. “If you would be good enough to refill this pitcher,” he said as he started inside, “I’ll call into town for the truck.”
Evelina was halfway into the kitchen before she asked why the truck.
“Because I want you and your bastard brats out of here tonight,” Paul Schuster said, and let the door bang behind him.
Elena closed her eyes and tried to breathe deeply enough to relax the knot in her stomach. She could hear Paul Schuster inside, singing snatches from Carousel. In a locked rattan cabinet in his office he kept original-cast recordings of a number of Broadway musicals, worn LPs in mildewed sleeves, so scratched by now that he rarely played them but frequently sang them, particularly the lesser-known transitions, doing all the parts.
He’s dead, Nettie, what am I going to do, she heard him ask, soprano.
He seemed to be in the vicinity of his office.
Why, you’re going to stay here with me, she heard him answer himself, alto. Main thing is to keep on living, keep on caring what’s going to happen.
He seemed now to be in the kitchen.
“Paul has a genuine theatrical flair,” she heard Bob Weir say.
She said nothing.
“ ‘Neh-ver, no neh-ver, walk ah-lone,’ ” Paul Schuster was singing as he returned. He was carrying a full pitcher of punch. “All’s well that ends well. We dine at eight-thirty.”
“Maybe I should have mentioned this before,” Bob Weir said. “I didn’t come by to eat.”
Elena said nothing.
“I’ve lived down here long enough to know,” Paul Schuster had said. “Sometimes you have to take a strong position. Isn’t that so, Elise?”
Elena said that she supposed it was so.
Paul Schuster picked up the pitcher of punch and filled his glass.
Elena said no more for me thank you.
Paul Schuster wheeled to face Elena. “Who asked you,” he said.
“You’re driving the cattle right through the fence,” Bob Weir said to Paul Schuster.
“I think you must be stupid,” Paul Schuster had said to Elena. He was standing over her, holding the pitcher of punch. “Are you stupid? Just how stupid are you? Are you stupid enough to just sit there while I do this?”
She looked up at him just in time to get the full stream of punch in her eyes.
“And since you’re the one drove the cattle through it,” she heard Bob Weir say to Paul Schuster, “you better goddamn well mend it.”
She had gotten up, the sticky punch still running down her hair and face, her eyes stinging from the citrus, and walked into the empty hotel and up the stairs. That was the night she stood in the rusted bathtub and let the shower run over her for a full ten minutes, the drought and the empty cistern and the well going dry notwithstanding. That was also the night she called Catherine at the house in Malibu and told her that she would try to be home before school started.