I held onto the telephone a moment, then I heard her voice.
“Colonel Carey. This is a surprise. How did you know where to reach me?” I laughed. “Your mother told me. I thought we might meet for a drink.”
“Are you in La Jolla?”
“About three miles from where you are,” I said. “How about it?”
“I’d love to. But Aaron Scaasi, my agent, is due in from New York any minute now. We have a cocktail thing set up for the press at five o’clock.”
I waited for her to suggest another time but she didn’t. Fair enough. I thought, she had no reason to. I hadn’t exactly been the politest the last time we’d seen each other.
“I’ll try again,” I said.
“Please do,” she said politely and hung up.
I squinted up at the sky as I moved off down the dock. It was a good sky. Blue, like in the postcards, with a few high-running clouds. The sun was nice and warm; later it would get hot and heavy, but by then I wouldn’t care—I’d be out on the water.
That was the end of it, I thought. But, then, I didn’t know what Sam told her after I hung up the phone.
“You weren’t very cordial,” Sam said as she put down the telephone. “Damn. A whole year. Who does he think he is?”
Sam walked back to her sketchpad and looked down at it. The sketch was of a young man about to dive. He was nude. Sam knew the face. It was the high school boy who worked as a lifeguard at the club.
“He’s not one of these kids,” he said drily.
“That has all the earmarks of a crack. Do you have any objections?”
“Not personally,” he answered. “I don’t give a damn whom you go to bed with. But when it becomes public knowledge it affects our business.”
Her voice grew cold. “Where did you hear about it?”
“It’s the big noise down on Muscle Beach. You’re too much for the kid to keep to himself. He’s been filling in his buddies, blow by blow. The kid left nothing out.”
Angrily she tore the sketch from the pad and crumbled it. “The little bastard!” “I told you to be discreet,” he said patiently.
“What am I supposed to do?” she demanded, throwing the crumpled paper on the floor. “Become a nun?”
Automatically he picked the wad of paper off the floor and threw it into the wastebasket. He dug his pipe out of his pocket.
“I wish you’d get rid of that damned pipe! I can’t stand its stink.”
Silently he put it back in his pocket and started for the door. She stopped him. “Sam.” Her anger had left her and suddenly she seemed young and helpless. “Sam, what do you think I ought to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said thoughtfully. “But I’d start by leaving these kids alone.” “I will, Sam,” she said quickly.
“And another thing,” he added. “It wouldn’t hurt if you were seen with someone like your soldier boy who just called. It might help drown out the gossip.”
When I got back, the ancient watchman seated on the bench in front of the dock office waved a tired hand at me. “Hi, kunnel.”
“Hi.”
“Hear tell they seen some marlin off’n Coronado. Might pay yuh to give it a look-see.” “Might do that,” I said, giving him his daily bread.
He slipped the half-dollar into his pocket. “Thanks, kunnel.” He squinted up at me with his watery eyes. “By the way, they’s some gal out to your boat. I told her you was about due back from lunch.”
I went down towards my boat. Nora must have heard my footsteps because she was standing on the deck when I came up. She was wearing a pair of blue polka-dot shorts and a halter, and she looked like a kid with her black hair tied behind in a ponytail.
“Hello,” she said. “Hello.”
Her eyes crinkled against the sun. “It’s my turn to apologize, Colonel.”
I studied her for a moment, then I jumped down to the deck beside her. “You didn’t have to come all the way down here for that, Nora.”
She put her hand on my arm. It was warm on my flesh. “But I wanted to, Colonel. I wanted you to know I was sorry.”
She was so close I could smell the fragrance in her hair. It was good and clean and fresh—like the pines up in the hills, and all the makeup she wore was a faint shade of lipstick. I looked down into her eyes. It seemed like forever. Then I kissed her.
Her mouth was warm and sweet and her teeth were hard and sharp behind her soft lips. I felt her arm around my neck and the press of her body against mine. I dropped my hand to her waist and I could almost count every rib on the way down. It was the way I knew it would be between us.
I let her go as suddenly after I’d kissed her again, and reached for a cigarette. I spun the wheel of my Zippo but I couldn’t get the damn thing to work. “Look, I’m shaking.”
“I’m shaking, too,” she said softly.
I took a drag on the cigarette I’d finally managed to get lit and then gave it to her. She took one puff from it, then turned. “I wanted you to kiss me that very first time.” “I wanted to,” I said.
“Then why didn’t you?” Her eyes were like the shadows in the water between the boat and the dock. “You knew I was ready.”
I turned away. “I thought you were—for somebody else.” “Did it matter that much even then?”
“It did to me,” I said. “You took a long time making the scene. I wanted everything to be right between us.”
“You weren’t exactly the early bird yourself.” “No.”
“Does it matter now?”
I took her into my arms again. “Nothing matters now.”
Then the tears were in her eyes and wet against my cheeks. “Oh, Luke, Luke!”
I know what has been said about a woman’s tears but I don’t buy any of it. It’s the greatest sop to a man’s ego ever invented. I felt ten feet tall as I kissed her tears away. I never did get out to see if the marlin were really off Coronado that afternoon. Instead I climbed into my uniform for the first time since I’d come down here and trotted along after her to her press conference.
I was glad when it was almost over. I was deadly. The reporters were all over us the minute they saw us together.
They made us pose for pictures. They asked questions. Were we engaged? When were we getting married? How had we met? Was she going to Washington with me for the citation? Did I come down here to be near her or was it the other way around?
After a while they got tired of asking questions for which we had no answers, and the party got down to the business for which it had been organized. That was to listen to Aaron Scaasi expound on why he thought Nora was the greatest thing to happen to American sculpture since the totem pole.
I must say he was convincing. He even sold me. He was a bald, thickset man who looked more like an ex-pug than one of the most prominent art dealers in the country. He kept mopping at his head with a baby-blue handkerchief. Nora looked like a little child sitting there on the couch beside him.
Sam Corwin wandered over and sat down. “He knows what he’s talking about,” he said, nodding toward Scaasi. “She’s really very good.”
I looked at Sam. He was a thin, almost delicate-looking man, whose appearance might fool you if you didn’t notice the firm mouth and decisive chin. Inside, this lad was as hard as nails. “I believe him,” I said, wondering just how deep Corwin’s interest in Nora went.
It was as if he knew what I was thinking. “I’ve known Nora ever since she was in school. I always had faith in her, and I was very happy when she and her mother suggested I take charge of her affairs.”
He studied me with his dark eyes. “I owe you a vote of thanks.” “Oh?” I said.
He nodded. “For coming to the party. Nora was very upset after she spoke to you and was all set to call it off if she couldn’t find you to apologize. She’s very emotional, almost like a child about things like that.”
The party was beginning to break up and Corwin went off to exchange some final words with the newspapermen. Maybe the bourbon was dulling my senses, but I had the feeling that there had been more that he wanted to tell me.
Scaasi and Nora came over then and I found myself resenting the way he let his hand rest familiarly on her shoulder. “Perhaps you’d join us for dinner?”
I hesitated a moment, looking at Nora, then made up my mind. “No, thanks. You people have business to talk over and I don’t want to intrude.”
“You wouldn’t be intruding,” Nora said quickly. I saw the disappointment in her eyes.
For a moment I almost changed my mind. Then I thought better of it. I smiled, making my excuse. “I promised myself a crack at some marlin. I think I’ll take the boat out tonight and lay up off Coronado. That way I’ll be ready for them when the sun comes up.”
“What time will you be back tomorrow?” she asked. “Late.”
“Then I won’t see you. I’m due back in San Francisco the next morning.” “I’m sorry,” I said.
Sam called to Scaasi and they left us alone. “Are you going to call me?” she asked. “Of course.”
“No, you’re not,” she said after a moment. “I know you won’t. It will be just like the last time.
You’ll go back and I won’t ever hear from you. I’ll know nothing about you except what I read in the newspapers.”
“Don’t be silly. I said I’d call you.” “When?”
“First time I’m in San Francisco.”
“That might be never,” she said gloomily.
I took her hand. It seemed warm, soft and helpless. “I’ll call you. I promise.”
She looked at me strangely. “What if something happens to you? How will I know?”
“Nothing will happen to me. I’m convinced now. You know the old saying about being born to be hanged?”
The last of the reporters filed out. It was time to go. I shook hands all around. “I’ll walk to the door with you,” Nora said.
We walked out into the patio. It was already dark and a thousand tiny stars were lighting up the night. I closed the door behind us. “I thought you didn’t like goodbyes,” I said. I knew I could have kissed her but I chose not to. If I had I never would have gone.
I think she knew it too. “This isn’t goodbye,” she whispered, her hand touching mine briefly. The door closed behind her and I went down to the cab.
Scaasi had gone to his room to wash up so Sam was alone when Nora came back in. He looked at her questioningly.
“Fix me a drink,” she said.
Silently he got out of his chair and got her a Scotch and soda. She put it down. “I’m going to marry him,” she said, almost defiantly.
Corwin still didn’t say anything.
“Well, haven’t you anything to say? It’s what you and Mother want, isn’t it?” He was surprised. “How do you know?”
“I’m not that much of a fool,” she said, picking up her drink again. “I knew it the minute you told me to call him back. Then when he said that Mother had given him my number, I was sure.”
Now that she had said it, he was not too sure that he was happy about it. “Marriage is a serious business.”
She finished her drink and put it down. “I know,” she said. “He seems like a nice guy.”
“What you really mean is that I’m not!” “I didn’t say that.”
“I know you didn’t. But that’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Because I am the way I am, I won’t be a good wife to him?”
He was silent.
“Why can’t I be?” she demanded. “I’m the right age. I’m not hard to take. I’ve got all the money we’ll ever need, and after the war I can arrange it so he can do whatever he wants. Is that so bad?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” “I’m telling you!” she said angrily.
He pulled out his ever-present pipe. “In that case, I have just one question. Do you love him?” She stared at him. That was the last thing she’d expected him to say. “Of course.”
“All right, then.” He smiled. “When is the wedding going to be?”
She saw his smile, and the anger and defiance slipped away from her. She smiled back. “Just as soon as I can get him to ask me,” she answered.
__________________________________________
I got out of my uniform and back into a pair of Levis when I got back to the boat. The gas tanks were full—I’d seen to that earlier in the day when I planned to go out after marlin—but I didn’t like the way some of the plugs were firing, so I set about cleaning them. In turn that led to cleaning the rings, then the valves, and before I knew it, it was almost ten o’clock. Suddenly I realized that I was hungry.
I checked my stores but there was nothing I really felt like eating. Besides, I would have to lay in some supplies if I wanted to stay out all the next day. I found a little grocery store that was still open, picked up what I needed, and went to the Greasy Spoon for a very bad steak and the inevitable bottle of chili. There was no other way to make it go down.
Suddenly even the chili couldn’t kill the lousy taste of the food. I looked down at my plate, disgruntled. If I hadn’t been such a fool I might have enjoyed a decent dinner.
But not me. I had to be independent. No ties for little old Luke. He walked alone. I took another bite of the steak and chewed it reflectively. What was the matter with me anyhow?
The trouble was that I always tried to make more out of anything than it really was. I didn’t know enough to take things as they were. I had to make it deep and take it big. What was it? Her money? The fact that the old lady had practically spelled it out for me? It couldn’t be that. I remembered back in school they used to have a saying: It’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as it is with a poor one. And much better.
Then I knew what it was. I wasn’t eager to get involved because I was afraid. Afraid that if I let myself fall for her, I’d really be gone. She was everything I’d ever wanted. Class and style and charm, all bright and shining with a veneer that only the years could achieve. All this plus an artistic talent and the wild fierce bitchiness that I sensed running deep within her. Life with a girl like that wouldn’t be easy. Besides, how did I know she felt the same way? What did I have to offer?
I took another bite of the steak, but it was cold now and I pushed the plate away. I went back to the counter and picked up my two bags of groceries.
I had no ice locker so I put the groceries down on the floor of the cockpit and looked up at the sky. It was clear and the moon was so bright it seemed almost like daylight. I looked out at the sea. It was as smooth as the proverbial millpond. I checked my watch. It was half-past eleven. I could drop anchor off Coronado by a few minutes after one. I reached over and hit the starter button and went out on deck to cast off.