COME INTO MY PARLOR

Thirty-three

THE MADNESS OF restoration began on Thursday morning, though the night before over dinner at Oak Haven with Aaron and Rowan, he had begun to outline what steps he would take.

As far as the grave was concerned, and all his thoughts about it and the doorway and the number thirteen, they had gone into the notebook, and he did not wish to dwell on them anymore.

The whole trip to the cemetery had been grim. The morning itself had been overcast yet beautiful, of course, and he had liked walking there with Aaron, and Aaron had shown him how to block some of the sensations that came through his hands. He’d been practicing, going without the gloves, and here and there touching gateposts, or picking sprigs of wild lantana, and turning off the images, pretty much the way one blocks a bad or obsessive thought, and to his surprise it more or less worked.

But the cemetery. He had hated it, hated its crumbling romantic beauty, and hated the great heap of withering flowers from Deirdre’s funeral which still surrounded the crypt. And the gaping hole where Carlotta Mayfair was soon to be laid to rest, so to speak.

Then as he was standing there, realizing in a sort of stunned miserable state that there were twelve crypts in the tomb and the doorway carved on the top made thirteen portals, up came his old friend Jerry Lonigan with some very pale-faced Mayfairs, and a coffin on wheels which could only belong to Carlotta, which was slipped, with only the briefest ceremony by the officiating priest, into the vacant slot.

Twelve crypts, the keyhole door, and then that coffin sliding in, blam! And his eyes moving up to that keyhole door again, which did look exactly like the doors in the house, but why? And then they were all going, with a quick exchange of pleasantries, for the Mayfairs assumed he and Aaron were there for the ceremony and expressed their appreciation before they went away.

“Come have a beer with me sometime,” said Jerry.

“Best to Rita.”

The cemetery had dropped into a buzzing, dizzying silence. Not a single thing he had seen since the beginning of this odyssey, not even the images from the jars, had filled him with as much dread as the sight of this tomb. “There’s the thirteen,” he had said to Aaron.

“But they have buried so many in those crypts,” Aaron had explained. “You know how it’s done.”

“It’s a pattern,” he’d murmured halfheartedly, feeling the blood drain from his face. “Look at it, twelve crypts and a doorway. It’s a pattern, I tell you. I knew the number and the door were connected. I just don’t know what they mean.”

Later that afternoon waiting for Rowan, while Aaron typed away on his computer in the front room, presumably on the Mayfair history, Michael had drawn the doorway in his notebook. He hated it. He hated the empty middle of it, for that’s what it had been in the bas-relief, not a door, but a doorway.

“And I’ve seen that doorway somewhere else, in some other representation,” he wrote. “But I don’t know where.”

He had hated even thinking about it. Even the thing trying to be human had not filled him with such apprehension.

But over supper, on the patio at Oak Haven, with the ashen twilight surrounding them and the candles flickering in their glass shades, they had resolved again to spend no more time poring over interpretations. They would move forward as they said. He and Rowan had spent the night in the front bedroom of the plantation, a lovely change from the hotel, and in the morning when he woke up at six, with the sun beating on his face, Rowan was already on the gallery, enjoying her second pot of coffee, and raring to go.

As soon as he arrived back in New Orleans, at nine o’clock, the work began.

He had never had so much fun.

He rented a car and roamed the city, taking down the names of the construction crews who were working on the finest of the uptown houses and the classy restorations going on in the Quarter downtown. He got out and talked to the bosses and the men; sometimes he went inside with the more talkative people who were willing to show him their work in progress, discussing the local wage scales and expectations, and asking for the names of carpenters and painters who needed work.

He called the local architectural firms who were famous for handling the grand homes, and requested various recommendations. The sheer friendliness of people astonished him. And the mere mention of the Mayfair house kindled excitement. People were only too eager to give advice.

For all the work that was going on, the city was full of unemployed craftsmen. The oil boom of the 1970s and early 1980s had generated tremendous interest and activity in restoration. And now the city lay under the cloud of the oil depression, with an economy bruised by numerous foreclosures. Money was tight. There were mansions on the market for half of what they were worth.

By one o’clock he had hired three crews of excellent painters, and a team of the finest plasterers in the city—quadroons descended from the colored families who had been free long before the Civil War, and who had been plastering the ceilings and walls of New Orleans houses for over seven and eight generations.

He had also signed up two teams of plumbers, one excellent roofing company, and a well-known uptown landscaping expert to begin the clearing and the restoration of the garden. At two P.M. the man walked the property with Michael for half an hour, pointing out the giant camellias and azaleas, the bridal wreath and the antique roses, all of which could be saved.

Two cleaning women had also been hired—upon recommendation of Beatrice Mayfair—who began the detailed dusting of furniture, the polishing of the silver, and the washing of the china which had lain under its layer of dust for many a year.

A special crew was scheduled to come in Friday morning to commence draining the pool, and seeing what had to be done to restore it and revamp its antiquated equipment. A kitchen specialist was also scheduled for Friday. Engineers were scheduled to examine the foundation and the porches. And an excellent carpenter and jack-of-all-trades named Dart Henley was eager to become Michael’s second in command.

At five o’clock, while there was still plenty of light, Michael went under the house with a flashlight and a dust mask and confirmed, after forty-five minutes of serious crawling, that indeed the interior walls were chain walls, descending directly to the ground, that the underneath was dry and clean, and that there was ample space for a central air and heat duct system.

Meantime, Ryan Mayfair came through the house to take the official and legal inventory for the estates of Deirdre and Carlotta Mayfair. A team of young lawyers, including Pierce, Franklin, Isaac, and Wheatfield Mayfair—all descendants of the original brothers of the firm—accompanied a group of appraisers and antique dealers who identified, appraised, and tagged every chandelier, picture, mirror, and fauteuil.

Priceless French antiques were brought down from the attic, including some fine chairs which needed only reupholstering and tables which required no repair at all. Stella’s art deco treasures, equally delicate and equally preserved, were also brought into the light.

Old oil paintings by the dozens were discovered, as well as rugs rolled in camphor balls, old tapestries, and all the chandeliers from Riverbend, each crated and marked.

It was after dark when Ryan finished.

“Well, my dear, I’m happy to report: no more bodies.”

Indeed, a call from him later in the evening confirmed that the enormous inventory was almost the same as the one taken at the death of Antha. Things had not even been moved. “All we did most of the time was check them off the list,” he said. Even the count of the gold and jewels was the same. He’d have the inventory for her right away.

By that time, Michael was back at the hotel, had feasted on delicious room service from the Caribbean Room downstairs, and was perusing all the architecture books he’d gleaned from the local stores, pointing out to Rowan the pictures of the various houses that surrounded hers, and the other mansions scattered throughout the Garden District.

He had bought a “house” notebook in the K&B drugstore on Louisiana Avenue, and was making lists of what he meant to do. He would have to call tile men early in the morning, and take a more careful look at the old bathrooms, because the fixtures were absolutely marvelous, and he did not want to change what did not need to be changed.

Rowan was reading over some of the papers she would sign. She had opened a joint account at the Whitney Bank that afternoon just for the renovations, depositing three hundred thousand dollars in it, and she had the signature cards for Michael and a book of checks.

“You can’t spend too much money on this house,” she said. “It deserves the best.”

Michael gave a little delighted laugh. This had always been a dream—to do it without a budget, as if it were a great work of art, every decision being made with the purest aims.

At eight o’clock, Rowan went down to meet Beatrice and Sandra Mayfair for drinks in the bar. She was back within the hour. Tomorrow she would have breakfast with another couple of cousins. It was all rather pleasant and easy. They did the talking. And she liked the sound of their voices. She’d always liked to listen to people, especially when they talked so much that she didn’t have to say anything much herself.

“But I’ll tell you,” she said to Michael, “they do know things and they aren’t telling me what they know. And they know the older ones know things. They’re the ones I have to talk to. I have to win their trust.”

On Friday, as the plumbers and the roofers swarmed over the property, and the plasterers went in with their buckets and ladders and drop cloths, and a loud chugging machine began to pump the swimming pool dry, Rowan went downtown to sign papers.

Michael went to work with the tile men in the front bathroom. It had been decided to fix up the front bath and bedroom first so that he and Rowan could move in as soon as possible. And Rowan wanted a shower without disturbing the old tub. That meant ripping out some tile, and building in more, and fitting the tub with a glass enclosure.

“Three days we’ll have it for you,” the workman promised.

The plasterers were already removing the wallpaper from the bedroom ceiling. The electrician would have to be called in, as the wires to the old brass chandelier had never been properly insulated. And Rowan and Michael would want a ceiling fan in place of the old fixture. More notes.

Some time around eleven, Michael wandered out on the screened porch off the parlor. Two cleaning women were working noisily and cheerfully in the big room behind him. The decorator recommended by Bea was measuring the windows for new draperies.

Forgot about these old screens, Michael thought. He made a note in his book. He looked at the old rocker. It had been scrubbed clean, and the porch itself had been swept. The bees hummed in the vines. Through the thick stand of banana trees to the left, he could just see the bright occasional flashes of the workmen surrounding the pool. They were shoveling two feet of earth from off the flagstone patio. Indeed, the area of paving was far larger than anyone had supposed.

He took a deep breath, staring out at the crepe myrtle across the lawn.

“No ladders thrown down yet, am I right, Lasher?” His whisper seemed to die on the empty air.

Nothing but the hum of the bees, and the mingled sounds of the workmen—the low grind of a lawn mower just starting up, and the sound of the diesel leaf blowers navigating the paths. He glanced at his watch. The air-conditioning men were due any minute. He had sketched out a system of eight different heat pumps which would provide both cooling and heating, and the worst problem would be the placement of the equipment, what with the attics filled with boxes and furniture and other items. Maybe they could go directly to the roof.

Then there were the floors. Yes, he had to get an estimate on the floors right away. The floor of the parlor was still very beautifully finished, apparently from the time Stella had used it as a dance floor. But the other floors were deeply soiled and dull. Of course nobody would do any interior painting or floor finishing until the plasterers were out. They made too much dust. And the painters, he had to go see how they were coming along on the outside. They had to wait until the roofers had sealed the parapet walls at the top. But the painters had plenty of work to do sanding and preparing the window frames and the shutters. And what else? Oh, the phone system, yes, Rowan wanted something state of the art. I mean the house was so big. And then there was the cabana, and that old servants’ quarters building way at the back. He was thinking of turning a small contractor loose on that little building now, for an entire renovation.

Ah, this was fun. But why was he getting away with it? That was the question. Who was biding whose time?

He didn’t want to confess to Rowan that he couldn’t shake an underlying apprehensiveness, an underlying certainty that they were being watched. That the house itself was something alive. Maybe it was only the lingering impression of the images in the attic—of all the skirts gathered around him, of all of them earth-bound and here. He didn’t really believe in ghosts in that sense. But the place had absorbed the personalities of all the Mayfairs, hadn’t it, as old houses are supposed to do. And it seemed every time he turned that he was about to see someone or something that really wasn’t there.

What a surprise to step into the parlor and see only the sunlight and the solemn neglected furniture. The enormous mirrors, towering over the room like guardians. The old pictures lifeless and dim in their frames. For a long moment he looked at the soft portrait of Stella—a painted photograph. So sweet her smile, and her black shining marcelled hair. Out of the corners of her eyes, she looked at him, through the filth that clung to the dim glass.

“Did you want something, Mr. Mike?” the young cleaning woman asked him. He shook his head.

He turned back and looked at the empty rocker. Had it moved? This was foolish. He was inviting something to happen. He closed his notebook and went back to work.

Joseph, the decorator, was waiting for him in the dining room.

And Eugenia was here. Eugenia wanted to work. Surely there was something she could do. Nobody knew this house the way she did, she’d worked in this house for five years, she had. Eugenia had told her son this very morning that she was not too old to work, that she would work until she dropped dead.

Did Dr. Mayfair want silk for these draperies? asked the decorator. Was she sure about that? He had a score of damasks and velvets to show her that wouldn’t cost half as much.

When Michael met Rowan for lunch at Mayfair and Mayfair she was still signing. He was surprised at the ease and trust with which Ryan greeted him and began to explain things.

“It was always the custom before Antha and Deirdre to make bequests at a time such as this,” he said, “and Rowan wants to revive the custom. We’re making a list now of the Mayfairs who might accept a bequest, and Beatrice is already on the phone to anybody and everybody in the family. Please understand this isn’t as insane as it sounds. Most Mayfairs have money in the bank, and always have had. Nevertheless, there are cousins in college, and a couple in medical school, and others who are saving to buy a first home. You know—that sort of thing. I think it’s commendable of Rowan to want to revive the custom. And of course considering the size of the estate … ”

Nevertheless there was something cunning in Ryan, something calculating and watchful. And wasn’t that natural? He seemed to be testing Michael with these riffs of information. Michael only nodded, and shrugged. “Sounds great.”

By late afternoon, Michael and Rowan were back at the house conferring with the men around the pool. The stench of the muck that had been dredged from the bottom was unbearable. Shirtless and barefooted, the men carried it away in wheelbarrows. There were no real leaks in the old cement. You could tell because there was no sogginess in the ground anywhere. The foreman told Michael they could have the whole thing patched and replastered by the middle of next week.

“Sooner if you can,” said Rowan. “I don’t mind paying you overtime to work this weekend. Bring it back fast. I can’t stand the sight of it the way it is now.”

They were glad for the extra paychecks. In fact, just about every workman on the place was happy to work the weekend.

All new heating and filtering equipment was being installed for the pool. The gas connections were satisfactory. The new electric service was already going in.

And Michael got on the phone to another painting crew to take care of the cabana. Sure, they’d work Saturday, for time and a half. Wouldn’t take much to paint its wooden doors, and refit its shower, lavatory, and small changing rooms.

“So what color do you want the house to be?” Michael asked. “They’ll get to the outside painting faster than you think. And you want the cabana and the garçonnière painted the same color, don’t you?”

“Tell me what you want,” she said.

“I’d leave it the violet color it’s always been. The dark green shutters go with it just fine. I’d keep the whole scheme, actually—blue for the roofs of the porches, and gray for the porch floors, and black for the cast iron. By the way, I found a little man who can replace the pieces of the iron that are missing. He’s already making the molds. He has his own shop back by the river. Did anyone tell you about the iron fence that runs around this property?”

“Tell me.”

“It’s even older than the house. It was the early nineteenth century version of chain link. That is, it was prefab. And it goes all the way down First Street and turns on Camp because that’s how big the property once was. Now, we should paint it, just a nice coat of black paint is all it needs, just like the railings … ”

“Bring in all the crews you need,” she said. “The violet color is perfect. And if you have to make a decision without me, make it. Make it look like you think it should look. Spend what you think ought to be spent.”

“You’re a contractor’s dream, darling,” he said. “We’re off to a roaring start. Gotta go. See that man who just came out the back door? He’s coming to tell me he ran into a problem with the upstairs bathroom walls. I knew he would.”

“Don’t work too hard,” she said in his ear, her deep velvety voice bringing the chills up on him. A nice little throb of excitement caught him between the legs as she crushed her breasts against his arm. No time for it.

“Work too hard? I’m just warming up. And let me tell you something else, Rowan. There are a couple of damn near irresistible houses I’d like to tackle in this town when we’re through here. I see the future, Rowan. I see Great Expectations with offices on Magazine Street. I could bring those houses back slowly and carefully and ride out the bad market. This house is only the first.”

“How much do you need to pick them up?”

“Honey, I have the money to do that,” he said, kissing her quickly. “I’ve got plenty of money. Ask your cousin Ryan if you don’t believe me. If he hasn’t already run a complete credit check on me, I’d be very surprised.”

“Michael, if he says one wrong word to you … ”

“Rowan, I’m in paradise. Relax!”

Saturday and Sunday rolled by at the same grand pace. The gardeners worked until after dark mowing down the weeds and digging the old cast-iron furniture out of the brush.

Rowan and Michael and Aaron set up the old table and chairs in the center of the lawn, and there they had their lunch each day.

Aaron was making some progress with Julien’s books, but they were mostly lists of names, with brief enigmatic statements. No real autobiography at all. “So far, my most unkind guess is that these are lists of successful vendettas.” He read a sampling.

“ ‘April 4, 1889 Hendrickson paid out as he deserved.’

“ ‘May 9, 1889, Carlos paid in kind.’

“ ‘June 7, 1889, furious with Wendell for his display of temper last night. Showed him a thing or two. No more worries there.’

“It goes on like that,” said Aaron, “page after page, book after book. Occasionally there are little maps and drawings, and financial notes. But for the most part that’s all it is. I’d say there are approximately twenty-two entries per year. I’ve yet to come upon a coherent full paragraph. No, if the autobiography exists, it’s not here.”

“What about the attic, are you game to go up there?” asked Rowan.

“Not now. I had a fall last night.”

“What are you talking about?”

“On the staircase at the hotel. I was impatient with the elevator. I fell to the first landing. It might have been worse.”

“Aaron, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, this is soon enough. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about it, except that I don’t recall losing my footing. But I’ve a sore ankle, and I’d like to put off going up into the attic.”

Rowan was crestfallen, angry. She gazed up at the façade of the house. There were workmen everywhere. On the parapets, on the porches, in the open bedroom windows.

“Don’t become unduly alarmed,” said Aaron. “I want you to know, but I don’t want you to fret.”

It was clear to Michael that Rowan was speechless. He could feel her fury. He could see the disfigurement of the anger in her face.

“We’ve seen nothing here,” said Michael to Aaron. “Absolutely nothing. And no one else has seen anything, at least not anything worth mentioning to either of us.”

“You were pushed, weren’t you?” asked Rowan in a low voice.

“Perhaps,” said Aaron.

“He’s deviling you.”

“I think so,” said Aaron with a little nod. “He likes to knock Julien’s books about too, when he has the opportunity, which seems to be whenever I leave the room. Again, I thought it important you know about it, but I don’t want you to fret.”

“Why’s he doing it?”

“Maybe he wants your attention,” said Aaron. “But I hesitate to say. Whatever the case, trust that I can protect myself. The work here does seem to be coming along splendidly.”

“No problems,” said Michael, but he was pitched into gloom.

After lunch, he walked Aaron to the gate.

“I’m having too much fun, aren’t I?” he asked.

“Of course you aren’t,” said Aaron. “What a strange thing to say.”

“I wish it would come to a boil,” said Michael. “I think I’ll win when it does. But the waiting is driving me nuts. After all, what is he waiting for?”

“What about your hands? I do wish you’d try to go without the gloves.”

“I have. I take off the gloves for a couple of hours each day. I can’t get used to the heat, the zinging feeling, even when I can blot everything else out. Look, do you want me to walk with you back to the hotel?”

“Of course not. I’ll see you there tonight if you have time for a drink.”

“Yeah, it’s like a dream coming true, isn’t it?” he asked wistfully. “I mean for me.”

“No, for both of us,” said Aaron.

“You trust me?”

“Why on earth would you ask?”

“Do you think I’m going to win? Do you think I’m going to do what they want of me?”

“What do you think?”

“I think she loves me and that it’s going to be wonderful what happens.”

“So do I.”

He felt good, and each successive hour brought some new realization of it; and in his time at the house, there had been no other fragmentary memories of the visions. No sense of the ghosts.

It was comfortable each night being with Rowan, comfortable being in the spacious old suite, and making love, and then getting up again, to go back to work on the books and on the notes. It was comfortable being tired from a day of physical exertion, and feeling his body springing back from those two months of torpor and too much beer.

He was drinking little or no beer now; and in the absence of the dulling alcohol, his senses were exquisitely sharpened; he could not get enough of Rowan’s sleek, girlish body and her inexhaustible energy. Her total lack of narcissism or self-consciousness awakened in him a roughness that she seemed to love. There were times when their lovemaking was like horseplay, and even more violent than that. But it always ended in tenderness and a feverish embrace, so that he wondered how he had ever slept all these years, without her arms around him.

Thirty-four

HER PRIVATE TIME was still the early morning. No matter how late she read, she opened her eyes at four o’clock. And no matter how early he went to bed, Michael slept like the dead till nine unless someone shook him or screamed at him.

It was all right. It gave her the margin of quiet that her soul demanded. Never had she known a man who accepted her so completely as she was; nevertheless there were moments when she had to get away from everyone.

Loving him these last few days, she had understood for the first time why she had always taken her men in small doses. This was slavery, this persistent passion—the inability to even look at his smooth naked back or the little gold chain around his powerful neck without wanting him, without gritting her teeth silently at the thought of reaching under the covers and stroking the dark hair around his balls and making his cock grow hard in her hand.

That his age gave him some leverage against her—the ability to say after the second time, tenderly but firmly, No, I can’t do it again—made him all the more tantalizing, worse perhaps than a teasing young boy, though she didn’t really know, because she’d never been teased by a young boy. But when she considered the kindness, the mellowness, the total lack of young-man self-centeredness and hatefulness in him, the trade-off of age against boundless energy was a perfect bargain indeed.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” she had whispered this morning, running her finger down the coarsened black stubble which covered not only his chin but his throat, knowing that he wouldn’t stir. “Yes, my conscience and my body need you. Everything I’ll ever be needs you.”

She had even kissed him without a chance of waking him.

But now was her time alone, with him safely out of sight and out of mind.

And it was such an extraordinary time to walk through the deserted streets just as the sun was rising, to see the squirrels racing through the oaks, and to hear the violent birds crying mournfully and even desperately.

A mist sometimes crawled along the brick pavements. And the iron fences shimmered with the dew. The sky was shot through and through with red, bloody as a sunset, fading slowly into blue daylight.

The house was cool at this hour.

And this morning, she was glad of it because the heat in general had begun to wear on her. And she had an errand to perform which gave her no pleasure.

She should have attended to it before now, but it was one of those little things she wanted to ignore, to weed out from all the rest that was being offered her.

But as she went up the stairs now, she found herself almost eager. A little twinge of excitement caught her by surprise. She went into the old master bedroom, which had belonged to her mother, and moved to the far side of the bed, where the velvet purse of gold coins still lay, ignored, on the marble top bedside table. The jewel box was there, too. In all the hubbub no one had dared touch them.

On the contrary, at least six different workmen had come to report that these items were there, and somebody ought to do something about them.

Yes, something about them.

She stared down at the gold coins, which spilled out of the old velvet bag in a grimy heap. God only knew where they had actually come from.

Then she gathered up the sack, put the loose coins inside, picked up the jewel box, and took them down to her favorite room, which was the dining room.

The soft morning light was just breaking through the soiled windows. A plasterer’s drop cloth covered half the floor, and a tall spidery ladder reached to the unfinished patchwork on the ceiling.

She pushed back the canvas that covered the table, and removed the draping from the chair, and then she sat down with her load of treasures and put them in front of her.

“You’re here,” she whispered. “I know you are. You’re watching me.” She felt cold as she said it. She laid out a handful of coins, and pushed them apart the better to see them in the gathering light. Roman coins. It didn’t take an expert to see it. And here, this was a Spanish coin, with amazingly clear numerals and letters. She reached into the sack and pulled out another little trove. Greek coins? About these she wasn’t certain. A stickiness clung to them, part damp and part dust. She longed to polish them.

It struck her suddenly that that would be a good task for Eugenia, polishing all these coins.

And no sooner had the thought made her smile, than she thought she heard a sound in the house. A vague rustling. Just the singing of the boards, Michael would say if he were here. She paid no attention.

She gathered up all the coins and shoved them back in the purse, pushed it aside, and took up the jewel box. It was very old, rectangular, with tarnished hinges. The velvet had worn through in some places to show the wood beneath, and it was deep inside, with six large compartments.

The various jewels were in no order, however. Earrings, necklaces, rings, pins, they were all tangled together. And in the bottom of the box, like so many pebbles, were what appeared to be raw stones, gleaming dully. Were these real rubies? Emeralds? She could not imagine it. She did not know a real pearl from a fake. Nor gold from an imitation. But these necklaces were fine artifacts, skillfully fashioned, and a sense of reverence and sadness came over her as she touched them.

She thought of Antha hurrying through the streets of New York with a handful of coins to sell. And a stab of pain went through her. She thought of her mother, lying in the rocker on the porch, the drool slipping down her chin, and all this wealth so near at hand, and the Mayfair emerald around her neck, like some sort of child’s bauble.

The Mayfair emerald. She hadn’t even thought of it since the first night when she’d tucked it away in the china pantry. She rose and went to the pantry now—unlocked all this time like everything else—and there was the small velvet case on the wooden shelf behind the glass door, among the Wedgwood cups and saucers, just where she’d left it.

She took it to the table, set it down, and carefully opened it. The jewel of jewels—large, rectangular, glinting exquisitely in its dark gold setting. And now that she knew the history, how she had changed towards it.

On the first night it had seemed unreal, and faintly repulsive. Now it seemed a living thing, with a tale to tell of its own, and she found herself hesitant to remove it from the soiled velvet. Of course it did not belong to her! It belonged to those who had believed in it, and who had worn it with pride, those who had wanted him to come to them.

Just for a moment, she felt a longing to be one of them. She tried to deny it, but she felt it—a longing to accept with a whole heart the entire inheritance.

Was she blushing? She felt the warmth in her face. Maybe it was simply the humid air and the sun rising slowly outside, and the garden filling up with a bright light that made the trees come alive beyond the glass, and made the sky suddenly blue in the topmost panes of the windows.

But it was more likely shame that she felt. Shame that Aaron or Michael might know what she’d been thinking.

Lusting after the devil like a witch. She laughed softly.

And it seemed unfair suddenly, very unfair that he should be her sworn enemy before they’d even met.

“What are you waiting for?” she asked aloud. “Are you like the shy vampire of myth who must be invited in? I think not. This is your home. You’re here now. You’re listening to me and watching me.”

She sat back in the chair, her eyes running over the murals as they slowly came to life in the pale sunlight. For the first time she spied a tiny woman naked in the window of the dim plantation house in the painting. And another faded nude seated upon the dark green bank of the small lagoon. It made her smile. Rather like discovering a secret. She wondered if Michael had seen these two tawny beauties. Oh, the house was full of undiscovered things, and so was its sad and melancholy garden.

Beyond the windows, the cherry laurel suddenly swayed in the breeze. In fact, it began to dance as if a wind had caught its stiff dark limbs. She heard it stroke the banister of the porch. It scraped against the roof above, and then settled back to itself, as the wind moved on, it seemed, to the distant crepe myrtle.

Entrancing the way the high thin branches, full of pink blossoms, succumbed to the dance, and the entire tree thrashed against the gray wall of the neighboring house, and sent down a shower of dappled, fluttering leaves. Like so much light falling in tiny pieces.

Her eyes misted slightly; she was conscious of the relaxation of her limbs, of giving in to a vague dreaminess. Yes, look at the tree dance. Look at the cherry laurel again, and the shower of green coming down on the boards of the porch. Look at the thin limbs reaching all the way in to scrape the windowpanes.

With a dull shock, she focused her eyes, staring at the branches, staring at their concerted, deliberate movement as they stroked the glass.

“You,” she whispered.

Lasher in the trees, Lasher the way Deirdre would make him come outside the boarding school. And Rita Mae never knew what she’d actually described to Aaron Lightner.

She was rigid now in the chair. The tree was bending close, and then swaying back ever so gracefully, and this time the branches veritably blotted out the sun, and the leaves tumbled down the glass, broken and spinning. Yet the room was warm and airless.

She did not remember rising to her feet. But she was standing. Yes, he was there. He was making the trees move, for nothing else on earth could make them move like that. And the tiny hairs were standing up on the backs of her arms. And she felt a vague chill over her scalp, as if something were touching her.

It seemed the air around her changed. Not a breeze, no. More like a curtain brushing her. She turned around, and stared out through the empty window at Chestnut Street. Had there been something there, a great dense shadow for a moment, a thing contracting and then expanding, like a dark sea being with tentacles? No. Nothing but the oak across the street. And the sky growing ever more radiant.

“Why don’t you speak?” she said. “I’m here alone.”

How strange her voice sounded.

But there were other sounds intruding now. She heard voices outside. A truck had stopped; and she could hear the scrape of the gate as the workmen pushed it back on the flagstones. Even as she waited, her head bowed, there came the turning of the knob.

“Hey, there, Dr. Mayfair … ”

“Morning, Dart. Morning, Rob. Morning, Billy.”

Heavy feet mounted the stairs. With a soft deep vibration, the little elevator was being brought down, and soon its brass door opened with the familiar dull clang.

Yes, their house now.

She turned sluggishly, almost stubbornly, and gathered together the entire trove of treasures. She took them into the china pantry and put them in the large drawer, where the old tablecloths had once been, moldering, before they were discarded. The old key was still in the lock. She turned it and put the key in her pocket.

Then she went back out, steps slow, uneasy, relinquishing the house to the others.

At the gate, she turned and looked back. No breeze at all in the garden. Just to make certain of what she’d seen, she turned and followed the path, around and past her mother’s old porch, and back to the servants’ gallery that ran along the dining room.

Yes, littered with curling green leaves. Something brushed her again, and she turned around, her arm up as if to defend herself from a dangling spiderweb.

A stillness seemed to drop down around her. No sounds had followed her here. The foliage grew high and dense over the balustrade.

“What keeps you from speaking to me?” she whispered. “Are you really afraid?”

Nothing moved. The heat seemed to rise from the flagstones beneath her. Tiny gnats congregated in the shadows. The big drowsy white ginger lilies leaned over close to her face, and a dull crackling sound slowly drew her eye to the depths of the garden patch, to a dark tangle from which a vagrant purple iris sprang, savage and shivering, a hideous mouth of a flower, its stem snapping back now as though a cat darting through the brush had bent it down carelessly.

She watched it sway and then right itself and grow still, its ragged petals trembling. Lurid, it looked. She had the urge to put her finger into it, as if it were an organ. But what was happening to it? She stared, the heat heavy on her eyelids, the gnats rising so that she lifted her right hand to drive them away. Was the flower actually growing?

No. Something had injured it, and it was breaking from its stem, that was all, and how monstrous it looked, how enormous; but it was all in her perspective. The heat, the stillness, the sudden coming of the men like intruders into her domain right at the moment of her greatest peace. She could be sure of nothing.

She took her handkerchief out of her pocket and blotted her cheeks, and then walked down the path towards the gate. She felt confused, unsure—guilty that she’d come alone, and uncertain that anything unusual had happened.

All her many plans for the day came back to her. So much to do, so many real things to do. And Michael would be getting up just about now. If she hurried, they might have breakfast together.

Thirty-five

MONDAY MORNING MICHAEL and Rowan went downtown together to obtain their Louisiana driver’s licenses. You couldn’t buy a car here until you had the state driver’s license.

And when they turned in their California licenses, which they had to do in order to receive the Louisiana license, it was sort of ceremonial and final and oddly exciting. Like giving up a passport or citizenry, perhaps. Michael found himself glancing at Rowan, and he saw her secretive and delighted smile.

They had a light dinner Monday night at the Desire Oyster Bar. A searing hot gumbo, full of shrimp and andouille sausage; and ice-cold beer. The doors of the place were open along Bourbon Street, the overhead fans stirring the cool air around them, the sweet, lighthearted jazz pouring out of the Mahogany Hall bar across the street.

“That’s the New Orleans sound,” Michael said, “that jazz with a real song in it, a joie de vivre. Nothing ever dark in it. Nothing ever really mournful. Not even when they play for the funerals.”

“Let’s take a walk,” she said. “I want to see all these seedy joints for myself.”

They spent the evening in the Quarter, roaming away from the garish lights of Bourbon Street finally, and past the elegant shop windows of Royal and Chartres, and then back to the river lookout opposite Jackson Square.

The size of the Quarter obviously amazed Rowan, as well as the feeling of authenticity which had somehow survived the renovations and the various improvements. Michael found himself overwhelmed again by the inevitable memories—Sundays down here with his mother. He could not argue against the improvements of curbs and street lamps, and new cobblestones laid around Jackson Square. The place seemed if anything more vital now than it had been in its shabbier and more volatile past.

It felt so good after the long walk to sit on the bench at the riverfront, merely watching the dark glitter of the water, watching the dancing boats, strung with lights like big wedding cakes, as they swept past the distant indistinct shapes of the far bank.

A gaiety prevailed among the tourists who came and went from the lookout. Soft conversation and random bursts of laughter. Couples embraced in the shadows. A lone saxophonist played a ragged, soulful song for the quarters people tossed into the hat at his feet.

Finally, they walked back into the thick of the pedestrian traffic, making their way to the soiled old Café du Monde for the famous café au lait and sugared doughnuts. They sat for a while in the warm air, as the others came and went from the sticky little tables around them; then meandered out among the glitzy shops which now filled the old French Market, across from the sad and graceful buildings of Decatur Street with their iron-lace balconies and slender iron colonettes.

Because she asked him to, he drove her up through the Irish Channel, skirting the dark brooding ruin of the St. Thomas Project, and following the river with its deserted warehouses for as long as he could. Annunciation Street looked a little better in the night maybe, with cheerful lights in the windows of the little houses. They drove on, uptown, on a narrow tree-lined street, into the Victorian section where the rambling houses were full of gingerbread and fretwork, and he pointed out to her his old-time favorites, and those he would love to restore.

How extraordinary it felt to have money in his pockets in his old home town. To know he could buy those houses, just the way he’d dreamed of it in the long-ago hopelessness and desperation of childhood.

Rowan seemed eager, happy, curious about things around her. No regrets apparently. But then it was so soon …

She talked now and then in easy bursts, her deep grosgrain voice always charming him and distracting him slightly from the content of what she said. She agreed the people here were incredibly friendly. They took their time about everything they did; but they were so completely without meanness it was almost hard to figure out. The accents of the family members baffled her. Beatrice and Ryan spoke with a touch of New York in their voices. Louisa had a completely different accent, and young Pierce didn’t sound like his father; and all of them sounded just a little bit like Michael sooner or later on some words.

“Don’t tell them that, honey,” he cautioned her. “I’m from the other side of Magazine Street and they know it. Don’t think they don’t.”

“They think you’re wonderful.” she said dismissing his comment. “Pierce says you’re an old-fashioned man.”

He laughed. “Well, hell,” Michael said, “maybe I am.”

They stayed up late, drinking beer and talking. The old suite was as large as an apartment with its den and its kitchen, as well as the living room and the bedroom. He wasn’t getting drunk at all these days, and he knew she was aware of it, but she didn’t say anything, which was just as well. They talked about the house and all the little things they meant to do.

Did she miss the hospital? Yes, she did. But that wasn’t important right now. She had a plan, a great plan for the future, which she would disclose soon enough.

“But you can’t give up medicine. You don’t mean that?”

“Of course I don’t,” she said patiently, dropping her voice a little for emphasis. “On the contrary. I’ve been thinking about medicine in an entirely different light.”

“How do you mean?”

“It’s too soon to explain. I’m not sure myself. But the question of the legacy changes things, and the more I learn about the legacy the more things are going to change. I’m in a new internship with Mayfair and Mayfair. The subject is money.” She gestured to the papers on the table. “And it’s moving along pretty well.”

“You really want to do this?”

“Michael, everything we do in life, we do with certain expectations. I grew up with money. That meant I could go to medical school and proceed right through a long residency in neurosurgery. I didn’t have a husband or kids to worry about. I didn’t have anything to worry about. But now the sums of money have changed radically. With money like the Mayfair money, one could fund research projects, build whole laboratories. Conceivably one could set up a clinic, adjacent to a medical center, for work in one specialty of neurosurgery.” She shrugged. “You see what I mean.”

“Yeah, but if you become involved in that way, it will take you out of the Operating Room, won’t it? You’ll have to be an administrator.”

“Possibly,” she said, “The point is, the legacy presents a challenge. I have to use my imagination, as the cliché goes.”

He nodded. “I see what you’re saying,” he responded. “But are they going to give you trouble?”

“Ultimately, yes. But it’s not important. When I’m ready to make my moves, that won’t matter. And I’ll make the changes as smoothly and tactfully as I can.”

“What changes?”

“Again, it’s too early. I’m not ready yet to draw up a grand plan. But I’m thinking of a neurological center here in New Orleans, with the finest equipment obtainable and laboratories for independent research.”

“Good Lord, I never thought of anything like that.”

“Before now, I never had the remotest chance of inaugurating a research program and completely controlling it—you know, determining the goals, the standards, the budget.” She had a faraway look in her eye. “The important thing is to think in terms of the size of the legacy. And to think for myself.”

A vague uneasiness seized him. He didn’t know why. He felt a chill rise on the back of his neck as he heard her say:

“Wouldn’t that be the redemption, Michael? If the Mayfair legacy went into healing? Surely you see it. All the way from Suzanne and Jan van Abel, the surgeon, to a great and innovative medical center, devoted of course to the saving of lives.”

He sat there pondering and unable to answer.

She gave a little shrug and put her hands to her temples. “Oh, there’s so much to study,” she said, “so much to learn. But can’t you see the continuity?”

“Yeah, continuity,” he said under his breath.

Like the continuity he was so certain of when he woke in the hospital after he drowned—everything connected. They chose me because of who I was, and it’s all connected …

“It’s all possible,” she said, scanning him for reaction. A little flame danced in her cheeks, in her eyes.

“Very near to perfect,” he said.

“So why do you look like that? What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Michael, stop thinking about those visions. Stop thinking about invisible people in the sky giving our lives meaning. There are no ghosts in the attic! Think for yourself.”

“I am, Rowan. I am. Don’t get angry. It’s a stunning idea. It’s perfect. I don’t know why it makes me uneasy. Have a little patience with me, honey. Like you said, our dreams have to be in proportion to our resources. And so it’s a little over my head.”

“All you have to do is love me and listen to me, and let me think out loud.”

“I’m with you, Rowan. Always. I think it’s great.”

“You’re having trouble imagining it,” she said. “I understand. I’ve only begun myself. But goddamn it, the money’s there, Michael. There is something absolutely obscene about the amount of that money. For two generations, these corporation lawyers have tended this fortune, allowing it to feed upon itself and multiply like a monster.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

“Long ago, they lost sight of the fact that it was the property of one person. It belongs to itself in some horrible way, it’s greater than any human being should have or control.”

“A lot of people would agree with you,” he said.

But he couldn’t shake that memory of lying in the hospital bed in San Francisco and believing that his whole life had meaning, that everything he’d ever done and been was about to be redeemed.

“Yes, it would redeem everything,” he said. “Wouldn’t it?”

So why did he see the grave in his mind, with its twelve slots, and the doorway above, and the name Mayfair inscribed in big letters, and the flowers withering in the suffocating heat?

He forced himself out of this, and went for the best distraction he knew. Just looking at her, just looking and thinking about touching her, and resisting the urge, though she was only inches from him, and willing, yes, almost surely, willing to be touched.

It was working. A little switch was suddenly thrown in the ruthless mechanism called his brain. He was thinking of how her naked legs looked in the lamplight, and how delicate and full her breasts looked beneath her short silk gown.

Breasts always struck him as miracles; when you touched them and suckled them, they seemed entirely too luscious to be more than momentary—like sherbet or whipped cream, you expected them to melt in your mouth. That they stayed there, day after day, just waiting for you, was part of the whole impossibility of the female sex for him. That was all the science he knew. He bent forward, pressed his lips against her neck, and gave a little determined growl.

“Now you’ve done it,” she whispered.

“Yeah, well, it’s about time,” he said in the same deep voice. “How would you like to be carried to bed?”

“I’d love it,” she purred. “You haven’t done that since the first time.”

“Christ! How could I have been so thoughtless!” he whispered. “What kind of an old-fashioned man am I?” He shoved his left arm under her hot silky thighs and cradled her shoulders with his right, kissing her as he picked her up, secretly exultant that he didn’t lose his balance and go sprawling. But he had her—light and clinging, and suddenly feverishly compliant. Making it to the bed was a cinch.

On Tuesday, the air-conditioning men began their work. There were enough gallery roofs for every piece of equipment. Joseph, the decorator, had taken away all the French furniture that needed restoration. The beautiful old bedroom sets, all dating from the plantation era, needed no more than polishing, and the cleaning women could take care of that.

The plasterers had finished in the front bedroom. And the painters sealed off the area with plastic drapery so that they could get a clean job in spite of the dust from the work going on in the rest of the house. Rowan had chosen a light champagne beige for the bedroom walls, and white for the ceiling and the woodwork. The carpet men had come to measure upstairs. The floor men were sanding the dining room where for some reason a fancy oak floor had been laid over the old heart pine, which needed only a fresh coat of polyurethane.

Michael had checked out the chimneys himself from the roof. The wood-burning fireplaces of the library and the double parlor were all in good condition with an excellent draft. The rest of the hearths had long ago been fitted for gas, and some of them were sealed. It was decided to change the heaters to the more attractive kind which looked like real coal fires.

Meantime the appliances in the kitchen had all been replaced. The old wooden butcher-block countertops were being sanded. They would be varnished by the end of next week.

Rowan sat cross-legged on the parlor floor with the decorator, surrounded by swatches of brilliant-colored cloth. It was a beige silk she chose for the front room draperies. She wanted something in darker damask for the dining room, something that would blend with the faded plantation murals. Upstairs, everything was to be cheerful and light.

Michael went through books of paint chips, choosing soft peach tones for the lower floor, a dark beige for the dining room which would pick up a major color in the murals, and white for the kitchen and pantries. He was soliciting bids from the window cleaners, and from the companies which cleaned chandeliers. The grandfather clock in the parlor was being repaired.

By late Friday morning, Beatrice’s housekeeper, Trina, had purchased all new bedding for the various upstairs rooms, including new down pillows and comforters, and the linens had been packed with sachets into the armoires and the dresser drawers. The duct work had been completed in the attics. The old wallpaper was down in Millie’s room and the old sickroom and Carlotta’s room, and the plasterers had almost completed the proper preparation of the walls for fresh paint.

The burglar alarm system had also been finished, including smoke detectors, glass protectors, and buttons to summon emergency medical help.

Meantime, another crew of painters was at work in the parlor.

The only flaw in the day perhaps was Rowan’s noontime argument by phone with Dr. Larkin in San Francisco. She had told him she was taking an extended vacation. He felt she had sold out. An inheritance and a fancy house in New Orleans had lured her away from her true vocation. Clearly her vague statements as to her purpose and her future only further inflamed him. Finally she became exasperated. She wasn’t turning her back on her life’s work. She was thinking in terms of new horizons, and when she wanted to talk about it with him, she’d let him know.

When she got off the phone, she was exhausted. She wasn’t even going back to California to close up the Tiburon house.

“It chills me even to think of it,” she said. “I don’t know why I feel so strongly. I just don’t ever want to see the place again. I can’t believe I’ve escaped. I could pinch myself to know for sure that I’m not dreaming.”

Michael understood; nevertheless he advised her not to sell the house until a certain amount of time had passed.

She shrugged. She’d put it on the market tomorrow if she hadn’t already rented the place to Dr. Slattery, her San Francisco replacement. In exchange for an extremely low rent and a waiver of deposits, Slattery had cheerfully agreed to box up everything personal in the house and ship it south. Ryan had arranged for warehouse storage.

“Those boxes will probably stay there unopened,” she said, “for twenty years.”

At about two on Friday, Michael went with Rowan to the Mercedes-Benz dealer on St. Charles Avenue. Now this was a fun errand. It was in the same block as the hotel. When he was a kid walking home from the old library at Lee Circle, he used to go into this big showroom and open the doors of the stunningly beautiful German cars and swoon over them for as long as he could get away with it before a salesman took notice. He didn’t bother mentioning it. The fact was, he had a memory for every block they passed, everything they did.

He merely watched with quiet amusement as Rowan wrote out a check for two cars—the jaunty little 500 SL two-seater convertible, and the big classy four-door sedan. Both in cream with caramel leather upholstery, because that is what they had there on the floor.

The day before, he himself had picked up a neat, shiny, and luxurious American van, in which he could stow anything he wanted, yet still speed around in comfort and ease with the air-conditioning and the radio roaring. It amused him that Rowan did not seem to find the experience of buying these two cars to be anything remarkable. She did not even seem to find it interesting.

She asked the salesman to deliver the sedan to First Street, drive it in the back carriage gates, and drop the keys at the Pontchartrain. The convertible they would take with them.

She drove it out of the showroom and up St. Charles Avenue, to a crawl in front of the hotel.

“Let’s get out of here this weekend,” she said. “Let’s forget about the house and the family.”

“Already?” he asked. He had been dreaming of taking one of the riverboats for the supper cruise tonight.

“I’ll tell you why. I made the interesting discovery that the best white beaches in Florida are less than four hours from here. Did you know that?”

“That’s right, they are.”

“There are a couple of houses for sale in a Florida town called Destin, and one of them has its own boat slip nearby. I picked up all this from Wheatfield and Beatrice. Wheatfield and Pierce used to go to Destin at spring break. Beatrice goes all the time. Ryan made the calls for me to the real estate agent. What do you say?”

“Well, sure, why not?”

Another memory, thought Michael. That summer when he was fifteen and the family drove to those very white beaches on the panhandle of Florida. Green water under the red sunset. And he’d been thinking about it the day he drowned off Ocean Beach, almost an hour exactly before he met Rowan Mayfair.

“I didn’t know we were so close to the Gulf,” she said. “Now, the Gulf is serious water. I mean like the Pacific Ocean is serious water.”

“I know.” He laughed. “I know serious water when I see it.” He really broke up.

“Well, look, I’m dying to see the Gulf.”

“Of course.”

“I haven’t been in the Gulf since I was in high school and we went to the Caribbean. If it’s as warm as I remember it—”

“Yes, that is definitely worth a trip.”

“You know, I can probably get somebody to bring the Sweet Christine down here, or better yet, buy a new boat. Ever cruise the Gulf or the Caribbean?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I should have known after I saw that house in Tiburon.”

“Just four hours, Michael,” she said, “Come on, it won’t take us fifteen minutes to pack a bag.”

They made one last stop at the house.

Eugenia was at the kitchen table, polishing up all the silver plate from the kitchen drawers.

“It’s a joy to see this place come back,” she said.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it?” said Michael. He put his arm lightly around her thin shoulder. “How about moving back into your old room, Eugenia? You want to?”

Oh, yes, she said she’d love to. She’d stay this weekend, certainly. She was too old for all those children at her son’s house. She was screaming too much at those children. She’d be happy to come back. And yes, she still had her keys. “But you don’t never need no keys around here.”

The painters were working late upstairs. The yard crew would be there until dark. Dart Henley, Michael’s second in command, gladly agreed to oversee everything for the weekend. No worry at all.

“Look, the pool’s almost finished,” Rowan said. Indeed, all the patchwork inside had been done, and they were applying the final paint.

All the wild growth had been cleared from the flagstone decking, the diving boards had been restored, and the graceful limestone balustrade had been uncovered throughout the garden. The thick boxwood had been taken out; more old cast-iron chairs and tables had been discovered in the disappearing brush. And the lower flagstone steps of the side screen porch had been uncovered, proving that before Deirdre’s time it had been open. One could once again walk out from the side windows of the parlor, across the flags, and down and onto the lawn.

“We ought to leave it that way, Rowan. It needs to be open,” Michael said. “And besides, we have that nice little screened porch off the kitchen in back. They’ve already put up the new screen back there. Come, take a look.”

“You think you can tear yourself away?” Rowan asked. She tossed him the car keys. “Why don’t you drive?” she asked. “I think I make you nervous.”

“Only when you run lights and stop signs at such high speeds,” he said. “I mean, it’s breaking two laws simultaneously that makes me nervous.”

“OK, handsome, as long as you get us there in four hours.”

He took one last look at the house. The light here was like the light of Florence, on that score she had been right. Washing down the high south façade, it made him think of the old palazzi of Italy. And everything was going so well, so wonderfully well.

He felt an odd pain inside him, a twinge of sadness and pure happiness.

I am here, really here, he thought silently. Not dreaming about it any longer far away, but here. And the visions seemed distant, fading, unreal to him. He had not had another flash of them in so long.

But Rowan was waiting, and the clean white southern beaches were waiting. More of his wonderful old world to be reclaimed. It crossed his mind suddenly that it would be luscious to make love to her in yet another new bed.

Thirty-six

THEY RODE INTO the town of Fort Walton, Florida, at eight o’clock after a long slow crawl out of Pensacola. The whole world had come down to the beach tonight, bumper to bumper. To press on to Destin was to risk finding no accommodations.

As it was, the older wing of a Holiday Inn was the only thing left. All the money in the world couldn’t buy a suite at the fancier hotels. And the little helter-skelter town with all its neon signs was a mite depressing in its highway shabbiness.

The room itself seemed damned near unbearable, smelly and dimly lighted, with dilapidated furniture and lumpy beds. But then they changed into their bathing suits and walked out the glass door at the end of the corridor and found themselves on the beach.

The world opened up, warm and wondrous under a heaven of brilliant stars. Even the glassy green of the water was visible in the pouring moonlight. The breeze had not the faintest touch of a chill in it. It was even silkier than the river breeze of New Orleans. And the sand was a pure surreal white, and fine as sugar under their feet.

They walked out together into the surf. For a moment, Michael could not quite believe the delicious temperature of the water, nor its glassy, shining softness as it swirled around his ankles. In a strange moment of circular time, he saw himself at Ocean Beach on the other side of the continent, his fingers frozen, the bitter Pacific wind lashing his face, thinking of this very place, this seemingly mythical and impossible place, beneath the southern stars.

If only they could receive all this, and hold it to their breasts, and keep it, and cast off the dark things that waited and brooded and were sure to reveal themselves …

Rowan threw herself forward into the water. She gave a slow, sweet laugh. She nudged at his leg with her foot, and he let himself tumble down into the shallow warm waves beside her. Going back on his elbows, he let the water bathe his face.

They swam out together, with long lazy strokes, through gentle waves, where their feet still scraped the bottom, until it was so deep finally that they could stand with the water up to their shoulders.

The white dunes down the beach gleamed like snow in the moonlight, and the distant lights of the larger hotels twinkled softly and silently beneath the black star-filled sky. He hugged Rowan, feeling her wet limbs sealed against him. The world seemed altogether impossible—something imagined in its utter easiness, its absence of all barriers or harshness or assaults upon the senses or the flesh.

“This is paradise,” she said. “It really is. God, Michael, ho

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 618