Margaret lay by the pool in the hot midaftemoon sun. She could hear cars whizzing past on the expressway and thought that the sound had become part of the inside of her head—the whirring rush of California. How unlike New York’s din, the jolting stop and start, loud screechings of brakes, howls from irate drivers, obscenities and laughter and screams of terror and joy punctuating the daily ritual. She missed the excitement of it, but the steadiness of California’s zipping pace was probably soothing under the circumstances. It wasn’t every day one’s daughter sat perched on the edge of a heart transplant.
It’s really my doing, she thought. I encouraged it, I pushed her. Walter might have even dropped the whole thing and let Sharlie drift off into death. He’d fought so hard for her all these years—maybe he was finally just too tired.
But there was Brian, too, of course. She had a partner in guilt there, and that was comforting. Someone else who refused to let Sharlie die in peace, who nagged and prodded and cajoled until the poor girl had to give in just for a few minutes’ respite. Margaret knew that while she lay there listening to the low buzz of cars speeding past, Sharlie heard the hum of voices—do it, do it, reach out—so you’re tired, tired of pain, tired of fighting, tired of trying. Force yourself this one last time—have to, for me, for us, for mother, for Brian, if you love us … Hummmmm.
Margaret was frightened. More terrified than she had ever been in her whole life, but it was different terror this time. She’d always been afraid. Afraid of her father, afraid of Miss Newhouse, afraid of doctors and servants and waiters and even children. Maybe even especially children, because she always thought that with their own special antennae they knew about her. Nothing was hidden from the round, penetrating eyes of a child. There was never any chance of hiding from Sharlie, of course, but she was always a frighteningly perceptive creature.
Margaret sighed and rolled over, enjoying the sudden heat baking her back. She pulled herself up on her elbows and surveyed the pool area. One other person, a young man, a boy really, probably about sixteen years old, in one of those tiny bikini bathing suits that shows every bulge.
He was cleaning the pool with an elongated butterfly-net contraption, and as he slowly swept along the surface of the water, the long muscles in his arms rippled and his body glistened in the reflection of the turquoise liquid. No hair on his body at all—or perhaps it was so blond it just didn’t show.
The boy was intent on his work, and Margaret decided he wouldn’t bother looking at a postmenopausal, decrepit old wreck like herself. So she loosened her bathing-suit straps carefully. Just as she tucked them between her breasts, she looked up to see the boy staring at her with hungry admiration. She was startled, she could only stare back at him foolishly while the whirring noise from the expressway intensified to a roar in her ears. Finally the boy dropped his eyes and walked back toward the motel. But as he turned, Margaret saw the minute rayon swimsuit straining with the boy’s erection. For one moment she wondered how the young brown hands would feel on her breasts, if they would be soft and gentle.
Through her sun-baked sensations of guilt and sardonic self-contempt, Margaret realized she had never before allowed her waking imagination to consider a sexual encounter. After all, she was an old lady already. And yet … and yet … the boy had stared at her so ravenously. His bathing suit could barely contain all that youthful lust.
Suddenly the old anger surfaced like a silver blade, slicing up into her conscious mind. Walter had gradually killed that precious part of her over the years, with his heavy body suffocating her, trapping her beneath his pounding hips, all her tender dreams of romantic kisses ground into the sweaty sheets as his teeth pressed against her mouth and he crashed into her most secret, sensitive center, intruding with pain and scraping heat. She had known he wanted to please her. He always used to ask how it had been for her, and she would say, “Fine. It was fine.” But after a while he didn’t ask her anymore. He would come to her bed occasionally, an uninvited gate-crasher who had spoiled the party for her for the rest of her life.
Would those young brown hands feel cool on her burning skin?