21

It was useless to run—Susan understood that now. She was safe, for the moment, here in the country. (It wanted her in town; otherwise why resurrect Tara and Harriet to lure her back?)

Susan decided to remain at the hotel and wait.

She dined that evening in the hotel dining room, choosing a table far off in one corner overlooking the pond. She searched the darkness for the ducks but saw only the black, unbroken surface of the water. The room itself was charming (a little solace in that). The furniture was uniformly wicker from the twenties. (“Lou, at least ask your mother if she wants to get rid of the wicker chaise.” “You know her—if I ask, she’ll carry it over here herself, on her back, and lay it at the feet of her sacred daughter-­in-­law.” “So? Sounds good to me.”) Scenes from her past played out in her mind as Susan waited for the waitress to bring her dinner. (“Say Grammy, Andrea. Say Grammy.” “Grammy.” “She did it, Susan! She called me Grammy!”)

There were few diners in the room—a middle-­aged couple with a younger man, finding difficulty in conversation, a mother and daughter arguing quietly (did mothers and daughters always argue? Would she and Andrea?), a single man, youngish, across the room in another corner. He glanced briefly at Susan and then away.

She ate heartily (it amazed her that in the midst of horror she was voracious—a learned Jewish response to horror?).

And then, bloated and sleepy, she decided to circle the pond before going to bed.

Halfway around it, she saw the shadowy figure of a man coming in her direction. She turned, hurrying back to the hotel, but his stride was longer and he caught up to her.

“Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”

She looked at him in the spillover light from the hotel porch and recognized the young man from the dining room. The one who had glanced at her. (She had seen the look; brief though it was it had the edge of interest in it.)

“Yes, it is.”

“I hope I didn’t frighten you, coming out of the shadows like that. I was walking around the pond.”

“Yes, so was I.”

“Until I showed up,” he smiled and in the light of the porch she saw that his smile, like the rest of his face, was handsome.

“I just decided it was too far to walk.”

They went inside and he extended his hand toward her.

“Bowen Jessup, or, as my friends call me, the creeper. Sorry I frightened you.”

“You didn’t. Really.”

“I’d rather I did,” he said, the boyish smile back in place. “That way I’d owe you a nightcap.” He indicated the hotel sitting room, which was empty.

“Not tonight, thank you. I really am too tired.”

“Tomorrow, then,” he said, as if it were settled. “Sleep well, whatever your name is.”

“Susan Reed.”

“Sleep well, Susan Reed.” And he left her and took a seat, reaching for a yachting magazine on a coffee table in front of him.

Susan climbed the flight of stairs to her room, her cheeks burning slightly at the encounter. It had been years since anyone had tried to pick her up; she hadn’t realized she missed it.

She lay on her bed fully clothed, thinking about the young man (at least five years her junior, perhaps more). She enjoyed the way he’d accepted her refusal—his matter-of-­factness about it, even to a hint of rudeness in the way he sauntered away, readily accepting the company of a magazine when denied hers. Quite a cock-­of-­the-­walk, this Bowen Jessup.

And quite attractive.

She argued silently with herself. (“I’m not sleepy, not now. Why not go downstairs and have a drink?” “Jesus, Susan, can you really think of anything like that now?” “Why not? All rules are suspended in times of calamity.”)

Her doubts won, as they always did, and wearily (robbed of an adventure that might have distracted her, at least for a while) she undressed and went to bed.

The phone woke her in the middle of the night.

“Are you feeling any better now?” Tara’s voice asked.

“What do you want? Why won’t you leave me alone?” Susan pleaded sleepily.

“How can I do that? I’m your friend. I want to help you.”

“My friends are dead. You killed them.”

“No, Susan, you’ve got it all wrong. Please, honey, let Harriet and me talk to you.”

“Harriet’s dead.”

“No, she isn’t. She’s right here with me. Hold on, you can talk to her.”

A hesitation and then—“Susan? Honey, it’s Harriet.”

“You’re despicable.”

“She’s doing it again. Susan . . .”

“Don’t call me any more or I’ll have the phones removed. I’ll go somewhere where there are none. Don’t call me again.”

And she hung up.

The next morning, Susan sought out Bowen Jessup. (She awoke furious: furious at Lou for having forsaken her; furious at the thing for using Tara and Harriet the way it did; furious at a world wherein such wretched abuses were possible.)

She inquired at the desk (he was not in the dining room for breakfast) and was told that he had gone out for a drive but was expected back.

Following his example, Susan got in her car and drove. Hardly noticing her surroundings (she thought only of him, of what might happen between them, of what she might allow to happen) she returned to the hotel in time for lunch.

He was there, at his same table.

“Good afternoon,” Susan said, walking up to him brazenly. “I’ll have that drink now, if you don’t mind.”

He smiled, sure of himself. “How about lunch first?”

“I’d love it.” She sat opposite him.

(She recalled, momentarily, that she had been the aggressor with Lou, too, years before.)

They chatted (it was easy with him, he was a master at seduction, Susan decided) about many things, mostly him. Bowen Jessup (the Third, he admitted as if it were in itself amusing) was a stockbroker, single, taking a brief holiday from New York City before settling down to take charge of some troublesome merger of his brokerage house with another (she could barely follow that part of it).

He had, until recently, been living with a black high-fashion model, over whom he and his family (“Bowen Jessup the Second?” she had asked. “No, that was Granddad. The current patriarch is Winston Jessup.” “How appropriate,” and she had laughed) had several scenes, the most recent being the night before he left town.

The holiday, then, was a flight (like hers) from troublesome responsibilities.

“What about you, Susan Reed?” Bowen said, refilling her wineglass. “Are you going to remain a woman of mystery, or will you tell me something about yourself?”

“Where shall I start?” And she felt the warmth and fuzziness of the wine hit, blessedly. (An afternoon of distraction; a moment off from the inevitable.)

“Why not with your wedding ring?”

Susan glanced down at it and instantly decided to create a character for herself. Better to hide within someone else, for a while, before being called back (literally) to who she was and what she faced.

“The last vestige of my widow’s weeds,” she lied, killing Lou (a tinge of old, familiar guilt).

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. It’s been a while. I’m over it,” and she spun her fantasy, all the while looking nervously into Bowen’s startlingly blue eyes. She was, to him, an artist, having just finished a mural (why not? it was her fantasy), needing to get away, to renew herself. She was unattached (fair game, she could almost hear him think) and could return to town any time she tired of her whim to see colonial America.

Having thus established themselves (she wondered if he, too, were lying), their conversation turned to art, of which Bowen knew a great deal, theater, of which he knew surprisingly little, and eventually, not surprisingly, to love. (She recalled a dozen such conversations in her past; the young men had always led her to their beds by way of talking of past affairs.)

“I never did fully understand my feelings about Hannah” (his high-­fashion model). “I suppose we lived with each other for a lot of wrong reasons.”

“Such as?” And Susan sipped the port he insisted they order.

“Outraging the system, for one thing. You should have seen Winston Jessup’s face when I brought her home for the weekend.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, anything you’d imagine is wrong. He didn’t even flinch. Just took it all in his stride. Both he and Mother were utterly charming the whole time. Charming and witty and on the verge of complete hysterical tantrums, which, as I knew they would, exploded after we’d gone. I received a letter from dear old Dad, well, more a document than a letter . . .”

Susan wondered at the age of this man whose parents’ approval was still important to him (as hers weren’t? she chided herself).

“In it, he decreed that if I wanted to squander myself on someone unbecoming a Jessup, he and Mother would accommodate by no longer considering me one. Nice, huh?”

“To the point.” And Susan decided on thirty. “What did they say when you told them you and Hannah had split up?”

“Nothing. I haven’t told them. Our affair was none of their business, our breakup isn’t either.”

Perhaps thirty-­five.

They finished their glasses of port and Bowen suggested they take that overdue walk around the pond. They did, and by the halfway mark, Bowen had placed his arm around Susan, who thought perhaps he was in his late thirties after all.

They spent the better part of the afternoon together, walking, a brief drive to a local antique store, back to the hotel and a game of cards. Then they agreed to dine together that evening and Susan went upstairs to her room to do battle with herself.

There was no doubt that she wished to spend the night with Bowen, no doubt and little surprise. (She had never before been unfaithful to Lou; it had not even occurred to her, except in flights of self-­indulgent fantasy.) But here it was. And the guilt (there was guilt, but in her disoriented state, it seemed far off, as if it belonged to someone else—someone she had once been?) faded. She bathed, slowly, luxuriously, looking at her body as if she had not seen it in a long time, dreamed as she lay in the hot water of what kind of lover Bowen would be (she promised herself to go through with it). Then, still damp, she slid beneath the bed’s covers and tried to nap.

In the warm, vague moments before she fell asleep, she smiled at the thought that there was still pleasure possible, even in these times.

And in his room, Bowen picked up his phone and spoke without dialing.

They made love that night, if indeed you could call it that. (Susan did not.) Suddenly and violently, Bowen was inside her. And just as suddenly, he withdrew. His animal thrusts were painful; he seemed instantly aroused, quickly sated.

She lay there, still winded from the attack (it was more an attack than a sexual act) remembering other times, long ago, when such things had happened to her. But they were at the hands of inexperienced boys, too excited to function normally; this was different. Failure of this sort from a grown man was unexpected and frightening.

“I’m sorry,” he said, from the darkness next to her.

“That’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t. And I am sorry.”

“Bowen, we hardly know each other. You can’t expect either of us to be at our best.”

“You’re very kind, and at the risk of sounding like a fool, I’d like to say that nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”

“Really? You’re lucky. It happens to me all the time.” She tried to lighten his mood.

“You are kind,” and he kissed her gently. “I promise, it won’t happen again.”

Susan was suddenly embarrassed and suggested they leave his room and have a game of Scrabble in the sitting room below.

They dressed but before they were out the door, his phone rang.

Bowen answered it casually enough, although Susan thought she saw a hint of hesitation in his manner.

“Yes?” he said, turning his back to her.

Susan stood there, by the door, uncertain of whether to remain or precede him out.

“Hi . . . that’s right . . . uh-­huh. . . .”

It was awkward standing there, trying not to eavesdrop, aware that Bowen was answering in monosyllables, his back to her on purpose.

“All right . . . yes, do. Goodbye.” He hung up the phone.

As he turned to her, Susan was sure she did see a look of discomfort on his face.

“That was Hannah,” he said, and for the moment she believed him.

And Lou and the guilt, each more real now, returned.

They played Scrabble for over an hour, nearly finishing a bottle of anisette that Bowen ordered. And when, finally, he defeated her (she was delighted, it meant they could stop playing), Susan could barely get to her feet.

“Good heavens,” Bowen said, taking her arm, “are you as drunk as all that?”

“I guess I am. Anisette isn’t my drink.”

“Want some air?”

“Yes, please.” And she stood there, unmoving.

“Want me to bring it to you?”

Susan laughed and followed him outside.

The air was cool and it brought her around.

“I am sorry. You must think I’m some kind of dipsomaniac.”

“Tomorrow night we’ll stick to wine.” He walked with her toward the black pond, arm around her waist.

“Susan, can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“Will you spend the night with me?”

She didn’t answer at first, remembering the clumsiness and painfulness of his lovemaking.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much good at it,” she said. “Not after all that anisette.”

“Just sleep next to me. I promise, I won’t ask any more.”

There was an air of defeat about him at that moment that Susan assumed was embarrassment over his premature orgasm.

“I warn you, I snore,” she said.

“So do I.” And he steered her toward the hotel.

Bowen was a man of his word, Lying there next to him, hearing him snore relentlessly, Susan felt the warmth of his body, and the loneliness which had plagued her for so long ebbed.

The next morning Susan awakened to find Bowen’s lips on hers.

“What are you doing?” she asked groggily.

“I’m a morning person.” His hand cupped her breast.

They made love and it was better this time. But still not good. Bowen was gentle with her and in control, but if anything, he had moved too far in the other direction. His lovemaking seemed emotionless to her, forced in its restraint, lacking all spontaneity.

When it was finished (the chore done, Susan felt) he turned to her.

“Better?” he asked.

“Perfect,” she lied.

They breakfasted on the road, Bowen anxious to do some heavy-­duty sightseeing—and see the sights they did. He had found out about Sturbridge Village and they spent several hours in the reconstructed colonial village, marveling at everything, spending much too much money on artifacts and souvenirs that would shortly be uninteresting. Then a search of the area for antique shops, boutiques, country stores. Bowen seemed obsessed with his quest for the charming and unusual, and Susan, exhausted, followed at his heels, the perfect female “good sport.”

It was after four in the afternoon that her patience and her feet gave way.

“Whoa, no more,” she said.

“Just the candle shop in Brearly and then back to the hotel,” he said, in charge behind the wheel.

“Bowen, I’ve got a right foot that’s definitely in some kind of trouble and a left I’m sitting shivah for.”

“What’s sitting shivah?”

“It’s a Jewish wake, which is what you’ll be at if you don’t get me back to the hotel.”

“Two minutes in the candle shop?”

“Two days at my wake?”

“Spoilsport.” And he turned the car around.

They arrived at the hotel after five, in darkness, and Susan declined Bowen’s offer of (almost insistence on) a glass of port, agreeing to meet him in the dining room for dinner in an hour. (She pleaded for seven-­thirty and lost.)

Upstairs, she showered, hoping it would wake her (it didn’t), lay down for a while, got up, dressed, cursed the fact that she was involved with a grown boy scout who viewed his trip (and now, hers) as one extended hike, and went downstairs to the dining room.

“Bubbly?” Bowen lifted a bottle of champagne and filled her glass as she sat down.

“Champagne? What are we celebrating?”

“Each other.”

She felt an immediate guilt; whatever Bowen felt for her, she didn’t reciprocate. It wasn’t the sex—that could be overlooked, overcome. No, the simple, cruel fact was that she was using this young man. Using him to assuage her fears, to revenge herself upon Lou, to distract herself.

This new role, that of selfish wanton, was as dissatisfying to her as the old one, the “little woman.”

“That’s very sweet, Bowen,” she said, and, lifting her glass she added, “To you and to your finding what you want.”

“I think I just did,” he answered, smiling.

Guilt upon guilt.

They ate a celebratory dinner (Bowen had ordered in her absence game hens à l’orange and all the possible trimmings) and finished the champagne.

Susan’s head spun from the sweetness and the alcohol.

“Two brandies,” he told the waitress.

“No, really, Bowen, I’ve had enough to drink.”

“Brandy’s good for you. Settles the stomach.”

“It would take a Mack truck to do that.”

“Two brandies.” And the waitress left, envying Susan her strong companion.

They chatted. (Bowen chatted. Susan sat there, obediently staring at his mouth and sipping the brandy, feeling worse.)

Afterward, over the Scrabble board, she felt distinctly nauseated and mentioned it.

“Anisette will cure that.” Bowen signaled for the proprietor.

“God, Bowen, the one thing I don’t need is another drink.”

“Trust me. Anisette is used in commercial preparations as a stomach tranquilizer.”

“How do you know that?”

“I come from a long line of alcoholics. Dear old Winston bends the elbow every night from six to eleven and Mother’s right there, keeping up with him. There’s nothing about the properties of hard liquor I don’t know.”

Despite herself, Susan agreed to the anisette and dutifully sipped it, encouraged, if not forced, by Bowen.

Mercifully the Scrabble game was a short one.

“Feel any better?” Bowen asked, arranging the tiles in the box.

“Not really. I think it’s the sack for me.”

“Nonsense. A little drive in the night air will fix you up.”

“I don’t think so. . . .”

“Susan, trust me. Ten minutes in the cool night air and you’ll feel like going dancing.”

“Dancing? God, Bowen, give an old lady a break and let me crawl into my bed.”

“Just ten minutes.”

“Not tonight.”

“Please? Ten minutes and then I promise, you won’t see me until dawn tomorrow. Please?”

She acquiesced grudgingly, out of guilt (he wanted her company so much more than she his), and shortly found herself in the car, both nauseated and exhausted. The combination of the day’s activity and the liquor had been overwhelming. Had Bowen set out to make her ill on purpose he could not have done a better job.

“Lean back and close your eyes,” Bowen said as they drove along a dark road. “A little nap will fix you up.”

She did, and soon fell into a deep sleep.

Waking (she had no idea how long she’d slept), Susan found that they were driving on a deserted highway. “Where are we?”

“Hey, sleeping beauty, you’re up.”

She glanced at the dashboard clock and saw that it was after one.

“My God, why didn’t you wake me?”

“I ran out of dynamite. By the way, you do snore.”

“Yes, I know. Where are we?”

“On the way to the hotel. I got us lost for a while till I stumbled onto the Massachusetts Turnpike, God bless it. Incidentally, who’s Tara?”

“What?”

“You also talk in your sleep.”

“I do?”

“Yes, indeedy.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, you rambled on for quite a while. You seemed to be having an argument with her. Who is she?”

“Just a friend,” Susan answered, disturbed. She had not been aware that she talked in her sleep; it had never happened before, to her knowledge. But why would Bowen invent it?

A feeling of dread, as yet far off, stirred in her.

“Can we have some music?” she asked, to avoid the subject.

Bowen complied and they drove without speaking.

She wondered why this revelation that she talked in her sleep was so upsetting to her. It was like finding out a new facet of one’s personality that had always been apparent to others—a quirk one didn’t like.

She glanced over at Bowen, whose face was set now in a look of utter concentration. What was he thinking about?

She shivered slightly and wished they would get to the hotel soon. She would sleep alone tonight. Tomorrow night as well. This thing with Bowen was getting out of hand. He was controlling her against her will—the endless shopping expedition, the countless glasses of wine and anisette, and now, this unwanted drive. She was better off alone.

“Unhappy?” Bowen asked.

“Groggy, that’s all.”

“Take another nap.”

“Won’t we be back soon?”

“There’s time for a nap.”

Again, his unsolicited advice. Susan leaned her head against the car window, rolling her resentment around in her mind like a newly found thought, examining all sides of it. Bowen, Lou, Yuri, her father, all men were so free with their unasked-­for advice to women. So damned dominating. If women did it, they were castrating. With men, it was their sovereign right. Their maleness. She thought back on the night she had met Bowen, his insistence that she have a drink with him, his annoyance that she refused. Would he have felt that way if she were another man? No, surely not.

Feminism über alles, she thought wearily, closing her eyes.

And the dread started to surface.

Two days of being manipulated by Bowen were enough. She had left one dominating male only to find another. No, none of them were any good to her. Not now. Now she was too weakened to fight them off, too abused to pay the price for their protection. If they could protect her from the thing that wanted her.

Two women had tried to protect her. They were both dead. Soon she would be, too.

She opened her eyes against the thought and looked over at Bowen. His face was still hard-­edged in concentration. What was he thinking about?

“A penny for your thoughts,” she said.

He smiled immediately, hiding whatever they were. “Nothing in particular.”

“Come on, tell.”

“All right. I never met a woman who talked in her sleep before. I was just wondering about it.”

“Why? Does it make me bizarre?”

“No more than usual.”

“Very funny.” I don’t talk in my sleep, she thought.

“I knew a chap who did at Princeton. I always thought it was a male phenomenon.”

“Sexist. We women are allowed all the perversions these days. Haven’t you heard?”

Princeton? Hadn’t Bowen said he went to Yale?

“So I’ve noticed.”

Susan glanced out the window and saw the black woods beside the highway, the darkened houses far off, now and then a lighted window, another car on another road.

He did say he went to Yale. She remembered wanting to ask him if he knew an old friend of hers; she hadn’t because of the possible age difference. (It was important, then, to hide the fact that she was older than he.)

Bowen was lying. But why? Had he, like her, invented himself?

Again she stared out the window at the highway, deserted now except for them.

“What about that nap?” Bowen said.

“Not in the mood.”

“Suit yourself.” Was that irritation in his voice?

“We’ll be back soon. I can wait.”

“We’re still a way off.”

She saw the roadside reflectors beside the car, passing quickly, too quickly. She glanced over at the speedometer. Seventy.

“You’re going to get a ticket.”

“You want to get back to the hotel quickly, don’t you?”

“Another minute or two won’t matter.”

“As you wish.” He eased up on the accelerator.

It was irritation in his voice.

Susan continued to stare out the window, herself growing irritated at his imagined assault on his dominance. His sacred male dominance.

A mileage sign read 97. Ninety-­seven miles to what?

The music on the radio was saccharine; she leaned over and changed the station.

Ninety-­six. Then, in a very short time, ninety-­five. She glanced at the speedometer again. Seventy-­five.

Yes, he would have to speed up again. That was what Lou would have done. Painfully predictable.

Why had he lied about Princeton? Yale, Princeton, what was the difference?

Ninety-­four.

The dread welled up.

Why were they in the car at all? Why hadn’t he let her go to her room when she complained of feeling ill? Why that look on his face, sitting there behind the wheel, petulant and preoccupied?

A sign up ahead caught Susan’s eye. She waited until they drew close enough for her to read it.

Hudson. Catskill.

She recalled having passed those towns on her swing into Massachusetts. Before reaching the turnpike.

The dread, fully realized now, caught her unaware and she found herself out of breath.

They weren’t on the Massachusetts Turnpike as he had said. This was the New York Thruway. Just ninety-­three miles from New York City, where the thing with Tara and Harriet’s voices waited for her.

Waited for Bowen to bring her to it!

As if in agreement, a small sign flashed by her window.

South.

Her mouth dry, still breathless, Susan closed her eyes, feigning sleep, trying to plot against the messenger beside her.

Of course—that was why Bowen was incapable of making love; incapable of any show of tenderness.

She had to get out of the car.

Again, the signs tried to help her.

Gas. Food. Two miles.

“Can we stop up ahead?” she tried and succeeded in sounding casual.

“Hungry?” the messenger asked.

“No, dear. Much more basic.”

They drove in silence except for the lush music coming from the radio. Then, up ahead, she could see the service station and restaurant pull off.

“Would you get coffee while I freshen up?” She attempted coyness to cover her fear.

“Uh-­huh,” the messenger said.

They pulled into the parking lot. Bowen turned off the ignition, putting the car keys into his right jacket pocket.

They crossed the dark empty lot together.

No other cars in which to escape.

Inside the ladies room, Susan tried to think. She could run to the woods, ask the gas attendant for help, the waitress, the manager.

But no, she needed the car.

His right jacket pocket.

Bowen was at the cash register with two containers of coffee when she reached him.

“Light with sugar, right?” He handed her a Styrofoam cup.

“Yes.” She uncapped it. There was steam coming from the hot liquid. Good.

She held it in her right hand and let her left hand brush against his jacket.

“What about brownies, big spender?” she said. “Can we have two of them?”

As the cashier, tired and forlorn, reached for them, Susan let her fingers dip into the messenger’s pocket.

“What are you doing?” He looked down at her hand as it closed around the keys.

She screamed, in part to release the impossible tension she felt, in part to catch him unaware.

She hurled the hot coffee into his face and started to run toward the revolving door, the keys digging into her palm.

As she reached the car, she could see him coming out of the restaurant, running toward her.

“Susan!” he screamed at her. “Don’t do this!”

She locked the doors from the inside and fumbled with the keys, trying to insert the right one into the ignition.

“Susan, let me talk to you!” The messenger was at the door, trying it.

One key refused entry. She tried another.

“Susan, please let me explain. You’ve got it all wrong.”

The key, the right one, slid into its slot and she pumped the gas pedal.

“Susan, for God’s sake, don’t do this!”

He was pounding at the window, trying to break it.

“Listen to me! Just listen to me!”

She shifted into drive.

“I’m trying to help you, don’t you know that?”

As she sped away, she saw the messenger in the rearview mirror, cursing and stamping his feet.