Green Ice (14 page)

Friends—a few she actually knew—came and stayed a night or as long as a month. They nearly always left something behind on purpose. A chair, a painting, a dish, depending upon whether they’d come on foot or wheels. Someone left a broken hi-fi that someone else fixed. Records collected: Dylan, Hendrix, The Stones, Moby Grape, The Who.

Penny’s
.

It became a place for guys on their way to Canada instead of Vietnam. A safe stop for Weathermen on the run. Wanted young men whose photographs, full-face and profile, were displayed in post offices all over the country. They sat, sipped rosehip tea and predicted violence. The thirty million of the right age would rise up together when the day came.

Vietnamization? What a laugh that was.

But then the war was over, and things changed. The movement started going apart, scattering. Even some of the ones who had been most fervently involved mustered themselves out.

Fewer and fewer people came by Lillian’s farm in Bethel. Those who did had selfish destinations.

Lillian left the farm, just left it for anyone.

She went back to New York City. Found an extremely radical couple she’d once known running a spice-and-herb store on Ninth Street. Camomile tea for three-fifty a pound. Jesus. A girl who’d once ripped off some dynamite from a construction site had a boutique on Christopher Street and was hoping to do well enough to eventually move uptown. Another girl was overjoyed at having been accepted into a well-known dance group. The way she talked, she’d been deprived till then.

There were no more crash pads. Doors were closed, triple-locked. You could stay only if you could pay.

Not everyone was like that, of course, but too many.

Lillian sat on the steps of St. Mark’s Church and tried to cope with her disappointment. What the hell had happened to the revolution? Had the war been the only thing worth bitching about? Nixon was still in the White House. The Pentagon was still feeding the fat cats. The system was still fucking everybody over, every which way.

Remember Flower Power?

It was impossible that the cause had been that shallow. The revolution wasn’t, couldn’t be over. Shit, she was just getting her dander up.

She hung around the Village for a week. Thought about getting into Women’s Lib but knew, no matter how widespread or active it got, it wouldn’t provide the stimulation she was used to. She considered going to Boston or San Francisco to see if things were better there.

Instead she took a subway uptown. The Lexington local. Got off at Fifty-first, walked over to Park to the new Mayo Building.

Executive offices, thirty-seventh floor.

The receptionist had reason to be dubious.

Lillian was wearing a black cowboy hat, a floor-length full-skirted cotton dress, a brown velvet jacket she’d bought third-hand last year. Ankle-high, lace-up work shoes. And she was carrying her bedroll.

It took three hours for Lillian to convince them. Her fingerprints were proof. The head of the Mayo legal department said it was fortunate she’d shown up. In another three days she would have been declared legally dead.

They arranged for a suite of rooms at the Regency.

Next day she went shopping for everything, had her hair done at Cinandre. Felt foolish—and beautiful.

She met her father for dinner at “21.” He embraced her twice when she arrived at the table. He was a slightly older version of the man in her memory. As they talked she noticed a humility about him that hadn’t been there before. Inconsistent, but it seemed sincere. He didn’t appear strained, laughed wryly when he informed her he wasn’t married “at the moment.”

It came out, however, that he was emotionally and financially debilitated. In three days he would have been allowed to dip as deep as he wanted into the Mayo fortune. Her immediate reaction was that it served him right; he had unmade his own bed. She might have stuck with that opinion seven years ago but couldn’t now. What the hell, if it made him happy, he should have a different affair or wife every week. As for money, she had more than they could ever spend. She promised straight out to see that he had an ample account to draw from. No need to alter his life-style. His eyes watered. Over coffee he told her about an incredible girl he’d met last month at a disco.

Since that day Lillian had tried to adjust. Having money wasn’t difficult, but not having a cause was miserable.

She was quickly bored by most things, places. Cap Ferrat—at her villa there, everything was too predictable. The same applied to Paris, the Algarve, London. There were times when she longed for danger—the enterprising balance it took to live on the edge of it. She had fantasies of causing riots. Couldn’t tolerate New York City anymore. From the window of her apartment on Fifth Avenue she could see the Sheep Meadow—but only kites, Frisbees, baby carriages and ball games now. She’d bought the house in Mexico City, hoping to get away from the United States in a less conforming way. For old times and to break the monotony, she frequently hitchhiked anywhere.

However, it had occurred to her that only the rich could be poor when they chose.

Being too much in the company of people such as those in Las Hadas caused her to get what she called “the crazies.” To counteract those spells, she had devised the room, adequately reminiscent of that sixth-floor walkup she had shared with Charity.

Wiley hadn’t said a word in nearly three hours. Each time Lillian stopped talking, he’d used silence to get her started again.

He was sitting on the foot of the mattress, little more than a reach from her. The madras spread had fallen from her shoulders. Her head was lowered so that her face was hidden by the fall of her hair.

“I’ve only told bits and pieces of it before,” she said.

A privilege, Wiley thought.

“I feel lightheaded.” She presented her face to him. “How do I look?”

Pale, he thought, but that could be the light. Dawn was under way outside, coming in around the brown wrapping paper that served as a shade for the only window. “Perhaps you didn’t get enough sleep,” he said.

“I’m not at all sleepy.”

“Neither am I.”

She smiled, and he realized what he’d taken for paleness had been strain. She stood suddenly, arched her back to stretch it. The tank top, which was all she had on, barely reached her waist. “Let’s get out of this old place,” she said and walked by Wiley, who let pass the opportunity to reach out for her. He followed into the bedroom. She paused, glanced at the bed, decided.

“Last one in has to make breakfast,” she said.

Childish, but it was certainly a woman who got a head start, ran out of the bedroom and down the hall. Bare feet smacking the tiled floor, long legs churning, her behind tightening left and right. She took the stairs down recklessly four and five at a time.

Wiley noticed her tank top on the bannister below. His sense of direction led him out to the pool area. There she was, about a hundred feet away, standing on the edge, poised to dive. No contest. He might as well just enjoy the sight of her.

But as he went closer, she remained as she was. Purposely, it seemed. Same attitude she’d displayed when they’d swum practically nude on that divided beach. Remote and, at the same time, offering.

He was close enough now for a chance to beat her into the water. He casually stepped out of his peasant
pantalones
, as though he’d either conceded or forgotten her challenge. She faked a springing motion. He dove past her.

The water was freezing cold.

He came to the surface spewing, making suffering sounds.

“The heater is being fixed,” she explained innocently.

Wiley was tempted to get revenge with some splashes.

She sprang and did a neat slicing dive, came up breathing hard but without a complaint. “Think how cold the water is in Iceland,” she said. “By comparison this is tropical.”

“Bullshit.”

“Try thinking about it that way, it helps.”

He kept treading for circulation, putting his tongue between his teeth so they wouldn’t chatter. “It’s practically boiling.”

“By comparison,” she reminded him.

They swam eight lengths. Then went into the enclosed cabana to dry off with oversized towels. Wiley was surprised his wound hadn’t started bleeding again. He caught Lillian’s look on him. She didn’t take it away, not immediately.

The cabana was equipped to be independent of the main house. There were two couches, double deep, more like giant chaises. Lillian lay back in one, her head and shoulders propped against several pillows, legs up and straight out on the seat, but crossed. Wiley sat on the edge of the couch opposite. He very much wanted a cigarette, but didn’t want to risk spoiling the moment. After all, she could have chosen to cover with a towel.

“Okay, loser, what’s for breakfast?” he asked.

She invited him with her arms.

He went across to be in them. They held, pressed against each other full length. They didn’t kiss immediately, saved the kiss, were cheek against cheek, each hearing the other’s breath.

Every movement of his hands was discovery. The finer texture of her skin, the way each part of her made a nice transition to the next, the way her sides became her breasts. He skimmed her surfaces, matching the shapes of her with the flat or curve of his hands. Here and there his fingers kneaded gently, wanting to feel beneath her surface, the definition of her hips, the back wings of her shoulders, collarbones and their sockets, rib-cage symmetry, the ladder of her spine. When he placed his hand on her left breast, the heel of his hand received the beating of her heart, the crisp racing of it. Nothing extraordinary. Everyone had a heart. But hers, like all else about her, was miraculous.

In only minutes he knew more of her body than he ever had of anyone’s. And there was so much more to know.

In that same time her hands, not reluctant, did glides and squeezes for herself. It pleased him that she was able to take without pretending it was mainly to please him.

She claimed him.

He parted her.

He wanted it to be unusually good for her, a time mark. He would rely upon technique, he thought. There, just then, she responded with a tightening as he touched a certain way, place. He would return precisely there, to that. He went on, gathering more to go on, becoming increasingly confident he would be able to please her. But he had to contend with himself, the crowding already in him. Her hands on him—could he block out that those were her hands? He had to take her hands away, as much as he didn’t want to, the way they insisted.

She pulled him over onto her. Reached down and found herself with him, pushed upward to have it entirely.

She started coming almost at once. An exceptional, drawn-out come. Unaware of the sound like a note that came from her, long held and sort of painful.

He just did manage to keep going. Until stopped by her when that was how she wanted it, all in, not even a suggestion of out.

He remained still, had to.

“Don’t hold back,” she whispered. But he was now in control enough not to believe that, and in another moment she told him, “More.”

They didn’t have breakfast until nearly noon. Lillian prepared it, while Wiley sat at a counter in the spacious kitchen. The cook wasn’t anywhere about, nor were any of the other servants. Perhaps Lillian had given them the day off, or perhaps they were somewhere in the huge house, knowing that now was one of those times they should keep out of sight.

“Want sausage?” Lillian asked.

Wiley was ravenous.

She told him: “Actually you shouldn’t eat meat.”

“I don’t see how vegetarians exist.”

“I look unhealthy?”

Hardly. Wearing a pair of white silk-satin shorts, styled after the sort a serious runner would wear. A matching top with the number 10 on its back. High-heeled sandals that made the most of her legs. Wiley reminded himself that he had to eat.

“The lesbians in Paris keep their lovers half starved,” she said, “so they always have an appetite.”

“I need meat,” he told her.

“Not really.”

“For stamina.”

She gave that a thought and got sausage from the refrigerator. She fried it along with a four-egg omelette.

Observing her, Wiley thought she was playing house. She wouldn’t enjoy such things if she had to do them, despite the picture of domesticity she’d drawn when she’d told him of the way she’d been on that farm in Bethel.

But she agitated the frying pan with authority to have the sausage links brown evenly, folded the omelette at just the right moment and slid it with a flourish onto his plate.

He dug in.

She spread his napkin for him, as though commenting on his table manners. While he ate she set up a large wicker tray. On it she placed a bowl of deep red plums, black African grapes, tiny tangerines, a tin of Carr’s water biscuits and various cheeses such as creamy Tilsit, Tybo and Brie. A dish of fresh raspberries, nuts mixed with Mannouka raisins. Sections of lady peppers sprinkled with sea salt, a pair of fine crystal goblets and three bottles of Mouton-Rothschild ’65. As an afterthought, a box of Oreo cookies.

“What else do you want to do today?” she asked.

“What’s today, Monday?”

“Could be.”

“It’s up to you.”

“Hopefully,” she arched. She picked up the heavy tray and wouldn’t let him carry it upstairs.

They were in bed or, if not entirely in it, around it all that afternoon and night. Without too much erotic trickery she tapped a reservoir of loving in Wiley he hadn’t known was there. It seemed he couldn’t get enough of her, nor she of him, although time after time they experienced extreme satisfaction. He would lie there, feeling delightfully depleted, unable to want to move a muscle. All she had to do was kneel up and push her hair back, or walk to the bathroom, or unconsciously wet her lips, to start him again.

Between times, after after-naps, they ate from the tray she’d prepared and talked, about things such as the United States.

Wiley said he was disappointed in his country. It had disappointed him. Land of opportunity, bullshit. He’d never go back.

In a different way it had disappointed her. A whole revolution had deserted her.