A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [31]
Charlie and Rolph lie together under a palm tree. Charlie disdains the red Danskin one-piece she chose with her mother for this trip and decides she will borrow a pair of sharp scissors from the front desk and cut it into a bikini.
“I never want to go home,” she says sleepily.
“I miss Mom,” Rolph says. His father and Mindy are swimming. He can see the glitter of her swimsuit through the pale water.
“But if Mom could come.”
“Dad doesn’t love her anymore,” Rolph says. “She’s not crazy enough.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rolph shrugs. “You think he loves Mindy?”
“No way. He’s tired of Mindy.”
“What if Mindy loves him?”
“Who cares?” Charlie says. “They all love him.”
After his swim, Lou goes in search of spears and snorkeling gear, resisting the temptation to follow Mindy back to their room, though clearly she’d like him to. She’s gone bananas in the sack since they left the tents (women can be funny about tents)—hungry for it now, pawing off Lou’s clothes at odd moments, ready to start again when he’s barely finished. He feels tenderly toward Mindy, now that the trip is winding down. She’s studying something at Berkeley, and Lou has never traveled for a woman. It’s doubtful that he’ll lay eyes on her again.
Rolph is reading in the sand when Lou arrives with the snorkeling equipment, but he puts aside The Hobbit without protest and stands. Charlie ignores them, and Lou wonders fleetingly if he should have included her. He and Rolph walk to the edge of the sea and pull on their masks and flippers, hanging their spears from belts at their sides. Rolph looks thin; he needs more exercise. He’s timid in the water. His mother is a reader and a gardener, and Lou is constantly having to fight her influence. He wishes that Rolph could live with him, but the lawyers just shake their heads whenever he mentions it.
The fish are gaudy, easy targets, nibbling at coral. Lou has speared seven by the time he realizes Rolph hasn’t killed a single one.
“What’s the problem, Son?” he asks, when they surface.
“I just like watching them,” Rolph says.
They’ve drifted toward a spit of rocks extending into the sea. Carefully they climb from the water. Tide pools throng with starfish and urchins and sea cucumbers; Rolph crouches, poring over them. Lou’s fish hang from a netted bag at his waist. From the beach, Mindy is watching them through Fiona’s binoculars. She waves, and Lou and Rolph wave back.
“Dad,” Rolph asks, lifting a tiny green crab from a tide pool, “what do you think about Mindy?”
“Mindy’s great. Why?”
The crab splays its little claws; Lou notes with approval that his son knows how to hold it safely. Rolph squints up at him. “You know. Is she the right amount of crazy.”
Lou gives a hoot of laughter. He’d forgotten the earlier conversation, but Rolph forgets nothing—a quality that delights his father. “She’s crazy enough. But crazy isn’t everything.”
“I think she’s rude,” Rolph says.
“Rude to you?”
“No. To Albert.”
Lou turns to his son, cocking his head. “Albert?”
Rolph releases the crab and begins to tell the story. He remembers each thing—the porch, the stairs, “Number three”—realizing as he speaks how much he’s wanted to tell his father this, as punishment to Mindy. His father listens keenly, without interrupting. But as Rolph goes on he senses the story landing heavily, in a way he doesn’t understand.
When he finishes talking, his father takes a long breath and lets it out. He looks back at the beach. It’s nearly sunset, and people are shaking fine white sand from their towels and packing up for the day. The hotel has a disco, and the group plans to go dancing there after dinner.
“When exactly did this happen?” Lou asks.
“The same day as the lions—that night.” Rolph waits a moment, then asks, “Why do you think she was rude like that?