Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [131]
He called Marilyn that evening.
“God,” she said, “there’s no place more beautiful than this. It makes living in Cleveland seem foolish.”
“You didn’t think so when we lived here,” he said.
“Yes I did,” Marilyn said.
“Oh, come on, you were always going home.”
“I was younger. I was stupid. That doesn’t mean we have to compound the stupidity. We’re being stupid now, Sam. We could be happy here. Think of Chip growing up on the ocean.”
“You’d change your mind again. It seems wonderful now that it’s temporary.”
She was silent for a moment. “Actually, sweetie, if you remember, Chappie gave you the open door. You wanted to come home.”
“Can we stop talking nonsense?” Sheppard said.
There was static over the line that sounded like the sea. He could feel both their moods tumbling.
“Have you been busy?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Has it been good?” she said. “Being here?”
“Yes.”
“You should do it again.”
“I will.”
“I guess I’ll see you Sunday,” she said.
Hanging up, he believed he could break away.
He kept this in mind as they drove down Highway 1 that Saturday. He and Susan left in the afternoon, close to four.
This route would make the drive longer—a solid two and a half hours to La Jolla—but the weather was spectacular, the afternoon unseasonably warm, the sky wiped as clear as his mind. He was ready to tell her. Tonight. He was leaving tomorrow morning for Big Sur and plans had to be made. True, he could tell her now, but it was too pleasant to interrupt it with talk when you could be the engine’s submarine gargle and gentle tug of the curves, the dips that left your stomach hanging in the air, the approaching traffic that bobbed silently in and out of view and the brown cliffs, furred with patches of green bush and scrub grass, that climbed up from the road toward tall stands of pine. “Weather like this should last forever,” Susan said. He agreed and held her hand.
But by the time they arrived at the yacht club, a front had moved in and the utterly calm ocean reflected the last of the hazed sunlight. Only later would Sheppard consider how long it had been since they’d eaten. The reception had hors d’oeuvres aplenty but even more champagne, glass after glass after glass, and before he’d caught himself he’d moved on to gin. By chance, Susan knew several people in the wedding party from Cleveland, and she left his side almost immediately. Trapped in a long conversation with an ophthalmologist from San Francisco, he excused himself when he noticed rain spotting the windows. He’d left the top of the car down and hurried out to close it and then closed his eyes and breathed deeply as he stood still, listening to the masts of the moored boats clanging and whistling in the breeze. The rain was fitful, more mist than shower, but it had turned colder and this cleared his head enough for him to recognize that he was very drunk.
Coming inside, shocked at how loud and warm the room was, he now hurried to find Susan. He had a burning need to be alone with her, to tell her the things he’d been storing up, to say he was finally sure, but she was nowhere in the banquet hall. Not until he entered the main bar did he see her standing with a young man in the far corner of the room, laughing, her chin tilted up toward him, a drink resting in the fingers of both her hands. The man stood against the wall, calm and arrogant, basking in her undivided attention. He was dark-haired and sharp-featured like she was and he bent to her ear to tell her something about a guest he was pointing to, something that made her laugh and then grasp his wrist in agreement. The transparent bubble of intimacy that enclosed them nearly stopped Sheppard in his tracks, and when she turned and saw him, her eyes flashed.