Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [103]
McDermott feels a hand on his shoulder. Vivian moves past his chair to another on the porch, Sandy trotting behind her. “Hey, doll,” she says, situating herself so that her face is visible to him.
“I didn’t know you were still here,” McDermott says, reaching down and scratching the back of Sandy’s neck. He takes his feet off the railing.
“I’m embarrassed to say I passed out on the couch,” she says, yawning slightly. “I saw a light and wondered who was out here.”
“Just me.”
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks.
“Not really.”
“Oh Lord, I’m a mess,” she says.
“You look fine to me,” McDermott says, and indeed she does. Vivian is always an expensive-looking package, all the bows neatly tied.
“I need my bed,” she says.
“I could walk you home,” he says.
She waves his gallantry aside. “I’ve got the beach wagon.”
“Beautiful night,” he says, leaning forward and offering her a cigarette. She takes one, bends for the light, and inhales. She removes a speck of tobacco from her lower lip.
“Been brooding about the universe?” she asks.
“Don’t know enough about the universe,” he says.
“How about your particular universe?” she asks.
“Not worth brooding about,” he says. “Want a drink?” He holds out the bottle of whiskey.
“I think I’ve overdone it already,” she says, putting a hand to her head.
“A wee one can’t hurt you,” he says.
“Hair of the dog?”
Even swigging from a bottle of whiskey, McDermott notes, Vivian is elegant in her gestures. She hands him the bottle back, and he takes another swig himself. “Are you all going back tomorrow night?” she asks. “Well, I guess by now it’s tonight, isn’t it?”
“I’m going back this morning,” McDermott says. “Early.”
“What’s the rush?”
“Things to do,” he says.
“Alphonse going with you?”
For once, McDermott hasn’t thought about Alphonse. The boy, having arrived at the house late into the weekend, will not want to leave. “No,” he says. “He’ll go back later with the others.”
“He liked that peach ice cream,” she says, smiling.
“He’s dreaming about it right now,” McDermott says.
Vivian laughs. She takes another pull on her cigarette, crosses her legs. “What do you dream about, Quillen McDermott?”
The question is so unexpected and so direct that for a moment McDermott cannot answer.
“No fair thinking about it,” she says. “You have to answer right away.”
“Whose rules are these?” he asks, stalling for time.
“My rules, of course.” She smiles, crinkling the few wrinkles at the sides of her eyes.
“Don’t remember my dreams,” he says.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
“I think you’re a deep one.”
“Don’t bet on it.”
He takes another drink and slaps a mosquito. Vivian never seems to get bitten, he has noticed. Must be something in her perfume. McDermott feels the booze going down, waits for the pain. He has to take it easy now; he’s had far more than enough already.
“What do you dream about?” he asks her.
“Oh, everything,” she says. “My Maggy Rouff gown. My Houbigant atomizers. My Van Cleef and Arpels sapphire-and-diamond bracelet. My room at the Plaza Hotel.”
He laughs.
“I’m serious,” she says.
“I know you are,” he says.
“Working on the newsletter has been a hoot,” Vivian says. “I wouldn’t trade an hour of the time I’ve spent here.”
“That’s pretty generous of you,” he says.
She bends conspiratorially toward McDermott. “Don’t tell Louis or Sadie, whatever you do, but I think I’m being indoctrinated,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Once you see the world the way Louis does — once you allow yourself to see it — it’s very hard to see it again the way you used to. My sort, I mean. We seem, well, despicable, really.”
“I don’t think you’re despicable,” he says.
“How come you don’t have a girl?” she asks. “A handsome guy like you.”
“I did have,” he says. “Last year. She left me for a bricklayer.”
“How sad,” Vivian says.
“Not really.”
In the moonlight, Vivian’s coppery hair is a dull metal that has lost its color. “Were you in love?” she asks.
“Thought so at the time,” McDermott says, lighting a second cigarette with the