Sea Glass_ A Novel - Anita Shreve [17]
“Found your shoe,” he says. “In the corridor outside my room.”
She puts a hand to her temple. “Mail it to me,” she says.
“I gather they had to carry Sylvia to her room.”
“Really? What was all that crying about at dinner, anyway?” The ocean smells like “beach” today, she reflects. It’s a certain smell of sea and sand and suntan oil.
“John’s got a girlfriend,” Dickie says. “He’s deliberately ignoring Sylvia. Finally had to tell him to cut it out. Man’s sadistic, if you want my opinion.”
“Funny, I don’t remember that part,” Vivian says. The surf, though it pounds, provides a comforting sound. Gulls, encouraged by a hapless child who is feeding them, swoop low over the sand.
“Daresay there are whole conversations you don’t remember,” Dickie says.
“You insolent shit,” Vivian says lightly.
“I am rather.”
Vivian smooths the skirt of her white linen dress. She puts her hands to her eyes. “What are we doing, Dickie?”
“Don’t know, Viv. What are we doing?”
“We’re behaving terribly. And we’ve only been here a day.”
“Isn’t that the point? To behave terribly? In the summer, I mean?”
“There has to be something better,” she says.
“Like what?”
“You have no imagination.”
“Possibly not.”
“Something that’s not such a waste. Not so self-indulgent.”
“We’re who everyone wants to be, Viv.”
“How sad,” she says, glancing out at the haze at the horizon. She loves diffuse light — light in which objects have no edges.
“Unbearably sad, really,” Dickie says. “You fancy a martini? Hair of the dog and all that?”
She digs her toes into the sand. “Go away.”
“Tea with ice?”
She shrugs. Dickie looks around for the waiter, catches his attention, and orders two iced teas. “About last night,” he begins.
Vivian puts a hand up. This is a conversation she doesn’t want to have. “Sorry to disappoint you, Dickie, but you’re not the first.”
He fingers a shell and begins to use it to scoop the sand between his legs. “Didn’t think so,” he says quietly.
“Nor the eighth either, if you want to know.”
He seems mildly surprised. “As bad as all that?”
“I’m afraid so,” she says.
“How come, Viv?”
She stretches her bare legs out and burrows her feet into the sand. “I’m twenty-eight. Twenty-nine in September. I’ve missed my chance.”
“Poppycock.”
“Besides,” she says, “I don’t believe in marriage.”
“Really not?”
“Name me a good one.”
He thinks a moment. “Jean and Eddie?”
“She’s a simp. Doesn’t count.”
Dickie ponders her question.
“See?” Vivian says.
“Brain’s not up to par this morning,” Dickie says. “You’ve had proposals, surely.”
“Oh God, yes,” Vivian says. And it’s true. She’s had dozens. Well, not dozens. Maybe six or seven. Two of them serious.
“You come across as hard-boiled,” Dickie says, “but I’m not sure you are.”
“Count on it,” she says.
“I have a girl,” he announces suddenly. “Actually, I’m engaged. To be married.”
A small jolt runs the length of Vivian’s spine, and she sits slightly forward. Dickie engaged? She monitors the shock. She ought to be upset. Furious, really. Should she act furious? But, oddly, Dickie’s announcement feels good, like diving into the ocean does. Painful at first and then refreshing.
She lowers her dark glasses and peers at the man beside her. “A small detail you forgot to mention yesterday afternoon, perhaps?” she asks.
Dickie looks away.
“I hope she’s liberal minded,” Vivian adds. “Who is she?”
“Someone I met in Havana,” Dickie says.
Vivian registers a small ping of jealousy and then a larger one of intrigue. Anyone in Havana is bound to be interesting. You can’t go to Havana and not be interesting. She lays her head against the canvas back of the chair, as if she might doze off.
“Not sure I love her, though,” Dickie says. “That’s the thing.”
“Don’t whine,” Vivian says. “I can’t stand a man who whines.”
Dickie throws the shell toward the water. “Just trying to explain about last night,” he says.
“Not loving someone is no excuse for being disloyal.”
“You believe in that, do you? Loyalty and vows and so forth?”
“Not sure,” she says.
“It was just