The Cypress House(68)

They’d anchored the rowboat in the center of the inlet, and he managed to position the big boat close enough so that they could climb down into it. Rebecca was waiting in silence on the dock. Just as Arlen bent to the oars, Paul said, “Thanks for that, Arlen. I wanted to be on the water. It was special, you know?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure was.”


He waited no more than ten minutes after Paul had gone to bed before he went to Rebecca’s room. He paused in the hallway and looked at the two doors, set so close together. He could hear Paul still shifting in his bed when he knocked softly on Rebecca’s door and stepped inside, and she looked up with surprise. She was standing by the window.

He walked over and took her face in his hands and kissed her.

“I was going to come to your room,” she whispered.

“We can stay here,” he said, not in a whisper, and then he kissed her again, moving her toward the bed. She went willingly, but there was confusion in her eyes.

They kissed for a while. He moved roughly on the bed, shifting, banging the old wooden headboard off the wall, springs creaking beneath him.

“Paul will hear,” she whispered once.

He didn’t reply.

They’d shed their clothes and he’d rolled over on top of her when she pushed him back with her hands on his chest and looked at him knowingly.

“You want him to hear.”

“It’s not want,” he said. “It’s need.”

She hesitated and then nodded slowly. “I understand.”

They got back to the show then. She played her part well.





30


HE DIDN’T STAY LONG after they were finished. She watched as he dressed but said nothing. He gave her one silent look as he stood at the door, and then he opened it and stepped out into the hallway. It was dark and empty, and there was no sound from Paul’s room. He walked down the hall and opened the door to his own room and found Paul sitting in the chair by the window.

Neither of them spoke. Arlen shut the door behind him and leaned against it and waited. It was dark in the room, and he was glad.

“Of all the things to lie about,” Paul said, voice trembling, “you picked the dirtiest. Lying about my death, Arlen? Trying to scare me away with stories like that so you can have her?”

“Wasn’t a lie.”

“Yes, it was!” Paul came up off the chair, his hands clenched into fists. “It was a damned lie, and you said it because you want me to leave.”

Arlen didn’t answer.

“You bastard,” Paul said. “You lying old bastard. You knew how I felt. Sat there and listened to me tell you all about it like we were close, like there was trust between us. You heard it all, and then you went and took her.”

“She’s a woman,” Arlen said. “Not a boat. She can’t be taken or left at the whims of other people. Don’t think of her like that.”

“Don’t tell me how to think of her. You know how I think of her, and still you did this.”

Arlen folded his arms over his chest and stared at a shadow just over the boy’s shoulder.

“How long has it been happening?” Paul said. “Was this the first time?”

“No.”

“No!” he cried, and the genuine anguish in his voice slid into Arlen like a knife between the ribs. “So it’s been days of this? Days of it, and you haven’t had the courage to say a word? How much older than me are you, and you couldn’t be a man? You couldn’t say the truth?”

Arlen was silent.

“Then you lied,” Paul said, his voice softer but no less outraged. “You told me I was going to die, Arlen, told me I was going to be killed. That’s how you handle it? Instead of the truth, you tell me that?”

“That wasn’t a lie. It was just like on the train. You had—”

“Stop! Don’t tell me more of that; I can’t hear it again. None of it’s true. You’re crazy. You ought to be locked up somewhere.” His voice broke as he said, “And she picked you?”

For a moment Paul stood there as if trying to gather himself to continue speaking, but then he crossed the room in a rush. There was an instant in which Arlen thought the kid was going to hit him, and wishing for it. He’d gladly take the blows. Then he realized he was going only for the door, and moved aside as Paul shoved past him and into the hall, slamming the door behind him. The wall trembled with the force of it, and his footsteps echoed through the hall, and then another door slammed and it was silent.

Arlen found his flask and climbed into bed.


Rebecca woke him in the morning. She was standing beside the bed with her hand on his forearm, and when he opened his eyes she said, “He’s gone.”