Cloud Nine

  I reached for the turnbuckle that held up one of the beds, but suddenly she burst into tears. “Well what the hell?” I snapped. “What have I done, what is it?”

  “I thought you loved me.”

  “...Well, I guess I do, but—?”

  But at that she just wailed like a banshee, with tears squirting out of her eyes, first rocking on her feet, then flopping into a chair, where she buried her face on her sleeve and went on with the crying jag. I snapped, “Hey, cool it! And answer me what I asked you: What have I done?”

  “Putting me in by myself.”

  “Well where do you think you should go?”

  “With you, of course.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “Listen, I’m going to be your wife!”

  “But you can’t sleep with me now—not in your condition. You were the one that said it, it would just be messy. We have to wait till Tuesday.”

  “I know it, but I could be with you!”

  “I’d give my eye teeth to be with you, but—”

  “And I could inhale how you smell.”

  “That sets me nutsier than anything.”

  “And me nutsiest of all—but I want it.”

  She wept a bit more, then mentioned that the bedroom had twin beds, “Which won’t help much,” I said.

  Then, wailing, she said: “But I was hoping you’d protect me.”

  “From what? Nobody knows we’re here.”

  “From what’s going to happen to me.”

  “But nothing’s going to happen to you.”

  “Oh yes, something is.”

  What she was talking about I hadn’t the faintest idea, but I had a pretty good idea it wasn’t about anything—that it was just a bugaboo she’d made up, to make me say yes, that we’d stay in the bedroom together. By then I was kneeling beside her, first patting her, then giving her little slaps on the cheek, which she didn’t seem to mind. Then she rubbed her cheek against mine and smeared me with her tears. Then she kissed me. Then she took off the wig, unpinned the knot of hair on top of her head and let the curls fall on my face. Then she poked a hole in them with her finger and kissed me through the hole. Then she got up, put her bag on a chair, and said: “I put two nighties in, one fresh back from the laundry, the other, the one I slept in all week. Which one do you want me to wear?”

  “The one you slept in all week.”

  “I thought you would.”

  She took both bags into the bedroom and undressed, so she was naked, but without turning on the light. Then she opened her bag and took out a nightie, holding it out to me. I smelled it and she put it on. She whispered: “I’m glad you like how I smell. I love how you smell, Mr. Kirby. Get undressed. But don’t put pajamas on yet. I want to smell under your arms.”

  “Sonya, you’re making it tough.”

  “I love you, that’s why.”

  I undressed down to my underpants, and she came and sniffed my chest, sliding around to my armpit. I said: “That’ll do, that has to be all.” She stepped back and I got my pajamas out, peeling off price tags and labels. I slipped out of my underpants, then put them on. She stood watching, then turned down a bed and got in it. I turned down the other and got in it. She came over and slipped into bed beside me. I said: “Know what’s going to happen to you?”

  “You’re kissing me nice, that’s what.”

  “That’s right, and the—!”

  I kissed her, doubled up my legs, put both feet on her bottom, and pushed her out on the floor. “Well that’s nice,” she said; “I’ll say it is, that’s nice.”

  “You git! You git in your own bed.”

  She knelt by her bed and bawled even louder than she had in the sitting room. I said: “You can howl your head off and you don’t get back in this bed. Keep it up and I’ll blister your backside.”

  She kept it up.

  I rolled out of bed and blistered her. She stopped howling, sniffled, and said: “Okay—now that I know you love me.” I don’t figure that one out.

  We lay there some little time, she in her bed, I in mine, her hand occasionally finding my hand, where it lay outside the covers, and patting it. She excited me though, just having her there in the dark near me, and it seemed impossible I’d ever drop off. I must have, though, because suddenly I came wide awake, from some kind of scream in my ear. When it came again, I realized it was from her. Then I realized she was dreaming. I jumped up, shook her, and then shook her again. She woke up, saying: “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

  I whispered: “Easy does it, you’re having a dream.”

  “Oh!... I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Is that what you were afraid of?”

  “I have that dream every night, that same horrible one. I’m in Prince Georges General Hospital, in the delivery room, giving birth. I have awful pain, but the child comes at last—it’s over. Then the nurse is going to bring it, but I say I don’t want to see it. But she says I have to, it’s the rules. And then she brings it, squirming around and covered with blood. And it’s a gorilla.”

  She called it goriller.

  I told her: “Now, now, now! Calm down—it was only a dream, and I’m here. Go to sleep—there won’t be any gorilla, they’re taking it from you Tuesday. Then it’ll all be over. So, relax.”

  “Okay, I’m trying to.”

  “You’re a sweet, wonderful child.”

  “Now we can go back to sleep.”

  After a long time her breathing slowed, then got deeper, so I knew she’d fallen asleep. I went back to my bed, but didn’t sleep right away. I kept thinking about what it meant, in under her little jokes, about food, about her father’s dumbness, about the love my blistering proved, to have this thing inside her. And if I had been chosen, as the instrument of her deliverance, I felt I was consecrated, somehow.

  Chapter 10

  WHEN I WOKE UP the sun was shining in, and when I looked she was sitting there, in the chair, all dressed, in plaid shorts, blouse, red socks, and tennis shoes, the wig on, her face made up, and wobbling her finger at me.

  I said “Good morning” and she said “Haya,” and when I asked what time it was, she said eight-fifteen. I said I’d get up if she’d take herself off, but refused to do it with her sitting there. She asked: “But aren’t you taking a bath? Don’t you want me to scrub your back?”

  I said I could scrub my own back, and that she could wait in the lobby, “where I’ll join you all in due time.” To my surprise she agreed, and went.

  I got up, shaved, bathed, and dressed, and when I went down, found her next to the dining room door, waiting. I thanked her for being so sensible, and she said: “Okay, but I’m hungry.” I once said she was born hungry, and she said, “You’re only young once.”

  So we went in and ordered, and she had melon, cornflakes, three fried eggs and bacon, toast and coffee—but I loved watching her eat. I had my usual, orange juice, two eggs and bacon, toast, and coffee.

  When we were done I said, “So! Let’s get our shopping done, your wedding dress, engagement ring, wedding ring, and beach outfit—so long as we have an ocean, we ought to do something about it.” I also thought: The more we sit by the sea, the more we don’t sit in that suite, hankering to do things we’re not permitted to do.

  So we strolled out on the boardwalk, walked down a few steps, came to a shop with clothes in the window, went in, and began buying her stuff. For a wedding dress, she picked out a white linen suit, with white hat, white gloves, white shoes, white stockings, and white bag—and the woman who waited on us, the proprietress as it turned out, found a yard of lace, white lace twelve inches wide, for a veil. Sonya borrowed needle and thread, and “tacked” it, as she called it, to the hat. Then she tried it on and crumpled me up by how she looked, the veil over her face. Then she took the hat off and pinned the veil up, so she could wear it without the veil showing, and at the same time drop it down whenever she wanted, just by pulling the pins. The lady packed the whole outfit into a box that she did up in ribbons.


  Then we went on to beachwear. Sonya picked out a bikini, yellow with red lacing, yellow beach shoes, and a red beach cap. Then for me she picked out blue trunks, beach shoes, and a duck hat. Then I picked out robes for us both, and a beach blanket. That all called for another box, so then we had two, one for her to carry, one for me. It all came to $275, and I gave the woman a check, first showing my credit card. She disappeared to phone, though what she’d find out I couldn’t think, as it was Saturday and the bank would be closed. But it turned out she had her own system. We heard her call Information and ask for my number. Then we heard her say: “Yes, both numbers, please”—and realized that for free she’d found out I was listed as Graham Kirby, Residence, and Graham Kirby, Inc., Real Estate—a pretty good credit reference.

  She came back all smiles and put my check in the register. We asked for a jewelry store, and she directed us to one.

  But then annoyance set in. Sonya picked out two rings, one for our engagement, a diamond solitaire, and a wedding ring, platinum with chasing cut in it. The tab was a bit over $1,000, but the jeweler shook his head. “Sir,” he said, “your card entitles you to five hundred dollars’ credit, but beyond that it’s Saturday and I have no way to check—the amount is too large for me to take a chance on. Monday, if you’ll come in, I’m sure we can work something out.”

  I drew breath to explode, but Sonya said: “Please, please, forget it—they have jewelry stores in Rockville, and we can pick up my rings there.”

  As we went trudging back to the motel, I was growling like a bear, and she joined in in her own way: “He’s a bastard, a creep, and a crumb, but let’s not let him ruin our day.” Pretty soon, not wanting to, I had to laugh, and we were happy again. When we arrived once more in our suite, I opened the box full of things, and we went in the bedroom to dress.

  She made it touch, of course, parading around with no clothes on, and laughing at me when I turned my back to put on my trunks. Still, she got into her bikini, hat, and shoes, and I got into my trunks, shoes, and hat, and both of us put on our robes. Then I picked up our beach bag and blanket, and we went downstairs. Beach clothes are allowed in Ocean City lobbies, not in Atlantic City or Rehoboth. We left our key at the desk and went out to the beach. It was filling with people and the guards were coming on duty, as it was after twelve o’clock. We had forgotten a beach umbrella, but the boardwalk cast a shadow and we sat in it awhile, first spreading the beach blanket. Then she wanted to sunbathe, so we moved out in the glare.

  “Now,” she said, “you have to rub me with lotion, and then of course I’ll rub you.” She had taken a bottle from the beach bag and handed it to me. So with her, if it wasn’t one thing it was something else, and with her pointing to all sorts of intimate places, and saying: “No, not up and down, circular.” And the thoroughness with which she rubbed me was really a thing to remember.

  Pretty soon I said: “I think it’s time we went in.”

  “Back? To the room? So soon?”

  “To the ocean. For a swim.”

  “Oh! Then okay.”

  We kicked off our beach shoes, and I tossed my hat on the blanket. Then we went hand-in-hand to the surf, which was just the least bit high, as a sea breeze was coming in. But she was expert at going through it. First, she waited until a wave smashed down at her feet, then waded out in the wash to brace for the next one, standing sidewise, her arms in the air. But she was just a bit further out than the spot where it would crest, so when it came it rocked her, but didn’t smash her down. As soon as it passed she leveled out and started to swim. By the time the next one came, she was out past the whitecaps. I did exactly as she did, not too successfully, alas. One comber knocked me down, and I was a minute or two getting out to where she was swimming. She grabbed my hand and gave it a shake. Then she started swimming with me, side by side.

  First we swam with trudgen strokes, then on our backs, floating. It gives you a funny sensation, as all you can feel is the lift of the swells, as they raise you and lower you down, and all you can see is the sky.

  She looked up, pointed, and asked: “See that?”

  “...That cloud?”

  “Cloud nine—where we’ll be Tuesday night.”

  “It’s quite a handsome cloud.”

  “Mr. Kirby, I could be happy with you.”

  “...Tuesday will tell the tale.”

  “Could you be happy with me?”

  “We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “I’m’n do my best to make you.”

  That’s what she said, I’m’n, meaning, I suppose, “I’m going to.”

  I told her: “All’s fair in love or war.”

  “That’s it, I’m’n try.”

  We began swimming again, still on our backs, but headed out to sea, and the further we went, the longer the swells got, and the smoother they were. It was us and the sea and the sky, as though she and I were suspended in wet eternity. I thought about God, the second time I had, around her. Then cutting the air came a whistle. She cocked her head up, waved, and blew a kiss. I turned in time to see the lifeguard blowing a kiss, and waving at her to come in. I asked: “Since when did you get so chummy with him?”

  “Oh he’s cute.”

  “And when did this intimacy start?”

  “He was watching, while you were smearing me up.”

  “Observant little cuss.”

  We swam in, and at a certain point she looked behind her. Then she stretched out flat, and she rode it as though on a surfboard. It carried her in to the sand, where she dug in with her hands and then pulled her feet up. Then she was staggering clear.

  I tried to copycat, and got washed a few feet toward shore. I stood up only to be smashed down on my face, in a mix of gravel and water, as a wave flattened me. I stood up and it happened again. Next thing I knew, she had me by the hand and was pulling me out.

  “You’re fighting it—you mustn’t do that. You have to go along with it.”

  “I’ll remember that, next time.”

  “We better shower, before the salt cakes on.”

  She put on her shoes, put mine on me, and rolled up the beach blanket. When we climbed up on the boardwalk, the guard was disagreeable to her. “Hey, smart guy,” he called, “There’s sharks out there, you know.”

  “Oh, they’re nothing but fish.”

  She tossed it off very saucy, and if there was any trace of the twenty-five-year-old woman, with slightly graying hair, that she had been the night before, I couldn’t see it myself. In her red cap and yellow-and-red bikini, she looked like what she was, a sixteen-year-old brat with a shape to write home about.

  “That’s right,” the lifeguard said, “but they’re hungry fish, and the thing they’re fondest of is a good-looking chick, all white meat.”

  “Oh my, you’re making me nervous.”

  “I hope I’m getting through.”

  “Okay, now I know.”

  “Dad, can I date her up?”

  “...Well, that would be up to her.”

  “ What do you mean, up to me?” She ripped it, in a kind of a scream. And then, to him: “He’s not inny Dad, he’s my husband!”

  “You got to be putting me on!”

  “You heard me, my husband!”

  We put on our beach robes, and I heard him mumble, “Is that a lucky son of a bitch.” We went in the lobby, picked up our key at the desk, and went on up to the suite. We were hardly inside when she yelled: “Is that all I mean to you? That it’s up to me if I date?”

  “That’s all—date any time you please.”

  “Well thanks. I’ll remember that.”

  “Date and stay dated, for good!”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Means that guy didn’t ask for a date, all on his own think-up—he got encouragement, plenty.”

  “Says who?”

  “Goddam it, I saw you blow him a kiss!”

  “You call that encouragement?”

&nb
sp; “What do you call it, for instance?”

  I guess there was more, anyway till she had the beach robe off, and slipped out of her bathing suit. I fired one at her bottom that went off like a pistol shot. She laughed, wrapped me in her arms and kissed me. When we went in the bedroom it was all done up, and my five dollars, that I’d left for the maid, was gone. “Okay,” I said, “let’s wash off the salt—then get dressed. In separate rooms.”

  Her answer was to unbuckle the belt of my trunks, strip them off, and pull off my shoes. That left us with nothing on, except that she still wore her cap. She laughed and sicked her finger at me, especially my male anatomy. She had told me quite a few times “we had it in sex education,” and yet it seemed to excite her, partly I think from plain adolescent curiosity.

  I said: “All right, let’s get it over with,” and she took me by the hand, leading me to the bathroom.

  She led me to the tub, and when we had both stepped in, dropped the shower curtains and pulled them together. Then she turned on the water and adjusted to medium hot. Then, standing belly-to-belly with me, she held her face up, letting the water pour over it. “Nice?” she asked.

  “Would be, if it was Tuesday.”

  “It’s only three days off.”

  “Only? Only?”

  She dropped her head to my chest, and we stood there a long time, like Adam and Eve in the Garden. Then at last she turned off the water, took a towel, and dried me off, with care—a little too much care, I thought. Taking another towel, she dried herself off, and if you think I got out of the tub, you’re wrong. I just stood there, drinking her in. She was painstaking and thorough, in all kinds of intimate places, at last putting a foot on the side of the tub, to give it proper attention. She said: “First one little tootsie, then the other little—”

  But she never finished. The other foot slipped and she fell, in a loud flub-a-dub crash. I was over her in a second, lifting her, asking: “Little Sonya, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  “No, no! I’m all right!”

  “Lock your fingers back of my neck, so I can lift you!”