Gerald’s Game

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

She ended up alone with her father at Sunset Trails on the afternoon of July 20th, 1963, for two reasons. One was a cover for the other. The cover was her claim that she was still a little frightened of Mrs Gilette, even though it had been at least five years (and probably closer to six) since the incident of the cookie and the slapped hand. The real reason was simple and uncomplicated: it was her Daddy she wanted to be with during such a special, once-in-a-lifetime event.

Her mother had suspected as much, and being moved around like a chesspiece by her husband and her ten-year-old daughter hadn’t pleased her, but by then the matter was practically afaitaccompli. Jessie had gone to her Daddy first. She was still four months away from her eleventh birthday, but that didn’t make her a fool. What Sally Mahout suspected was true: Jessie had launched a conscious, carefully thought-out campaign which would allow her to spend the day of the eclipse with her father. Much later Jessie would think that this was yet another reason to keep her mouth shut about what had happened on that day; there might be those-her mother, for instance-who would say that she had no right to complain; that she had in fact gotten about what she deserved.

On the day before the eclipse, Jessie had found her father sitting on the deck outside his den and reading a paperback copy of Profilesin Courage while his wife, son, and elder daughter laughed and swam in the lake below. He smiled at her when she took the seat next to him, and Jessie smiled back. She had brightened her mouth with lipstick for this interview-Peppermint Yum-Yum, in fact, a birthday present from Maddy. Jessie hadn’t liked it when she first tried it on-she thought it a baby shade, and that it tasted like Pepsodent-but Daddy had said he thought it was pretty, and that had transformed it into the most valuable of her few cosmetic resources, something to be treasured and used only on special occasions like this one.

He listened carefully and respectfully as she spoke, but he made no particular attempt to disguise the glint of amused skepticism in his eyes. Do you really mean to tell me you’re still afraid of AdrienneGilette? he asked when she had finished rehashing the oft-told tale of how Mrs Gilette had slapped her hand when she had reached for the last cookie on the plate. That must have been back in…Idon’t know, but I was still working for Dunninger, so it must have beenbefore 1959. And you’re still spooked all these years later? How absolutelyFreudian, my dear!

Well-Ill…you know…just a little. She widened her eyes, trying to communicate the idea that she was saying a little but meaning a lot. In truth she didn’t know if she was still scared of old Pooh-pooh Breath or not, but she did know she considered Mrs Gilette a boring old blue-haired booger, and she had no intention of spending the only total eclipse of the sun she’d probably ever see in her company if she could possibly work things around so she could watch it with her Daddy, whom she adored beyond the power of words to tell.

She evaluated his skepticism and concluded with relief that it was friendly, perhaps even conspiratorial. She smiled and added: But I also want to stay with you.

He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers like a French monsieur. He hadn’t shaved that day -he often didn’t when he was at camp-and the rough scrape of his whiskers sent a pleasurable shiver of goosebumps up her arms and back.

Comme tu es douce, he said. Ma j'olie mademoiselle. Je t'aime.

She giggled, not understanding his clumsy French but suddenly sure it was all going to work out just the way she had hoped it would.

It would be fun, she said happily. Just the two of us. I could makean early supper and we could eat it right here, on the deck.

He grinned. Eclipse Burgers a deux?

She laughed, nodding and clapping her hands with delight.

Then he had said something that struck her as a little odd even at the time, because he was not a man who cared much about clothes and fashions. You could wear your pretty new sundress.

Sure, if you want, she said, although she had already made a mental note to ask her mother to try and exchange the sundress. It was pretty enough-if you weren’t offended by red and yellow stripes almost bright enough to shout, that was-but it was also too small and too tight. Her mother had ordered it from Sears, going mostly by guess and by gosh, filling in a single size larger than that which had fit Jessie the year before. As it happened, she had grown a little faster than that, in a number of ways. Still, if Daddy liked it… and if he would come over to her side of this eclipse business and help her push…

He did come over to her side, and pushed like Hercules himself. He began that night, suggesting to his wife after dinner (and two or three mellowing glasses of vin rouge) that Jessie be excused from tomorrow’s “eclipse-watch” outing to the top of Mount Washington. Most of their summer neighbors were going; just after Memorial Day they’d begun having informal meetings on the subject of how and where to watch the upcoming solar phenomenon (to Jessie these meetings had seemed like ordinary run-of-the-mill summer cocktail parties), and had even given themselves a name-The Dark Score Sun Worshippers. The Sun Worshippers had rented one of the school district’s mini-buses for the occasion and were planning to voyage to the top of New Hampshire’s tallest mountain equipped with box lunches, Polaroid sunglasses, specially constructed reflector-boxes, specially filtered cameras… and champagne, of course. Lots and lots of champagne. To Jessie’s mother and older sister, all this had seemed to be the very definition of frothy, sophisticated fun. To Jessie it had seemed the essence of all that was boring… and that was before you added Pooh-Pooh Breath into the equation.

She had gone out on the deck after supper on the evening of the 19th, ostensibly to read twenty or thirty pages of Mr C. S. Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet before the sun went down. Her actual purpose was a good deal less intellectual: she wanted to listen as her father made his-their-pitch, and to silently root him on. She and Maddy had been aware for years that the combination living roorn/dining room of the summer house had peculiar acoustical qualities, probably caused by its high, steeply angled ceiling; Jessie had an idea that even Will knew about the way sound carried from in there to out here on the deck. Only their parents seemed unaware that the room might as well have been bugged, and that most of the important decisions they had made in that room as they sipped after-dinner cognac or cups of coffee were known (to their daughters, at least) long before the marching orders were handed down from staff headquarters.

Jessie noticed she was holding the Lewis novel upside down and made haste to rectify that situation before Maddy happened by and gave her a big, silent horselaugh. She felt a little guilty about what she was doing-it was a lot closer to eavesdropping than to rooting, when you got right down to it-but not quite guilty enough to stop. And in fact she considered herself still to be on the right side of a thin moral line. After all, it wasn’t as if she were hiding in the closet, or anything; she was sitting right out here in full view, bathed in the bright light of the westering sun. She was sitting out here with her book, and wondering if there were ever eclipses on Mars, and if there were Martians up there to watch them if there were. If her parents thought no one could hear what they were saying just because they were sitting at the table in there, was that her fault? Was she supposed to go in and tell them?

“I don’t theenk so, my deah,” Jessie whispered in her snottiest Elizabeth Taylor Cat on a Hot Tin Roof voice, and then cupped her hands over a big, goofy grin. And she guessed she was also safe from her big sister’s interference, at least for the time being; she could hear Maddy and Will below her in the rumpus room, squabbling good-naturedly over a game of Cootie or Parcheesi or something like that.

I really don’t think it would hurt her to stay here with me tomorrow,do you? her father was asking in his most winning, good-humored voice.

No, of course not, Jessie’s mother replied, but it wouldn’t exactlykill her to go someplace with the rest of us this summer, either. She’sturned into a complete Daddy’s girl,

She went down to the puppet show in Bethel with you and Will lastweek. In fact, didn’t you tell me that she stayed with Will-even boughthim an ice cream out of her own allowance-while you went into thatauction barn?

That was no sacrifice for our Jessie, Sally replied. She sounded almost grim.

What do you mean?

I mean she went to the puppet show because she wanted to, and she tookcare of Will because she wanted to. Grimness had given way to a more familiar tone: exasperation. How can you understand what I mean? that tone asked. How can you possibly, when you’re a man?

This was a tone Jessie had heard more and more frequently in her mother’s voice these last few years. She knew that was partly because she herself heard more and saw more as she grew up, but she was pretty sure it was also because her mother used that tone more frequently than she once had. Jessie couldn’t understand why her father’s brand of logic always made her mother so crazy.

All of a sudden the fact that she did something because she wanted tois a cause for concern? Tom was now asking. Maybe even a markagainst her? What do we do if she develops a social conscience as well asa family one, Sal? Put her in a home for wayward girls?

Don’t patronize me, Tom. You know perfectly well what I mean.

Nope,-this time you’ve lost me in the dust, sweet one. This is supposedto he our summer vacation, remember? And I’ve always sort of had theidea that when people are on vacation, they’re supposed to do what theywant to do, and he with who they want to be with. In fact, I thoughtthat was the whole idea.

Jessie smiled, knowing it was all over but the “shouting. When the eclipse started tomorrow afternoon, she was going to be here with her Daddy instead of on top of Mount Washington with Pooh-Pooh Breath and the rest of The Dark Score Sun Worshippers. Her father was like some world-class chessmaster who had given a talented amateur a run for her money and was now polishing her off.

You could come, too, Tom-Jessie would come if you did.

That was a tricky one. Jessie held her breath.

Can’t, my love-I’m expecting a call from David Adams on theBrookings Pharmaceuticals portfolio. Very important stuff…also veryrisky stuff, At this stage, handling Brookings is like handling blastingcaps. But let me be honest with you: even if I could, I’m not really sureI would. I’m not nuts about the Gilette woman, hut I can get along withher. That asshole Sleefort, on the other hand-

Hush, Tom!

Don’t worry-Maddy and Will are downstairs andiessie’s way outon the front deck…see her?

At that moment, Jessie suddenly became sure that her father knew exactly what the acoustics of the living room/dining room were like; he knew that his daughter was hearing every word of this discussion. Wanted her to hear every word. A warm little shiver traced its way up her back and down her legs.

I should have known it came down to Dick Sleefort! Her mother sounded angrily amused, a combination that made Jessie’s head spin. It seemed to her that only adults could combine emotions in so many daffy ways-if feelings were food, adult feelings would be things like chocolate-covered steak, mashed potatoes with pineapple bits, Special K with chili powder sprinkled on it instead of sugar. Jessie thought that being an adult seemed more like a punishment than a reward.

This is really exasperating, Tom-the man made a pass at me sixyears ago. He was drunk. Back in those days he was always drunk, huthe’s cleaned up his act. Polly Bergeron told me be goes to AA, and-

Bully for him, her father said dryly. Do we send him a get-wellcard or a merit-badge, Sally?

Don’t be flip. You almost broke the man’s nose-

Yes, indeed. When a fellow comes into the kitchen to freshen his drinkand finds the rumdum from up the road with one hand on his wife’sbehind and the other down the front of her-

Never mind, she said primly, but Jessie thought that for some reason her mother sounded almost pleased. Curiouser and curiouser. The point is, it’s time you discovered that Dick Sleefort isn’t a demonfrom the deeps and it’s time Jessie discovered Adrienne Gilette is just alonely old woman who once slapped her hand at a lawn-party as a littlejoke. Now please don’t get all crazy on me, Tom; I’m not claiming it wasa good joke; it wasn’t. I’m just saying that Adrienne didn’t know that.There was no had intent.

Jessie looked down and saw her paperback novel was bent almost double in her right hand. How could her mother, a woman who’d graduated cum laude (whatever that meant) from Vassar, possibly be so stupid? The answer seemed clear enough to Jessie: she couldn’t be. Either she knew better or she refused to see the truth, and you arrived at the same conclusion no matter which answer you decided was the right one: when forced to choose between believing the ugly old woman who lived up the road from them in the summertime and her own daughter, Sally Mahout had chosen Pooh-Pooh Breath. Good deal, huh?

If I’m a Daddy’s girl, that’s why. That and all the other stuff shesays that’s like that. That’s why, but I could never tell her and she’llnever see it on her own, Never in a billion years.

Jessie forced herself to relax her grip on the paperback. Mrs Gilette had meant it, there had been bad intent, but her father’s suspicion that she had ceased being afraid of the old crow had probably been more right than wrong, just the same. Also, she was going to get her way about staying with her father, so none of her mother’s ess-aitch-eye-tee really mattered, did it? She was going to be here with her Daddy, she wouldn’t have to deal with old Pooh-Pooh Breath, and these good things were going to happen because…

“Because he sticks up for me,” she murmured.

Yes; that was the bottom line. Her father stuck up for her, and her mother stuck it to her.

Jessie saw the evening star glowing mildly in the darkening sky and suddenly realized she had been out on the deck, listening to them circle the subject of the eclipse-and the subject of her-for almost three-quarters of an hour. She discovered a minor but interesting fact of life that night: time speeds by fastest when you are eavesdropping on conversations about yourself.

With hardly a thought, she raised her hand and curled it into a tube, simultaneously catching the star and sending it the old formula: wish I may, wish I might. Her wish, already well on the way to being granted, was that she be allowed to stay here tomorrow with her Daddy. To stay with him no matter what. just two folks who knew how to stick up for each other, sitting out on the deck and eating Eclipse Burgers a deux… like an old married couple.

As for Dick Sleefort, he apologized to me later, Tom. I don’t rememberif I ever told you that or not-

You did, but I don’t remember him ever apologizing to me.

He was probably afraid you’d knock his block off, or at least try to, Sally replied, speaking again in that tone of voice Jessie found so peculiar-it seemed to be an uneasy mixture of happiness, good humor, and anger. Jessie wondered for just a moment if it was possible to sound that way and be completely sane, and then she squashed the thought quickly and completely. Also, I want tosay one more thing about Adrienne Gilette before we leave the subjectentirely…

Be my guest.

She told me-in 1959, this was, two whole summers later-that shewent through the change that year. She never specifically mentioned Jessieand the cookie incident, but I think she was trying to apologize.

Oh. It was her father’s coolest, most lawyerly “Oh.” And dideither of you ladies think to pass that information on to Jessie…andexplain to her what it meant?

Silence from her mother. Jessie, who still had only the vaguest notion of what “going through the change” meant, looked down and saw she had once again gripped the book tight enough to bend it and once again forced herself to relax her hands.

Or to apologize? His tone was gentle… caressing… deadly.

Stop cross-examining me! Sally burst out after another long, considering silence. This is your home, not Part Two of Superior Court,in case you hadn’t noticed!

You brought the subject up, not me, he said. I just asked-

Oh, I get so tired of the way you twist everything around, Sally said. Jessie knew from her tone of voice that she was either crying or getting ready to. For the first time that she could remember, the sound of her mother’s tears called up no sympathy in her own heart, no urge to run and comfort (probably bursting into tears herself in the process). Instead she felt a queer, stony satisfaction.

Sally, you’re upset. Why don’t we just-

You’re damned tooting I am. Arguments with my husband have a wayof doing that, isn’t that strange? Isn’t that just the weirdest thing youever heard? And do you know what we’re arguing about? I’ll give youa hint, Tom-it’s not Adrienne Gilette and it’s not Dick Sleefort andit’s not the eclipse tomorrow. We’re arguing about Jessie, about our daughter, and what else is new?

She laughed through her tears. There was a dry hiss as she scratched a match and fit a cigarette.

Don’t they say it’s the squeaky wheel that always gets the grease? Andthat’s our Jessie, isn’t it? The squeaky wheel. Never quite satisfied withthe arrangements until she gets a chance to put on the finishing touches.Never quite happy with someone else’s plans. Never able to let well enoughalone.

Jessie was appalled to hear something very close to hate in her mother’s voice.

Sally-

Never mind, Tom. She wants to stay here with you? Fine. She wouldn’tbe pleasant to have along, anyway; all she’d do is pick fights with hersister and whine about having to watch out for Will. All she’d do issqueak, in other words.

Sally, Jessie hardly ever whines, and she’s very good about-

Oh, you don’t see her! Sally Mahout cried, and the spite in her voice made Jessie cringe back in her chair. I swear to God, sometimesyou behave as if she were your girlfriend instead of your daughter!

This time the long pause belonged to her father, and when he spoke, his voice was soft and cold. That’s a lousy, underhanded,unfair thing to say, he finally replied.

Jessie sat on the deck, looking at the evening star and feeling dismay deepening toward something like horror. She felt a sudden urge to cup her hand and catch the star again-this time to wish everything away, beginning with her request to her Daddy that he fix things so she could stay at Sunset Trails with him tomorrow.

Then the sound of her mother’s chair being pushed back came. I apologize, Sally said, and although she still sounded angry, Jessie thought she now sounded a little afraid, as well. Keep her tomorrow,if that’s what you want! Fine! Good! You’re welcome to her!

Then the sound of her heels, tapping rapidly away, and a moment later the snick of her father’s Zippo as he lit his own cigarette.

On the deck, Jessie felt warm tears spring to her eyes-tears of shame, hurt, and relief that the argument had ended before it could get any worse… for hadn’t both she and Maddy noticed that their parents” arguments had gotten both louder and hotter just lately? That the coolness between them afterward was slower to warm up again? It wasn’t possible, was it, that they-

No, she interrupted herself before the thought could be completed. No, it’s not. It’s not possible at all, so just shut up.

Perhaps a change of scene would induce a change of thought. Jessie got up, trotted down the deck steps, then walked down the path to the lakefront. There she sat, throwing pebbles into the water, until her father came out to find her, half an hour later.

“Eclipse Burgers for two on the deck tomorrow,” he said, and kissed the side of her neck. He had shaved and his chin was smooth, but that small, delicious shiver went up her back again just the same. “It’s all fixed.”

“Was she mad?”

“Nope,” her father said cheerfully. “Said it was fine by her either way, since you’d done all your chores this week and-”

She had forgotten her earlier intuition that he knew a lot more about the acoustics of the living room/dining room than he had ever let on, and the generosity of his lie moved her so deeply that she almost burst into tears. She turned to him, threw her arms around his neck, and covered his cheeks and lips with fierce little kisses. His initial reaction was surprise. His hands jerked backward, and for just a moment they were cupping the tiny nubs of her breasts. That shivery feeling passed through her again, but this time it was much stronger-almost strong enough to be painful, like a shock-and with it, like some weird deja vu, came that recurring sense of adulthood’s strange contradictions: a world where you could order blackberry meatloaf or eggs fried in lemonjuice whenever you wanted to… and where some people actually did. Then his hands slipped all the way around her, they were pressed safely against her shoulder-blades, hugging her warmly against him, and if they had stayed where they shouldn’t have been a moment longer than they should have done, she barely noticed.

I love you, Daddy.

Love you, too, Punkin. A hundred million hunches.