Fidelity

19

Ted Forrest looked at his watch. It was still early. The night was dark, out here away from the city lights, and stars were visible-bright, glowing blue-white dots on a sky that looked black. At one time, probably even after his great-grandfather had moved the family out to occupy the land along the San Joaquin River, there had been eight thousand stars visible on a clear night. He had read that somewhere, and it had stuck with him. Now that there was light and air pollution in the valley he supposed there were only a few hundred, but they must be the biggest, brightest ones, and they made an incredible sight on a night like this.

He opened the window of his car an inch. The air felt wonderful to him, and he pressed the button again to open the window farther and let the wind blow through his hair as he drove. At home he had felt as though he had a belt tightening around his chest, so he could barely inhale, and every time he exhaled, it tightened another notch. But now he felt free, and each breath made him feel stronger, younger.

Caroline had no feeling about the outdoors. The land was just a vast flatness that had no special shape or character or meaning for her. For their whole marriage she had spent as much time in cities as possible-San Francisco at least once a week, New York maybe four times a year, London and Paris and Rome whenever she could get any of her friends to go with her. He had never been able to understand how a woman who was so devoted to enjoying beauty could ignore what was in front of her nose, above her head and under her feet. She didn’t dislike nature or find it frightening. It didn’t exist for her. Color was the shade of a paint or a fabric.

The land that had come into his stewardship was mainly in the Central Valley south of the San Joaquin between Merced and Fresno, some of it in farms as small as a couple of hundred acres, and some of it bought up in contiguous plots. Lots of chances came up in the Depression or during World War II, or in recent years when farming stopped being something families could do themselves. Some of those pieced-together places were like reassembled Spanish land grants.

It was special land. Three-quarters of the vegetables produced in the whole country were grown in these valleys. The state was a big long animal in repose, the raised spine of the Sierras running down the middle of it. The west wind pushed the clouds from the ocean right into that wall of mountains so it rained, and the water ran back down in a set of rivers arranged at regular intervals like the ribs of the animal: the Yuba, Bear, American, Cosumnes, Calaveras, Mokelumne, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced, Chowchilla, Fresno, San Joaquin, Kings, Kaweah rivers, one after another. The water made the enormous lowland between the coast and the mountains the most valuable farmland on earth. His family had been part of that for five generations.

He might not be raising crops, but he was part of the tradition, and leaving the land fallow, giving it a rest for a couple of genera tions, was almost an act of patriotism. He was protecting and preserving it. He was also keeping the level of air pollution in the Central Valley down, not contributing to the chemical runoff into the rivers, and even keeping the prices up for other agricultural corporations. And of course, the water the Forrests didn’t use had been going to cities while they had grown, and without it they wouldn’t survive. The southern half of the state was all and savanna and desert.

He drove into the downtown area of Merced, along a block of small shops. It was after nine, so the stores that sold china and women’s clothes and the hairstylists were closed, but the restaurants were just filling up. Forrest let his BMW coast into the turn at the corner beside Marlene’s Coffee and Sympathy, and found a parking space at the curb down the street just past a tall sycamore. He was far from a streetlamp, and the tree’s broad canopy threw the car into deeper shadow. As he got out he looked up into the night sky anxiously. In hot weather old trees sometimes dropped limbs, but he didn’t plan to be here long.

He took a couple of steps and saw the back door of Marlene’s open, and a small, thin creature appear. She stood under the light near the door for a couple of seconds, looking for him. He could see the shining honey-blond hair as she shaded her eyes and looked up the street. She began to walk toward him, but as soon as she was well away from the building, allowed herself to break into a run.

When she came into the deep shadows away from the glow of the commercial street, he heard her voice, a half-suppressed, delighted laugh. She took a little hop and threw her arms around his neck. She spoke into his ear. “What a treat! Come on and get me out of here.”

Forrest turned his head as he opened the car door for her, trying to be sure nobody was watching. There were still people walking on the commercial street, but none of them seemed to be able to pay any attention to one more couple getting into a black car on the side street past Marlene’s. Forrest started the engine and then pulled out.

Kylie said, “God, Ted. You are so sweet to sneak out of a dinner just to rescue me from barista servitude.” He felt her soft, wet lips on his cheek, then her left hand playing with the hair at the back of his neck.

He moved his head slightly to get rid of the tickle. “Put your seat belt on.”

She turned to face forward and slid back into the seat, then pulled the belt across her chest and clicked the buckle. “Don’t worry. There aren’t any cops to give us a ticket. Terry and Dan just came into Marlene’s for their coffee ten minutes ago. From here they go out to prowl those new streets up by the freeway entrance.”

“You know that?”

“Of course. They come in the same time every night.”

“If you know there are no cops, then the speeders and drunk drivers probably know it, too. You’re even more likely to need a seat belt.”

She laughed, untroubled, but Ted Forrest felt slightly uncomfortable. His voice sounded old to him, like a father or even a grandfather. The similarity wasn’t a coincidence. Her father was six years younger than Forrest, and her mother at least fifteen years younger. He glanced at Kylie as they passed under a streetlamp, and saw a remnant of a smile on her lips. Kylie. Even the name reminded him. When he had been young, there were no names like that. Girls had familiar names, like their mothers. Most had names from the Bible, like their grandmothers.

As long as he thought about Kylie instead of himself, he would preserve his good mood. Even in the scarce light pulled from the glow of the dashboard and the reflected lights from windows her hair shone, long and thick and alive, and her skin was milky-smooth. This generation of girls seemed to be different, physically. They had more muscle and bone, and no fat at all except rounded breasts and buttocks-shapes that made fourteen-year-olds look like designers’ drawings of idealized women. Just looking at girls on the street gave him hope for the future of the species, and Kylie was a prize, a grand champion, without even knowing it. That ingenuousness, the apparent unawareness of her beauty was one of the things about her that he loved. He knew that teenaged girls were not unconscious of themselves. Their most arduous study was given over to their own waistseyes-chins-cheeks-necks-hair-fingers-toes-legs-feet. But Kylie had already outgrown part of that and learned to take her looks as she took everything else, as a gift that she’d received years ago and never thought about anymore.

He drove back out onto the highway. “How was work?”

“Boring as usual, and it’s not over. I’m still on until eleven, and then we have to clean up.”

“Why do you do it?”

“A lot of reasons. I like having money that’s mine and nobody gave me. If I want to waste it, then I don’t have to feel guilty or pretend I’m sorry.”

“I suppose not.”

“And besides, it gives me freedom to do what I want.”

“Really? What do you want?”

She looked at him slyly. “You. Would you come to my house to pick me up? You know-wait downstairs with my daddy while I put on my makeup?”

“You’re pretty smart.”

“I’m very smart,” she agreed. “Where are we going to do it?”

“What?”

“You didn’t sneak away in the middle of Caroline’s big party just so I wouldn’t have to wash the cappuccino machine. You want to get me out of my clothes, as usual.”

“Well, since you suggested it, maybe you have something in mind.”

“Me suggest it? Shut up. I just know how you are.” Her sly look returned. “My parents are out tonight. They probably won’t be back until midnight, at least.”

Forrest shook his head. “I’ve got a better idea. I think I’ll show you a place you’ve never been to.”

“You just don’t want to get caught. It’s because I’m jailbait.”

“Charming term,” said Forrest. “But yes, I think it’s fair to say I don’t want to get caught. Do you? Then we could have a trial. You could get dragged in to testify in public about everything we ever did together in great detail. Maybe we’d get to be on television. Your mother could cry for the jury, and your father, too, probably. I suppose it might prompt Caroline to finally get around to killing herself. God knows, nothing else has.”

“There’s a thought. Maybe I’ll turn you in myself.”

“I’d get twentyfive years.” He looked at her sadly. “That’s the risk I’m taking to be with you.”

“I know.” She gripped his right hand so he had to take it off the wheel. “I love you so much.”

“Me, too.” As soon as he had his hand back he grasped the wheel with his right hand and raised his left to look at his watch. He was on schedule. She had been waiting, so they had not wasted any time. He was pleased. He drove faster now, but he was careful never to go higher than the speed limit when Kylie was with him. He made full stops at stop signs, signaled for lane changes, and watched his mirrors. Even a simple fender-bender with the girl in the car could bring po lice to write down his name and the name of his passenger, and then there would be trouble.

He drove the ten miles out of town toward Espinoza Ranch. His family had always kept the original name, even though they’d had it for over a hundred years, and had bought it from a man named Parker. Family folklore said Espinoza Ranch was a spectacularly fertile piece of farmland because it was the floodplain of an ancient meandering creek that came from a spring in the foothills. A couple of days after any big winter rainstorm, and two weeks after the melting of the mountain snowpack each year, the water rushed down and inundated the loops and curves of the creek and choked the plain with fresh mud. At some point the creek had been diverted somewhere upstream, so the floods didn’t happen anymore, but nothing had been planted on the Espinoza Ranch for fifty years. Someday, Forrest was sure, it was probably going to be covered with houses. For the moment there was only the house his grandfather had built on the foundation of the old main house about two hundred yards from the highway at the end of a gravel road. It took vigilance to spot the unmarked road on the right, but he had been here many times. He turned at the entrance to the ranch and stopped in front of the big steel gate.

“What’s this?” Kylie asked.

“I own it. I thought I’d show it to you.” He got out, opened the combination lock on the gate and walked with it to swing it open, then came back and moved his car forward, got out again and locked the gate behind him.

He drove up the packed-gravel road to the house and stopped, the dust swirling ahead of him in the headlights. He inched forward and Kylie could see the two-story clapboard house with a covered porch that skirted around the three sides that were visible. There was no landscaping or gardens, but someone had recently driven a tractor mower around the house in circles to keep it clear of brush and cut down the tall grass, so it seemed to have a lush green lawn.

Kylie said, “It’s pretty. Does somebody live here?”

“No, not at the moment. I have a couple who live on another place come by and keep it nice.”

“What’s it for?”

Forrest turned off the engine and got out, then walked with Kylie toward the steps. “There’s a stream, a creek about a quarter mile back from here just before the land rises. See? Over there. I guess you can’t really make it out in the dark. My grandfather stocked it with trout, and this was supposed to be a fishing lodge. He, and later my father, used to bring friends from town here for a few days at a time. They’d fish and play cards and so on.”

As they stepped up onto the porch, she said, “What happened?”

“A lot of things. I got the impression that some of the friends weren’t men. I think that occurred to my mother sometime in the fifties.”

“I’ll bet she was pissed.”

“I never really knew. I heard that much from an old guy my father kept on here as a caretaker when I was a kid. My father stopped coming here, anyway. I think by now the trout have died off.” He took a key from a nail above one of the rafters of the roof over the porch, unlocked the door, and turned on the lights.

Kylie stepped in slowly and looked around her. “This was a fishing lodge?” She stared at the big stone fireplace, the stained-glass light fixtures on the walls, the mission-style antique furniture. She peered into the big doorway that led to the billiard room. “This is nicer than our house.”

“I guess he wanted to impress the girls,” he said. He put his arm around her waist. “So do I, of course.”

“Girls? Plural?”

“Girl.”

“That’s better.” She set her purse on the floor, put her arms around Forrest’s neck and kissed him. The kiss started gently and tentatively, then became more passionate. It was clear that she intended it not to be a single touch of the lips, but the beginning of a much longer, deeper experience.

Ted Forrest reciprocated, and the affection began to build into arousal, his hands moving over her clothes and then inside them.

She broke off the kiss. “I suppose the bedrooms upstairs are dirty and yucky?”

“No. I have them keep some rooms furnished in case I want to spend some time by myself.”

“Show me.” She took his hand and tugged him toward the staircase.

He climbed the stairs with her, then pushed open the door to the old master bedroom and switched on the light. The room was all heavy wood furniture that matched the woodwork and cabinets. Half of the room was a sitting area. There was a stone fireplace here, too, and a small bar. He took a step toward it, but Kylie tugged his arm again, and he went with her to the bed.

They said nothing about the time that was passing, but it was in the room like a third presence. They had no time, no leisure to be gradual or linger over anything. They undressed quickly, impatiently, dropping their clothes on the floor and resuming the interrupted kiss.

They made love feverishly, and then, when it was over, they rolled apart on the bed and lay still. Ted Forrest closed his eyes. He could feel his heart still beating hard as his breathing slowed gradually.

After only a few seconds Kylie rolled back to him, grasped his wrist in both hands and turned it.

“Hmm?” He opened one eye.

“You didn’t even take off your watch.”

“Sorry. I guess my mind was elsewhere.”

“I know what it was on.” She kissed the back of his hand and then dropped it. “It’s after ten. We’d better go.”

He raised himself on one elbow. “I suppose.” He was still winded, and he didn’t want her to notice that it was taking him longer to recover. He pushed himself up and took the long way around the bed.

She hopped off and began to dress quickly. By the time Forrest reached the pile of clothes, she was already fastening her bra. She stopped and hugged him. “That was so nice.”

“Yes, it was.” He edged away and began to dress, thinking about the time. It might still be possible to get her back to the coffee shop before it closed at eleven, but getting home before the music lovers left was going to be more difficult.

“Have you ever brought Caroline here?”

“You mean this way? To sleep here?” He wasn’t sure which answer was the one she wanted. She might like it if she was usurping some of Caroline’s territory.

“You know I do.”

He took a guess. “Never. She wouldn’t come to any of these places. To her, `rustic’ means the concierge doesn’t bow.”

“Then it can be our place. Our special place.”

“Our special place. What a nice idea.” He had been considering bringing her here for weeks, but he had been afraid it would scare her, maybe depress her. There was no way of predicting what women were going to think, even when they were young.

She was nearly dressed now, just tying the sneakers she wore because of the hours she spent on her feet working the coffee machines at Marlene’s. “Yep, our place. When Caroline catches us and throws you out, maybe we can even live here.”

He joined her laugh, but his voice was hollow and weak. “It had better not happen for a few years. The police around here probably wouldn’t let me reach the station alive.”

“Don’t,” she said. “That’s not funny to me.”

“Me either.”

She went to the bed and started to make it, but he held her arm. “You don’t want to make any beds.”

“Won’t somebody know?”

“No. The caretakers will come tomorrow. It’s their job to put fresh sheets on if the bed has been used, not to figure out what happened in them.”

He tucked in his shirt and buttoned the last two buttons on the way to the door, turned off the light, and ushered Kylie downstairs. Her purse was lying in the middle of the floor where she had left it. She scooped it up and they went outside. He locked the door and placed the key up on the rafter where he had found it.

The efficiency of their movements was exhilarating to him. They got into the car and he drove to the highway. This time Kylie said, “What’s the combination?”

“It’s 8-14-32.”

She got out, ran and opened the gate, watched him drive through, and then closed and locked it to the ringbolt on the steel stanchion and got back into the car. The car began to move while she was fastening her seat belt.

On the way back to town, he looked at Kylie’s expression. She seemed happy, relaxed, and confident. She rested her hand on his thigh in a proprietary way and looked out the window as though she were memorizing every sight.

“What are you thinking?”

“That I love you. That I never met anyone who was like you in any way. That I wish I were older, or that you were younger.”

“I’ll vote for the second one,” he said.

“I won’t. If you were younger, you wouldn’t love just me. You would have, like, forty or fifty girlfriends.”

“I would not.”

“Yes, you would,” Kylie insisted. “You forget that I know all about you.”

“Well, the vote is one to one then. I guess it doesn’t matter. We have to live with the ages we are, and do our best.” He was feeling uneasy, and at first he wasn’t sure why, but then he realized that there was something about Kylie that was bothering him. She seemed too relaxed, too confident. He added, “And please, don’t forget what I said earlier tonight. You’re an underage girl, and I’m somebody who is more vulnerable than other men would be.”

“What do you mean?”

“My family name is known all over this part of the state, and I have a social position in the Valley. When everything is going fine, it’s an advantage. It gets me a good table in a restaurant. But if I get caught with you, the whole world will get turned upside down. If that happens, you will be a big news story, and I’ll probably be as good as dead.”

“Come on. They give you the death penalty for sleeping with somebody?”

“A man like me is in the same position as a girl like you. Other girls hear about your good grades, see your beautiful eyes and hair and figure, and they get jealous. They’re going to be compared to you, and they’re going to be second best. They’ll be nice to you to be associated with you. But they all secretly envy you, and some of them hate you.”

“You’re flattering me. I don’t understand.”

“It’s the same for me. Cops and people like that look at me and think my life has been easy compared to theirs. I have more, I do more, I don’t have to punch a time clock or defer to anyone. A cop who hears about me might secretly wish I would get knocked down a bit, but he would never harm me. But the second I get in trouble with the law, it will be different. You know what he’ll do then?”

“What?”

“Try to make sure I don’t get off-use my name or my money or my friendships to save myself. He’ll cook up whatever he can to make me look as bad as possible. And he’ll try to be sure I don’t get special treatment. He’ll put me in a cell with a bunch of career criminals who hate people like me. If they kill me, the cop will get praised because he didn’t give me special privileges.”

Kylie moved closer to him, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ted. I’ll never let them put you in danger.”

He drove on, trying to keep his speed just under the limit. He began to feel safer now that he had reminded her of the stakes. He couldn’t have her getting into a gossipy mood and confiding to some little friend of hers that she’s having an affair with a married man. He couldn’t let her get sloppy and careless about hiding their meetings. He had noticed many times that the generation of women now in their thirties had no reluctance to chatter about their sex lives to anyone who would listen. How much worse Kylie’s generation was going to be nobody knew, but a return to tasteful silence was too much to hope for. He had to keep her scared.

He drove into town and made his way along dimly lighted back streets to the block behind Marlene’s where she had been waiting for him. He stopped by the curb under the same old sycamore tree.

Kylie said, “Don’t worry anymore. I love you. Call me when you can.”

“I will.,,

She got out, closed the car door, and trotted toward the back door of Marlene’s. When she reached the building, Forrest saw her halfturn in the small semicircle of light. She stood still for a second, staring into the shadows on the street. It looked as though she were staring straight at him, although he knew she probably couldn’t see him in the dim light. Then she hurried inside.

He let out an audible breath in relief, then drew in another. She was a vulnerable little creature, and he had just seen her return to safety once more. Her safety made him safer, and that was what mattered.

Ted Forrest turned the car around and drove back the way he had come, made two turns, and emerged on the highway five blocks from Marlene’s. As soon as he was beyond the town limits, he accelerated as much as he dared. He was alone now, so he could afford to push the speed limit a bit. He opened his window to let the cool air blow on his face. He supposed he might have picked up a lingering scent of her perfume, and the wind would help get rid of it.

As he approached his house, his heart began to pound. He could still see cars parked along the length of his driveway. He had made it back in time. Guests were still inside. He drove up the driveway and around the house into the garage, slipped out to the path, and walked quickly. He cut through the rose garden to the French doors into the library. He reached out to touch the handle, and felt relief once again. Nobody had noticed the doors were unlocked and relocked them. He slipped inside and set the locks.

He moved into the foyer just as people began to stream out of the living room. He smiled and joined the fringe of the group, as though he were already in the middle of a conversation. He saw Collier and his wife Susanne, and said, “Suzy. Nice that the old boy brought you over here for once.”

“It’s part of my training program,” she said. “I’m trying to link music and good food in his subconscious so when I mention a concert, he’ll begin to salivate and take me.”

“Well, good luck with that. He’s smart enough to get the concept, but too loyal to let his old friends like me look dumb.”

“He’s a great guy, isn’t he?” She kissed Collier’s cheek.

Forrest felt a twinge of jealousy. When had Caroline ever said he was a great guy, let alone kissed him in public? He patted Collier’s arm in a way that gave the Colliers his permission to move on, and let the next set of guests take their place. One by one, they returned his smile, and he said something to acknowledge that he knew them and remembered the last time he had seen them. He let them know that for a few seconds, at least, he was paying attention to them exclusively.

His interest bordered on affection because each of them was bolstering his credibility as a host. But he was also aware that as each couple passed him, they were moving toward the front door and heading off into the night. Each time the door behind him swung open, it brought closer the time when he would have to be alone in this house with Caroline. As the time approached, he spoke with the stragglers in a kind of desperation, giving them the impression that he truly did not like to see them go.

The last one in the foyer was Dr. Feiniger, the president of the group. He was an old, wiry-looking professor who was almost a head shorter than Caroline. Feiniger thanked her for the special evening. Forrest was aware of his bristly little beard, the hair on the rims of his ears, and the springy wild hairs sprouting from his eyebrows. Dr. Feiniger kept talking, and Forrest used the opportunity to step out of the foyer into the hallway that ran along the center of the house to the back stairs.

“Ted!”

He considered pretending he had not heard her, but there was the sound of her footsteps coming after him. She had freed herself of the professor. Forrest stopped, took a deep breath, and turned to face her.

She stood six feet from him in the narrow hallway. It was her customary distance, just far enough away so he could not touch her unexpectedly, but near enough so he could not walk away from her. “Where the hell were you? Where did you go?”

He had to make an effort to unclench his jaw. He spoke carefully and quietly. “Caroline. I did my best to be gracious and help host your event. After dinner you made it clear that I was not wanted. I came back in time to say good night to your guests. Now I’m going to bed.”

“Oh. So now this is my fault?”

“It can be my fault, if you like. Good night.” He turned and stepped toward the back stairs.

“Ted.” There was an unexpected tone-softer, perhaps conciliatory.

He was curious. He looked back at her. “What?”

“Jesus, Ted. You should see yourself. That look of hatred on your face.” She held out both hands to him, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. “Can’t we just talk?”

“Not tonight.” He went up the back stairs, entered his closet, found some pajamas, and carried them to the nearest guest suite. After he got out of the shower, he heard Caroline slamming doors in the master suite, so he moved to another guest room farther down the hall.