Potshot

Chapter 19

SUSAN AND I were in Atlanta, in Buckhead, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Susan was on the phone with the concierge.

When she hung up, she said, "We have a reservation at The Horseradish Grill at seven."

"Are you planning to have a green salad and a small iced tea?" I said.

"Maybe we could split one," she said.

"I don't know if I should eat that much," I said. "I've got a big day tomorrow."

"How far a drive is it to Lamarr?"

"Couple of hours," I said. "East on Route 20."

"Maybe I'll come with you," she said.

"I thought you wanted to shop Buckhead."

"I think I'd like to go with you."

"On Rodeo Drive," I said, "on Fifth Avenue, and Worth Avenue and North Michigan Avenue, shoppers genuflect at the mere mention of Buckhead. And you, for whom shopping is one of the seven lively arts, you want to take a two-hour drive with me to Lamarr, Georgia?"

"Yes."

"Is it because you are hoping to score me in the back seat of the rental car on the way down?"

"No."

"Well it was a good guess," I said.

"I want to go," she said, "because in a little while I won't have much chance to be with you until you come back from the desert. It's why I wanted to come this far with you."

"Because you love me madly?" I said.

"I think so, or it might be pity."

I picked her up in my arms and held her there.

"It's love," I said.

"Yes," she said and kissed me.

We ate fried chicken and mashed potatoes at The Horseradish Grill where Susan flirted with gluttony. After dinner, we drove back along Powers Ferry Road, in the blue evening, as it coiled languidly through a landscape of low hills, high trees and big homes, many of them with white pillars. Susan had her head back against the seat with her eyes closed with the moonlight on her face.

"Post-gluttonous languor?" I said.

"More like contentment," she said. "I've eaten well, I've had some wine. I'm driving through a soft night toward a fine hotel with my honey bun."

"Whom you plan to bang like a drum once we get there?"

"Whom I plan to snuggle until we fall asleep and the aftereffects of dining excess fade."

"There's always tomorrow," I said.

She rolled her head toward me and I could see her smile.

"And we're both early risers," she said.

I grinned.

"So to speak," I said.

She smiled and kept her eyes closed and didn't say anything for awhile.

"Are we going to see that gay man you met when you were down here about the horse business?"

"Tedy Sapp," I said. "Gay man doesn't quite cover him."

"I know," Susan said. "It never quite covers anyone."

She was quiet. The road turned. The moonlight shifted so that it slanted in behind her profile. In the pale shine of it, motionless, with her eyes closed, she looked like something carved out of alabaster. Looking at her I felt my throat tighten. I could hear my breathing. Leaving her to go off and rescue Potshot seemed unthinkable. I took in some air, slowly, through my nostrils, and let it out even more slowly.

"We're both wishing you didn't have to go back to Potshot," Susan said.

Susan's eyes were still closed, her profile still ivory. The quiet of the Georgia night muffled the sound of the car.

After awhile I said, "We're wishing we could spend all our time together like this forever, I guess."

She nodded without opening her eyes.

"If we got what we wished for," she said, "it would destroy us."

"Nothing would destroy us," I said.

"No, you're right, nothing would," she said. "But if we were together all the time, it would make moments like this impossible."

"A variation on Sunday Morning," I said. "Not the CBS thing."

"No. The Stevens poem. `Death is the mother of beauty'?"

"Supply and demand," Susan said. "If everyone lived forever, life would devalue."

"I think so," I said.

"And if we were together all the time, the specialness might wane."

"Or maybe it's all an abstract poetical conceit," I said.

"Maybe," Susan said. "Either way, we do what we do."

"And," I said, "the sun'll come up this morning."

"You and the sun both," she said, and smiled to herself as if she were very pleased at her small joke.