Late in the Season Read Online Free

boyfriend? What was his name? Bill something. He might be her fiancé by now. Hadn’t her mother said something about them being engaged? That would be just like Mrs. Locke. Call me Paula, and I’ll call you Jonathan. Such informality. And for what? For one afternoon together every summer, on the Lockes’ most enclosed terrace deck, “saying hello again,” as she put it. Those dreadful afternoons. This June, unable to face it, Daniel had taken half a Quaalude, and told Mrs. Locke through his half sleep that he was allergic to something or other and was under antihistamine sedation. Jonathan had been stuck with getting Daniel there, propping him up, translating his slurred speech, and helping carry him home again. The woman had suspected nothing. But then why would she? Her banality was all-encompassing. Yet she was a good woman, behind all that façade. Even Dan could see that, despite his name—Lady Bracknell—for her. How he’d fumed after that incident with the Locke boy, Jerry, three summers back. “She’s a monster, Jonathan!” he’d ranted. “She wears two sets of balls around her neck like a Tagalog witch doctor!” Three sets now, with the boyfriend added in.
    What would Paula Locke be like onstage? he wondered. Big, chesty, she’d probably sing in a low contralto, make a good character part. Like Giustina, the serving wench in Lady and the Falcon, a real foil for Fiammetta with her earthy humor and love of ribaldry. Yet Giustina had her soft side too. Had Jonathan shown that clearly enough? Had he characterized her musically fully enough? She had two big songs—the scolding one in the first act, and the duet with Gentile in act two. Perhaps that second solo ought to be a serenata, even a barcarolle. The gentle rocking of a boat in a wind-ruffled lagoon. A lullaby. What would Barry think of that? Jonathan would try to persuade him that it would more fully develop the character. Barry might say yes right off. Then again, he might get quiet and explanatory, which meant that when he’d written the words he’d been thinking of anything but a lullaby. Still…
    The Locke girl had stood up again. This time to go into the water. Pretty bathing suit, that floral print two-piece. A languid walk to the surf. One toe poked in. A step back. A look around. Then one entire foot in the water. Reaction: another fast step back onto the sand. Another look around. Then a dash, a mad run, all arms and legs, scampering into the waves. God, it’s cold for September, she must think as she dives in and under a breaker. Then up, gasping for air, another wave about to break, she holds her breath, drops straight down under it and up again, shaking her head. A smile with her realization that it really isn’t that cold. Then a leisurely swim, diving, cavorting, rolling over. Christ, she was so young!
    And the look on her boyfriend’s face that night last summer when Daniel had dragged Jonathan off the deck and inside the house, whispering through his light martini haze, “Fuck these people; let’s go neck!” In the kitchen Dan had kissed Jonathan, opened his Hawaiian shirt, and pulled his slacks half off his hips. Dan was on his knees tonguing Jonathan’s navel when the boyfriend stepped in too, with empty glass and wine bottle in his hands. Even in the dim light he saw enough to make him stop still. Jonathan saw him, of course, not Dan right off. And the boyfriend’s eyes were fixed so instantly, so totally on Dan’s tongue, he didn’t even see that Jonathan was watching him. He probably never dreamed they actually made love flesh to flesh, did he? Then Dan finally looked up and caught Jonathan’s eye signal. Dan got up nonchalantly, went over to Bill, took the empty bottle, saying, “Why don’t you take over for a minute, while I freshen up the vino.” Jonathan thought for a moment Bill actually would, he seemed so hypnotized by then. How Dan laughed about it in bed later on. Laughed about it the rest of the