and chicken to be broiled over charcoal by a chef in full white uniform on the patio by the pool—had been waiting for them in the enormous, L-SHAPED, open-to-the-rafters living room.
And so was the thank-you speech by Geoff’s parents, which didn’t go as badly as Colonel Lowell hinted it would.
When they walked into the house, Geoff’s mother—a tall, elegant, silver-haired woman—and father—a somewhat portly, balding man—had walked quickly to him.
She put her hand up and touched his cheek and looked into his eyes.
“I’m Helene Craig,” she said softly. “You’re very welcome here, and I want you to know that I will pray for your health and happiness every night for the rest of my life.”
Geoff’s father had been worse. He looked as if he was going to say something, then couldn’t find his voice. He wrapped Jack in a bear hug, and his body shook with sobs.
“My God, Helene,” Colonel Lowell said. “What will our guests think? They’ve only been here half an hour, and Porter’s already as drunk as an owl.”
“He is not!” Helene Craig said, somewhat indignantly, but by then the laughter had started, and what could have been far more awkward for everyone had passed.
Porter Craig shook his head, patted Jack on the back, and, still unable to find his voice, led him to the bar, where he gestured to the barman to give Jack a drink.
Marjorie came up to him and kissed him, on the cheek, and then Ursula, and then Hanni, his stepmother, and his father.
“Jeanine really wanted to wait up for you, Jacques,” Hanni said. “But she was playing tennis all day and she just collapsed.”
Jeanine was his eleven-year-old half sister.
“I’ll see her in the morning,” Jack said. “And Mary Magdalene? ”
“Where do you think Mary Magdalene is?” his father said. “With her, of course.”
“I really can’t wait to meet both of them,” Marjorie said, “Jack’s told me so much about them.”
“We’re going fishing in the morning,” Captain Jean-Philippe Portet said. “If you feel up to it?”
“Great.”
“Am I invited?” Marjorie asked.
“Of course,” Hanni said. “We’re all going.”
“It’ll give us a chance to talk, Jacques,” his father said. “About the business.”
Jack looked at him curiously but said nothing.
“I think it’s time to leave the Congo,” his father said, then added, “we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Fine,” Jack said.
Helene Craig clapped her hands.
“Why don’t we all go out by the pool and get something to eat?” she said.
They went out to the netting-protected grill by the pool and watched the chef cook. Marjorie’s shoulder touched Jack’s as they watched, and Marjorie’s foot caressed his calf beneath the table by the pool as they ate. This caused him to have an involuntary vascular reaction to stimuli, and he was afraid his condition would be evident in his new white tennis shorts if he had to stand up.
He also reached the conclusion that there was not going to be an opportunity to be alone with Marjorie, at least tonight, with all these people around, and with her staying in a different house.
After dinner they went back into the living room. Jack took one of the stools—they were actually red-leather-upholstered captain’s chairs on very long legs—at the wet bar and asked for a beer. Marjorie sat beside him and asked for a Tom Collins. Not at all accidentally, he decided, Marjorie’s knee pressed against his.
That’s her second Tom Collins. She is not used to drinking.
If we were not in this living room out of a Fred Astaire/Cary Grant movie, the chances are pretty good that I could get a little. Not only is she on her second Tom Collins—and one drink usually wipes out her maidenly inhibitions—but we are now engaged to be married, and that should eliminate whatever other objections she might raise.
But we’re not even in the same house, and if I suggest we go for a walk, everyone will know what I have in mind, and I don’t want to embarrass her. So I’m screwed. Correction, I am not screwed.
I suppose that’s the way things go. The bitter with the sweet, et cetera.
Think of your goddamn nose, or something else unpleasant; the last thing you want is a hard-on poking out of your shorts.
Barbara Bellmon and Hanni Portet came in from the pool, arm in arm, laughing and smiling at each other.
“Oh, look at that!” Barbara cried happily, pointing upward.
His mother-in-law-to-be was, Jack decided, a little plastered. And so was Hanni. They were each on their third Tom Collins.