He is seated on the edge of a short, wide dock. He’s wearing dark blue swimming trunks and a yellow life vest, his feet tucked into water skis and his hands grasping a bar attached to a tow rope which in turn is attached to Eddie’s new boat. Late afternoon sunlight glitters off the lake in sheets and planes, and the still air ripples in the heat, distorting the tall, dense, gray-green live oaks and cypress trees along the grassy shore. From where Bob is seated, the shoreline loops and spreads gradually into an approximate O three miles wide and long. They are on the grounds of the Lakes Region Yacht and Country Club, he, Elaine, Ruthie and Emma having been admitted at the gate earlier as guests of Edward Dubois, and after meeting Eddie, Sarah and Jessica at the clubhouse bar, where the grownups drank mint juleps on the terrace under a Cinzano umbrella, they strolled across the clipped, pale green lawns from the clubhouse and marina to one of the half-dozen small, secluded coves on the club grounds where there are picnic tables, fireplaces, boat landings and short, shallow beaches. It’s a Sunday, Eddie’s thirty-third birthday.
Last week, when Bob and his family were invited by Sarah to come to the club and help celebrate the day, Bob instructed Elaine to find out what they should give Eddie for a birthday present. “The sonofabitch’s already got everything he needs,” he muttered. Elaine asked her sister-in-law what Eddie needed. Sarah suggested they get him something to go with her gift to him.
“What is your gift?” Elaine asked. They were talking on the telephone, Elaine standing in her kitchen, Sarah lying in coconut oil next to her pool. Bob sat on the couch in front of the TV watching the New York Yankees, in a late season game, thrash the Red Sox, who once again had betrayed him in August after having seduced him, almost against his will, in May.
“Fucking Reggie,” he grumbled, taking a quick pull on his beer. “I hate the way he struts. Look at the bastard, like a goddamn rooster.”
Sarah spoke slowly, almost coyly, though Elaine couldn’t imagine why she wouldn’t simply come right out and tell her what she’d bought for her husband’s birthday. “You’ll
“Well, what should we get him to go with it?” Elaine asked, her voice cooling. “Whatever
Sarah giggled. “Seat cushions.”
“What?”
“Seat cushions.”
“Seat cushions? Like, for sitting on? For a couch?”
“No, no, silly. For a boat!”
“A boat? You bought him a boat? Another one?”
Bob groaned, “Jee-sus H. Christ! Another fucking boat!” and Elaine shushed him with the flat of her hand, and he went back to staring at the TV screen, hating Reggie Jackson with renewed fury.
“Oh, it’s real cute, he’s gonna love it,” Sarah said. “Wait’ll you see it. He’s been talking about this one in particular for months, and he’s dropped a few hints, but I know he doesn’t think I’ll go out and do it, actually go out on my own and buy him a twelve-thousand-dollar boat.”
“Twelve thousand dollars!” Elaine gasped.
Bob looked up from the TV screen and stared at his wife as if he suddenly felt sick and wanted sympathy.
“Where’d you get that kind of money, Sarah? Won’t he be mad when he finds out? I mean, I can’t imagine …”
“Oh, Eddie’s been putting money into an account in my name for a long time, in several accounts, actually, and I never touch it, even though he tells me I should go ahead and spend it when I want to and not let it sit there where anybody who wants to can see it. It’s some kind of tax thing. I never understand that sort of thing. Anyhow, he’d rather have me buy things with the money than leave it in the bank like that. Jewelry and stuff. I don’t know
Cushions, then.
