East is East

“It’s Jane!” Thalamus cried, and his voice was a sort of astonished yelp, as if he’d expected anyone else, and then his arm fell away from Ruth’s shoulder and he was jerking open the door and careening out onto the porch. At the same time, the square-jawed young man bounced athletically out of the car to swing open the door for Jane. In that moment, Ruth noticed with sinking resignation that the man, Jane’s man, was as tall and leanly muscled as a Viking conqueror, and that Jane, far from having sunk into the fat she was rumored to have succumbed to, was as trim and stunning and fresh-faced as a high-school twirler surprised by the miracle of her own flesh. “Welcome, welcome,” Thalamus boomed, striding down the steps with his arms spread wide as if he’d personally laid every stone of the big house, as if he’d been born and bred in it, the gentleman planter steeped in juleps and horseflesh, Colonel Thalamus himself. “Welcome to the heart of Dixie!”

Ruth didn’t wait to see the great swooping lewd Thalamus/Shine embrace, nor did she wait to see the Nordic slave bend to the U-Haul and unload more luggage than Queen Victoria took with her on her tour of the Empire, nor was she standing demurely in the foyer to greet her former workshop colleague and congratulate her on her success when Jane Shine, locked in the sweaty embrace of one of the legends of Jewish-American letters, swept up the steps in triumph. No. Not Ruth. The instant Thalamus passed through the door, she turned and fled up the stairs, down the corridor and into her room, where she flung herself face down on the bed as if someone had planted an arrow between her shoulder blades. And there she lay, as the shadows deepened and the cocktail chatter from below gave way to the merry clink of cutlery on china; there she lay, listening with hypersensitive ears and pounding heart to the furtive thump and rush of the Nordic slave as he installed Jane Shine in the very room next to hers—the spacious, sunny, antique-infested double room that had languished unoccupied during the whole of Ruth’s stay. She listened like a child playing at hide-and-seek—a child hidden so well that the others have begun to lose interest, to forget her, though they still creep by her hiding place—listened till the sounds of dinner faded away and the sports car coughed to life and rumbled off into oblivion.

She must have dozed. It was nearly eight when saxby came for her, and she had to dress in a hurry if they were going to catch the ferry to the mainland. On weekends in the summer there was a twelve o’clock ferry back, and that would give them two hours or so, after the ride out and the drive to the restaurant, to have a few cocktails, eat and unwind. Ruth felt she needed it. Through the first cocktail—a perfect Manhattan with a twist—she even thought of cajoling Saxby into booking a motel room along the coast somewhere, but then she shook off the notion. She’d have to face Jane Shine sooner or later, and it might as well be tonight, in the billiard room, where the footing was sure.

She had a second cocktail and half a dozen oysters, and her mood began to improve. The restaurant helped. It was a soothing, elegant, beautifully appointed place in a two-hundred-year-old building on Sea Island, very tony, three stars Michelin, with a wine list the size of a Russian novel. And Saxby—Saxby was a gem. He was sly and steady and good-looking, the candlelight playing softly off the golden nimbus of his hair, his eyes locked on hers; he was solicitous, sweet, sexy, worth any ten Nordic types in their Jaguars. The image of Jane Shine would rise before her over her soup, a crust of French bread or a morsel of écrevisse, and he would banish it with a joke, a kiss, a squeeze in just the right place. And then, midway through the meal, he proposed a toast.

Ruth was savoring the cleansing frisson of a glace of grapefruit and Meyer lemon, when a waiter appeared at her side with a bottle of champagne. She looked up at Saxby. He was beaming at her. She felt a flush of pleasure as they touched glasses—he was such a sentimentalist, forever reprising these ceremonial gestures, reminding her that they’d been together for eighteen weeks or twenty-two or whatever it was—but this time he took her by surprise. “To

Elassoma okefenokee,” he said.

“To who?”

“Drink,” he said.

She drank.

“Elassoma okefenokee,” he repeated, “the Okefenokee pygmy sun-fish.” He refilled her glass. His grin was wild, alarming, the grin of a man who at any moment might bound up from the table and waltz with one of the waiters. “Not to be confused with Elassoma evergladei,” he added, dropping his voice in confidentiality.

An elderly gentleman seated at the next table blew his nose with authority. Ruth was aware in that moment of the gentle smack of mastication, the patter of muted laughter. She didn’t know what to say.