The Moviegoer - Walker Percy [48]
“Why do you look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, son. I’m going to give you some beer.”
Her suit is of a black sheeny stuff like a swim-meet suit and skirtless. She comes out of the water like a spaniel, giving her head a flirt which slaps her hair around in a wet curl and stooping, brushes the water from her legs. Now she stands musing on the beach, leg locked, pelvis aslant, thumb and forefingers propped along the iliac crest and lightly, propped lightly as an athlete. As the salt water dries and stings, she minds herself, plying around the flesh of her arm and sending fingers along her back.
Down the beach the children have been roped off into two little herds of girls and boys. They wade—evidently they can’t swim—in rough squares shepherded by the deacons who wear black bathing suits with high armholes and carry whistles around their necks. The deaconesses watch from bowers which other children are busy repairing with saw grass they have gathered from the ridge.
We swim again and come back to the tussock and drink beer. She lies back and closes her eyes with a sigh. “This really beats typing.” Her arm falls across mine and she gives me an affectionate pat and settles herself in the sand as if she really meant to take a nap. But her eyes gleam between her eyelids and I bend to kiss her. She laughs and kisses me back with a friendly passion. We lie embracing each other.
“Whoa now, son,” she says laughing.
“What’s the matter?”
“Right here in front of God and everybody?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry! Listen, you come here.”
“I’m here.”
She makes a movement indicating both her friendliness and the limit she sets to it. For an hour we swim and drink beer. Once when she gets up, I come up on my knees and embrace her golden thighs, such a fine strapping armful they are.
“What do you think you’re doing, boy?”
“Honey, I’ve been waiting three weeks to grab you like this.”
“Well now that you’ve grabbed me you can turn me loose.”
“Sweetheart, I’ll never turn you loose.” Mother of all living, what an armful.
“All right now, son—”
“What?”
“You can turn me loose.”
“No.”
“Listen, big buddy. I’m as strong as you are.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I may not be as big as you are—”
“You are here.”
“—but I’m just as strong.”
“Not really.”
“All right, you watch here.” She balls up her fist like a man’s and smacks me hard on the arm.
“That hurts.”
“Then quit messing with me.”
“All right. I won’t mess with you.”
“Hit me.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Hit me.” She holds her elbow tight against her body. “Come on, boy.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not going to hit you.”
“Come on hit me. I’m not kidding. You can’t hurt me.”
“All right.” I hit her.
“Na. I don’t mean just playlike. Really hit me.”
“You mean it?”
“I swear before God.”
I hit just hard enough to knock her over.
“Got dog.” She gets up quickly. “That didn’t hurt. I got a good mind to hit you right in the mouth, you jackass.”
“I believe you,” I say laughing. “Now you come here.”
“What for? All right now!” She cocks her fist again. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I just want to tell you what’s on my mind.”
“What?”
“You. You and your sweet lips. Sweetheart, before God I can’t think about anything in the world but putting my arms around you and kissing your sweet lips.”
“O me.”
“Do you care if I do?”
“I don’t care if you do.”
I hold springtime in my arms, the fullness of it and the rinsing sadness of it.
“I’ll tell you something else.”
“What?”
“Sweetheart, I can’t get you out of my mind. Not since you walked into my office in that yellow dress. I’m crazy about you and you know it, don’t you?”
“O me.”
I sit back to see her and take her hands. “I cant sleep for thinking of you.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.”
“We made us some money, didn’t we?”
“We sure did. Don’t you want some money? I’ll give you five thousand dollars.”
“No, I don’t want any money.”
“Let’s go down the beach a ways.”
“What for?”
“So they can’t see us.”
“What