Chapter 17

"Dad, you and Mom really like the river don't you?" They had built their house on the scenic St. John's River, one of the few rivers in North America that flows north and one of the very few rivers that has native palm trees lining its banks.

"Oh, yeah, who wouldn't?"

"Why haven't you bought a boat?"

"We will eventually. Mom wants a little kayak she can manage herself, to do some nature watching, and then we want a power boat for fishing and maybe pulling future grandkids on skis."

"No need."

"What?"

"Someone's driving a brand new boat up to your dock right now, and that someone is very pretty, and is someone you know. The boat is in your name, and is what I hope you would like. I'm not buying you a boat house. That's your problem."

"Paul, you have to be careful with your money."

"I got a bonus Dad, and not much of it bought that boat. Can you believe it? Why don't we make Mom fix a lunch basket and all go for a ride? Let's go south, up river." I love saying that.

"Son, I'd love to, but there's no way Mom and I can go with you today. We're going to Jacksonville to see some old friends."

"I'll trade you the Spyder for the boat today."

"Deal."

Paul opened the door. "Alice, come fix lunch."

The river was pretty although it was hot and crowded. "My parents called while you were gone," Alice said.

"What did they want?"

"They wanted to talk to me."

"Anything in particular?"

"No, not really. They wanted to know what my grades were, if I was going to school in the fall, how I was feeling, and things like that. It was as if nothing had happened."

"Are you thinking of going home?"

"Not this year. They need to understand that I'm not changing. Can I come here for Thanksgiving and Christmas?"

"Ask my Mom."

"Paul."

"No, I'm serious. This isn't my house. You need to ask the owners. If you aren't invited, I'll spend at least one of them with you if you'll show me your boobs." She did. They were perfect but it broke his train of thought. "Nice tits. Where was I?"

"Jane called."

"What?"

"I said Jane called."

"What did she want?"

"She wants me to come visit her."

I know Alice will go. It's a great fantasy for her. "I don't want you to tell her about me."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she has no right to know anything about me. She told me to go away and stay away. I did. If she wants information about me she can damn well ask me for it."

"Would you give it to her?"

"I don't know."

"Do you still love her?"

"I'll tell you when you get back."

They both kept their thoughts to themselves for a while.

"Alice?"

"Yeah."

"No matter what happens, don't let this mess up our friendship. I don't like you being stuck between us. It isn't fair to you. Our friendship comes first, remember that."

"I hate to do this so soon after showing you my boobs, but can I sit in your lap and hug you."

"Sure."

"Don't you dare get an erection!"

An hour later they ate lunch on the river. "I met a girl in England. Actually I'd met her before, but this meeting was different," Paul said.

"How was it different?"

"Most of the time we didn't have any clothes on."

"No!"

"Yeah."

"Who is she?"

"Her name is Lucy Whittington. Her father is with Lotus."

"Well, tell me about her."

"She's tall, beautiful, witty, Italian looking, has big boobs, and she's twenty-five. She wants to have a friendship that includes discreet sex. She warned me not to fall in love with her."

"You're such a square, you probably will."

"I told her and thanked her for warning me."

"So it ended?"

"Hell no! I'll see her once or twice a month until she gets tired of me. Is that unhealthy for me?"

"Why ask me? As you said, I'm a slut. I think sex should be saved for love but Suzi and I were going hot and heavy the first night we met. It only took a few days with Barb. Who am I to say."

"It doesn't feel bad. We knew each other beforehand and we exchanged letters. I like being with her. Even if there was no sex I would enjoy being around her. Dad told me I need to date just for the practice as long as I wasn't using the other person. She's clearly happy with what we're doing, if you don't mind me bragging a little."

Alice rolled her eyes.

"I'm sure Dad meant practicing dating and not practicing screwing, but we do date. We go to dinner, we go to pubs, and we go for walks, it's dating. Only we know it won't go beyond what we have now."

"And yet you're worried."

"Yeah. I'm afraid I'll fall in love with her. I'm afraid that I'll be jealous when I see her with someone else."

"My advice is either see a priest or enjoy it while you can."

Paul was still in town when Alice drove to Lake Wales. She wanted to go when he was in Europe but the only F1 race in August was the Portuguese Grand Prix and Paul wasn't going to it. She drove the Chevy into Jane's driveway.

"Hi Jane," Alice said as Jane came out of her house.

"Hello Alice, I am so glad you came." Jane gave her friend a hug. "Your scar is gone!"

"Not completely but it's much smaller."

"So you had surgery?"

"That was the deal we made. It was either that or show my boobs to Paul."

"Good choice. Is he all right?" The smile had left her face.

"Yes Jane, he's fine. I need to get out of the sun. The scar will fade some more if I don't get sun on it."

"Come on in. No one's at home but me. Do you want something to drink?"

"A Coke would be nice but I've got to pee, where's the bathroom?"

A few minutes later, the two girls were sitting at the kitchen table.

"Is he dating?"

"Jane, I'm sorry but I can't tell you. He asked me not to tell you any details about him."

"Why not?"

Swell. I've been here five minutes and she's already mad. "He said that you told him to go away so if you wanted to know something about him, you would have to ask him."

"Fuck him and fuck you!"

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No. I'm sorry, but don't tell the bastard anything I say. And I did not tell him to go away."

"Well that's what he heard. From his description of the discussion you didn't deny it. Did you deny it?"

"I don't know."

Both sat in silence for some time. Alice spoke first. "Have you been dating this summer?"

"Yes. Some."

Alice smiled. "Any really good dates?"

"Not really, most of the dates were first dates. The boys here are either stupid or pigs."

"Doesn't that describe boys everywhere?"

Jane laughed. "I guess so. I've gone out with Josh four times but I wouldn't call them dates."

"What do you do?"

Jane gave Alice a little smirk.

"Oh! Who is he?"

"He's not a little boy. If he would keep his mouth closed he would be perfect."

"What does he say?"

"He's a male chauvinist pig."

"Do you think you made a good decision about the summer?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"What are you going to do this fall?"

"I don't know. Does Paul still love me?"

"That I don't know but he must some, he has been so stubborn putting up with you so far."

"Fuck you."

"Be serious Jane. You treat him like shit. You get mad at him, and me, in an instant and then expect us to forgive you every time without any explanation. Some day he'll get fed up. If you don't know why you get mad, then you damn well better figure it out. If not, you'll drive away anyone worth keeping."

Jane bit her tongue, figuratively and literally.

Alice took a sip of her drink and continued. "What do you want from life?"

"I want to be somebody."

"What do you mean?"

"I do not want to just be Mrs. So-and-so. I do not want to clean house and change diapers. I want to do something useful. I want to be seen as an equal to the men I go to school with."

"And you don't think you can be the intellectual equal to Paul?"

"No."

"Is there anyone in your classes that will be an intellectual equal to Paul?"

"No."

"Does that make them less than men?"

"Of course not."

"Then why does it make you less than a man?"

"I don't know."

"I think that you've set unreasonable goals for yourself. I think you looked around this Podunk town and thought that since you were the smartest person here you were the smartest person in the world. You're not. Even Paul admits that he isn't. We can't even understand how smart those people must be. If you have unreasonable goals that you can never attain, you'll be unhappy your whole life. If you want a career in which people will admire your brains as well as your ass, then you stand a chance for a rewarding life."

"What should I do?"

"You should start by taking me to Spook Hill. Paul says it's great. After that, it's your life."

Jane laughed. "It is neat." She suddenly became serious, "Will he talk to me if I call him?"

"If you wait until I get back and talk to him... don't say it, I won't tell him what you said. As I was saying, if you'll wait until I get back I'll make sure he talks to you and that he won't hang up until you say 'good bye' or 'fuck you.' After Spook Hill, take me to see this Josh guy. Any cute girls I might like?"

"Did you break up with Barb?"

"No, but just looking doesn't hurt." Much.

"Let me leave a note for my mother."

"Jane, when you call him, don't try to do too much with one phone call. The best you can hope for is that one of you doesn't end up screaming at the other. You really hurt him. You know it and you're going to be defensive about it. If you try to do more than just talk, you'll just make it worse."

Alice got back to Palatka the following night. The next morning, she ate breakfast with Paul and his parents.

"Alice, I feel bad. I promised to take you to Europe this summer and I didn't. Will you come to the Italian Grand Prix with me? It'll be a blast. Ferrari should win in front of a home crowd. Italy will go nuts."

"When is it?"

"September 4th, we'll miss four days of the first week of school. If we talk to the instructors ahead of time, they'll probably give us our assignments. The plane flight gives lots of time to study."

"What if you're back together with Jane?"

Paul's parents stopped eating and looked at him. "Not likely and it doesn't matter, I promised you," Paul replied.

"What if I need a chaperon?"

Mr. Lawton looked confused and Mrs. Lawton blushed.

"Sure, Barb can come too."

"Mr. Lawton?"

"Yes Alice." Now that he knew what she really meant by chaperon, he was embarrassed.

"Can Paul and I use your boat? I need to talk to him."

"Of course. You know where the key is."

Fried chicken is so good. Paul and Alice were eating lunch on the river. Paul waited for Alice to start. She would soon enough, she was incapable of not trying to help. It was one of the reasons he admired her and loved her. Where does she stuff the frustration she must feel at the stupid things I do.

"Paul, Jane is going to call you."

"Is she that interested in what I've been doing?"

"Don't play dumb. I need you to make a promise to me."

Paul thought for a minute. She would have just asked unless he might say no. "Ask away and then I can tell you if I can make the promise."

He's being stubborn today. "When she calls, talk to her. Don't hang up unless she tells you to fuck off."

"That should be an easy promise to keep. She'll say 'fuck you' within the first minute."

"Don't bait her, please."

"I won't have to."

"You're probably right," Alice said as she laughed. "If she fucked as many times as she said 'fuck you, ' she wouldn't have time to do anything else."

Why did that bother me? Paul thought.

"Do you still love her Paul?"

"I don't know."

"Now you sound like Jane."

"Is that what she said when you asked her?"

"You know her. That's what she says when you ask her anything. Is today Tuesday? I don't know. Is it raining? Fuck you." Alice did a good imitation of Jane's "fuck you." She and Paul started to laugh.

"I'll be honest with you Paul. You've put up with more than I thought you'd have. Why?"

"In a few years a movement will really get going. Women will fight for equal rights. Jane knows how unfair it is that she doesn't get treated equally. It chaps her ass and puts a chip on her shoulder. She doesn't know what to do."

"Have you told her this?"

"No."

"Afraid to change things?"

"It's not that simple. I'm afraid that it will bother her more if she joins a network of other women and shares their experiences. It may be just rationalization on my part, but that's what I tell myself."

Alice was silent and waited for Paul to continue.

"I'm in favor of the women's movement. A person is a person and the woman's movement does one thing that I absolutely love. Some women get into their heads that men have a conspiracy that sets fashions. They decide bras are men's way of confining women. They burn their bras in protest. Now I ask you, what would I rather see, boobs supported so they look like hood ornaments or wonderful breast jiggling free, nipples pressing through thin shirts?"

"Me too, but stop it, or you'll get us both hot. Barb and Lucy are far away." They laughed together. "Let's go home," she said.

Paul answered the telephone. "Hello?"

"Hi Paul, it's Jane."

Try to act normal, as if you've ever been normal in your lives. "Hi Jane, Alice said you might call."

"I just wanted to say hello."

Don't pull her chain. "Have you had a good summer?" Shit! That sounds like I'm pulling her chain.

"It's been OK." There was a pause. "I looked in Road & Track, you had a good summer."

Where there any pictures of Lucy with me? "Yeah. Both the F1 and the WSC teams did very well this summer and it's been fun to have Alice here. It's nice to have a sister."

"Did you see any of the other guys?"

"We see Steve almost daily and Arthur and Barb came to visit for a few days. I spent a lot of time in Europe."

"How did your parents handle Barb and Alice?" Jane asked.

"Better than I expected, but they had known Alice for a while and you know how she grows on you."

There was not much else to say unless they asked questions that neither one want to ask. "Well, I just wanted to talk to you. You can call some time if you want."

"OK, bye." The question was did he want to call or not.

"Was that Jane?" Mrs. Lawton asked.

"Yes ma'am."

"Are you going to go see her?"

Paul looked at his mother and took a moment to speak. "How much has Alice told you?"

"A lot."

"Women are impossible!"

"Yes, dear. Are you going to go see her?"

"No."

Paul walked towards his bedroom as Mr. Lawton walked in and put his arm around his wife. "He's right you know. Women are impossible."

"Yes, dear."

The next evening Jane was watching TV. She had turned down two dates. What's the point, she thought. They won't be any different than any of the others. Maybe she should go look for Josh. He might not even be willing to screw her. He kept bragging about his Thunderbird until Jane told him her last boyfriend had a Ferrari. That made him shut up. The telephone interrupted her thoughts.

"Hello?"

"Hi Jane."

"Hi Paul, it's so nice to hear from you."

"Thanks. How are you?"

"I'm OK and you?"

There was a silent pause.

"Paul, can we do this face to face?" Jane asked.

"Do you want to wait until you're back in school?" Paul asked.

"No! I want to get this over with."

"Where do you want to meet?"

"Leesburg is about halfway between my house and yours, is that OK with you?" she asked.

"Yeah. When?"

"Tomorrow?"

"OK, what time?"

"Eleven in the morning?"

"Exactly where?" He wished she would just go ahead and tell him what her plan was.

"There's a park just off Highway 27 at Lake Griffin. I'll meet you there."

"OK Jane. Don't use the suicide lane, more head on collisions occur there than anywhere else. Good night." Paul hung up.

"You're going to see her." Alice had listened to the phone call.

"Please don't spy on me. I'm already twitchy. I don't need to worry about others listening in."

"Sorry. Are you?"

"Tomorrow."

Paul was early, he pulled into the park at 10:30. It was already hot. The clay parking lot was almost empty. He pulled onto the grass in the shade underneath a big Live Oak. The park overlooked a large lake, not clear like many of the lakes in Florida. It had runoff from orange groves that left the water muddy and green. Paul parked the car so that he could see cars that entered the park. He lowered the top and waited.

Jane arrived at 11:15. Maybe she took my advice about the suicide lane, he thought. She looked good. She was dressed casual in a short sleeve shirt and blue jeans; her shirt was not tucked in. She wasn't wearing much make up and her hair was in a ponytail. She showed how she looked, not how her clothes looked. It worked for her.

"Do you want to go get lunch?" Paul asked.

"OK. Where do you want to go?"

Paul was raising the convertible's top. "I don't really care as long as they have air conditioning."

"Can we take your car?"

"Sure."

They went to a restaurant that said "Home Cooked Food." It smelled like home cooked grease. They sat in a booth across from each other.

"You look good," Paul said.

"I look plain."

"You're dressed simply, it somehow shows how pretty you are. It's like saying, I'm so pretty I don't need fancy clothes."

"What about you? You walked in like you own the place. You're so calm and confident. You're so elegant even in blue jeans. The summer has been good for you." She had tears in her eyes.

"Do you want to talk about the summer?"

"No. It was a mistake."

"In what way?"

"Paul, I don't want to talk about it."

Let's see if you learned anything. "But I need to. I need to know what you hoped for."

It all came out in a rush. "I hoped to go home and find that the boys I liked had grown into men I would like. That they would appreciate me for being me. That they would respect me. Instead they expected me to have started acting like other women. I do not want to be like other women. I want to be me."

"Thank you."

"Paul, I had sex."

Damn you, why did you tell me. "You're used to having sex, it isn't surprising."

"Did you?"

"I'm not going to answer that Jane."

"I answered your question." She was keeping her anger at bay.

"Yes you did, but that was different. You're acting like you want to get back together. I couldn't be with you if you didn't know why you left me."

"If I didn't know why. Did you know why?"

"Pretty much."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"A person can't change their emotions with logic. Sometimes it takes experiencing joy and sometimes it takes experiencing pain, but it takes experience, not words. That's something life taught me the hard way."

"Where do we go from here Paul?"

"Back to the park?" He smiled.

"You know what I mean."

"I'm not sure. It won't be the same. It hurt, Jane, it hurt a lot. It'll be hard to open myself up again."

"I'm sorry."

"I know and I forgave you almost as soon as it happened, but I can't forget it. You have to stop taking your frustrations out on me. I treat you as my equal. Not in all things. I'm bigger and stronger than you, but I do on the things that are important. I value your opinions. I value your advice. I don't tell you what to do anymore than you tell me what to do. In fact, look at this meeting, we are where and when you wanted it. I didn't set the time table, you did. You decided we needed to meet face to face. I just went along with you. So stop getting mad at me because the world isn't fair to you."

She was crying now. Another diner didn't like the fact that Paul had made her cry. "Little lady," he said, "Is this boy mistreating you?"

Poor choice of words buddy, Paul thought.

"Mind you own fucking business!" Jane yelled at him.

"I'm sorry mister, she's just upset," Paul said to the man.

"You ought to wash her mouth out with soap," the man said as he went back to his table.

"Jane, he doesn't even know what he said to bother you. What good does it do to scream at him. He's 50 years old and he'll never figure it out. Come on, let's get out of here."

Paul drove back to the lake and parked under the same tree. He handed her Napkins he had taken from the diner. "How many trees will they have to kill to supply you with Kleenexes for your life?"

She smiled. "Stop making jokes and let me cry."

"Do you think that's why women wear sleeveless dresses and men don't wear sleeveless shirts? So the women can wipe their noses on the men's sleeves."

"Gross. Maybe, but probably because small shoulders are a secondary sexual characteristic. Let's get back to the question I asked before I screamed at that man. Where do we go from here?"