“I thought we were staying out of public places?”
“They don’t have the flu in Bexford,” she said.
“They don’t? It’s only thirty miles down the road.”
She shrugged. “That’s just one of the curiosities of this plague.”
He put the car in gear and drove out into the street. “So be it. A quiet little bar in Bexford.”
She found an all-night Canadian radio station playing American swing music from the 1940s. “No more talk for a while,” she said. She sat close to him with her head against his shoulder.
The drive from Black River to Bexford was a pleasant one. The narrow black-top road rose and fell and twisted gracefully through the lightless, leafy countryside. For miles at a time, trees arched across the roadway, forming a tunnel of cool night air. After a while, in spite of the Benny Goodman music, Paul felt that they were the only two people in the world-and that was a surprisingly agreeable thought.
She was even lovelier than the mountain night, and as mysterious in her silence as some of the deep, unsettled northern hollows through which they passed. For such a slender woman, she had great presence. She took up very little space on the seat, and yet she seemed to dominate the car and overwhelm him. Her eyes, so large and dark, were closed, yet he felt as if she were watching him. Her face-too beautiful to appear in Vogue: she would have made the other models in the magazine look like horses-was in repose. Her full lips were slightly parted as she sang softly with the music; and this bit of animation, this parting of the lips had more sensual impact than a heavy-eyed, full-faced leer from Elizabeth Taylor. As she leaned against him, her dark hair fanned across his shoulder, and her scent-clean and soapy-rose to him.
In Bexford, he parked across the street from the tavern.
She switched off the radio and kissed him once, quickly, as a sister might. “You’re a nice man.”
“What did I do?”
“I didn’t want to talk, and you didn’t make me.”
“It wasn’t any hardship,” he said. “You and me. . . we communicate with silence as well as with words. Hadn’t you noticed?”
She smiled. “I’ve noticed.”
“But maybe you don’t put enough value on that. Not as much as you should.”
“I put a great deal of value on it,” she said.
“Jenny, what we have is-”
She put one hand on his lips. “I didn’t mean for the conversation to take such a serious turn,” she said.
“But I think we should talk seriously. We’re long overdue for that.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about us, not seriously. And because you’re such a nice man, you’re going to do what I want.” She kissed him again, opened her door, and got out of the car.
The tavern was a warm, cozy place. There was a rustic bar along the left-hand wall, about fifteen tables in the center of the room, and a row of maroon leatherette booths along the right wall. The shelves behind the bar were lit with soft blue bulbs. Each of the tables in the center of the room held a tall candle in a red glass lantern, and an imitation stained-glass Tiffany lamp hung over each of the booths. The jukebox was playing a soulful country ballad by Charlie Rich. The bartender, a heavyset man with a walrus mustache, joked continuously with the customers. Without trying for it, without being aware of it, he sounded like W. C. Fields. There were four men at the bar, half a dozen couples at the tables, and other couples in the booths. The last booth was open, and they took it.
When they had ordered and received their drinks from a perky red-headed waitress-Scotch for him and a dry vodka martini for her-Paul said, “Why don’t you come up and spend a few days with us at camp? We have an extra sleeping bag.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“When?”
“Maybe next week.”
“I’ll tell the kids. Once they’re expecting you, you won’t be able to back out of it.”
She laughed. “Those two are something else,” she said.