At thirty-five Emma Thorp was still the prettiest woman in Black River. She was a green-eyed blonde with a spectacular figure, a combination of beauty and sex appeal that had gotten her into the finals of the Miss U.S.A. Contest ten years ago. That achievement made her Black River’s only genuine celebrity. Her son, Jeremy, was the same age as Mark. Jeremy stayed at the Annendale camp for a few days every year. Mark valued him as a playmate-but valued him more because his mother was Emma. Mark was deeply in puppy love with Emma and mooned around her every chance he got.
“Are you here on vacation?” Bob asked.
“Just got in this afternoon.”
Jenny said, “We’d ask you to sit down, but Paul’s trying to keep an arm’s length from everyone who has the flu. If he picked it up, he’d just pass it on to the kids.”
“It’s nothing serious,” Bob said. “Not the flu, really. Just night chills.”
“Maybe you can live with them,” Emma said. “But I think they’re pretty serious. I haven’t had a good sleep all week. They aren’t just night chills. I tried to take a nap this afternoon, and I woke up shaking and sweating.”
Paul said, “You both look very good.”
“I tell you,” Bob said, “it’s nothing serious. Night chills. My grandmother used to complain of them.”
“Your grandmother complained of everything,” Emma said. “Night chills, rheumatiz, the ague, hot flashes . .
Paul hesitated, smiled, and said, “Oh hell, sit down. Let me buy you a drink.”
Glancing at his watch, Bob said, “Thanks, but we really can’t. They have a poker game in the back room here every Saturday night. Emma and I usually play. They’re expecting us.”
“You play, Emma?” Jenny asked.
“Better than Bob does,” Emma said. “Last time, he lost fifteen dollars, and I won thirty-two.”
Bob grinned at his wife and said, “Tell the truth now. It’s not so much skill. It’s just that when you’re playing, most of the men don’t spend enough time looking at their cards.”
Emma touched the low-cut neckline of her sweater. “Well, bluffing is an important part of good poker playing. If the damn fools can be bluffed by some cleavage, then they just don’t play as well as I do.”
On the way home, ten miles out of Bexford, Paul started to turn off the blacktop road onto a scenic overlook that was a favorite lovers’ lane.
“Please, don’t stop,” Jenny said.
“Why not?”
“I want you.”
He put the car in park, half on the road, half off. “And that’s a reason not to stop?”
She avoided looking at him. “I want you, but you aren’t the kind of man that can be satisfied with just the sex. You want something more from me. It’s got to be a deeper commitment with you-love, emotion, caring. I’m not up to that part of it.”
Cupping her chin in his hand, he gently turned her face to him. “When you were down to Boston in March, you were very changeable. One moment you thought we could make it together, and the next moment you thought we couldn’t. But then, the last few days, just before you went home, you seemed to have made up your mind. You said that we were right for each other, that you just needed a little more time.” He had proposed to her last Christmas. Ever since, in bed and out, he had been trying to convince her that they were two halves of an organism, that neither of them could be whole without the other. In March, he thought he had made some headway. “Now,” he said, “you’ve changed your mind again.”
She took his hand from her chin, and kissed the palm. “I’ve got to be sure.”
“I’m not like your husband,” he said.
“I know you’re not. You’re a-”
“Very nice man?” he asked.
“I need more time.”
“How much more?”
“I don’t know.”
He studied her for a moment, then put the car in gear and drove back onto the blacktop. He switched on the radio.
A few minutes later she said, “Are you angry?”
“No. Just disappointed.”
“You’re too positive about us,” she said. “You should be more careful. You should have some doubts like I do.”