“Despite everything, I think you really like this place, Troy.”
“Never as much as I do right now,” he replied. He poured us some more wine. “It’s Xanadu. How can we not like it? Everything unpleasant has been left outside the walls. There is only us in the here and now. We’ll make our own magic. At least for a night. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said, not sure what I was agreeing to but nevertheless happy to do it.
I wanted to help clean up after we had eaten, but he said Martha was waiting in the wings.
“No matter how well we did, it wouldn’t be good enough. Martha knows my mother. She’ll check everything with a magnifying glass. Not even Sherlock Holmes would be able to tell we had eaten here.”
“She sounds obsessive-compulsive,” I said.
He shrugged. “She’s something, but the truth is, I’ve never blamed her for being who she is. Everything is a defense mechanism when you’re married to my father. Maybe the best thing that could have happened for both Jo and myself was being sent to spend most of our lives at school and away from . . . from all this. You can imagine what our Thanksgiving is like.”
“Not any more intimidating than what mine looks like it might be,” I said.
“We’ve got to stop talking about family,” he said. “It’s like reliving the sinking of the Titanic or something. Let me show you the rest of the house.”
He took my hand, and we walked out another doorway from the dinette. He showed me the entertainment center, with a wide-screen television that looked as big as some small movie theaters. Instead of sofas and settees, there were large black leather theater seats. He pointed out the sophisticated sound equipment.
“This is impressive,” I said.
“Impressive waste is what it is. We don’t use it very much. Much of this house is for show.”
His father’s office was literally as large as our living room. As was every room in the house, the office was spotless, every book and paper neatly placed on desks and shelves. There was a conference table, settees, and some office equipment. There were the same realistic paintings, and to the right of the desk was a picture of a jet plane.
“My father is partners with some other guy on the plane,” he said, nodding at it.
“You don’t know who?”
“He bought it recently. I have yet to take a ride on it. I don’t ask him about his business. I don’t ask him about much of anything anymore,” he added.
I noticed that he didn’t really enter the office. He just stood in the doorway with me and pointed things out. Then he took my hand and led me farther into the house and to the right. We arrived at double bone-white doors within a gilded frame.
“The spa,” he announced, and opened the doors. The heat flowed out over us.
Directly before us was an oval indoor pool in light blue tile. There were chaise lounges to the right with towels rolled neatly on them. He played with some switches on the right, and the room darkened a bit, but the pool light came on.
“There’s a steam room over there and a sauna beside it. Another room has a massage table. My father, when he’s home, has a personal masseuse. Of course, there are showers and toilets. It’s as good as what you’ll find in any five-star hotel, believe me. When we were here most of the time, Jo and I used this. She had friends over. I didn’t. In fact, you’re the first person I’ve brought here.”
“I’m sorry. You could have had a lot of fun with friends here. You certainly would have been very popular.”
“But mostly because of this,” he said sharply. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t even mention it to my classmates.”
I stepped forward and knelt to put my hand in the water. “It’s warm.”
“Always,” he said. “Want to go in?”
“Really? But I don’t have a bathing suit.”
He shrugged and went back to the light panel. He turned off the pool lights as well as the lights illuminating the room. There were only emergency lights on over the doors, casting a dim orange glow.
Like bad food I’d eaten, my memory of being naked in the basement began to rise from the dark depths of my innermost fears. Troy turned up the music a little. He moved to the other side of the pool and began to undress.
“We can keep the water between us,” he said. When he was naked, he slipped into the pool smoothly. “You know, I just realized that I haven’t been in this pool for more than a year, a year and a half.”
He swam a little, then paused and bounced up and down. He began to sing with the Three Tenors. The flow of my terrible images began to slow. I laughed, and then, my fingers fumbling, I began to undress. He swam again, deliberately ignoring me so I wouldn’t change my mind, I’m sure. The moment I was naked, I slipped over the edge and into the pool.
“How’s it feel?” he asked.