/> “I had a lot to talk to you about, Daddy,” she told him.
“We can still talk, Ruthie. Nothing’s changed,” he repeated.
Ruth had finished her wine. She looked at her empty glass; then she threw it at her father’s bobbing head. She missed him by a safe margin. The wineglass plunked into the water and sank, unbroken and dancing, like a ballet slipper, to the bottom of the deep end of the pool.
“I want to be alone,” Ruth told her father again. “You wanted to fuck Hannah—now you can leave with her. Go on—just go with Hannah!”
“I’m sorry, Ruthie,” her father said, but Ruth went into the house, leaving him to tread water.
Ruth stood in the kitchen; her knees shook a little when she washed the rice and let it drain in a sieve. She was sure she’d lost her appetite. To her relief, her father and Hannah didn’t try to talk to her again.
Ruth heard Hannah’s high-heeled shoes in the front hall; she could imagine how perfect those salmon-pink shoes looked on a slinky blonde. Then she heard the navy-blue Volvo—its wide tires crushing the stones in the driveway. (In the summer of ’58, the driveway of the Coles’ house in Sagaponack had been a dirt driveway, but Eduardo Gomez had convinced Ted to try crushed stones. Eduardo had got the idea for a driveway of crushed stones from the infamous driveway at Mrs. Vaughn’s.)
Ruth stood in the kitchen, listening to the Volvo moving west on Parsonage Lane. Maybe her father would take Hannah back to New York. Maybe they would stay in Hannah’s apartment. They should be too embarrassed to spend another night together, Ruth thought. But her father, although he could be sheepish, was never embarrassed— and Hannah wasn’t even sorry! They would probably go to the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. And they would call later—both of them, but at different times. Ruth remembered that her father’s answering machine was off; she resolved that she would not answer the phone.
But when the phone rang only an hour later, Ruth thought it might be Allan. She answered it.
“I’m still thinking about playing squash with you,” Scott Saunders said.
“I’m not in the mood for squash,” Ruth lied. There was a golden quality to his skin, she remembered; his freckles were the color of the beach.
“If I can steal you away from your father,” Scott said, “how about dinner tomorrow night?”
Ruth had not been able to cook the dinner that Hannah had largely prepared; she knew she couldn’t eat. “I’m sorry—I’m not in the mood for dinner,” Ruth told the lawyer.
“Maybe you’ll change your mind tomorrow,” Scott said. Ruth could imagine his smile—the self-importance of it.
“Maybe . . .” Ruth confessed to him. Somehow she found the strength to hang up the phone.
She wouldn’t answer it again, although it rang and rang for half the night. Each time it rang, she hoped it wasn’t Allan and she wished she could bring herself to turn her father’s answering machine on. Most of the calls, she was sure, were from Hannah or her father.
And although she’d not found the energy to eat, she’d succeeded in drinking both bottles of the white wine. She’d covered the cut vegetables with some plastic wrapping, and she’d covered and refrigerated the washed rice. The shrimp, which were still in the refrigerator, would keep well for a night in their marinade, but to be sure Ruth had added the juice of another lemon. Maybe she’d feel like eating something tomorrow night. (Maybe with Scott Saunders.)
She was sure her father would come back. She half-expected to see his car in the driveway in the morning. Ted enjoyed the martyr role; he would have loved to give Ruth the impression that he’d slept in the Volvo all night.
But in the morning the car wasn’t there. The phone started ringing at seven A.M., and Ruth still wouldn’t answer it. Now she tried to find her father’s answering machine, but it was not in his workroom, where it usually was. Perhaps it had broken and he’d taken it somewhere to have it repaired.
Ruth regretted being in her father’s workroom. Above his writing desk, where he wrote only letters nowadays, was the tacked-up list of names and phone numbers of his current squash opponents. Scott Saunders was at the top of the list. Oh, God—here I go again, she thought. There were two numbers for Saunders: his number in New York and a Bridgehampton number. She dialed the Bridgehampton number, of course. It was not yet seven-thirty; Ruth could tell by the sound of his voice that she’d awakened him.
“Are you still thinking about playing squash with me?” Ruth asked him.
“It’s early,” Scott said. “Have you beaten your father already?”
“I want to beat you first,” Ruth told him.
“You can try, ” the lawyer said. “How about dinner after we play?”
“Let’s see how the game goes,” Ruth said.
“What time?” he asked her.
“The usual time—the same time you play with my father.”
“I’ll see you at five, then,” Scott told her.
That would give Ruth the whole day to get ready for him. There were specific shots and serves she liked to practice before she played a left-hander. But her father was the lefty of all lefties; in the past, she had never been able to adequately prepare herself for him. Now she believed that playing Scott Saunders would be the perfect warm-up for playing her father.
Ruth began by calling Eduardo and Conchita. She didn’t want them around the house. She told Conchita she was sorry that she wouldn’t see her this visit, and Conchita did what she always did when she talked to Ruth—she cried. Ruth promised she would see Conchita when she was back from Europe, although Ruth doubted she would be visiting her father in Sagaponack then.