leaped high into the air, and slammed the ball down on the turf so violently that it bounced twenty feet straight up. When he came down, he fell onto his back, laughing for sheer joy.
iv
On the Saturday morning after the football game Raphael was stiff and sore. His body was out of condition, and his muscles reacted to the exertion and bruising contact of the game. He still felt good, though.
Flood was up early, which was unusual, since he normally slept late on weekends. “Come along, football hero,” he said to Raphael, “rise and shine.” His eyes glittered brightly.
Raphael groaned and rolled over in bed.
“Quickly, quickly,” Flood commanded, snapping his fingers.
“What’s got you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning?” Raphael demanded sourly.
“Today we go a-visiting,” Flood said exuberantly. “Today I carry the conquering hero to visit the queen.”
“Some other time.” Raphael laid one arm across his eyes. “I’m in no condition for queens today.”
“I wouldn’t touch that line with a ten-foot pole—or a nine-foot Hungarian either. You might as well get up. I’m not going to let you sleep away your day of triumph.”
“Shit!” Raphael threw off the covers.
“My God!” Flood recoiled from the sight of the huge bruises and welts on Raphael’s body. “You mean to tell me you let yourself get in that condition for fun?”
Raphael sat up and glanced at the bruises. “They’ll go away. What were you babbling about?”
“We go to visit the fair Isabel,” Flood declaimed, “whose hair is like the night, whose skin is like milk, and whose gazongas come way out to here.” He gestured exaggeratedly in front of his chest. “She’s an old schoolmate of my aunt’s, a fallen woman, cast out by her family, living in shame and obscurity by the shores of scenic Lake Oswego some miles to the south. She and I are kindred spirits, since both of us offend our families by our very existence. She’s invited us to spend the weekend, so up, my archangel. Put on your wings and halo, and I will deliver you into the hands of the temptress.”
“Isn’t it a little early for all the bullshit?” Raphael asked, climbing stiffly to his feet and picking up his towel. “I’m going to hit the showers.” He padded out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.
After a hot shower his sore muscles felt better, and he was in a better humor as he dressed. There was no withstanding Flood when he set his mind to something, and finally Raphael gave in. Twenty minutes later they were packed and southbound on the freeway in Flood’s small, fast, red Triumph.
“Just exactly who is this lady we’re visiting?” Raphael asked.
“I told you,” Flood replied.
“This time why don’t you clear away all the underbrush and give me something coherent.”
“The lady’s name is Isabel Drake. She went to school with my aunt, which makes her practically a member of the family.”
“I don’t quite follow that, but let it pass.”
“We have very extended families in Grosse Pointe.”
“Okay.”
“Helps us avoid contact with the riffraff.” “All right.”
“Avoiding contact with the riffraff is a major concern in Grosse Pointe.”
“All right, I said.” “Do I digress?”
“Of course you do, but I’m used to that. All right. Miss—Mrs.—Drake is a distant friend of your family’s, a lady of middle years who happens to live in the area, and this is by way of a courtesy call, right?”
Flood laughed. “She’ll love that,” he hooted. “Mrs. Drake—definitely Mrs.—made, when she was quite young, an excellent marriage and an even better divorce. She’s a lady of means now. The aunt I referred to is my father’s youngest sister, so Isabel is maybe thirty at most—hardly what you’d call ‘of middle years.’ And as far as ‘courtesy calls’ go, you’ll soon discover that the term is wildly inappropriate. Isabel Drake is probably who they had in mind when they invented the word ‘fascinating.’ ”
“Why did you call her a fallen woman?”
“That’s a tale of dark passion and illicit lust, Raphael, hardly suitable for your tender ears.”
“Try me. If there are subjects I shouldn’t talk about, I’d like to know in advance.”
“Besides which, you’re panting to hear the details, right?” Flood smirked.
“Pant, pant,” Raphael said dryly. “Get on with it, Damon. You’re going to tell me about it anyway; nothing could stop you. I could have your mouth bricked up, and you’d still tell me.”
Flood laughed. “All right, Raphael. Shortly after her divorce, Isabel conceived a passion for the husband of one of her cousins, a vapid, colorless girl of no lasting significance. There was a flaming affair which quite rapidly approached the status of a public scandal. The man in question was also of no lasting significance—some semipresentable shithead the cousin’s family had bought for her. Anyhow, there were all the usual lurid developments—gossip, people falling over themselves to tell the poor cousin what Isabel was up to. She attempted suicide, of course.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not a bit of it. Sleeping pills, the tragic suicide note, all of it. Anyhow, there was a separation, and the poor klutz informed Isabel that he was ready to divorce the cousin and ‘make an honest woman’ of her. Isabel, who was getting bored with the whole thing at that point, laughed in his face. She was not about to give up that alimony for anybody, much less some cretin who couldn’t function outside the bedroom. He got huffy about it all and stormed out, but when he tried to go back to the cousin, she told him to buzz off. He took to drinking and made a special point of telling everyone in all the bars about Isabel’s bedroom habits—in great detail. In rime the rest of the family hinted around that they’d all be a lot happier if she’d take up residence a long, long way from Grosse Pointe, and finally she did.”
“Don’t the rich have anything better to do?”
“That’s the whole point of being rich,” Flood replied, turning off the freeway. “It leaves you free to pursue diversions other than money.”
“You know, I think you made all that up, Damon. I think you’re putting me on.”
“Would I put you on?” Flood laughed. “If you thought I’d swallow it, yes.”
The home of Isabel Drake was a chalet-style house set in a grove of fir trees near the shores of the lake. It was about ten-thirty when Flood’s small red sports car stopped on the curving gravel drive in front of the house, and morning sun filtered down through the trees with that overripe golden quality that, more than anything, speaks of autumn.
Flood
