NOVEMBER 29, 2002
MY SUMMER WITH THE MOVIE STAR
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO (Cont.)
I stopped counting their consumption, but I know I finished my first martini and had another, and my lips were feeling a little numb around the edges but that was about all, except for feeling super-relaxed.
Carol turned on the radio that's built into the wall of the pool house. It's a special system that makes the music sound as if it is coming from all over the house, and even up from the floor of the pool. The first thing that blasted out was one of my favorite instrumentals, Benny Rides Again. I know because I collect Goodman. That's something I haven't mentioned, my preference for music with a strong beat. However, Carol switched the station to classical music and that was also perfectly fine with me. She could have played her first lesson on the harmonica for all I cared, that's what marts do for you.
"Ezra doesn't want to talk to his girls, Sylvia," Carol said. "I think he's mad at his girls. What shall we do to amuse ourselves? Shall we play jacks or hopscotch? What do you suggest now that Ezra finds us so boring?"
She was teasing him because he wasn't talking, only drinking and staring at the pool. She came over and tried to sit down next to me on the lounge, but she almost missed it, and some of her drink splashed on my leg. Now that was a real novelty, somebody spilling something on me for a change.
"Oh, maybe he will talk to us if we talk to him," I said, getting into the spirit of it all. I felt I was part of the group for maybe the first time up there. I took another sizeable sip on my martini. I think it was about my third one, martini, not sip. After so many, it's just the same as drinking ice water.
"Don't start, Carol," Ezra finally spoke, but directly to her, ignoring my comment. He was busy making up another enormous batch of marts in the pitcher.
"Sylvia," she said, ignoring him. "Have you even been in swimming au natural?"
God, had he told her that? It was the one last thing on this earth I though was sancrosant between us, Ezra and me. Had he told her that we did it, or that we were ready to swim naked, until his calmer head prevailed?
"I said for you to can it, Carol, and I mean it." Ezra looked over at the two of us on the lounge. It was a fairly ugly look, directed exclusively at her, I hoped.
"You mean we are going to keep these fucking suits on?" she asked him. "I thought we came out here to relax and have fun."
He refused to answer her, perhaps, because of her obscenity.
"Sylvia, have you ever been laid?" she asked. Wow. She was really warming up to the adult topics. "I mean thoroughly laid and re-laid until you're so exhausted you can't even get up to pee? It is almost a religious experience. You could say a good lay is a gateway to grace, only in reverse, like going into church through the back door." Her remark struck her as funny, so she giggled with her hand over her mouth.
It was the most I had ever heard Carol say at one time, except when she was explaining to Ezra how I could handle the typing on weekends, and filling in the voids in my conversation. But she really had thought the sex thing through, that was evident. "I'm sorry," I said. "But I have never indulged in sexual intercourse."
"Ahhhh," she said, taking a sip from her drink, which she knew how to hold so gracefully; I mean the glass, it looked so pretty in her hand. "We suspected as much, Ezra and--"
"Carol," he interrupted her, "Would you do me one personal favor? Go take a flying, fucking leap off the side of this mountain." But, just as calm as pie, he walked over and poured us both another drink. I never really believed he wanted to see me drink or smoke, but all the rules appeared to be suspended on that day, and there were certainly a lot more fucks floating around in the air.
So I took the drink, or rather took it from Carol, who handed it to me. I think we must have had about twenty each because we just kept drinking and it was getting dark outside. At this point, nobody was talking, and I was feeling not just strange, but sick, so I said I had better go in the house and take a little nap before trying to type some more. Frankly, I don't know how I managed to get inside without falling and cracking my head open, and going to the hospital. But I am never that lucky.
