331: May was determined ...
Herb ’n’ Lorna, Chapter 12 continues
May was determined not to give up on Garth, but one frightening visit nearly drove her away from him. She had tried romance as a lure before and failed, but she had run out of ideas and so tried again, hoping that something, anything — a difference in the weather or the phase of the moon — would change her luck. She brought candles and wine and a good dinner to the cottage. She brought her filmiest nightgown. She managed to get Garth out of Nosy’s and into the cottage, and for a while she thought she was making real progress. Garth picked up a shrimp, stared at it for a while, and then ate it, and May hoped that he might still have an appetite for food. He looked May over and attempted a wolf whistle, and May hoped that he might still have an appetite for her. But then he picked up the bottle of wine and a glass and dropped into a chair, and it was clear that he had an appetite only for failure.
“May,” he said, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was lifeless and hollow. She was looking out the window, at nothing in particular.
“Let’s live here,” said Garth. “Here at the beach. I like it here, May. You’d like it here, too. They’re swell people here, not like those people we used to know. Swell people — the guys who work the bay.”
“You mean the guys who don’t work the bay,” said May. She stubbed out her cigarette.
Garth chuckled. “Maybe I do,” he said. “Maybe I do. Maybe they’re the smart ones. They have nothing to lose. They had nothing to lose. They’re no worse off than they were before. Isn’t that smart? Come on, May, come on and live here with me. Forget about all — ” He stood, wobbled, and, with the hand that held his glass, indicated Babbington by flinging a stream of wine in its direction. “ — that! ” he said.
Well, it was horrible, simply horrible. You have to understand that he wasn’t inviting me to sail off to Tahiti to join him in living some idyllic island life, some carefree existence — coconut milk and mangoes and grass huts, that sort of thing. No, nothing like that. He was asking me to be a bum, like him, like those smelly, lumpy men. A bum! He wanted me to join him so that he’d know it was all right to be what he had become. Well, not on your life! I ran from there, ran.
She did. She bolted for the door in her nightgown. Garth made a grab for her as she went by, a drunk’s try at an embrace, but she stepped aside and he lost his balance and fell. May pushed the screen door open and ran along the boardwalk toward the boat. Behind her, she could hear Garth laughing.
I cried all the way across the bay. I was running away from him. I was disgusted by him. And I was furious with him. The bastard was still so handsome. I can close my eyes now and see him slumped in that chair, asking me to live at the beach, and he looks like a damned movie star. I think I ran because I was afraid I might stay. Well. Maybe. Who knows?
[to be continued on Monday, September 5, 2022]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of “My Mother Takes a Tumble,” “Do Clams Bite?,” “Life on the Bolotomy,” “The Static of the Spheres,” “The Fox and the Clam,” “The Girl with the White Fur Muff,” “Take the Long Way Home,” “Call Me Larry,” and “The Young Tars,” the nine novellas in Little Follies, and Little Follies itself, which will give you all the novellas in one handy package.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document) and at Encyclopedia.com.