American Stranger by David Plante

Author:David Plante
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2017-10-17T21:45:42+00:00

Three

The Greens’ large, brown clapboard house in Amagansett was in woods, and Nancy, in the morning, went in her light nightgown and barefoot from her bedroom to the trees. The tall, thin trunks went up to high branches, where the early sun shone; she stood in the shadows below, among ferns. She walked among the ferns on dead, damp leaves. She saw the house, with its porch and wicker chairs, through the tree trunks. Her mother was at the screen door.

In the dining alcove, her mother poured out a glass of orange juice for her and said, “The Kenners are giving a party this evening.”

“A party?”

“Don’t you like parties anymore?”

“I guess I do,” Nancy said.

Her mother put her hand on Nancy’s head. “Are you all right?”

Laughing, Nancy said, “Why shouldn’t I be all right?”

With her mother and father, she went into the Amagansett center for the Saturday shopping, and, as she had done as a little girl, stopped in the drugstore to buy her father a newspaper and look over the magazines in the rack; she chose two or three she once thought fun. With her parents she had lunch in a small restaurant, and in the afternoon they lay on chaises longues in the sunshine by their pool and, while her father read the newspaper and her mother dozed, Nancy flipped through the magazines, which were no longer fun. Lowering a magazine, she looked around, then looked at her parents, who, she knew, wanted both to protect her and to allow her all the freedom in the world, but Nancy felt no freedom was open to her.

The party at the Kenners was at dusk on a lawn behind their house. Kerosene torches burned, the flames wavering pale yellow against the pale gray sky, on stakes along the picket fence at the back of the lawn and down along the flagstone path to the pool. As Nancy, feeling her lightly sunburnt body sensitive to the small, shifting movements of her dress, approached the people, she felt revive in her, just a little but enough for her to be aware of it, her old pleasure at going to a party. As soon as she got her drink, from a bartender in a white jacket behind a long table covered with a white cloth and bottles and glasses, she turned away from her parents to look around at who was at the party. One of the torches was smoking.

She saw a man standing alone under an apple tree near the house, his hands on his hips, looking around. He wore white flannel slacks, a white shirt, and a dark blue blazer, and his smooth black hair was combed back flat from his high forehead.

Nancy went to her old friend Eugenia Kenner, and, indicating the man in white flannels, she asked “Who’s he?”

Eugenia said, “I don’t know. But let’s find out.” She introduced herself as the Kenners’ daughter, and he replied that his name was Tim.

“And this is Nancy,” Eugenia said.

He was tall, with a large nose and a narrow face, his forehead high because his hair was receding.

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