Players (Vintage Contemporaries) by DeLillo Don

Author:DeLillo, Don [DeLillo, Don]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780307817167
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

2

Pammy bare-breasted on the redwood deck watched Ethan row toward shore, varying light between them, fire opal and conifer bronze, a checkered shade from house to water’s edge, curt blue noon beyond. She sat on a bench while Jack Laws cut her hair. The house was all glass and cedar shingles, built vertically, its reflecting surfaces dense with trees. Jack muttered instructions to himself, thinning out an area behind her left ear. She looked west toward silhouetted hills, the mainland.

“What are you up to back there?”

“You wanted drama, right? A change. Don’t interrupt.”

“What’ll we do for lunch?”

“That’s all we do here. We plan meals at great length with all this business about fresh vegetables, fresh lobster, country-fresh eggs, this bullshit routine. We talk about it, right? Then we actually plan it, the specifics. Then we do it, we make it. Then we sit down and eat it, talking about it all the while.”

“I don’t want you doing things to my hair in this mood.”

“Then we, what, clean up, throw away, wash and dry. And then it’s time to discuss mealtime, foodtime, the next meal. Quick, drive out to roadside stands. Blueberries, squash, corn, hurry.”

“It’s not a life-enhancing mood you’re in. I sense little warmth there, Jack.”

“After dark,” he said. “The quiet.”

“I don’t like scissors in your hand.”

“Do you believe how dark?”

“It’s called night, Jack. We call that night.”

“I didn’t know it would be like this. I thought swimming at least. Do you believe this water?”

“Cold, I know.”

“I thought morning swims. I thought at last, freedom from crowded beaches. But this water. Who knew?”

“It’s not totally out of the question.”

“It’s the pits.”

“Try again,” she said. “Maybe it was just that day.”

“You have nice breasts.”

“A bit hairy right now.”

“Nice breasts for a girl.”

“I still want to know what we’ll do for lunch.”

“If he ever gets here to supervise.”

“He rows well, I think.”

“The supervisor,” Jack said. “If the supervisor ever gets here.”

“Anytime Ethan wants to rent a house this nice in a setting this lovely, cetra cetra, I’m perfectly happy to have him supervise.”

“What’s he got in that boat, four tons of pig iron, the way he’s rowing?”

“I like watching him. People rowing. People rowing and people bicycling. They’re nice to watch. Once we were in England and somewhere near Windsor Castle we saw these boys rowing, prep school, in racing boats, rowing as teams in these sculls, and along the shore there’s the instructor going along on this little path right along the shore on his bicycle, this towpath, calling out instructions.”

“I’m doing this par excellence.”

“So rowing and bicycling together,” she said. “Boy, what a treat for my jaded cranium.”

“This is drama extraordinaire.”

“All I want’s a new head.”

“You got it, charley.”

She’d always lived in apartments. This was a house in the woods at the edge of a bay, a house that inhaled the weather, frequent changes in temperature. She heard noises all night long. Animals lived in the roof and cellar. There were bats in the unused chimney. In bed, curled under

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