380
PARTISAN REVIEW
Labor Day weekend, Harvey treated Marian and Paulie and
Paulie's three-year-old cousin Ben (Harvey's older sister's kid) to a
day at the beach: not Surf City which was getting tacky but Cohasset
Bay where they could drive out to the old lighthouse. The lottery
money was nearly gone, in fact it really was gone, but what the hell,
it was a great day, the kids loved it, Marian said she felt like a kid
again herself, lazing around all afternoon on a beach towel, listening
to music, oiling herself, having a nap or two in the sun. She'd have
preferred it that Harvey's sister came along but little Ben wasn't too
much trouble, the boys were occupied in wading in the surf, chasing
gulls, monkeying in the sand with their pails and shovels, the only
problem for her, it wasn't really a problem, was that the wind blew so
hard, you got tired walking into it or even standing up for long....
Harvey thought the wind was a good thing, it kept things healthy,
the muggy air blown away . All afternoon he kept looking at Paulie,
and he kept looking at Marian, he was feeling happy, sly, laughing
to himself for no reason he knew, he
was
a generous man, people
were probably talking about him.
It
was nothing for a millionaire to
give away money: the whole thing, the context, was different for a
man basically without a lot of money but with a generous spirit.
Marian had curly black hair, a skin that tanned olive-dark, on
the beach she wore white-rimmed plastic sunglasses that made her
look like some movie star, not twenty-nine years old but twenty at
the most, her belly swollen just a little out, her breasts too looking
swollen, held tight in the tiny bikini top with the thin straps. She'd
shaved under her arms that morning and seemed to be lifting her
arms more than usual, yawning, stretching luxuriously, Harvey re–
membered how in high school he'd stared secretly at the girls to see if
they had hair under their arms or if they'd shaved it off, and he and
the other boys would joke about it, also if a girl had begun to shave
her legs, and if a girl hadn't, and you could see the hairs, you'd call
out in a weird voice
Hair-ry legs!
and everybody would crack up while
the girl wouldn't have a clue what the joke was; or, if she did, she'd
be too ashamed to let on.
Marian noticed him looking at her, she didn't mind being stared
at when she looked good and she knew she looked good today, she
gave him a certain mock-smile, curling her lip in a way that was sup–
posed to mimic him, she wriggled her shoulders, her ass, he was
squatting down doing something with Paulie and he got vague with
what he was doing, just looking at her, it was almost as if she wasn't
