JOYCE CAROL OATES
397
families; their fathers, mainly . Barry drifted back
to
his office pale and
shaken and that evening might complain vaguely to Charlotte that Paul
Riegel came on a little too strong for him:
"As
if it's always the squash court,
and he's always the star."
Charlotte said quickly, "He means well. And so does Ceci . But they're
aggressive people." She paused, wondering what she was saying. "- Not like
us."
When Barry and Paul played doubles with other friends, other men,
they nearly always won . Which pleased Barry more than he would have
wished anyone to know.
And Paul's praise: it burned in his heart with a luminosity that endured
for hours and days and
alI
in secret.
The Carsons were childless but had two cats. The Riegels were child–
less but had a red setter bitch, no longer young.
The Carsons lived in a small mock-Georgian house in town, the Riegels
lived in a glass, stone, and redwood house, custom-designed, three miles out
in the country. The Carsons' house was one of many attractive houses of its
kind in their quiet residential neighborhood and had no distinctive features
except an aged enormous plane tree in the front which would probably have
to be dismantled soon -
"It
will break our hearts," Charlotte said. The Car–
sons' house was fully exposed to the street; the Riegels' house was hidden
from the narrow gravel road that ran past it by a seemingly intended
meadow ofjuniper pines, weeping willows, grasses, wild flowers.
Early on in their friendship, a tall cool summer drink in hand, Barry
Carson almost walked through a plate glass door at the Riegels' - beyond it
was the redwood deck, Ceci in a silk floral-printed dress with numberless
pleats.
Ceci was happy and buoyant and confident always. For a petite
woman - size five, it was more than once announced - she had a shapely
body, breasts, hips, strong-calved legs. When she and Charlotte Carson
played tennis Ceci was all over the court, laughing and exclaiming, while
slow-moving premeditated Charlotte, poor Charlotte who felt, in her fi-iend's
company, ostrich-talI and ungainly, missed all but the easy shots. "You need to
be more aggressive, Char!" Paul Riegel called out. " - Need to be
murder–
ous!"
The late-night drive back to town from the Riegels' along narrow
twisty country roads Barry behind the wheel sleepy with drink yet excited
too, vaguely sweetly aching, Charlotte yawning and sighing, and there was
the danger ofwhite-tailed deer so plentiful in this part of the state leaping in
front of the car, but they returned home safely, suddenly they were home,
and, inside, one would observe that their house was so lacking in imagination,
