"Yep," Paul said. "Nobody pays any attention to him; Ed Tinsley, the owner, knows damned well what he's hustling in and out of there-besides women-but he's not about to bother him. Half the time Ed isn't even there. We just come and go when we want to, and pay him a chunk annually. I'm just as glad I'm at the other end of the crescent from Poolie. I don't even want to know about it when the Feds finally get him."

"It's hard to think of you as a sportsman, a hunter or a fisherman," I said. "You were so absolutely singleminded in school. Talk about Fig..."

"Well, you know us Native Americans," he said. "We got it in our blood."

"Do you design at all any more?" I asked.

He was silent for a while, and I knew that I had reached inside the dark, weathered skin and put a finger on the heart of him. I could have bitten out my treacherous tongue.

"I never could, after I had money," he said. His voice was remote, and he had turned his head out to sea. "It took me a long time to get over the realization that I was on fire to make money, not buildings. I was pretty bitter for a while; I blamed everybody else. I blamed Ginger for a while. It was hard on her. I blamed the girls. It wasn't easy on them either. But I finally worked the blame around to where it belonged. I only wish I'd known myself better earlier. I could have studied accounting and saved us all a lot of grief."

His voice was dry and somehow dead.

"I think you knew yourself pretty well," I said. The dead voice sent pain flooding through me. "You were the best natural architect I ever saw."

"I'm better at making money," he said.

We sat silent. I cast about frantically for something to say that did not lead down into that warm, sucking darkness at the core of me. I could think of nothing safe. But it was even less safe to sit here silent together, in the darkness and the sea-sound.

"It isn't enough, you know," he said presently. "It never has been."

"Don't..." I whispered. He could not have heard me.

He turned his face to me and smiled. I saw his teeth flash again, and I saw something else: the glimmer of tears on his face. I was beside him in the hammock before I even realized I had left the rocker. I put my arms around him and pulled his face down against my breasts, and he simply put his hands on them, through the thin stuff of my robe, and sat still. I felt his mouth pressed to my skin, and his hands, moving slowly at my nipples, and I thought that I would die from the utter exquisiteness of the feel of him. I remembered this feeling; it had never left me, but had lain at the core of me, like the bulb of a plant that blooms many, many years apart. I felt his breath in the hollow of my neck and smelled the dark, warm smell of him, and felt everything inside me loosen, go liquid, begin to burn.

"I made the worst mistake of my life when I let you go, and I've paid for it every minute of every day since," he said. His voice was thickened by my flesh, and I could feel the little puffs of breath as he spoke. Don't-don't-don't, the Kates I knew keened. Yes, the new woman screamed, in ecstasy and triumph. Yes....

"I tried to make Ginger into you," he said. "I tried to make her be to me what you were, but she couldn't; she can't grow up, Kate. I can't make her. It's nearly killing both of us, and I can't seem to stop riding her. Look at her; see what I've created, trying to get you back? And on some level she knows it; but she can't let herself, and so she drinks, and she drinks...if she stops, if she grows up, she'll have to know who it was she married, and why he married her..."

He raised his head and looked at me.

"I would give the rest of life on this earth simply to fuck you right now," he said.

I leaped out of the hammock and backed against the railing of the deck. My robe fell away from my body, and he looked at it. I could feel the impact of his eyes.

"My God," he said. "My God."

My rubbery legs would not hold me up. I hugged the robe around me. I could have pulled him down onto me on the rough boards and taken him into me at that moment, and died of the shuddering completion on the instant; I wanted it so violently that I shook all over as in a bone-deep chill. But my voice, hoarse and cracked, seemed to come through my hot throat from somewhere else.

"No. I'm going back inside. This is wrong. I'll go home...You forfeited this almost thirty years ago, Paul. I have a man I love. You have a woman you love. You can't go back..."

"No," he said, his voice coming out on a long breath. "I can't go back. But we could go forward, Kate. We could do that. We could...I've lived thirty years without living. What the hell do you think Ginger can give me? Money? I don't want any more money. Whatever time is left, I want to live it. I want to live it with you..."

"No."

"I know you want me like I do you. I can feel that in every inch of your body."

"No."

"You do. At least one night, then, Kate. At least that. Something I can live on the next thirty years..."

"No. No. No."

"Listen, Kate. Tomorrow morning...I won't go to Alabama. I'll call them and tell them I can't get through the storm. I'll go down to Avon, to the motel. I'll leave early; everybody will think I'm going on to the mill. You tell them you've decided to beat the storm, and leave about noon, and come there. It will only take you a couple of hours; the storm shouldn't be too bad by then, only some rain...come, Kate. Come to the Carolina Moon with me. I meant to take you there on our wedding night. We'll have this night instead. This afternoon and night, and the next morning, in the storm, all alone..."

"I won't do it," I said.

"Pull around to the last cottage toward the ocean," he said. "You'll see my car. You don't have to go by the office. Ed won't be there, anyway. He always goes inland and drinks when there's a blow. Probably nobody else will be, with the storm. I'll be waiting for you."

"No."

"I'm going anyway," he said. "I'll be there by eleven. I'll go, and light a fire, and chill some champagne, and I'll bring some sandwiches and a radio. And I'll take off my clothes and get in the bed and I'll wait for you. And when you get there...do you remember, Katie Lee? You used to scream out like a crazy woman. I'll bet you don't scream anymore. I'll make you scream, Katie Lee..."

I turned and ran into the house and down the hall.

"Come, Kate," I heard him call, softly, behind me.

I got into bed and pulled the covers over my head and lay there, rigid as a wood log petrified, body racked by shudders and the simple, terrible wanting of him. I sweated profusely in the still, hot night, and I think that I cried, but I did not move from beneath the covers. Beside me in the other bed Cecie slept gently, turned toward the sea with her fist beneath her cheek. I would lie there, I thought, until she dressed and left the room in the morning; I would feign sleep; I would not move. I would continue to lie there until past the time he would leave. I would not respond if anyone called me. I would lock the door after Cecie, so that no one could come in to wake me. Only when I knew with utter certainty that he was gone would I get up and dress and come out into the house. And then I would pack and go home. Or...to the bridge. All right, then, to the bridge. This trip was over.

I did not think that I would sleep, but finally, in the gray dawn, I did.

I waked to gray light and erratic rain peppering the roof, and a knocking on the door, and Paul's voice calling, "Kate. Kate! Dammit, get up! You have a phone call..."

His voice was both annoyed and amused, an ordinary morning voice. I stretched every inch of my body, cracking the cartilage luxuriously, smiling, my eyes still closed. Paul's voice in the morning, and rain on the roof...

I came awake.

"I don't want any breakfast," I called, my heart beginning to pound. "I want to sleep some more..."

"Your husband is on the phone and he's not calling from home," Paul shouted. "He said to drag you out. He needs to talk to you."

"Oh...just a minute," I said, annoyed and frightened. I did not want to see Paul. I did not want to talk to Alan. Alan...

I pulled on sweat pants and shirt and went barefoot into the kitchen where the wall phone was. I was pulling my tangled hair up into its knot with automatic fingers when I entered, and Paul said, "Leave it down. I want to see if there's any gray in it."

He grinned. It was a pleasant, light little grin. He wore gray flannel slacks and a crisp blue oxford shirt under a gray crewneck sweater, and his hair had damp comb tracks in it. His sharp-planed tanned face glowed from the razor. His eyes were clear and mild. He held a spatula in his hand. At the butcher block table Cecie and Fig sat, eating pancakes. Ginger was nowhere in sight.

He pointed the spatula to the phone and I picked it up. "Pancakes?" he mouthed, and I nodded.

"Alan?" I said.

"Kate," Alan said, in the clipped, no-nonsense voice he used when he was full of plans and arrangements and the sweetness of controlling things. It was the voice I liked least. "Kate, I want you to come home today. This morning. Start as soon as you can. I want you back as soon after dark as you can get here, and with that storm..."

"Well, good morning to you, too, darling," I said. "Yes, thank you. I'm having a wonderful time. Wish you were here."

"Oh, for God's sake, Kate, I'm sorry, but I'm in Manhattan, and there's somebody waiting for the phone, and I don't have time...can you get on the road by ten? It's past nine now."

"Why, I suppose I could," I said languidly. "But why on earth should I?" Alan knew I hated it when he hustled me like this. What was the matter with him?

"Because there's a goddamned hurricane or something headed right straight for you-A. And because I have an appointment for you with Carter Hilliard at noon tomorrow, in his office-B. It's the only time he can see you until late November, and we're not going to wait that long."

"Carter Hilliard...no. I'm not coming," I said. "I'm not going to see Carter Hilliard. It was John McCracken I'm supposed to see, and not till the middle of next month. You had no right to make any appointment for me with Carter Hilliard..."

"I ran into John at lunch yesterday at the Yacht Club, and I told him about this foolishness with...the stuff coming back," Alan said. His voice smoothed into the one he used when he thought I was being a fractious child. I like it second least. "He said he thought it was just that, too: foolishness, but he wanted you to see Carter anyway, instead of coming to him first. Said sometimes these vague feelings had a kind of body wisdom behind them. So he called Carter, and Carter said he could see you, but only tomorrow morning. He's going on vacation the day after. So get it on the road and let's get this thing behind us, Kate. I'll be at the house when you get in tonight. I'll take you in in the morning."

"I'm not coming," I said. "Not for another three days. Nobody else is leaving; I can't just run off...it's not going to be a bad storm. Nobody around here is worried..."

"Carter can't see you after tomorrow, Kate; didn't you hear me?"

"Then I'll wait and see John when I was supposed to," I said. "I don't understand you, Alan. You weren't worried; you said you were sure there wasn't anything, and now you're jerking me out of here like my life depends on it..."

And it does, I thought. Just not the way you think. I thought again of the bridge, the bridge in the rain, the bridge in the wind, the bridge in the pink of dawn, and beyond it, the wild, sour-honey sweetness of space....

Not now, the new woman said to me and to the man on the telephone. Not now. Not before I've lived once more, and burned up with living and blazed out with it. Not until then...

"I want to stay until Saturday," I said. "I meant to stay until then, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm sorry. Call Carter back, or I will."

"Is that how long he's staying?" Alan said.

"Who?" I said, honestly.

"Come on, Kate. Your old friend there. The one with the voice, who answered the phone. Little Beaver, or Paul Perfect, or whoever. I thought he wasn't going to be in residence. I gather he changed his mind. I wonder if you have."

Rage flooded me. My eyes filled with angry tears.

"I hadn't, no. But I have three days to decide, don't I?" I said furiously, and hung up the telephone. I turned to face Paul and Cecie and Fig.

"Sorry," I said. "He wants me to come home this morning, and I really don't want to. What a charming little marital vignette to treat you to before breakfast..."

"Compared to Vinnie and me when we disagreed, it sounded like a Japanese tea ceremony," Cecie said comfortably. She was eating pancakes and drinking hot chocolate.

"Hand me that plate, Kate, and I'll dump these new ones on it for you," Paul said. "I think he's right. You ought to get cracking right after breakfast."

I ate the pancakes and drank coffee, not looking at him. Fig sipped coffee and looked around at us raptly. She still moved in the shimmer of something...barely contained, licking at her like heat lightning...that had played over her the night before. She was humming something this morning, over and over, just under her breath. When I had hung up the phone she had smiled at me as brilliantly as if I had done something lovely for her benefit, something delicate and special. When Paul spoke, she nodded enthusiastically, tossing her head up and down so that the heavy palomino hair swung up and down, as a child would nod.

"You listen to Paul, Effie," she burbled. "You listen to your husband. We love you dearly, but you need to beat this storm home. That silly little car will float away if you wait much longer. Listen, the wind's picking up."

It was. Outside, a spume of sand rose off the top of the dunes and whirled away on a gust. A violent spatter of rain followed. Then it subsided. But I could still hear the strange little moan that had begun last night. The sea was still flat, dimpled now with rain, but it was moving in great, slow, roiling heaves far out, as though, down deep, something monstrous struggled to be born.

"What about you, Cece?" I said. "How do you vote?"

"Stick around," she said. "This will be over by this time tomorrow. I'll beat you at chess this afternoon and make you pasta a'fagioli tonight."

I looked back at Paul. He smiled at me pleasantly, and took my empty plate.

"Up to you," he said. "You know what I think. Well, ladies, I've got to get out of here if I want to beat the worst of it inland. I'm not going to say goodbye, because I hope this is the first of many such. I'll collect a smooch from you, though. For the road."

He walked from one to the other of us, kissing us lightly, hugging us. Cecie smiled and averted her head very slightly. Fig's face, as she held it up, made me think of a young novitiate's as she became the Bride of Christ. Or of that young Fig, holding her face up to me during her doomed initiation into Tri Omega. It burned with transcendence, with a still, fierce flame. His lips brushed hers and she closed her eyes.

He came to me, and hugged me, and kissed the top of my head. "See you, Katie Lee," he said, and patted my behind, and picked up his raincoat and briefcase and went out of the kitchen. In a moment we heard the big Mercedes purr into life and bump away down the rutted drive.

We looked at each other in the quiet, bright kitchen. We smiled. There was a sense of atoms torn out of their orbit, rearranged, by something enormous and elemental that had swept through and passed on.

" 'When I'm calling you-ooo-ooo,' " Fig shrilled out suddenly, in a tremulous soprano. " 'Will you answer tru-uuu-uue?' "

She looked around at us and smiled enigmatically.

"I have heard the mermaids singing," she said. "And so have you. So you be careful going home, Effie Lee. Don't get shipwrecked."

She giggled. Then she laughed aloud.

Ginger came shambling into the kitchen. She wore the silk caftan over nothing; you could see the softness of her big body bobbling beneath it, and the big, dark aureoles of her nipples. Her hair was wild and her face puffed and pale. She wore sunglasses. The odor of stale whiskey was powerful in the thick air.

"Has Paul gone?" she mumbled, opening the refrigerator door and looking in. She did not look at me. She did not look at any of us.

"Yes. You just missed him," Fig said. "And we're trying to persuade Effie Lee she ought to get going, too. Alan called her and practically ordered her home."

"Good move," Ginger Fowler Sibley said, her head still in the refrigerator.

There was a little indrawn breath from Cecie, and a wider, even more beatific smile from Fig. I felt my face go stiff and hot. She could not have heard, last night. She could not have...

I turned and went into my room and packed. It took me only a few minutes. When I came out again, Ginger was gone.

"She got sick," Cecie said, looking at me worriedly. "I told her to go on back to bed, you'd understand, and you'd call her when you got home. You will, won't you?"

"Of course," I said. "It may be a few days, though. Alan has an appointment for me in Manhattan first thing in the morning, and I'll be very late getting in."

Fig hugged me hard and kissed me quickly on the lips when I left the kitchen. I felt her nails go deep into my ribs, and her lips part slightly against mine. Then she stood back, smiling, shimmering, humming.

"Godspeed, Effie Lee," she said. "Now that we've found you, we'll never let you go."

Cecie came into my arms and we stood holding each other silently. My chin rested in the white curls on top of her head.

"Toujours gai," I said into her hair. I tasted the sun in it, and the salt of my own tears.

"Toujours gai," she said. "And all that. Call us. And be careful, old Kate. It's a long trip."

"Tell Ginger goodbye," I said, and went out of the kitchen and around the deck and down to the car. The rain and the tears were warm on my face, and the wind sang. I could not see the horizon now. That far out there was no way to tell the sea from the sky. I tossed the bag into the back of the car and stood for an instant, looking up at the big black house. Except for the bright kitchen, no lights burned. Standing this close, it shut out the sky.

I got into the Alfa and drove out of the driveway and down the sand track to the road. And there, instead of turning right for the mainland and the Interstate, I turned the car to the left, down the old coast highway, toward the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Chapter Fifteen.