Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith Page B

There was a silence, and then he said, "I hear the Cowans are going to treat us to a big outdoor party soon. They want to celebrate Phil's book. He's just about to finish the second draft of it. Evelyn says she feels they've been cooped up and have had to neglect their friends, so she wants a big outdoor affair with lanterns—and I think costumes." Horace chuckled. "I suppose we'll all end up cooling our heads in the swimming pool."
           Mr. De Lisle was now offering "The Song from Moulin Rouge." Light and gentle and sentimental. Melinda had been playing it lately, trying to imitate Charley's style. Have you met Charley De Lisle? Vic wanted to ask Horace. You will. Probably before the Cowans' party.
           "What do you think of the new pianist?" Horace asked. "Makes our old hostelry practically like New York."
           "Pretty good, isn't it?" Vic said.
           "I'd rather have silence. Lesley's business must be good this year. I hear the rooms are all taken, and there's a pretty good crowd here today" Horace had half turned and was watching De Lisle, who was in profile to them.
           The man had a date with my wife this afternoon, Vic wanted to state in a firm voice. I don't want to look at him or hear him. "Know his name?" Horace asked.
           "No idea," Vic said.
           "He looks like an Italian." Horace turned back to his drink. He did look like an Italian of the worse type, though Vic didn't think he was, and it was an insult to the Italian race to assume that he was. He resembled no particular race, only an amalgamation of the worst elements of various Latin peoples. He looked as if he had spent all his life dodging blows that were probably aimed at him for good reason.
           "Time for the other half?" Horace asked.
           Vic woke up. "I don't think I have, Horace. I told Melinda I'd be in about six-thirty tonight."
           "All right, you be there:' Horace said, smiling.
           Vic insisted on paying the bar tab. Then they walked out into the fresh air together.
     
     
     

Chapter 9
     
     
    The Cowans' party was a costume party. People were to come as their favorite hero or heroine, fictional or factual. Melinda was having a hard time deciding who she should be. She wasn't quite satisfied with Mary Queen of Scots, or Greta Garbo, or Annie Oakley, or Cleopatra, and she thought somebody else might go as Scarlett O'Hara, though Vic said he doubted it. Melinda went through them all, imagining the costume for each in detail. She felt there should be some character more appropriate for her, if she could only think of her.
           "Madame Bovary?" Vic suggested.
           She finally decided on Cleopatra.
           Charley De Lisle was going to play the piano at the Cowans' party. Melinda had arranged it. She told Vic with naïve triumph that she had persuaded Charley to do it for fifty dollars instead of the hundred he had wanted, and said that Evelyn Cowan hadn't thought that was a steep price at all.
           Something in Vic stirred with revulsion. "I assumed he was going as a guest."
           "Yes, but he wouldn't have played. He's very proud about his work. He says no artist should give his work away. In a room full of strangers, he wouldn't touch the piano, he says. It wouldn't be professional. I can see what he means."
           She could always see what De Lisle meant.
           Vic had made no remarks about De Lisle lately, or the time Melinda spent out of the house. The situation had not changed, though De Lisle had not come for dinner anymore, and Melinda had not stayed out all night a second time. Neither had they been to any social affair to which Melinda might have dragged Charley, so perhaps none of their friends suspected anything yet, Vic thought, though Evelyn Cowan might by now. And everybody would certainly know after the Cowan party, which was why Vic dreaded it. He longed not to go, to beg