The Paternity Test: A Novel

Fourteen

153 four­ teen It felt ­ sneaky: our men still ­ crouched be­ hind bar­ ri­ cades of sanc­ ti­ mony, lick­ ing their ­ wounds, nix­ ing any truce, and here we were, De­ bora and I, meet­ ing on the sly, at the cool, sweep­ ing shore of Sandy Neck. My alibi was sim­ ple but suf­fi­ cient: “Off to the li­ brary,” I’d said to Stu, a stack of books as proof, and he had ­ scarcely ­ looked up from his Times. The fur­ tive mood was height­ ened by the ­ afternoon’s con­ di­ tions: the sun like a se­ cret agent, steal­ ing from cloud to cloud; a ­ shifty wind that dis­ ar­ ranged the dunes. De­ bora and I had the beach al­ most to our­ selves. Two love­ birds, khaki cuffs ­ rolled up to their knees, held hands and hur­ dled low break­ ers. A ­ smoky-haired woman and her ­ not-so-golden re­ triever hob­ bled with the same ar­ thritic gait. We ­ headed east, skirt­ ing ­ between sand and ­ sea-buffed ­ stones. De­ bora­ looked un­ daunted as she ­ walked ­ across the scree. She wore a crim­ son wind­ breaker, but­ toned at the bot­ tom, which kept catch­ ing gusts of­ breeze and puff­ing on both sides, call­ ing to mind the bulg­ ing ­ cheeks of some­ one about to blow out birth­ day can­ dles. “Wow,” she said. “So beau­ ti­ ful.” Her arms ­ stretched up, out­ ward; her cheek­ like ­ jacket ­ caught an­ other gust. “My folks chose well,” I said. “We’re lucky to live so close.” 154 “And me, I am dumb,” she said. “Liv­ ing on the Cape so long, and never have I come here. We go al­ ways to Sea­ gull Beach. Or Craig­ ville.” “Bet­ ter sand on that side, I guess. But ­ aren’t they ­ pretty ­ crowded?” “Yes, too ­ crowded. And there, it’s just the beach, you know. Not these.” She ­ pointed to the field of dunes, ris­ ing on our right, dig­ nified be­ hind their fence of No Tres­ pass­ ing plac­ ards. When I was a kid, the dunes ­ weren’t cor­ doned off for con­ ser­ va­ tion, and so I had free rein to rove among them. Noth­ ing much but sand out there, end­ less ­ sun-baked piles, but I had found af­fin­ ity with the scat­ tered­ clumps of dune grass, im­ prob­ able lit­ tle tufts of green that some­ how­ stayed alive. I was ­ perched un­ stably, too: ­ within my arid fam­ ily. An alien life form, a boy who liked boys. No won­ der I ad­ mired those ­ blades of grass. “Where I live,” said De­ bora. “Where I come from. Near Natal. The dunes, oh my God, ­ they’re so high.” “Bigger than these?” “Oh! Like sugar moun­ tains, miles and miles. Gen­ i­ pabu, it’s ­ called. You can even ride a camel. Also, if you want, do es­ qui­ bunda. It means to ski the hills of sand, sit­ ting on your bum­ bum.” To trans­ late, she ­ smacked me on the butt. “And the men there, the bu­ gei­ ros—the ones who have the boo­ gies?” “The boo­ gies?” I said. “The open cars . . . no roof on top . . . like jeeps.” “Dune bug­ gies?” “You know them!” she cried, as if this ­ proved a bond. “The bu­ gei­ ros drive you out, way way up to the very top, then they ask, ‘Would you like it with emo­ tion, or with­ out?’ ‘Without’ is only nor­ mal driv­ ing, slow, down the dune. But ‘with ­ emotion’—it’s so fast, no brake, al­ most crash­ ing. Won­ der­ ful, just won­ der­ ful, it’s per­ fect!” She ­ beamed with the mem­ ory, her fea­ tures going bur­ nished. “Danny, when we met? He loved so much to go. Hug­ ging to each other when the buggy it went fly­ ing. ­ That’s what it was like, you know. Ex­ actly like that: fly­ ing.” Here she ­ paused, and ­ seemed to find some­ thing by her feet. She bent down and ­ scooped a bunch of sand. 155 “He ­ wanted to go again,” she said. “No mat­ ter what the price. One more time. One more, with emo­ tion.” She let the sand drop ­ between her fin­ gers. “How is Danny now?” I asked. “I...