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his breath under water.
    “Daddy can count to one hundred,” Jen told Sandy. “How high can you count under water?”
    “If I hold my nose I think I can make it to five.”
    “That’s not very good.”
    “It’s good enough. I don’t expect to ever have to hold my breath under water.”
    “But suppose you do?”
    “I’ll drown, I guess.”
    “But Daddy says . . .”
    “Never mind what Daddy says this time. Go and get ready for lunch.”
    “Can I eat in the kitchen with Lydia?”
    “I guess so, if she doesn’t mind.”
    “She likes me and I like her. She’s the best cook. Why don’t you ever make fried bananas?”
    “I never thought about frying them but I used to feed you mashed bananas when you were a baby.”
    “Mashed bananas, yuck! Will you fry them when we get home?”
    “Maybe, now go and find Bucky and tell him to wash up for lunch.”
    O N THE TWENTY-SEVENTH Myra threw a party for her friends, three couples from The Club who were also vacationing at Runaway Bay, two of them in rented houses, and the third staying at the hotel on the beach. All were thinking seriously about buying a piece of property of their own so that they could continue to vacation together. Besides, it was tax deductible, they reminded each other, daily.
    Before the party, while Myra scurried around filling candy dishes, rearranging furniture, and checking the bar, Sandy asked, “Don’t you find it boring to be down here with the same people you see all the time at home?”
    “Not at all,” Myra answered. “We love it.”
    “But don’t you want to meet new people down here?”
    Myra dumped a jar of Planters dry-roasted nuts into a silver bowl. “It would be awful.” She tilted her head back and dropped a handful of nuts into her mouth.
    “I think it would be nice.”
    “Awful to have to find games, I mean.” Myra chewed and swallowed the nuts, then brushed off her hands. “Take golf . . . they could say they’re class A players when they’re really B’s, and if I had to play with beginners, well, frankly, I’d rather not play at all. And then there’s tennis,” Myra said. “Playing with people who aren’t in your class is
horrendous.
There are people who’ll tell you they’re high intermediates when by your standards they might be low intermediates or, worse yet, high beginners.”
    “What are you?”
    “I’m low advanced, but I can handle any average advanced player and upward. Norman, for instance, is headed for high advanced, but he and I can still have a good game. How do you think the candy looks? Do you like it piled high or spread out in rows?”
    “Piled high.”
    “Me too. Remember how Mona used to spread out the after-dinner mints?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where’d you get that dress?”
    “It’s not a dress, it’s a skirt and top.” Sandy fingered the material, an Indian cotton print in bright colors, with elephants marching around it. She enjoyed the comfortable wraparound style. “Do you like it?”
    “It’s cute.”
    Sandy felt that Myra was waiting to be admired. “I like yours too.”
    “I couldn’t have worn this in the old days,” Myra said, “but now I can go braless if I feel like it.” Her dress was a long, clingy, black jersey with a high neck in front, plunging to the waist in back. Her frosted hair hung to her shoulders and framed her face, like a lion’s mane. And under the black jersey Sandy could see the outline of Myra’s perfect 34-B breasts, of her perfect, rose-colored nipples, each one the circumference of a quarter, where Sandy’s were only the size of dimes.
    “I wish to hell Gordy could play tennis like Norman,” Myra said. “If he could, we’d win all the married couples tournaments at The Club. As it is I’m embarrassed having a shelf full of trophies when Gordy’s never won anything.”
    “Does he mind?”
    “He says he doesn’t.”
    “Well, then, don’t worry.”
    “I’ll bet Norman’s great in bed.”
    “Myra!”
    “Does that