Gwen, in Green

It was one of the most beautiful weekends in George’s life. Hot, Jesus, it was hot. He spent Friday working, on one of his regular days off, getting out a couple of rush jobs, and then finding it surprisingly simple to repair Dr. King’s polygraph. Just a bad wiring job. A cold solder joint. He traced the circuit, found the break, and cleaned off the bad joint. Then he soldered it and hooked up the gadget, after reading a few pages of instructions to a high school kid who liked to hang around and talk electronics. The electrodes were registering the movement of electrical currents on the skin, and George was pleased. He carried the machine home and put it in the big room.

There was a movie on in Port City which had received good reviews and was, seemingly, headed for Academy Awards. It was about a tough cop who called a spade a spade. George, a true Southerner, cringed when he read something about “a black from Alabama.” “Blacks,” to him, were primitive natives of some British colonial country. “I say, old bean, the blacks are restless tonight.” All that sort of rot. He thought the movie to be refreshing because it called crime crime even when performed by a “black.” George believed in law and order for everyone, saying after the movie, that laws held civilization together, defining civilization as those things which made him comfortable, relatively knowledgeable, and free to do things which pleased him as long as he did not infringe on other people’s freedoms. The movie also pleased him with its direct approach to the drug problem.

“That cop wouldn’t vote for legalization of marijuana,” he told Gwen.

“We never needed drugs,” Gwen said dreamily. She was snuggled in her bucket seat, her head back, listening to George with half an ear. “The air itself was wine.”

“Boy,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I was sort of daydreaming,” she said, sitting up straight and touching his leg. “You must think I’m a real nut.”

“Think?” He laughed. “Honey, I know.” He put his arm around her, and pulled her close—as close as you can pull a girl in a bucket-­seat sports car. “But I love you.”

“Please go on loving me, George.” The urgency in her voice touched him. “I need you now, more than ever.”

“You’ve got me, kid.”

She had him. It was wild and exciting and very athletic. He zonked off into sleep and woke to a perfect Saturday. She was bright and cheerful. The heavy equipment across the waterway was working, but the machines were down into sterile earth, digging bare sand and piling it into dikes around the long, raw pit. He read the paper at breakfast, ate too much, and worked the crossword puzzle while she cleared the table. They walked their “estate.” George remarked that he should get around to clearing paths and buying those horses. Gwen said she had all the animals she could take care of, what with Sam and the new Pup. She very carefully, as usual, avoided mention of Satan. The cat, cleared of the bum rap of rabies, had found a nice home on a dairy farm in the adjoining county.

The wild flytraps at the boggy end of the clear pond were seeding. Their traps were healthy, red, and voracious. The inside plants were equally healthy. Gwen decided, although the plants propagated best from root stock, to try some seeds. George watched her gather some of the eggplant-­shaped seeds and said, “Those things have a fascination for you, huh?”

“They’re unusual.”

“That I know. They grow only in this small coastal section.”

“Yes.”

“Interesting to speculate why,” George said.

“The soil is acid,” Gwen said.

“This isn’t the only acid soil in the world.”

“They don’t like to be too far from—” She didn’t finish.

“From what?”

“Oh, I don’t really know.” She walked away toward the house.

“How did they get the name Venus-­flytrap?” George asked, catching up with her.

“Obvious,” she said. “They’re from Venus.”

“Sure.” He swatted her on her well-­padded fanny. “And in the books, it’s Venus’s-­flytrap, anyhow, indicating that they were named after the goddess, not the planet.”

“There is a connection even there,” Gwen said. “Venus was not exactly of this earth.”

“You are one spooky broad.” George laughed. She glanced at him, her eyes hooded.

Inside, she stored the seeds. George stripped and put on a bathing suit. “Come for a swim?”

“I’ll watch.”

He hit the water on the run, knifed into it, splashed, swam, and bellowed at Gwen, who sat on the balcony. She had gin and tonic ready when he came dripping his way onto the deck. “Before the sun crosses the yardarm?” he asked.