On Saturday, Parker invited him to a party at his house. When Patrick arrived, the downstairs was full of people talking loudly and drinking steadily. He learned that Parker, too, was a drop out—from Harvard—and that the Mercedes had belonged to his mother. "You know," Patrick said to him after a few beers, "when people talk, I get the feeling I'm missing something. It's like they're saying one thing but really talking about something else. It's like there's another layer underneath everything."
"You're learning," Parker said. Desperation crossed his face. He looked as though he might get in his car and drive away forever. Instead, he smiled helplessly and went for another drink. Patrick met Wilson's wife, Elaine, a short cheerful woman with a plain face and an extravagant body. Wilson was making pronouncements about the paintings on Parker's walls, mentioning painters Patrick had never heard of. Parker's two sons were running about having a great time. Parker and his wife, Hildy, were both stout blondes with fair complexions and blue eyes. Their boys were stamped from the same mold. Patrick could see them someday hauling ladders, driving elegant old cars, and charming well-to-do housewives.
Joe Burke showed up and introduced Patrick to his lady. "Sally Daffodil," he called her. She was tall and athletic with a grace and coloring that was like the flower. They were a good pair, Patrick thought, funny and open, yet . . . He sensed reserves in them that ran deep.
Patrick wasn't used to the company of so many sharp people in one room. Gino Canzoni came in, the foreman of Parker's other, larger, crew. He was tall and ironic. He had a rep on the crew for fearlessness at great heights. "My wife, Cree," he said to Patrick. She was dark with slender intelligent features. She had a blinding smile. The charm and pain and hint of wildness in her smile obliterated Patrick's defenses.
"Hi," he said. She accepted his surrender.
"Welcome to town," she said gaily. He felt included. Gino and Joe had grown up in Woodstock and were old friends. The group stood around telling stories. "Before Gino took me to meet his family," Cree said, "he told his mother that he had fallen for an older woman from the Midwest."
"Give her something to worry about," Gino said.
"Six months," she laughed.
"Funny thing was," Gino went on, "the same week that Cree was meeting everybody, Vassar degree and all that, she was on display at the checkout counter in the Grand Union—on the cover of Modern Detective."
"A gun to my head," Cree said. "Forced to open a safe."