Read Online Women and Children First by Francine Prose - Free Book Online Page B

standing and leaning against the back wall, his face lit and shadowed dramatically by the flickering TV.
    The first shot was of people loading the van to go to the beach, and when the camera slipped and the picture swooped down, someone watching said, “Terrific, Iris.”
    The camera was riding shotgun. Gary, the lawyer, drove. When Valerie had first come to the house, Gary was clearly interested, but seemed like someone so used to women refusing him that she never even had to say no. Now he played to the video camera, giving his impression of a tour bus guide running down the sights. Gary shouldn’t have tried, he was stiff at it, and faltered. Iris’s camera caught every wrinkle of strain. Iris was a therapist, she used video in counseling, and somehow everyone she photographed looked as if they were toughing it out at some family crisis session. When Nasir did the taping, people looked more handsome and relaxed.
    At the beach, Iris caught lots of unfortunate close-ups: squinty eyes, hairy backs, even some armskin flapping as shirts were pulled up over heads. Valerie thought: Trust Iris to show them the suddenly unmistakable signs of age. The camera made it obvious that Roy wouldn’t take off his Hawaiian shirt, the audio blurred the drone of his voice as he sat on the sand holding court like some obese Polynesian king. Keeping its distance, the camera turned on a handful of people walking gingerly into the surf. Then Gary—not on the tape but in the room—said, “Oh, here’s where I almost drowned.”
    “Here’s what ?” said Valerie, kneeling down at the back of the crowd around the TV.
    “Almost drowned,” Gary said, but just then the camera was occupied with a start-up soccer practice. Nasir had introduced the game to the house; they played often. Without him, the guys kicking the nerf ball around all looked a little adrift. Then a woman’s voice—on the tape but off camera—said, “Hey, look out there!” and the lens turned toward the horizon where now in the water you could see a human form, moving oddly.
    Another off-camera voice asked who that was, and someone else said, “I think it’s Gary.” A couple of seconds went by, then somebody asked, “You think he’s in some kind of trouble?” Another pause, then somebody else said, “No.” The camera turned back to the soccer players standing there lamely, like couples between dances, watching the ocean till someone said, “Are you sure he’s all right?” Focus on Suzanne looking out at the water, then shrugging and saying, “I think he’s okay,” then going off to check something in the food hamper; the camera followed her the whole way, which took about a minute.
    “Hey,” said a voice on the audio track, “look at that!” The screen went black. Someone in the room said, “Jesus, Iris, this is where you blew it?” “Sand on the heads,” Iris said. “I had to switch it on and off a few times.”
    When the image returned, the lens was scanning the water till it found that same form moving in place and two others speeding toward it. And now the camera zoomed in on two guys grabbing Gary and dragging him in toward the shore. This took a long time, too; finally everyone was wrapping towels around a gagging, shaking Gary.
    Gary, in the room, said, “Thank God for the Coast Guard.”
    “You almost died,” said Valerie. “Gary almost died, you guys.”
    “All right, Valerie,” said Roy. “We can’t all be world-class swimmers.”
    “You sons of bitches,” Gary said. Then he laughed.
    Valerie said, “I can’t believe this.”
    Someone close beside her said, “You’d better believe it.” It was Nasir. Valerie grabbed his shoulder and pulled herself toward him and began to whisper in his ear, but it wasn’t sexual, really, it was like talking into a disembodied ear, the only one that would listen to her as she went on whispering, a hot, slightly sandy whisper. The kavakava had begun to burn her mouth. She asked what was