Vineland by Thomas Pynchon Page A

which, leery as always of anything that might mean unfinished business from the olden hippie times, the girl at first had been reluctant even to touch. Zoyd had received it years ago, in return for a favor. At the time he was working a Hawaiian cruise gig for Kahuna Airlines, a non-sked flying out of LAX’s East Imperial Terminal, a gig he’d stumbled into in the turbulent last days of his marriage, out on one more desperate attempt, transpacific this time, to save the relationship, as he saw it, or, as she saw it, once again come messing with her privacy, red-eyeing in to Honolulu on a charter flight in an airplane of uncertain make that was not only the flagship but also the entire fleet of a country he had not, till then, heard of. If Frenesi was half expecting him, it was not in the condition he arrived in, taken over by an itch he could no longer control to see how she spent her evenings. “Me, I get through OK,” practicing in front of a stained and cracked mirror in the airplane lavatory, whispering in the jet throb and structural creaking, “just worryin’ about you, Frenesi,” standing there miles above the great ocean making these faces at himself.
    At first it had seemed like a terrific idea, a perfect break for them both, at a critical time. Sasha had been there too, to see her off on the flight, she and Zoyd handing the half-asleep Prairie back and forth, arms to arms, like a rehearsal of arrangements to come. It was a rare cooperative moment for the in-laws, in their mutual uneasiness, Sasha never having known really what to make of Zoyd, settling instead for a reflex headshake whenever they met, with an embarrassed laugh that seemed to mean, “You are so inappropriate for my daughter that even you must see it and be as amused as I am—we’re adults after all, and we can certainly share a chuckle, can’t we Zoyd.” But they were to find themselves, amazingly, on the same side of the law after all, which meant no custodial battles ever, for as they both came to learn, no judge would waste the time deciding whose rap sheet was more disreputable—if it was a choice between a lifelong Red grandmother and a dope fiend father, Prairie would end up as a ward of the court, and no question, they had to keep her out of that. Like it or not, they would be forced, now and then anyway, to coordinate their lives.
    â€œFeel like Mildred Pierce’s husband, Bert,” is how Zoyd described his inner feelings to Frenesi, having located her finally at the gigantic Dark Ocean Hotel, a towering dihedral wallful of 2,048 rooms with identical lanais cantilevered into blue space, all facing the Pacific. Far below, tiny figures rode the curl of the tiny surf, sunned upon the beach, frolicked in tiny glowing aqua pools set in tropical groves of deep green.
    From any distance an observer would have noticed, here and there upon the great bent facade, folks on their lanais out taking the breezes, eating room-service banquets, smoking the local cannabis, fucking in semipublic.
    â€œAppreciate the comparison Zoyd, although as you see I’m alone, yes quite alone, not that there aren’t enough good-looking guys around. . . .”
    â€œAin’t pickups I’m thinkin’ of, or we could’ve had this li’l get-together
long
ago.”
    â€œOh? When, exactly?”
    â€œNah, forget it.”
    â€œWait a minute, you come barging in here—”
    â€œYeah and on my own ticket too,” almost adding, “my mommy didt’n pay for it,” but seeing she was expecting it, he let the wave go by uncaught.
    In fact what he’d done was check in right next door to her, so that they were standing on adjacent lanais hundreds of feet above sea level having this adult discussion, each holding a can of beer, Frenesi in a bikini and Zoyd in an old pair of baggies—except for the lethal altitude, it could have been year before last, back in