The Love Season Part 14

One night, Candace stopped conversation with a hoot. "Baby's kicking," she said.

Marguerite reached over and laid her hand on the smooth sphere of Candace's belly. The instinct to do this was perfectly natural, she thought. She, who would never have a child, wanted to know what it felt like, if only from the outside. She sensed the light but insistent tapping-tap, tap, tap, like the baby was trying to send her some kind of coded message. Without thinking, Marguerite moved her hand in a circle, as though Candace were a crystal ball.

Dan snorted. "That's my wife you're fondling," he said. "I will ask you kindly to remove your hand."

Marguerite lifted her hand. She looked at Candace. Always, when Marguerite and Dan bickered, Candace was the peacemaker. But now she just gazed into her lap. Marguerite's face burned with shame. "I feed that child," she said.

"Oh, Marguerite and her fabulous cooking," Dan said. "Where would we be without it?"

There was a terrible silence at the table. Marguerite looked to Porter. Confrontation made him cringe, but she couldn't believe he would let Dan talk to her that way. Porter glanced at her in a way that let her know he was embarra.s.sed for her; then he tried to smooth things over by hoisting the last third of the bottle of Sauternes.

"Maybe we need some more wine," he said. "How 'bout it? Daisy?"

"I'm all done," Marguerite said. She threw her napkin onto her plate and stood up. "I have things to do in the kitchen. Good night." She addressed the centerpiece of hydrangeas because she couldn't bear to meet anyone's eyes.

The following morning Candace came into the kitchen looking as plain as Marguerite had ever seen her. Her hair was lank and unwashed; there were bruise-colored crescents under her eyes.

"Croque monsieur?" Marguerite asked, doing her best to smile. "Or is it a tuna fish day?"

Candace twisted a strand of hair around her finger. "I'm not hungry," she said. "I just wanted to apologize for last night."

"It's my fault," Marguerite said. "What I did was inappropriate." She said this, though she didn't quite believe it. Her touch had been innocent, curious. Had she crossed a line? Was she no longer able to touch her best friend? It pained her to think so.

"I have to stop coming in at night," Candace said. "It's too much for me. I'm too tired."

"No!" Marguerite said. "You can't stop coming." She heard the desperation in her voice and suddenly she saw herself the way other people must see her: As a woman terrified of being abandoned, of being left alone. She, who had prided herself on strength, on independence; she, who had chosen the word free. What was happening to her? "I mean, fine," Marguerite said. "Fine, yes. By all means, stay home."

Candace walked to the sink where Marguerite was seasoning a striped ba.s.s and put her hand on Marguerite's back. "There's going to be enough baby for all of us."

"It's you, though," Marguerite said. "There's not enough you for all of us."

The clock chimed the half hour. Shower, Marguerite thought. Hair, face, outfit. These were the only unchecked items left oh her list, and for some reason this made her apprehensive. She went to the refrigerator and eyed the champagne. Candace had always insisted on a dressing drink, and now Marguerite knew why. All those years with Porter, and Marguerite had never felt a nervous antic.i.p.ation as keen as this very moment. She took one of the bottles out, popped the cork, poured herself three fingers in a jelly jar.

She took a sip. She couldn't taste it in any kind of proper way, though there was a cold, fizzy crispness that brought back memories of Porter's arched eyebrows, his bulging eyes, the feel of the zinc bar under her bare elbows, the sound of forks sc.r.a.ping plates, laughter, voices (Candace's voice sifting through all the rest), Marguerite closing her eyes at any point during the dinner service and knowing that she was responsible for everything that happened in that restaurant. She was G.o.d. Then, incongruously, Marguerite thought of the pimpled boy in the wine shop that morning, his discomfort with the price of the champagne, with the whole idea of the champagne, and she laughed.

Right, she thought. Shower.

It was as she was stepping out of the shower that the phone rang. The bathroom door was closed, the overhead fan humming, and despite her promise to herself to be moderate, Marguerite had slugged back the champagne all at once, like a shot of tequila. It went straight to her head. She heard the phone, but even after the day she'd had, she couldn't quite identify the sound. She cracked open the door. It was indeed the phone.

Before the shower, she had located the pink silk kimono that Porter brought her from Kyoto; it had been at the far edge of her closet, the very last thing, beyond her five embroidered chef's jackets, which were pressed and vacuum-packed in dry cleaner's plastic. Wallflower, Marguerite thought as she wrapped herself up in the kimono. She stepped into the bedroom. The room was dim, though the sun had not set; there was liquid gold light slanting through her bedroom windows. The phone rang, and rang again. Marguerite was so preoccupied by the sight and feel of herself in the kimono (as though whoever was on the phone could see her) and with the circ.u.mstances under which Porter had given it to her (it was the consolation prize-he had taken a trip with the blond, unmarried tennis coach instead of her; he had lied and cheated) that she never considered who might be calling. She supposed, if pressed, she would have said it was Dan again, with another pet.i.tion. Or Ethan, wis.h.i.+ng her luck.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said.

"Aunt Daisy?"

"Yes, darling, h.e.l.lo. How are you? Had a good day, I hope?" Marguerite was thinking, She needs directions, after all. Would she be walking or taking a cab? Or would someone from the house on Hulbert Avenue be dropping her? Marguerite was just about to ask when she realized a reasonable amount of time had pa.s.sed and Renata hadn't answered. There was breathing on the other end, labored breathing, which Marguerite identified as weeping. Weeping, but no words.

"Are you all right?" Marguerite asked. "Darling?"

"Aunt Daisy?" Renata said.

The girl's voice was so despondent, so transparently on a mission to deliver bad news, that it was all Marguerite could do to find the edge of her bed.

"Yes?"

"I can't come," Renata said.

"You're not coming?" Marguerite said. She felt ambushed and stunned, like the victim of a surprise attack. How stupid she was! How daft! Because never once this whole day had it occurred to Marguerite that Renata might cancel.

"My boyfriend's parents," Renata said. "They want me here. They're being weird about it. And I'm in no position to argue with them because I did an awful thing today."

Awful thing? Marguerite knew she was supposed to ask about the awful thing, but her mind struggled like a weak flame. She was thinking about the boyfriend's parents, former customers who missed her restaurant. These people were asking Renata to forgo dinner with her own G.o.dmother who, because of a set of complex circ.u.mstances, Renata hadn't seen in fourteen years. The boyfriend's parents didn't understand the situation, its importance. Awful thing? Nothing could be so bad that it warranted the boyfriend's parents taking Renata from her. However, Marguerite said nothing. Not coming, she thought. The term "crus.h.i.+ng blow" came to mind, the term "heartbreak." How would Marguerite be able to step into the other room and see the table set for two people, one across from the other? How would she deal with all the food she'd prepared? Her mind was running amok now. It was the champagne; she should never have allowed herself. G.o.d knows if she let herself do whatever her heart desired she would drink a bottle, or two, every night, and turn herself into a drunk. She would give herself cirrhosis of the liver. Marguerite squeezed the phone's receiver. She was in a conversation, she reminded herself; she had a responsibility to the person on the other end of the line to move the conversation, however unpleasant, forward.

"Awful thing?" Marguerite said.

"I ran away."

"You ran away?"

"I went to the beach without telling anyone where I was going. I went with this...guy who works here."

The way she said "guy" seemed significant. But how to respond?

"We went to Madequecham," Renata said.

Marguerite hissed involuntarily, like a balloon losing air. Madequecham. The poor girl.

"You saw the cross?" Marguerite said.

Renata started weeping again. "Yes." She snuffled. There was a pause, the sound of a tissue being pulled from a box. "It's for her, right?"

"It's for her. Your mother." Marguerite had made the cross herself. She bought the wood at Marine Home Center, painted it with three coats of heavy-duty white primer, nailed it together. She had done this as busywork, really, the whole time in a numbed daze, three days after Candace's death and the day before her funeral. Marguerite had softened the ground with a thermos of boiling water and pounded the cross into the sandy mud with her kitchen mallet. And then she drove away. She had thought she might visit the marker like a grave, lay down flowers each week or some such, but she had never once gone back to see it.

"I knew it was for her," Renata said. "I saw it and I knew."

Good, Marguerite thought. She wasn't exactly sure why she had put the cross there. At least not until this very second.

"I'm sorry you can't come," Marguerite said. "Deeply sorry." Devastated, she thought. Stupefied. She felt like crying herself, like throwing a childish tantrum. She nearly listed the efforts she had made on behalf of the meal, but that would be selfish and rude. And yet she couldn't help herself from wondering if the situation could be salvaged or manipulated. "Would it help at all if I spoke to the boy's parents?"

"Oh no," Renata said. "G.o.d, no. I wouldn't want to drag you into all this."

"Are you sure, darling? Because I could explain-"

"Thank you, Aunt Daisy, for offering, but no." The "no" was so emphatic, it wounded Marguerite's ego. Maybe the boyfriend's parents were an excuse, then. Maybe Renata simply didn't want to come. Maybe the boyfriend's parents or someone else had made a comment about Marguerite; maybe they'd perpetuated the worst of the rumors.

"Okay," Marguerite said. She felt ashamed for pressing the issue. This was rejection, another broken promise. She should be used to it by now.

"They said I'll have time for a visit tomorrow," Renata said. "I could come for lunch, maybe? Or breakfast?"

"Breakfast?" Marguerite said. A person less rigid than she would snap up this opportunity and start thinking about eggs, or crepes filled with fresh peaches. But Marguerite couldn't help feeling that something would be lost from their conversation if it took place in the bright, unforgiving sunlight of morning. An intimacy would be sacrificed; Marguerite felt that the confessions she had to make would only come across properly with candlelight, with wine, with nothing to stop them from talking but sleep. Marguerite felt annoyed, and resistant to changing her plans like this. After all the work she'd done, the way she'd ch.o.r.eographed the evening in her mind, she didn't want to accommodate. The girl would have to learn, eventually, that she couldn't go about disappointing people like this. But in the end, Marguerite decided, she wasn't willing to turn the girl away altogether. So eggs it would be. Crepes with fresh peaches.

"Breakfast is fine. Or lunch." They could have cold tenderloin sandwiches, asparagus salad.

"Breakfast," Renata said. "I'm coming over as soon as I wake up."

Marguerite surprised herself. She was able to laugh. "We'll see you in the morning, then."

"Thank you, Aunt Daisy," Renata said. "Thank you for understanding."

"Anything for you, darling." Marguerite said, and she meant it.

The sun set. Marguerite's windows shone pink, then darkened. Even here, in the heart of town, she could hear crickets. She did not turn on any lights and she did not get dressed. She sat on her bed through two chimes of the stodgy, unforgiving old clock and then she moved through her house as nimbly as if she'd lived in it all these years as a blind woman. She let the tenderloin sit, and the bread; she didn't have the heart to wrap everything up and put it away just yet. She took one of the chilled flutes from the freezer, filled it with champagne, and carried both the flute and the bottle to the dining-room table. There she lit the candles. The light was such that she could see herself in the dark window opposite, a woman drinking alone. She raised her gla.s.s to her reflection.

Part Two.

The Dinner Party.

August 19, 2006 * 6:32 P.M.

Suzanne Driscoll said, "The Robinsons just pulled in."

She and Renata were standing at the bottom of the staircase, a few steps to the right of the open front door. Suzanne touched her hair, her earrings, and then, rea.s.sured that she looked perfect, she inspected Renata. "My G.o.d, what is that mark on your chin? You look like you've been in a prize fight."

Renata's hand flew to her jaw. She had noticed it herself only a few minutes ago: a garish purple bruise where the surfboard had smacked her. The spot throbbed with dull pain, as did the sunburn across her nose and cheeks. Suzanne had given her a tube of aloe mask, and she had applied it liberally, then lain down for twenty minutes of dreamless sleep. When Renata washed the mask off, her face felt fragile, like if she smiled, it would crumble and fall apart in chunks. There was no way to explain the bruise without explaining about Sallie, so Renata said nothing. She was hurt that this was what Suzanne had chosen to notice, because she had tried to make an effort with her appearance: She wore a white T-s.h.i.+rt with a scoop neck and a short pink skirt. She wore pink thong sandals embossed with the letter R. And yet now Renata felt that what she was missing was the bag for over her head.

Attention was drawn from Renata's wound with the appearance of the Robinson family in the Driscolls' foyer. Renata had thought the Robinsons would be a couple, but there were three of them; they had brought along a daughter who was about Cade and Renata's age. Someone Renata, no doubt, would be expected to make friends with. Joe Driscoll came out to the foyer to greet the Robinsons, as did Cade. Everyone kissed, shook hands, thumped backs, grasped arms, and then Renata was ushered forth-Suzanne placed a light but insistent hand on her lower back and moved her forward into the center of a circle they'd all unconsciously made.

"And this," Suzanne said, "is the future Mrs. Cade Driscoll."

Renata tried to smile, though being introduced in this way offended her. She had been reduced to an announcement in Town & Country. Her face felt like plastic. She held out her hand. Mr. Robinson who was tall and balding, wearing Ben Franklin spectacles and a bow tie, was the first to take it.

"Pleasure to meet you. Kent Robinson."

"Renata Knox," Renata said, because for all the pomp and circ.u.mstance of the introduction, Suzanne had neglected to mention her name.

Mrs. Robinson, a short-haired brunette who was as thin and made up as Renata's future mother-in-law and as cheerful with the same kind of questionable sincerity, hugged Renata quickly but fiercely, kissed her burning cheek, and said, "Oh, Suzanne, you are so lucky!"

"Aren't I?" Suzanne said. She beamed as if standing before her were not a sunburned, bruised, delinquent, vase-breaking, list-stealing, lying, cheating Renata but someone else entirely. "And Renata," Suzanne said in the fetching voice she reserved for the cat, "this is Kent and Kathy's daughter, Claire. Claire and Cade went to Choate together. They are old, old friends."

Renata smiled at the Robinsons' daughter, trying to remember that first impressions were just that. Look how things had turned around with Sallie. But Claire Robinson had failed even more miserably with her appearance than Renata had. She wore a long peasant skirt and a man's white T-s.h.i.+rt, and a pair of leather sandals that had been mended with white medical tape. She had long, dark hair on its way to becoming dreadlocks, and the whitest skin Renata had ever seen-as white as a geisha under layers of powder-so that the freckles on her nose and cheeks looked like the black beans in vanilla ice cream. Renata looked at her and thought, Ragam.u.f.fin, waif-she reminded Renata of a street urchin from a d.i.c.kens novel-though her blue eyes were bright and overexcited. Renata wondered if she was on drugs.

"Hi," Renata said. And in case Claire had missed the earlier introduction, she added, "I'm Renata."

Claire was staring at Renata in a way that bordered on rude. Then she offered a limp, moist hand. "It's nice to meet you. I couldn't believe it when I heard Cade was engaged."

"Right," Renata said. "We're kind of young."

"Claire and Cade went to Choate together," Suzanne said again. She took a sharp breath. "Let's go to the big room and get a drink."

They repaired to the big room in three groups: Mr. Robinson, Joe Driscoll, and Cade led the way, slowly, accommodating Joe's occasional stutter step. (He was using a cane tonight because the sailing had worn him out.) Suzanne, Mrs. Robinson, and Claire followed behind, and Renata, feeling like a Sunset Boulevard streetwalker with her short, tight skirt and ugly bruise, brought up the rear. At least she thought she brought up the rear, but then she sensed a light, whispery presence behind her-Mr. Rogers, perhaps? She turned and was startled to find Nicole, dressed in black pants, a black s.h.i.+rt and black ap.r.o.n, quietly shutting the door and tucking away Mrs. Robinson's turquoise wrap. Renata felt angry at Nicole-she was a snitch-and yet this anger was mixed with an odd sense of kins.h.i.+p. Nicole was a black woman, as was Renata's best friend, whom she missed keenly, especially in these strange and compromised circ.u.mstances, and Nicole worked for the Driscolls, as did Miles, whom Renata still considered vaguely, though she might never see him again, to be her lover. On the strength of these two imagined connections, Renata felt it was okay to linger until she and Nicole were in step next to each other. She wasn't sure what to say, but she wanted to let Nicole know that she, Renata, wasn't like the rest of these people. As the future Mrs. Cade Driscoll (G.o.d, it made her s.h.i.+ver just to think it) she was as much Suzanne's p.a.w.n, Suzanne's servant, as Nicole was.

"You've worked hard today," Renata said. "I hope you're off soon?"

Nicole didn't deign to meet Renata's eye. "Miles was supposed to spell me at six. He phoned to say he wasn't coming." Nicole had a light and crisp British accent. It surprised Renata until she realized that this was the first time she had heard Nicole speak more than two words. The loveliness of her voice was poisoned by the disgusted look she shot Renata. "But you, I'm sure, know all about that." She quickened her step and Renata hurried to keep up.

"His friend Sallie, you know," Renata said. "She had a surfing accident and went to the hospital."

Nicole dismissed this with a wave of her hand. "I have to fetch drinks," she said.

Even as mentally anguished and physically battered as Renata was, she had to admit there was no room as perfect for entertaining on a balmy summer evening as the Driscolls' living room. The room was lit only by candles and by a soft fluorescent light over the wet bar. The white couches had been connected to create a semicircle facing the out-of-doors. The coffee table had been cleared of Suzanne's collection of porcelain eggs and her copies of Travel + Leisure and was now laden with platters of food-bluefish pate, crackers, grapes, cheese straws, nuts, olives. The gla.s.s doors had been flung wide open to the night. The deck was festooned with tiki torches; the teak table had been covered with a red checkered cloth and set with b.u.t.ter-warmers and lobster crackers, c.o.c.ktail forks and plastic bibs. Just seeing the table costumed like this made Renata pine for the dinner she was not having with Marguerite. The white cross! Beyond the deck, Renata could see the moon s.h.i.+ning on the water; she could smell the water; she could hear the water lapping against the side of Joe Driscoll's boat. Once you marry me, Cade had said, with the promise of a game show host, all this will be yours.

Renata tried to decide which of the two groups to join. She would be most comfortable with Cade at her side, though the second she had called Marguerite to cancel she had filled with a fury that could only be directed at him. She had thrown him several frosty looks since descending from her room (where, earlier, he'd knocked timidly, no doubt looking for s.e.x, and Renata had told him brusquely and without opening the door that she was busy getting ready and to please go away)-but Cade didn't look as apologetic or as distraught as he should have. He seemed oblivious to her, and he had done nothing to acknowledge the sacrifice she made so that she could have lobsters with the Robinsons. Renata also felt put out by Claire Robinson's presence, primarily because it hadn't been mentioned and thus felt like something secret, something the Driscolls were trying to pull over on her. If an old friend of Cade's from boarding school was coming for dinner, why wouldn't anyone have mentioned it? And yet Cade didn't seem interested in Claire Robinson; Renata didn't remember seeing them even greeting each other. At this moment, Cade was talking to Kent Robinson about his new job at J. P. Morgan while Joe Driscoll leaned on his cane with one hand and tried to discreet away his other hand, which shook violently.

Renata, unable to place herself comfortably with the gentlemen, stood with Suzanne, Mrs. Robinson, and Claire. Suzanne and Mrs. Robinson were as thin as blades and Renata could imagine them working a crowded room, alternately smoothing and cutting. They were talking about a third woman, a friend of theirs maybe, but maybe not, who had breast cancer. The cancer had metastasized; the woman was the mother of three small children.

"In the end, I can't help but feel it's her own fault," Mrs. Robinson said. "All it would have taken was a yearly mammogram!"

At this, Claire gasped. "I can't believe you just said that. Really, Mother!"

"Those poor children," Suzanne said.

It was Renata's least favorite kind of story-those poor, motherless children. Just as she thought, I can't be a part of this, and made the slightest movement toward the men, Nicole appeared holding a tray of drinks.

"White wine spritzers," she said. She smiled warmly at the women and especially at Renata. Renata couldn't decide if Nicole had forgiven her or if she was being grossly insincere. Was there, Renata wondered, a genuine person in the room, including herself? She took a gla.s.s from the tray.

"Thank you," she said.

Mrs. Robinson also took a gla.s.s, though Claire and Suzanne declined. Claire asked for a hot chai ("if it's not too much trouble"), which Nicole a.s.sured her it wasn't. Renata noticed a very full gla.s.s of white wine resting on a side table just below Suzanne's fingertips, which, now that other guests had drinks, she felt free to pick up.

"Cheers," Suzanne said. "Here's to the end of the summer. And to Cade's engagement. And to being together."

The three of them clinked gla.s.ses while Claire stood among them, beaming, and cheerfully mimed as though she had a gla.s.s. Renata drank down quite a bit of her fruity, fizzy wine punch, hoping Nicole hadn't poisoned it. She glanced at Cade, who was drinking a Stella, still deep in conversation with Kent Robinson about his future on the buy-back desk. Joe Driscoll had availed himself of the sofa-he couldn't lean on his cane and hold a drink-and he smiled benignly at Cade and Kent's conversation, though he wasn't really a part of it any longer. Renata considered joining him. If there was a decent person in the room, it was probably Joe Driscoll. She could ask him about the sailing.

"We're lucky to have Renata with us tonight," Suzanne said. "She originally made other plans."

"Really?" Mrs. Robinson said. She smiled as though she couldn't imagine such a thing.

"I was supposed to have dinner with my G.o.dmother," Renata said. "Marguerite Beale."