The Love Season Part 3

Shawna Colpeter smiled at Renata apologetically and wiped at her eyes.

"My roommate's here," she said into the phone. "Gotta go. Okay? Okay, honey? Love you. Gotta go, Major. Bye-bye." She hung up.

Immediately Renata protested. "Don't mind us."

Daniel dropped the load he was carrying onto the bare mattress that was to be Renata's bed, then he offered Shawna a hand. "Daniel Knox. I'm Renata's father."

She shook his hand, then fished a raggedy tissue from her pocket and loudly blew her nose. "I'm Action Colpeter."

"Action?"

"It's a nickname my parents gave me as a baby. Supposedly, I wore them out."

Another adjustment. Not Shawna but Action, which sounded like a name for an NFL running back. The girl, when she stood up, was six feet tall. She had long, silky black hair that flowed all the way down to her b.u.t.t. She wore purple plaid capri pants and a matching purple tank top. No shoes. Her toenails were painted purple. She wore no makeup and even then had the most exquisite face Renata had ever seen: high cheekbones, big brown eyes, skin that looked as soft as suede.

"That was my brother on the phone," she said. "My brother, Major. He's ten, but with the mind of a three-year-old. He doesn't understand why I'm leaving home. I explained it, my parents explained it, but he does nothing but cry for me. It's breaking my heart."

Daniel cleared his throat. "I'm going down to get more stuff from the car." He disappeared into the hallway.

Renata didn't know what to say about a ten-year-old brother with the mind of a three-year-old. She could ask what was wrong with him-was it an accident or something he was born with?-but what difference would it make? It was sad information, handed to Renata in the first minute of their acquaintance. Renata decided that since her father was out of the room it would be a good time to explain something herself, in case Action started asking where the rest of her family was.

"My mother is dead," Renata said. "She died when I was little. I don't have any brothers or sisters. It's just me and my dad."

Action flopped backward on her bed. "We're going to be okay," she said to the ceiling. "We're going to be fine."

Renata was too young to understand the reasons why two women clicked or didn't click, though with Action, Renata believed it had something to do with the way they had opened their hearts before they unpacked a suitcase or shelved a book.

They did everything together: cla.s.ses and parties, late-night pizza and popcorn, attending the football games all the way uptown, writing papers, studying for exams, drinking coffee. Action knew the city inside out. She taught Renata how to ride the subway, how to hail a cab; she took her to the best secondhand shops, where all the rich Upper West Side ladies unloaded their used-once-or-twice Louis Vuitton suede jackets, Hermes scarves, and vintage Chanel bags. Action gave Renata lifetime pa.s.ses to the Guggenheim and the Met (her mother was on the board at one and counsel to the other); she instructed Renata never to take pamphlets from people pa.s.sing them out on the street and never to give panhandlers money. "If you feel compelled to do something," Action said, "buy the poor soul a chocolate milk." Action was so much the teacher and Renata so much the student that Action took to asking, "What would you do without me?" Renata didn't know.

Every Sunday, Renata and Action rode the subway downtown to eat Chinese food with Action's family in the brownstone on Bleecker Street. Action's family consisted of her father, Mr. Colpeter, who was an accountant with Price Waterhouse, her mother, Dr. Colpeter, who was a professor at the NYU law school, and her brother, Major, whom Renata had pictured all along as looking like a three-year-old. But in fact, Major was tall and skinny like Action. He wore gla.s.ses and he drooled down the front of his Brooks Brothers s.h.i.+rt. (Whenever Renata saw Major he was dressed in a b.u.t.ton-down and pressed khakis or gray flannels, as if he had just come from church.) Miss Engel, Major's personal aide, also lived in the house, though she was never around, Sunday being her day off. Her name was constantly invoked as a way to keep Major in line. "Miss Engel would want you to keep your hands to yourself, Major."

The front rooms of the brownstone had been recently redone by a decorator, Action said, because her parents did a lot of entertaining for work. The living room was filled with dark, heavy furniture, brocade drapes, and what looked like some expensive pieces of African tribal art, though when Renata asked about it, Action said it had all been picked out by the ID; her parents had never been to Africa. The dining room had the same formal, foreboding, special-occasion look about it-with a long table, sixteen upholstered chairs, open shelves of Murano gla.s.s and Tiffany silver. The back of the house-the kitchen and family room-was a different world. These rooms were lighter, with high ceilings and white wainscoting; every surface was covered with the clutter of busy lives. In the kitchen was a huge green bottle filled with wine corks, a butcher-block countertop that was always littered with cartons of Chinese food, stray packets of duck sauce and spicy mustard, papers, books, pamphlets for NYU Law and the Merce Cunningham dance cooperative. The Colpeters' refrigerator was plastered with various schedules and reminders about Major's life: his medication, his therapy appointments, the monthly lunch menu from his special school. Every week Dr. Colpeter apologized for the mess, and she always reminded them that Mrs. Donegal, the cleaning lady, came on Mondays. "This is as bad as it gets," she said.

Renata grew to love Sundays at the Colpeters' house because it was a whole family-noisy, messy, relaxed-enacting a sacred ritual. They always ate in the den with the football game on TV; always Mr. Colpeter opened a bottle of wine, dropped the cork into the green bottle, and poured liberally for Renata and Action so that Renata had a glow by the time the food arrived. The food was always delivered by a young Chinese man named Elton, who always came into the living room to chat for a minute about the game, his heavy accent obscuring what he was saying, and Mr. Colpeter always tipped him twenty dollars. Always Major insisted on sitting with Action in the plush blue club chair. Renata watched them closely, Action trying to eat her egg rolls while Major wiggled next to her, studying a lo them noodle, winding it around his tongue. Dr. Colpeter wore sweatpants and T-s.h.i.+rts on Sunday nights; she cheered voraciously for the Jets; she hogged the whole sofa lying facedown after she ate. Renata knew she was one of the most esteemed legal minds in the country, but on Sunday nights she was loose and melancholy as she watched her kids nestled in the armchair.

"Action is more that child's mother than I am," she told Renata once.

Always on the subway home Action complained about the very evening Renata had found so comforting. Action accused her parents of being too absorbed with their careers; she accused them of neglecting Major emotionally.

"Why do you think he wants so much love from me?" she said. "Because he's not getting it from them. They dress him up like a junior executive to make the world think he's normal, instead of letting him be comfortable. Ten years old and that boy does not own a pair of jeans. And then there are the servants." Renata braced herself; she already recognized the tone of Action's voice. "Miss Engel and Mrs. Donegal. One young and Jewish, one old and Irish, but servants just the same. Those women do the work my parents should be doing. The dirty work."

"You're being kind of hard on them," Renata said.

"Please don't take their side against me," Action said. She stood up and grabbed the pole next to the door, as though threatening to step off the train at the wrong station. "I wouldn't be able to bear it."

When Renata got back from her run, she was hot and dying of thirst. She stood inside the refrigerator and poured herself half a gla.s.s of fresh-squeezed orange juice cut with half a gla.s.s of water. The sweat on her skin dried up and she s.h.i.+vered. She gulped her juice and poured more.

On the marble countertop next to the fridge was a list written out in Suzanne Driscoll's extravagant script. At first, Renata thought it was a list for Nicole-the lobsters, salad greens, and whatnot. But then Renata caught sight of her own name on the list and she snapped it up.

Priorities: Pick date! Check Sat.u.r.days in May/June '07.

Place: New York-Pierre or Sherry Neth.

(Nantucket in June? Check yacht club.) Invites: Driscoll, 400. Knox side?

Call Father Dean at Trinity.

Reception-sit-down? absolutely no chicken!

Band-6-piece min., call BV for booking agent.

Renata-dress: VW? Suki R?

Also: flowers-order from K. on Mad.

Cake-Barbara J.'s daughter-in-law, chocolate rasp, where did she get it?

Favors-Jordan almonds? Bonsai trees?

Honeymoon-call Edgar at RTW Travel, Tuscany, Cap Jaluca "Okay," Renata said. Her breath was still short from the run. This was a list for the wedding, her wedding. Suzanne's list for Renata's wedding. A little premature organization from a woman who was, quite clearly, a control freak, right down to the Jordan almonds.

Renata looked around the kitchen. She was in foreign territory. This was nothing like the kitchen in the house where she grew up, which had a linoleum floor, a refrigerator without an ice machine, and a spice rack that Renata had made in her seventh-grade industrial arts cla.s.s. (How many times had Renata begged her father to remodel? But no-this was how the kitchen had looked when Renata's mother was alive; that was how it would stay.) Nor was the Driscolls' kitchen anything like the Colpeters' kitchen in the Bleecker Street brownstone. The Driscolls' kitchen was a kitchen from a lifestyle magazine: marble countertops, white bead board cabinets with brushed chrome fixtures in the shape of starfish, a gooseneck bar sink in the island, a rainwood bowl filled with ripe fruit, copper pots and pans gleaming on a rack over the island. Renata knew she was supposed to feel impressed, but instead she decided this kitchen lacked soul. It didn't look like a kitchen anyone ever cooked in or ate in. There was no sign that human beings lived here-except for the list.

Something about the Driscolls' kitchen in general-and the list in particular-made Renata angry and uncomfortable. Sick, even, like she might spew the juice she'd drunk too quickly into the bar sink. There was a telephone over by the stainless-steel dishwasher. Renata dialed Cade on his cell.

Three rings. He was sailing. Can you hear me now? Renata looked through the gla.s.s of the double doors that led to the deck, the lawn, a little beach, the water. Sailboats of all shapes and sizes bobbed on the horizon. Renata might have better luck shouting to him, Your mother is already planning our wedding! She's calling booking agents! She's arranging for our honeymoon in Tuscany!

The ringing stopped. It sounded like someone had picked up. But then a crackle, a click. No reception out at sea. Renata hung up and called back. She was shuttled right to Cade's voice mail.

"It's me," she said. Her voice sounded tiny and meek, like a girl's voice, a girl too young and incompetent to plan her own wedding. A girl without a mother to help her. "I'm at the house. Call me, please."

Because, really, the nerve! Renata hung up. Here, then, was one of life's mysteries revealed. How and when did a woman start resenting her mother-in-law? Right away, like this. Renata crushed the list in her palm. She couldn't throw it away; it was her only evidence.

Renata reached for a banana from the fruit bowl, thinking, Replace pota.s.sium, but she was so angry, so worried that her wedding might be commandeered by Suzanne Driscoll, that as soon as she picked up the banana she flung it into the cool, quiet atmosphere of the kitchen. It hit a bud vase on the windowsill that held a blossom from the precious hydrangea bushes; the bud vase fell into the porcelain farmer's sink and shattered.

"s.h.i.+t!" Renata said. She retrieved the banana, peeled it savagely, and ate half of it in one bite, surveying the damage. She was tempted to leave it be and suggest later that Mr. Rogers had knocked the vase over, though of course Mr. Rogers was far too graceful a creature for such an accident. If something had broken while Renata was alone in the house, it would be a.s.sumed that Renata was responsible. Thus she did the only reasonable thing and cleaned up the mess-the bud vase was in three large shards and myriad slivers. She threw the shards away with the flower-maybe no one would remember it had even been there-and washed the slivers down the disposal. She had covered her tracks; now all she had to do was eat the evidence.

"Hey."

Renata gasped. Her nipples tightened into hard little pellets. Miles sauntered into the kitchen with Mr. Rogers asleep against his chest. "How was the run?"

"Fine," Renata said, sounding very defensive to her own ears. "Hot." She stuffed the rest of the banana into her mouth. "I'mgngupstshwrnw."

"Excuse me?" Miles said.

Renata finished chewing and swallowed. Her father liked to point out that when she was angry or distracted her manners reverted to those of a barnyard animal.

"I'm going upstairs to shower now," she said.

"Okay," Miles said with a shrug. It was clear he couldn't care less where she went or what she did.

The guest bathroom's shower-unlike the dorms at Columbia where Renata had been living all summer while she worked in the admissions office-featured unlimited hot water at a lavish pressure. It was soothing; Renata tried to calm herself. One of the traits she had inherited from her father was a propensity for flying off the handle. Daniel Knox was famous for it. The sister story to the bra-shopping story was the stolen-bike story. When Renata was nine years old, she forgot to lock up her bike in the shed. She and her father lived in Westchester County, in the town of Dobbs Ferry, which was a safe place, relatively speaking. Safer than Bronxville or Riverdale, though burglars and other derelicts did travel up from the city on the train, plus there was the school for troubled kids, and so the rule with the bike was: Lock it in the shed. The one day that Renata forgot, the one day her pink and white no-speed bike with a banana seat, a woven-plastic basket, and ta.s.sels on the handlebars was left leaning innocently against the side of the house, it was stolen. When Daniel Knox discovered this fact the next morning, he sat down on the front steps of their house in his business suit and cried. He bawled. It was the mortifying predecessor to the crying in the department store; this was the first time Renata had seen her father, or any grown man, cry in public. She could picture him still, his hands covering his face, m.u.f.fling his broken howls, his suit pants. .h.i.tched up so that Renata could see his dress socks and part of his bare legs above his socks. Her father's reaction was worse than the stolen bike; she didn't care about her bike. At that time, because she was younger, or kinder, than she was during the bra-shopping trip, she clambered into her father's lap and apologized and hugged his neck, trying to console him. He wiped up, of course-it was just a bike, replaceable for less than a hundred dollars-and everything was fine. Renata, over the years and despite her best intentions, had sensed herself about to overreact in the same embarra.s.sing way. The scene downstairs in the kitchen, for example. What if Miles had walked in and seen her throw a banana and break the vase? How to explain that? I'm angry about Suzanne's list. It was just a list, just a collection of thoughts, of good, generous intentions, which now sat crumpled on the side of the guest bathroom's sink, the words blurring in the shower steam.

And yet something about the list bugged her.

Renata dried off, moisturized, and slipped into her bikini. She wanted to have a swim and lie on the small beach in front of the house until it was time for lunch. But first she sat on the guest room bed-which had, miraculously, been made. (Made? Renata thought. She hadn't bothered. Oh, maid. Nicole.) Renata yearned for Action, who at that very moment would be doing what? Canoeing down a cold river? Gently dabbing calamine lotion on a camper's mosquito bites? Action would be able to deconstruct Suzanne Driscoll's list; she'd turn it into mincemeat, into dust. She would render it meaningless. Either that or she would become indignant; she would put Renata's outburst to shame with her ranting and raving. Who does that woman think she is? The Sherry Netherland? Bonsai trees? Action was unpredictable-at once both pa.s.sionate and unflappable, always smart, always funny, always exciting. Would Action Colpeter feel comfortable in this house? Would she be welcome in this house? Renata seethed with guilt. Her own best friend didn't know about her engagement. Renata had tried to call her the second she got home from Lespina.s.se, the ring burning on her finger, but when Action's cell phone rang Major had answered. Action's cell phone had been left behind in her parents' brownstone on Bleecker Street. And so Renata was stuck with her guilt. The one person who should know about her engagement-who should have known before everyone else-didn't.

Or no, not the one person. One of two people.

Renata fished her cell phone out of her bag, stared at it for a few long seconds, then dialed her father.

She was so nervous she thought she might gag. This was, most definitely, not in the game plan that she and Cade had devised. They had planned to tell Daniel Knox of their impending nuptials together, in person, in Manhattan-on their turf, either over c.o.c.ktails at "the little place" that now belonged to Cade on East Seventy-third Street or at a dinner that Cade would pay for, in a restaurant that Cade would select.

It doesn't matter how we tell him, Renata said. He's going to say no. He'll forbid it.

Don't be silly, Cade said. Your father loves you. If you tell him you want to get married, he'll be happy for you.

Renata was tempted to inform Cade of just how wrong he was, but Cade was a born diplomat. He accepted everyone's point of view, and then, by virtue of his patience and tolerance and goodwill, he inevitably won everyone over to his side. But not this time.

Still, Renata had agreed to wait. She was relieved that telling Daniel would be left until the last possible minute and that Cade would be the one to break the news. Renata couldn't pinpoint what was making her press the issue on her father now. Was it Suzanne's list or a general sense of propriety? Either way, her father needed to know.

Daniel Knox picked up after the first ring. Eleven o'clock on a gorgeous summer Sat.u.r.day: Renata felt dismayed that he was at home. He would be alone, working, or catching up on Newsweek, when he should be at a Yankee game, or playing golf.

"Daddy?"

"Honey?" he said. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's great!" Renata said. She wished she were wearing clothes. She felt exposed in her bikini. "I'm on Nantucket. At the Driscolls'. It's sunny."

"You're having fun?"

"Yep. I ran down to the Beach Club this morning."

"You did? Oh, geez." He paused. Which, of a hundred things, was he thinking? "I hope you stayed on the bike path. That's why it's there."

"I stayed on the path," she said.

"Okay, good. How was it then? The club, I mean."

"Beautiful."

"Did you go inside? Talk to anyone?"

"No."

"I don't even know if the same people own it," Daniel Knox said.

"I don't know, either," Renata said. She felt like she was spinning; she was dizzy and nauseous. "Daddy? Listen, I have something to tell you."

"You've called Marguerite," he said. His voice oozed disappointment. "Oh, honey. I told you, she's not-"

"No," Renata said, though this was in response to his digression and not to the accusation, which was true. "I mean, yes, I did call Marguerite, but that's not what-"

"She's not in her right mind," Daniel Knox said. "I don't know how to make you understand. She may sound cogent, but she has serious mental and emotional problems, and I don't want you talking to her. You're not going to try and see her, are you?"

"Tonight," Renata said. "For dinner."

"No," Daniel said. "Oh, honey, no."

"You can't stop me from having dinner with my own G.o.dmother," Renata said. "I'm an adult."

"You're my daughter. I would hope you'd respect my wishes."

"Well, I have something else to tell you and you're not going to like it any better."

"Oh, really?" Daniel said. "And what is that?"

"I'm getting married."

Silence.

"To Cade, Daddy. Cade and I are getting married. He proposed and I said yes."

Silence.

"Daddy? Dad? h.e.l.lo? Say something, please."

There was nothing, save the steady sound of breathing. So he hadn't hung up. He was reeling. Or strategizing. What was the phrase he'd repeated all her life, to anyone who asked him how he did it, raising a daughter alone? I spend all my spare time trying to stay one step ahead of her. Everyone always chuckled at this declaration, understanding it to be a comical, fruitless effort on his part. But this silence was unsettling. She had expected shock, anger, an "over my dead body." This would mellow into an insistence that she wait. Please finish college. Graduate. You're too young. I'll talk to Cade myself. I'll take care of it.

But the silence. Weird. Dread sat in her stomach like a cold stone. Regret. Should she have waited, adhered to Cade's plan?

"Daddy?"

"Yes?" he said, and now his voice sounded...amused. Was that possible? Did he think she was kidding? She fiddled with her ring. That was another reason to tell him in person: He would be confronted by the reality of twelve thousand dollars on her finger. This was not something he could laugh off; he couldn't turn his head and hope it would go away.

"Did you hear me? What I just said? Cade and I are getting married."

"I heard you."

"Well, what do you think?"

He laughed in a way that she could not decipher. He sounded genuinely happy, delighted even. Had he spent all his spare time practicing that laugh? Because it threw her off-balance; she felt like she was going to fall.

"I think it's wonderful, darling. Congratulations!"

After she hung up, she sat on the bed as still as a statue. She felt the air on her skin. Another girl would be jumping for joy or, at the very least, wallowing in sweet relief. Renata, however, felt outsmarted, tricked, and yes, betrayed. It wasn't that she wanted her father to keep her from marrying Cade; she had been so sure that he would, so certain that she could predict his very words, that she had never considered the engagement to be real. But now it was real. She wore a real diamond and had what sounded like her father's real blessing.

The phone in the house rang. Cade? She couldn't bear to talk to him. She picked up her monogrammed canvas beach bag-a welcome-to-Nantucket present that Suzanne Driscoll gave to all of her overnight guests-and stuffed it with a striped beach towel, her sungla.s.ses, her book-and, as an afterthought, Suzanne's list. Then she raced downstairs. She had to get out of the house.