by Nancy Thayer
“That’s Sonny and Robin just before the junior prom,” Bobbie said, adding matter-of-factly, “Sonny must have told you about Robin.”
“Um,” Beth murmured uncertainly.
“They were high school sweethearts. Man, were they in love!” Bobbie sighed. “They were so adorable together. Here they are, king and queen of the senior prom. And here they are when Sonny was captain of the football team and Robin was head of the cheerleading squad. Isn’t she beautiful?”
“She certainly is,” Beth agreed.
“That was taken after Robin helped me paint the family room.” Bobbie pointed to a photo of Robin and Bobbie, both in overalls, both spattered with paint, holding up brushes and laughing triumphantly at the camera. “She hung out here so much as a kid. She idolized Merle and used to beg him to let her help him. She got to be a pretty good little carpenter. We were so thrilled when Sonny was dating Robin. Thought they’d get married and take over Merle’s business eventually.”
Beth stood frozen in uncomfortable silence, unable to think of a response.
“Hey!” someone yelled. “You must be Beth. I’m Sonny’s father. Call me Merle.” Merle Young strode into the room, bringing a burst of fresh air with him. He was bald, with hazel eyes, and he was just Sonny’s height, but stockier. His hand, as he shook Beth’s, was hard and calloused.
“And I’m Mark.” Sonny’s brother was a stocky, brown-haired, hazel-eyed copy of his father. Bits of leaves poked from his old wool sweater. “Nice to meet you, Beth.”
“And I’m Suze.” Sonny’s sister looked just like her photos, only healthier. Her skin glowed, her black hair shone, and she carried her strong body with the ease of a natural athlete.
“Dinner’s ready,” Bobbie told the gang. “Let’s go in the kitchen.” Over her shoulder, she said to Beth, “I gave up the dining room to have a family room, but now I want Merle to build us a real dining room we can use for holidays and birthdays.”
“No dining room,” Mark protested, throwing an arm around his mother’s shoulders. “You’d make us sit up straight and not belch in a dining room.”
“Please!” Suze rolled her eyes at Beth as they followed the others.
“Mom!” Sonny was at the stove, stirring a pan. “You let the gravy get lumpy.”
“I did no such thing,” Bobbie protested, taking the spoon from him. “Put the roast on the platter,” she told him.
Everyone else grabbed bowls and carried them to the long pine table.
“Can I help?” Beth asked.
“Sure,” Sonny told her. “Get the platter out of the cupboard and hold it for me while I get the roast from the oven.” He pulled on a pair of oven mitts.
Beth opened a cupboard door. Glasses. She opened the next door. Mugs. The next cupboard was crammed with Tupperware.
“It’s on the lower shelf,” someone said silkily.
Beth turned to see a beautiful woman laying silverware on either side of the plates.
“I’m Robin.” Her voice poured out like honey.
Beth almost whimpered. Robin was more beautiful than in the photos. Clad in jeans and a white, long-sleeved tee that showed her spectacular figure, her blond hair pulled up in a high ponytail, she looked like every man’s dream.
“Hi, Robin.” Beth forced herself to smile. “I’m Beth.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve heard all about you.” Robin picked up a pile of paper napkins.
Beth lifted up a white ironstone platter that must have weighed twenty pounds. “Is this the right one?”
“Perfect.” With two enormous forks, Sonny hefted a roast the size of Texas onto the platter.
Beth staggered at the combined weight. Bobbie chuckled, “Oh, honey, you’re going to drop that!” and took it from her.
Sonny put his arm around Beth’s shoulders. “Robin’s helping Mom try to slap some sense into this house.”
“Robin’s a painter,” Bobbie proclaimed proudly as she set the roast on the table.
“Oh? An artist?” Beth asked.
Everyone laughed. “Robin doesn’t have time for sissy stuff,” Mark said, punching Robin lightly on the arm. “She paints houses, and makes a good bit of money doing it, too.”
“She’s got her own scaffolding and her own crew,” Bobbie added. “Come on, everyone, sit down.”
Bobbie took her seat at one end of the table, Merle at the other, Beth and Sonny on one side, facing Mark, Suze, and Robin, who had to squeeze together to fit. It was clear Beth was sitting in Robin’s usual place.
“It’s grab, root, and growl in this family,” Merle informed Beth as the others reached for bowls, helped themselves, and passed the food on.
“Take bigger helpings,” Merle ordered Beth. “You’re too skinny.”
“Dad,” Sonny objected.
Gorgeous Robin laughed, showing perfect white teeth. “Better get used to it,” she warned Beth. “One thing about this family. They’re not shy.”
“Now what is it you do?” Merle asked.
Pleased to be asked, Beth said, “I’m completing work on my Ph.D. in English, and working in the BU library.”
“I almost went to BU!” Mark told her.
“Yeah,” Bobbie reminisced fondly. “Back in his rebel days.” She poured gravy over her food.
“Decided to work for Dad instead,” Mark said.
“Sonny wanted to be an architect.” Robin smiled warmly across the table at Sonny, who was focused on his food.
“Really?” Sonny hadn’t told her this. She turned to look at him. “Why—”
“College just costs too much,” Bobbie remarked.
“Anyway, they had to put me through college,” Suze piped up. “I’m the smart one in the family.”
“Just because you go to college doesn’t mean you’re smart,” Merle grumbled. “I know lots of morons with college degrees.” He glared at Beth’s plate. “Don’t you like the food?”
Beth quickly lifted a fork of potatoes and gravy to her mouth, just as Tinkerbelle knocked Beth’s arm with her eager, wet nose. The fork flew from Beth’s hand onto the floor, leaving a trail of gravy across Beth’s cashmere sweater.
“You’ll get wise to old Tinkerbelle’s tricks,” Robin assured Beth.
But will I get wise to yours? Beth wondered, forcing a smile.
8
The newly enlarged Sperry family had their first meal together in the vast formal dining room with its glittering chandeliers, elaborately carved and inlaid mahogany sideboards, velvet drapes, and antique oils whose frames gleamed softly in the candlelight. The table itself was seven feet wide and twenty feet long.
Carolyn had decided to roll out the good silver and china for this intimate family celebration. She wasn’t certain how she felt about her father’s new wife, but for her father’s sake, Carolyn was determined to be welcoming. She’d personally arranged the centerpiece of baby roses and white irises, which she’d suggest that Heather take back to their wing, and she’d had a wonderful triple-layer cake made with the words “Congratulations, Heather and Aubrey!” written in white icing as a surprise for the newlyweds.
Now the housekeeper set a crystal goblet of milk at her place at the linen-swathed table. “Thank you, Mrs. B.,” Carolyn said.
“You’re welcome, dear.” Mrs. B. quietly left the dining room.
“Our first meal together!” Carolyn’s father said from his place at the head of the table. He raised his glass, filled with wine as rosy as his face.
“Here’s to many more,” Carolyn toasted, and her husband, Hank, and Aubrey’s new wife, Heather, echoed her words.
When, over twenty-seven years ago, his wife had died unexpectedly from a heart attack, Aubrey Sperry had mourned deeply and in his own peculiar way, engrossing himself in his work and shutting out anything that reminded him of his wife. Unfortunately, that included Carolyn. Her father had sat at the dinner table with her every night, inquiring about her homework and other school activities. He’d attended her recitals and high sch
ool and college graduations. He’d even taken her out to dinner occasionally. But though they lived in the same house, an emotional distance stretched between them. When her father started dating, Carolyn felt both relief and jealousy. She knew it was good for her father to have a life away from the company, she even understood, intellectually, that her father might be happier if he remarried, but she worried that any woman replacing her mother might eclipse Carolyn in his heart. Ashamed of such thoughts, she kept them to herself.
Over the years, Aubrey Sperry had squired a variety of elegant Bostonian social swans. How odd that he would marry this plain little partridge, Heather. As Aubrey lifted the heavy silver carving knife and fork to the roast, Carolyn studied her father’s face, thinking what a mystery people are to each other, for here was this man who shared her DNA and her daily life, and there sat his new wife, someone Carolyn would never have expected Aubrey to so much as glance at.
Whatever the reason for his choice, Aubrey looked happy with his new wife, seated wide-eyed on his left. The candlelight illuminated Aubrey’s hands with their age spots and ropy veins and his wrinkled, jowly face. Her father was aging. The years had reversed their roles; now she was the one who should protect him.
For her part, Heather looked rather cowed by the silver candlesticks, thick damask napkins, and gold-rimmed Limoges bowls of rice and vegetables. In a high, little-girl voice, she tittered, “This is an awfully big table.”
“Too big for comfortable modern family meals,” Hank agreed. Rising, he went around the table, serving the food with the panache of a butler. “I don’t want to ask Mrs. B. to do it,” he explained. “It’s enough that she had to cart all this stuff in here.”
“The house was built by my grandmother,” Aubrey explained to his new wife, “back in the days when people had lots of help. Cooks, maids, young boys to do the heavy work.”
“It’s a beautiful room.” Carolyn glanced around the grand chamber. “But impractical. We usually eat in our own dining rooms, or in the kitchen, with Mrs. B.”
“Does she live here?” Heather asked.
Carolyn answered, “Mrs. B.’s got her own home just a short drive away, down in Sperry, where her husband lives. He’s retired from the post office, a classical-record fanatic. She loves working here in the day so he can play his music full blast. She goes home in the evening, unless the weather’s terrible or we have a big party that runs late. There’s a small bedroom off the office, between the kitchen and the family room, which is hers.”
“You know, we haven’t had a party for years,” Aubrey remarked.
“Let’s have one,” Carolyn suggested. “Hey! How about a gala cocktail party to announce your marriage and introduce your new wife?”
Heather looked round-eyed with terror.
“We’ll discuss it,” Aubrey said, patting Heather’s hand.
Hank finished serving the roast, potatoes and asparagus and returned to his place at the table. “So, Heather, tell me about yourself.”
Heather replied meekly, “There’s not much to tell.”
Hank kindly prompted, “Did you grow up around here?”
Heather nodded. “In Arlington.”
“That’s a nice suburb,” Hank said encouragingly.
Heather bent her head and concentrated on cutting her meat.
“Heather’s parents are both dead, unfortunately.” After Heather’s shy utterances, Aubrey’s voice seemed to boom. “Her father was a plumber, her mother a housewife. Heather and her brother, Harry, inherited the house and lived in it together until our marriage. Haven’t met Harry yet.”
“You’re lucky to have a brother,” Carolyn told Heather. “I always wanted one.”
Heather smiled but said nothing.
“Is he older or younger?”
“Older.”
“Much older?”
“Two years.”
This was like trying to fill a bucket of water drop by drop. Carolyn thought of all the women her father had dated, women with enormous charm and easy eloquence.
It was Aubrey who elaborated. “Heather went to Brighton Community College. Worked as a teller at the Arlington Citizens Bank, part-time. Then she decided to work there full-time, and she’s been there for twelve years.” Reaching over, he patted his young bride’s hand. “And I’m lucky she worked there the day I needed some extra cash. Otherwise, we never would have met. Now,” Aubrey boomed, “Hank! Tell me about what you’ve been up to!” Turning to Heather, he explained, “Hank’s an environmental activist. Always saving one forest or another.”
“Actually,” Hank said, “I’m trying to save an entire hillside in western Massachusetts. Developers want to turn the land into a minimall.” Always passionate about his work, Hank held forth for the rest of the meal.
——————————
Later, in the privacy of their own living room in their own wing, Carolyn collapsed on the sofa, lifting her feet into Hank’s lap so he could massage them.
“Ahhh,” she sighed. “If I’d known you were so talented at this, I would have married you sooner.”
“And here I thought you were captivated by my sexual magnetism,” Hank chided.
“I was,” Carolyn said, grinning. “I am.” She closed her eyes, adjusting a pillow behind her neck. “What do you think of my father’s little bride?”
Hank rubbed the ball and then the arch of her left foot. “She’s an odd one. I never would have guessed she was Aubrey’s type.”
“I know.” Carolyn placed her hands on her belly. She’d hadn’t yet felt the baby kick. She couldn’t wait! “She’s so shy and she doesn’t seem very smart! I just don’t understand what Dad sees in her.”
“Maybe she’s restful for Aubrey. Maybe he’s exhausted by strong women. Strong women have ruled his life. His grandmother. His mother. You. Maybe he enjoys having a submissive, sweet little woman at his side.”
Carolyn studied her husband. “Do you find me exhausting?”
Hank lifted her foot and kissed it. “I find you stimulating. Exciting. Arousing.” He licked her toes.
“That tickles.” Carolyn giggled. Shifting on the sofa, she said, more soberly, “Heather certainly doesn’t fit the image of a gold digger. But, Hank, this marriage just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“Maybe it’s just the shock. It happened so fast. Without your control or even your knowledge. And look at Aubrey. He’s got a bounce in his step and a gleam in his smile.”
“True. And I want him to be happy. But it almost seems as if Heather’s playing a part. Oh, hell! I don’t want to talk about Heather anymore. She’s interrupting my foot massage.” Carolyn relaxed against the sofa, deciding to enjoy the moment.
——————————
Monday afternoon, Carolyn and Aubrey sat at a conference table at the Sperry Paper Company with Frank Mooney, the head of personnel, going over the new changes in the governmental health plans and the impact they would have on the company’s health policies. Outside, the wind howled, splattering hard pellets of rain against the large plate-glass windows. The turgid governmental prose, the dizzying sheets of numbers, and the unremitting storm set Carolyn’s nerves on edge.
“Carolyn, are you all right?” Frank asked.
Carolyn fished a handkerchief from her purse and blew her nose. “I’m fine, Frank.”
Frank eyeballed her skeptically. “You don’t look so hot. And that’s the third time you’ve sneezed.”
“Frank’s right,” Aubrey said. “Why don’t you go home, Carolyn. Take the day off. Grab a nap. You don’t want to come down with a cold.”
Carolyn gazed at the stack of papers before her. The pie charts seemed to bubble and contract like cells under a microscope. “I think I will go home,” she conceded, putting her calculator, pens, pads, and glasses into her briefcase.
“We’ll leave the list of changes for your approval,” Frank told her.
“Thanks.” At the door, Carolyn turned back. “Is Heather at home?�
�� she asked her father.
“She told me she’s driving to Arlington to pack up a few of her belongings,” Aubrey said. “We’re meeting at Il Bocce for lunch.”
——————————
Good, Carolyn thought, driving out of the factory lot and through Sperry. Someday soon, she’d spend a few hours sharing girl talk over hot chocolate with Heather, but today she wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. No. She wanted to cut a huge wedge from the leftover cake, eat it in bed while watching an old black-and-white movie, and then fall asleep.
She drove up the hill toward the old Victorian, which today, in the pouring rain and darkened air, was looking rather like the set for Psycho. Parking in the porte cochere, Carolyn let herself into the side foyer and walked into the main hall. She’d always loved the paintings here and had developed the habit of chatting to the memorialized women as if they could really hear her.
“Hello, old dears.” Her mother, Elizabeth Carolyn, her grandmother Helena Elizabeth, and her great-grandmother Geraldine Helena smiled down at her from the boundaries of their heavy gold frames. “I’ve got to give little Elizabeth Geraldine her nap.”
She was about to open the door into her wing when she heard a slight noise from the direction of Mrs. B.’s office between the family room and the kitchen. Then, another noise. A clicking. She thought Mrs. B. had taken the day off. Oh, God, did the house have mice?
Or was it just the rain?
Another noise, a kind of snap. Well, if Mrs. B. was here, perhaps she wouldn’t mind popping a hen in the oven for tonight, and making her famous apple/onion/walnut stuffing. The very thought warmed Carolyn.
Passing through the large drawing room and the smaller family room where she and her father celebrated Christmas, she moved through the shadowy house toward Mrs. B.’s office, where all the household accounts were kept. The wind rattled the windows and sent shadows scuttling into the corners, while a draft made the hem of a wall tapestry lift and fall in a ghostlike curtsy.
The office door was open. Carolyn stepped into the room.
“Mrs. B.?”
Seated at the desk, tapping away at the computer, was Heather, who shrieked when Carolyn entered. Carolyn’s heart jumped.
