Mating Rituals of the North American WASP

by Lauren Lipton

  “This is important. Gossip gets around fast. If even one person suspects our marriage is anything but genuine, that it’s a business arrangement, it’ll get back to Abby, and she’ll march straight back to Lowell and rip up the will so fast it’ll make your head spin.…What?”

  Peggy’s forehead was furrowed, and an emotion he didn’t understand radiated from her eyes, which were, he’d forgotten, the soft, complicated gray of a stormy autumn sky.

  Eyes like skies that never cease to deepen—

  The phrase came to him as if dictated.

  Drown at twilight in them—drink their glow

  “Do you remember anything at all about our”—she swallowed—“about that night?”

  And then he did.

  He hadn’t noticed her, another face in the crowd, as he’d crossed the casino on the way to his room after the final seminar of the Family Asset Management Conference. He’d simply seen a figure crumple to the floor, and had rushed to help, and had found this unreal, ethereal creature. He could still picture the casino light gilding her forehead. She’d worn a wedding veil. A bride brought into being just for him.

  “Rise, resty Muse,” he’d quoted, taking her small, soft hand in his and helping her to her feet, breathing in, as he did so, the delicate scent of her skin, as if she were made of a thousand mysterious flowers and spices and fragrant fruits.

  “Shakespeare.” She’d smiled up at him and continued the line. “Rise, resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey…”

  Immediately, viscerally, he had understood there was such a thing as love at first sight. Which had made his finding himself alone the next morning all the more bittersweet.

  “Do you remember anything?” he asked, testing her.

  “Just waking up and wanting to die.” She was standing pigeon-toed in her high heels. “I obviously went temporarily insane that night. I’m sorry. About everything.”

  From the other side of the front door, the decisive clack of the knocker announced the party’s first arrival.

  “No need to apologize,” Luke told Peggy, stung. “I don’t recall a thing.”

  Nobody was eating the artichoke squares. They sat, cold and congealing, next to the untouched tuna-and-black-bean bruschetta. Earlier, Peggy had tried moving both dishes and the roasted vegetables from their second-tier spot against the back wall of the grand parlor. But they were faring no better here on the dining room table, next to Miss Abigail’s peanut butter and bacon on Ritz crackers. Peggy felt somewhat vindicated that none of the food was getting much attention from the reception guests. Not so the booze. Not even in college had she known people who could put away liquor—and not even good liquor—this fast. The cheap Scotch and gin had been replenished a number of times; the crystal punch bowl, despite its oceanic proportions, had already needed to be refilled twice with Miss Abigail’s whiskey-sour punch, by a uniformed, middle-aged maid named Erin whom Miss Abigail had insisted on hiring—with the money she must have saved buying grocery store cheese and no-name spirits.

  A dainty, withered guest drained her cup in three gulps and held it out for more. Erin could barely ladle fast enough. After the woman shuffled back out into the grand parlor, Peggy caught the maid’s eye. “If you need a break, I’m happy to take over.”

  Erin stopped midladle and smoothed her uniform. “You enjoy the party, ma’am.”

  Peggy turned to see whom Erin was addressing. No one was there. She started to rearrange the artichoke squares one more time, caught Erin’s disparaging look, and put down the silver serving tongs.

  “That looks scrumptious!”

  The speaker, a woman about Peggy’s age whom Peggy remembered having been introduced to in the foyer, had the delicate handles of several empty punch cups hooked over her fingers.

  “I can fix you a plate.” Peggy reached for a deviled egg.

  “Lord spare me the Yankee food. One of those.” The woman nodded toward the artichoke squares. “It’s okay. I can get it.” She let Erin take the cups and, while the maid was refilling them, picked up a plate. “Look at that roasted vegetable salad. And bruschetta! Did you make all this?”

  Peggy wanted to hug this person. She just wished she could remember her name. All the female guests at this party seemed to have the same first name that sounded like a last name, or a borderline-parody nickname like Topsy, and they looked alike, flat-chested and bony, with mousy hair and short-filed fingernails.

  “Yes, I made it,” Peggy said, “with help from Martha Stewart.”

  “It’s delicious.” The woman brushed a crumb from the neckline of her sweater. She was curvaceous and womanly, like a 1940s pinup girl, a healthy five or six dress sizes bigger than the other women and an exception to the mousy rule. Everything about her was gleaming and shiny and expensive-looking, from the prim angora crew neck she somehow made alluring, to the diamond-studded baby-shoe charm glittering around her neck, to the pearls that were larger and whiter than anyone else’s. “Isn’t Martha a doll? We lived near her in Westport when I was a kid, and once in a while she’d pop over with dahlias from her cutting garden. Did you grow up around here?”

  “In San Jos—Palo Alto.”

  “Well, we’re all thrilled Luke picked a nice girl to settle down with, finally. Why are you hiding? Come.”

  She set down her empty plate, thanked Erin, and gathered up three of the refilled cups by their spindly crystal handles. Peggy balanced the other three between her palms, her elbows pointing out like wings, and followed carefully, wondering what this woman had meant by “finally.” They passed through the grand parlor, where Miss Abigail, in a long skirt and a high-necked blouse, was conversing with a hunched, elderly man in plaid slacks and a cashmere sweater in an eyeball-searing shade of ultraviolet. Lowell Mayhew stood nearby with his wife, whose name had also slipped Peggy’s mind. Both smiled at Peggy, and she lifted her right elbow in greeting. A wave of punch broke onto her wrist, but she kept going, her eyes on her new friend’s back. The woman’s bouncy black hair curled at the ends like a model’s in an old shampoo commercial.

  “Peggy, over here!” a voice sang out.

  A few steps away, under a pastoral painting with a gilt frame Peggy realized she’d neglected to dust, Ernestine Riga had spotted her. She’d been talking to a man and woman in their sixties who Peggy was pretty sure were the Sedgwicks’ next-door neighbors, Annette and Angelo Fiorentino.

  Ernestine caught Peggy by the sleeve with such enthusiasm, Peggy almost doused punch all over the Fiorentinos. “Emily Hinkley called—she’s the president of the ladies’ auxiliary,” Ernestine informed Peggy and the bouncy-haired woman. “She wants our house to be part of the New Nineveh Home Tour! Emily says they’re all impressed with our loving restoration of the former Sedgwick carriage house. We’ll be the top-billed home. I hope we have time to spiff up the place—June isn’t that far off!”

  “What an honor!” Either Peggy’s new friend didn’t think, as Peggy did, that Ernestine Riga was a self-important show-off or she was too polite to reveal it. She held her punch cups steadily. “I’ve always fantasized about having my house chosen for a tour. Which reminds me, Peggy. I’ll have to have you over for lunch soon.”

  Ernestine looked the woman up and down. “Aren’t you married to that hedge fund mogul in Greenwich? That VanderSomething?”

  “Tom Ver Planck. Yes, I am. I’m Tiffany. Please forgive me for not shaking your hand. Has the Sedgwick House been in a home tour, Peggy? I’ve always loved this place.”

  Peggy’s elbows were aching from holding the punch cups, and her head was reeling from too many names, and she’d been distracted by a tear in the grimy wallpaper directly behind Ernestine’s head. “Home tour?” she repeated stupidly. She wasn’t sure what a home tour was, let alone if this house had been in one.

  Annette Fiorentino’s long gray braid thumped against her shoulder as she shook her head. “Oh, no. Abigail would hate all those tourists coming through. She doesn’t like strangers in her home.” />
  Angelo Fiorentino had a faint Boston accent. “I’m surprised she let you in, Peggy.”

  Peggy started to feel dizzy. But Angelo had been joking; Annette was laughing. “I know Miss Abigail is overjoyed that Luke found you,” Annette said, serious again. “I don’t think any of us expected him to marry.”

  “You plan to have kids?” Ernestine barked, but before Peggy could think of a polite way to suggest that Mrs. Riga mind her own business, Tiffany excused the two of them charmingly and gently led Peggy away.

  “Thank you,” Peggy said.

  “Anytime. People can really be nosy, especially once you’re married. They think you should start popping out the babies right away.” Tiffany wove expertly past a table stacked with wedding presents. Peggy hadn’t expected people to bring anything, and just looking at all the hopeful, pastel-wrapped boxes made her feel awful. Tiffany stopped and gave her a conspiratorial grin. “So. Are you two planning to have babies?”

  Peggy felt her hands start to sweat. “No time soon.”

  “Smart thinking. You lovebirds need time to focus on each other. I don’t think Tom and I have slept all night alone together since our son was born.”

  Peggy made a mental note not to repeat this story to Bex. “You have a son?”

  “Milo.” The woman’s eyes softened. “He’s two. You’ll have to meet him.”

  Their path ended at the library, where a half dozen or so men and women huddled in a close circle, some standing, some leaning easily against the backs of armchairs. One man, whose wide, flat, boyish face was beginning to turn puffy with age and alcohol, held a bottle of Scotch in one hand while yanking a book from one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves with the other.

  “What did I miss?” Peggy’s ally passed out the punch. “I’ve completely forgotten whose cup was whose, but we’re all friends, right? Hi, hon.” She stood proprietarily close to another of the men, smacking a lipstick kiss on his shiny, tan cheek.

  “I see, Sedgwick, that your bride has befriended our Tiffany.” The puffy-faced guest looked at Luke, signaling something Peggy couldn’t decode. He set down his bottle and introduced himself as Kyle Hubbard and the petite, thin-lipped woman next to him, who seemed vaguely affronted by Tiffany’s abundant chest, as his wife.

  Peggy remembered linking the short i in “skinny” with the woman’s name. At last, she could greet a guest properly. “Lizzie, right?” With luck, she wouldn’t have to reshake anyone’s hand. Hers were tacky with sloshed punch.

  “Liddy,” Kyle’s wife corrected, darting her gaze away from Tiffany. “Not to worry—you have a lot of names to memorize. That’s Tom Ver Planck, Tiffany’s husband. This is Topher and Carrie Eaton, and Bunny and Creighton Simmons.” Her eyes crinkled as she tilted her head toward a preternaturally cute man and woman who looked like brother and sister. “Bunny and Creighton used to be our newlyweds, but you and Luke have dethroned them.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true, Bunny,” Peggy told the woman, whose headband and diminutive gold earrings framed round, stuffed-animal eyes in a face free of makeup.

  “That’s Creighton,” Liddy corrected. “He’s Bunny.”

  The circle erupted into laughter. Peggy searched for a sign of support from Luke, but he had missed the exchange completely. He and Tom Ver Planck had moved to a quieter corner and seemed deep in discussion. She clasped her punch hands across her elbows, then dropped them quickly. These people didn’t need to know how uncomfortable she was.

  “I had a hard time keeping them straight at first, too,” Tiffany whispered sympathetically. “They do blend together.”

  The puffy one, Kyle Hubbard, cleared his throat. “But where were we? Ah, yes. Quit talking business, my brother, and recite us a little ditty.”

  Luke looked over and frowned.

  “You leave me no choice.” Kyle set down his drink and opened the book, flipping through the pages.

  “You’re holding it upside down,” Topher pointed out, to more laughter.

  Kyle flipped the book right-side up and began reading in a singsong voice:

  When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

  And nodding by the fire, take down this—

  He paused. “Christ, this is dull.”

  “It’s Yeats.” Peggy didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until she saw Kyle look up at her. “It’s one of the most romantic poems ever written.” She didn’t add, And you’re mangling it.

  “Then by all means, let’s get your beloved to finish. Be a sport, Sedgwick,” Kyle called loudly. “Your bride would like you to read this sonnet, or whatever it is.”

  “I don’t, really,” Peggy protested. And it isn’t a sonnet.

  “All right.” Kyle sniffed and rubbed his pouchy eyes. “I’ll do it. ‘When you are moldy and grey, take down this book…’ ” Everybody but Tom, Tiffany, Luke, and Peggy laughed.

  “Put that away, you philistine.” Luke strode back to the circle.

  Kyle held the book out of Luke’s reach. “You read, or I will.”

  “Come on, Luke. Put him out of his misery,” said Creighton.

  Luke pressed his lips together, as if to keep from speaking impolitely, and took the book from Kyle’s hand. He pushed his glasses back on his nose and straightened his rangy body and began:

  When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

  And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

  And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

  Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

  He didn’t look happy, but he recited with a command of the poem that showed he was familiar with it. Peggy looked again and realized he wasn’t reading at all but was reciting from memory, and she felt light-headed.

  How many loved your moments of glad grace,

  And loved your beauty with love false or true,

  But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

  And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

  He was handsome. His quiet melancholy made Brock’s broad-shouldered good looks seem cartoonish, inconsequential. He tipped his head forward in concentration, a lock of hair falling over one eye. He wore the same dark suit he’d had on when Peggy had woken up next to him in Vegas. It was hardly of the most up-to-date cut, but it was right on him.

  This is my husband, Peggy thought. He’s my husband, and he’s handsome, and he knows Yeats. Her legs felt as if they might buckle under her.

  And bending down beside the glowing bars,

  Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

  And paced upon the mountains overhead

  And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

  He finished reciting, and the whole world faded away.

  It could have been inadvertent. Or he could have intended to catch Peggy’s eye. All Peggy knew was that he looked at her, and she looked at him, and all else receded—the party laughter and the tip of glasses, the rustle of fabrics—faded away, or never existed, and there were just the two of them, virtual strangers who had somehow become the only people in the world.

  Once before, a man had looked at her this way. Once before, she’d gazed into a man’s eyes and found in them this exquisite understanding: We belong together. But who had it been? She remembered the feeling, the moment, but, cruelly, not the man. It was Brock. It has to have been Brock, she told herself, knowing it hadn’t been; that Brock Clovis had never seen her the way Luke Sedgwick was seeing her now.

  Without thinking, Peggy extended her hand to brush back Luke’s hair and might have done it had someone not reached out and caught her fingers.

  “Look!” Tiffany cried, and the world came back into focus.

  Peggy was weak with shame. Had she really been just about to touch Luke Sedgwick?

  “It’s exactly like mine!” Tiffany held out her hand, aligning it with Peggy’s so their left ring fingers were parallel and Tiffany’s flawless, starry-framed diamond aligned with Peggy’s flawless, starry-framed cubic zirconia. Peggy stiffened, preparing fo
r Tiffany to identify her and her ring as fakes, but Tiffany only giggled. “I take that back. It’s exactly like mine, only bigger.”

  Everyone except Luke leaned in.

  “So it is. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d go flashy, Sedgwick,” Kyle drawled.

  Peggy stole a peek at Liddy and Creighton’s wedding rings—plain bands as different from Tiffany’s as the two women were from the glossy-mouthed, generously hipped Tiffany herself.

  “That’s the ring of a man who’s deeply in love,” Kyle continued. “Wouldn’t you say, Ver Planck?”

  It was becoming clear to Peggy that the more upset Luke was, the less he spoke.

  “Actually, Hubbard, it’s the ring of a man who is deeply in love and who’s been far more successful as an investor than you have,” Tiffany’s husband returned. Liddy raised an unplucked eyebrow as Tom, Tiffany, Topher, and Carrie burst into fresh peals of laughter.

  One thing was for sure. It was lucky Peggy didn’t have an inkling of feeling for Luke, because if she had, she’d be insulted at his evident disgust over the suggestion they might be in love.

  Kyle squeezed behind Peggy, caging her in a half hug around the shoulders. “You must be quite a girl, Mrs. Sedgwick, to have inspired this Ver Planck–like display of extravagance.”

  Peggy laughed politely and started to move away, but Kyle kept his arms locked firmly across her collarbone in an embrace less sexual than possessive. Surely this time Luke would step in, Peggy thought, but he simply shut the book—“That’s enough of that”—and replaced it on the shelf. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell if Luke meant he was through reading or that he’d had enough of his friend’s behavior. Or was he saying he’d had enough of her? Was she embarrassing him by her mere presence among his friends? Was it clear to these people that she didn’t belong?

  “Do tell, Mrs. Sedgwick.” Her captor’s breath on the back of Peggy’s neck bore the not entirely repugnant tang of whiskey and cigarettes. “How did you persuade our friend here to tie the knot?”

  It seemed to overtake her, a desire to torture Luke a little. It was wrong, she knew, yet the urge reached out and wrapped its tentacles around her as if to strangle her. Or it could just be that Kyle had tightened his arms across her chest. Panic rose to take the place of the wicked feeling, but she laughed as if this sort of thing happened to her all the time. “Simple. I propositioned him. He couldn’t say no. Could you, Luke?”