“Baby!” Tiffany shrieked. She let go of the pole, dashed up the last few feet of the ridge, and swooped Milo into her arms, his muddy front pressed against her jacket.
Milo began to wail. Tiffany looked at her husband—accusingly, Luke thought.
Luke rushed to Ver Planck’s defense. “Milo’s fine,” he told Tiffany, trying to reassure her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Peggy scramble to the top of the ridge.
“Why didn’t one of you pick him up?” Tiffany was wild-eyed as Milo continued to scream.
Peggy was out of breath. “What’s happened?”
“It’s nothing.” Luke could see how quickly Peggy’s concern would turn to panic if someone didn’t show some common sense. “Milo fell a little. He’s okay.”
The Ver Plancks were both hovering now, Tiffany clutching their howling child to her chest while Tom shepherded them both toward the car.
Peggy reached up to get the apple from its net. She started toward the Ver Plancks, leaving Luke to hold the picking pole. He watched her approach the trio cautiously and hold up the apple to Milo as one might offer food to a shy animal.
To Luke’s amazement, Milo stopped in the middle of a shriek. He extended a muddy hand. Tiffany took the opportunity to swipe it clean with a disposable cloth from a plastic container.
“Isn’t it pretty? Your mommy and I picked it for you,” Peggy crooned, as if calming a screaming child were the most natural thing in the world to her.
“Hold it.” Milo spread his fingers wide. Tiffany wiped his tear-streaked face.
“Would you like to hold the pretty apple?” Peggy passed the fruit to the boy, and Luke saw Tiffany mouth the words Thank you.
At the farm market, Peggy waited by the cars with Tiffany while Luke and Tom took a now placid Milo to look at the cows. Peggy was in no hurry for their return. She dreaded the empty afternoon awaiting her at the Sedgwick House nearly as much as she did the silent drive back with Luke.
“Are you really from Queens?” she asked Tiffany. “Or were you joking back there?”
“Oh, it’s no joke,” Tiffany said. “Nobody jokes about being from Queens.”
Peggy took a breath, screwed up her courage. “Can you keep a secret?”
Tiffany was leaning against her mountain-size vehicle. Her quilted, corduroy-collared jacket was caked with mud. “Absolutely.”
“I’m not ‘people like us,’ either.”
“I know,” Tiffany said.
“You do?” Peggy’s heart beat faster; she hadn’t expected this. A gust of wind picked up, and she shivered; her own jacket was simply no match for the foggy dampness. “How?”
Tiffany came closer, catching Peggy’s jacket hem between a thumb and forefinger. “There are clues. Your clothes, for example. Don’t get me wrong; they’re gorgeous. But look at Liddy and Carrie and Creighton. It’s wool, not leather; navy, not black; flats, not heels; loose, not tight; ChapStick, not lipstick—”
“You wear lipstick.”
Tiffany giggle-snorted again. “I get my hair colored, too—very not ‘people like us.’ You can take the girl out of Flushing, but you can’t take Flushing out of the girl.” She smiled. “Where are you really from?”
“Nowhere. Everywhere. It’s a long story. Luke knows, but do you think Liddy and the others can tell I’m not one of them?”
Tiffany shook her head. “I don’t think so. But if Luke doesn’t care, does it matter? Tom loves that I’m from Queens.”
Peggy wished she could tell Tiffany the truth about her marriage. “It matters,” she said softly. “I can’t tell you why, but it does.”
Luke was quiet on the drive back to New Nineveh. Peggy watched the houses go by. With the trees half-bare, the hidden homes emerged, unmasked: beautiful old clapboard Colonials with leftover Halloween pumpkins grinning on the porches and fall wreaths on the doors.
“Why are all the houses white with black shutters?” The volume of her own voice startled her. She’d not meant to speak aloud, to get between Luke and the silence that fell over him whenever they were alone.
But—“Didn’t you know? It’s the newest color combination,” Luke replied right away, pleasantly, as if all this time he’d been waiting for her to start talking first.
“It’s new? Really?”
“As of about 1880. In Connecticut that’s new.” His eyes tilted up at the corners in what might be a smile—as rare and unexpected as the last apple in an orchard. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re not so good with change.”
“So hating change is a Yankee thing.”
“Exactly.”
“Then I must have a little Yankee blood. I hate change more than anything.”
“Really?” Luke looked at her. “One wouldn’t know it by your actions. Would you consider painting a house beige?”
“Beige?”
“To a Yankee, a beige house is flamboyant.”
“Then how do you Yankees give directions to your houses?” Peggy parried back, enjoying the camaraderie. “Do you say, ‘Turn right at the white house with black shutters, pass the white house with black shutters, and then make a sharp left at the white house with black shutters?’ ”
Luke smiled—definite, genuine. “‘Once you pass the white house with black shutters, you can’t miss our house. It’s the white one with the black shutters.’ ” His front teeth overlapped slightly. The flaw suited him. He had the appealing, unfussy confidence of a man who knew who he was and had nothing to prove.
“Wait!” Peggy returned to the view outside the car. “There’s a white house with dark green shutters.”
Luke slowed to a stop and leaned over a steel travel mug wedged next to the gearshift to look out her window. He said, his voice hushed, as if murmuring across a pillow in the dark, “Their neighbors must whisper about them.”
He was so close. She could have touched his sleeve or laid her hand on his leg.
“What would they whisper?” Peggy almost whispered this herself.
“The neighbors? Oh, that those people are bohemians.
Troublemaking nonconformists. Or, worse, Democrats.” He looked over the tops of his glasses at her, as if they were real friends sharing an inside joke. She could imagine the softness of his threadbare khaki pants under her fingers. He smelled of shampoo and clean laundry and wool. A real man’s scent—not bottled.
She had to stop. I am not attracted to Luke Sedgwick. This was simply a reaction to weeks of celibacy. Luke had been the man of her alcohol-addled dreams for a few hours of one night. What had he done since then to deserve any admiration on her part?
Luke accelerated past the green-shuttered house, left arm on the car windowsill, right hand loosely, lazily, on the steering wheel.
I am not attracted to Luke Sedgwick, Peggy repeated to herself.
It wasn’t working. She evidently had a thing for emotionally unavailable men. That would explain why she’d fallen for Brock and why she’d taken it upon herself to pop the question to Luke outside a casino after too many martinis. Tee many martoonies, as she and Bex used to say in college.
Well, no more. The next man she had a relationship with—Jeremy, maybe, or one she hadn’t yet met—would be friendly and personable not just when the whim struck. The next man she got involved with would care about her. And besides, Luke was taken.
The new nineveh, pop. 3,200 sign flew by on the left, and Luke turned onto Church Street. They stopped at the traffic light. On the green, picketers marched with their signs. Annette Fiorentino was among them. Peggy waved and started to ask Luke about the demonstrations.
But Luke was pointing at a spot past the group. “I grew up in that white house with black shutters.”
Peggy followed the line with her eyes. “Which?”
“The smallish one with the potted mums on the steps.”
“I thought you grew up in the Sedgwick House.”
“No, just in its shadow.” The light turned green, and Luke turned left on Main Street, past two
white houses with black shutters. Peggy craned her neck to take in Luke’s childhood home: solid, handsome, traditional. Like Luke, she realized.
I do not have a crush on my husband.
She bit the inside of her cheek and remembered Luke standing by nonchalantly while Milo flailed in the mud. She saw him in the library, reciting his petty limerick. Don’t you make my mistake, or you’ll pay.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t help Milo,” she said. When he didn’t answer, she repeated herself, louder.
After the third time, Luke said, “He wasn’t hurt. He didn’t need help.” He pulled into the driveway of the Sedgwick House, white with black shutters, and cut the engine.
“He was crying!”
“Only after Tiffany fussed over him.” He got out and walked around to open Peggy’s door.
“She was not fussing! She was helping Milo up, the way I’m sure your mother picked you up when you fell down.” She checked herself. Good—her brief moment of attraction was gone.
At the front door, Luke stood back so she could enter first, but once inside, Peggy felt lost. She wasn’t ready to face the disrepair, the drafty parlors, her lonely room. The time stretched out endlessly until tomorrow afternoon, when she could return to the city.
She’d go for a walk in town. She’d been meaning to see what was down there anyway and to find out what Annette and the others were protesting, and there was a good hour left until dark. She’d just go up to her room to get a warmer sweater and check in with Bex.
“It went perfectly. I feel fine. I’m in bed, and, look, here’s my husband, bringing me cookies and milk on a tray. Thanks, Josh, sweetie,” Bex said.
More relaxed already, Peggy changed sweaters, put her jacket back on, and hurried back downstairs, nearly bumping into two figures in the dusky entryway.
“I have it!” Miss Abigail was saying to Luke. She was holding out her right hand, which was clenched, as if she held something.
Luke reached out to take whatever it was.
Miss Abigail pulled in her fist. “Follow me. You, too, Peggy.” Without waiting for an answer, she disappeared into the house.
Luke hesitated, then followed.
Peggy groaned to herself. She was vaguely curious about what Miss Abigail was holding, but once she let the house swallow her up, she’d never make it back out for the afternoon. On the other hand, it would be rude not to follow, and Miss Abigail was intimidating, even though Peggy could probably bench-press her. At least she could have at one time, when she was in better shape. I have got to start going to the gym, she thought.
The den, when they arrived, was in a greater state of disarray than normal. The portraits on the walls hung at odd angles. The fireplace mantel and the tables had been cleared, and the floor was littered with tarnished silver candlesticks, a ceramic ashtray with a picture of a ship on it, a scattering of pennies, dozens of faded copies of Life magazine, and a needlepoint pillow that read: “Use it up / Wear it out / Make do / Do without.” Luke gaped. Peggy confirmed her own suspicion that she, too, had her mouth open and closed it.
Miss Abigail seemed oblivious to the mess. Luke caught his great-aunt’s elbow before she could step squarely on top of the May 1981 Life, featuring Ronald Reagan in a cowboy hat, and tried to guide her to a chair. As usual, she didn’t sit. Instead, she picked her way with surprising steadiness to a tilted painting of a young woman whose oval face was framed with wings of dark hair.
“This is Elizabeth Coe Sedgwick, the wife of Silas’s favorite son, Josiah. Elizabeth bore Josiah five children, four of whom, tragically, died. Elizabeth herself passed away giving birth to the fifth.”
“How awful.” Peggy tiptoed up to the painting and leveled it. Of all the portraits in all the museums she’d visited in her life, it had not sunk in before that the people in them had once been real, flesh-and-blood human beings with lives and loves and losses. She searched Elizabeth’s gently curved lips and placid eyes for a clue that this woman understood her fate and was at peace with it. Luke, meanwhile, was stooped over, restacking the magazines mechanically, as if he’d sat through Miss Abigail’s story a thousand times.
“That fifth child was Luke Silas Sedgwick. Our Luke, as you’re aware, is Luke Silas Sedgwick the Fourth.”
Peggy hadn’t been aware. She glanced at Luke, who was returning the magazines to their place on a low shelf.
“That makes Elizabeth your husband’s great-great-grandmother. This portrait was painted the year she was married. The brooch she’s wearing was a wedding present from Josiah. Now it’s my wedding present to you.”
Miss Abigail opened her hand. On her palm gleamed a small, dome-shaped gold flower, with a single perfect pearl at the center. It was indeed the same pin fastening the delicate lace cape that lay across Elizabeth Coe Sedgwick’s ivory shoulders.
Luke was paying attention now. His freckled, ruddy face was pale. “Abby, where in the world did you get that?”
With tears in her throat, Peggy touched the brooch longingly. What stories might it tell of the parties it had attended, the women whose dresses it had adorned, all long departed through the coffin door. “It’s lovely,” she said, “but I can’t accept it.”
Miss Abigail pressed the brooch into Peggy’s hand. “Nonsense. You’re a Sedgwick. That’s the end of the discussion.”
“Thank you. It means a great deal to me,” Peggy said sincerely.
“Then for goodness’ sake, young lady, put it on. Luke, help your wife.”
“I can do it myself.” The idea of forcing Luke to pin this precious family heirloom on her was more than Peggy could bear. She caught his eye and held the gaze for a long beat, desperate to make him understand, to signal that she would return the brooch to him and in no way felt it was rightfully hers.
But Miss Abigail was also staring at Luke in that intense way she had, leaving Luke no choice but to do her bidding. Peggy slowly took off her jacket, and Luke leaned in, the back of his hand grazing her cheek. At his touch, Peggy felt her breath catch. Luke fastened the brooch to her sweater. Could he hear her clamoring heartbeat? Could he see into her thoughts, know she’d been reliving their moment on the make-believe Brooklyn Bridge? She stepped back hastily.
Miss Abigail regarded Peggy with suspiciously bright eyes. “It looks well on you, dear.”
She was a remarkable woman. Peggy couldn’t imagine how, at ninety-one, Miss Abigail could keep straight all those names and dates and events. How sad must she be to watch the family die off, to be at the end of a breed of fragile dinosaurs?
On impulse, Peggy darted forward and wrapped her arms around Miss Abigail’s rigid body. I’m sorry I won’t be giving you an heir, she wanted to say. I’m sorry we’re deceiving you. You have to believe it’s in everyone’s best interest. I want you to be safe as much as Luke does.
Miss Abigail patted Peggy’s back awkwardly and retreated to a safe distance. “I’ll take my sherry now,” she announced, and left to fix herself her nightly glass.
Peggy picked up a candlestick and replaced it on the mantel, then knelt and gathered up a fistful of pennies. “Where should I put these?”
Luke laughed humorlessly. “In a sack. Then take the sack down to Seymour’s Hardware and tell them the Sedgwicks finally have enough to get their roof replaced.” He turned back to the bookshelves. Peggy searched for a suitable coin container and settled for the empty copper firewood caddy on the cold hearth. The pennies clanged to the bottom.
She brushed off her hands and got to her feet. “You can have the brooch back. As soon as our deal is up, I’ll return it, I promise. I know it isn’t mine.”
Above her, dead Sedgwicks peered out from their frames. Peggy watched Luke return a silver cigar box to its place next to the magazines. If only she knew what he was thinking.
“We should probably talk about the house,” she said, “and how we should go about selling it.” She lowered her voice so the portraits of Luke’s ancestors wouldn’t overhear. “And what nee
ds fixing before we do.”
“That’s easy, everything,” Luke began as Miss Abigail returned with her drink.
“What’s that, young man?”
“Never mind,” he said.
Miss Abigail sipped from her diminutive sherry glass.
“That brooch looks lovely,” she said to Peggy. “Almost as if it were made for you.”
“I have work to do.” Luke excused himself and left, his footsteps disappearing down the hall.
He didn’t appear the rest of the evening. At six, Peggy and Miss Abigail ate frozen beef potpies and peas together in the kitchen, on the blue-and-white china, and Miss Abigail shared more tales of the Sedgwick ancestors—about two of her own older brothers, Henry and George, who’d succumbed to influenza in 1918, the year she was born; and her oldest brother, Luke Silas Sedgwick the Second, who was Luke’s grandfather. And about Luke’s father, the Third, known as Trip, who in midlife had married Nan Woodruff, from an old Maine clan. The Sedgwick family had assumed the couple would have no children, until to everybody’s surprise, including Trip and Nan’s, Nan had given birth to Luke at the shocking age of forty-seven.
“They’re both gone now.” Miss Abigail dabbed at her lips with a dinner napkin showing evidence of multiple mendings. “It’s a pity. They would have been pleased Luke found you.”
Peggy wasn’t so sure. She speared a cube of beef with her fork. “Have you…Why did you not…?” Get married, was the ending of the question. She caught the look on Miss Abigail’s face and wished she hadn’t begun.
Miss Abigail’s eyes were blank. Her lower lip trembled. She held a forkful of peas halfway to her mouth. “Who are you?” A few peas tumbled off her fork, bounced off her chipped plate, and rolled underneath the table. “What are you doing in my house?”
Peggy had just bitten into a piece of crust. It was dry and salty, and she had to force herself to chew and swallow, willing the food not to get stuck in her suddenly unyielding throat. “I’m Peggy. Luke’s…wife.”
Mating Rituals of the North American WASP Page 13
