Seating Arrangements

by Maggie Shipstead

  “What?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

  At first he could not reply but could only gape at her, conscious of the obviousness of his excitement but also feeling the first inkling of the enormity of his mistake. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

  “But we want each other.”

  “This was a moment of weakness.”

  “Don’t say was.” Her face was tense and determined. She stepped forward and started to reach for him, for his groin or belt buckle—he couldn’t tell—but changed her mind and let her hand drop. “I know what the problem is,” she said, “but I just get that way sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s because I’ve had a lot to drink. It doesn’t mean I’m not into doing this, really. I really am attracted to you.” She attempted a pout. “What do you see when you look at me?”

  He looked at her, at her face, her miraculous limbs, the humid tangle of her hair. “I see the fountain of youth,” he said.

  Unfazed, she barely blinked, as if she were often taken for such fountains. “This is your chance,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He felt foolish, gullible. “This shouldn’t have happened. I need to know you won’t tell anyone.” Something hardened in her eyes, and, alarmed, he put his hands on her shoulders, trying to seem kind, fatherly. “Look. Listen. You’re a beautiful girl. There’s no shortage of men who want you. I’ll admit I want you. But this isn’t something I should be doing. I’m married. I’m your friend’s father. All right? Now, let’s agree to pretend this never happened.”

  “I knew you had a thing for me. That’s all.” The hardness turned to quartz. She wore an expression he had often put on his own face, meant to convey warning, disdain, and censure. Again, sadly, he thought that they were familiars, she and him. She angled her head at the fingers resting on her shoulder, the same fingers he had so hastily removed from her mysterious and disappointing interior. “Do you mind not touching me? I don’t want to smell like pussy.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides, and she slid past him, face averted, leaving him alone with the laundry and his reflection in the window.

  Eight · A Party Ends

  To Livia’s horror, Francis was coming on to her. When he got drunk, he assumed a devil-may-care, man-about-town posture—rakish and self-consciously anachronistic, a dissolute Edwardian cad—and he had started laying it on thick, leaning toward her with wiggling eyebrows and ardent eyes behind his horn-rims.

  “May I tell you a secret?” he had said, winking and pulling his chair up so his whale-spotted knees were touching her bare ones.

  “Knock yourself out.”

  He leaned forward and took her hand, pulling it so close to his mouth that she felt his breath on her knuckles. “You have to swear—swear on Daphne’s baby—that you won’t tell anyone.”

  “I’m not swearing on her baby.”

  Without hesitating, he said, “I’ll tell you anyway.”

  “If you insist.”

  “You’re the most beautiful girl here.” He kissed her fingers.

  She laughed, high pitched, incredulous at her own bad luck. She had thought before dinner that Sterling was a sure bet, but then Agatha had moved in. Things had become even more dire because now Sterling was off somewhere—Livia did not know where—and Agatha was missing, too. The coincidence had not escaped the notice of the holdouts on the deck, the party’s rear guard: Greyson, Dicky Jr., Francis, Charlie, Dominique, and Piper. Piper, bright eyed from liquor, was curled into a tiny, delighted, sideways ball in her chair, giggling at nothing, a lime green cable-knit sweater pulled over her knees and her bare toes poking out from under the hem. Dominique peeled the label from her beer while Dicky Jr. talked, her head angled toward him to suggest she was listening.

  After she’d lost track of Sterling, Livia had felt compelled to move on to plan B, which she supposed was Charlie. She’d gotten attached to the idea of having a romp and at this point was willing to take what she could get, within reason. (She did not consider Francis within reason.) But Charlie was one of those confusing boys who was nice all night long and then gave you a kiss on the cheek and went home alone. They had chatted, and she had snuck in some flirtatious touches, but after a while he had excused himself and gone to talk to Piper, who wasn’t even single. Livia was deflated. A willing partner shouldn’t be so hard to find. Shouldn’t she, a twenty-one-year-old girl—a twenty-one-year-old girl who had recently caused a scandal and dropped two dress sizes—be fighting them off with a stick?

  “I’m really not,” she said to Francis, “and we both know it.”

  In one quick movement, he dipped his head down and pressed his cheek to her open palm. She looked around the deck, mortified. Charlie smiled at her. “You are,” Francis said, raising his head. “I’m smitten.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since I saw you in the moonlight.”

  She snorted and freed her hand.

  “It’s true!”

  “I thought you had a girlfriend, anyway.”

  “That’s over.”

  “What happened?”

  “Her tits were too big.”

  “What?” Livia said, loud with disbelief. “Did they grow?”

  “No, they were always too big. One day I couldn’t take them anymore.”

  “Francis, a gentleman would never say that about a woman,” Dicky Jr. interjected from across the circle, sounding like Oatsie.

  Francis winked at Livia again. “Only kidding.”

  Trying to sound light and teasing, she said, “How can you say the word ‘tits’ to me when you’re doing this whole moonlight and roses thing? Just be normal, Francis.”

  “Sorry. You asked.”

  Livia caught Dominique’s eye, beseeching. “Hey, Francis,” Dominique called. “What’s this I hear about you being in a monastery?”

  Piper, whose gradual withdrawal into her sweater had advanced until not only her legs and feet but hands, chin, mouth, and nose disappeared, popped like a gopher from the crewneck. “You were in a monastery?” she asked.

  “I was.”

  “Only for four days,” said Dicky.

  Francis fiddled with the beads of his bracelet. “The monastic environment wasn’t for me. But Buddhism is still a very important part of who I am.”

  Livia rolled her eyes, and the others saw, and Francis saw them see and looked at her. She met his quizzical gaze with an expression of attentive innocence.

  “And,” he went on, “to be honest, leaving the monastery was a rough transition. I found myself looking around at everyone—you know, people going about their business, going to the post office, going to Whole Foods—and it depressed me that no one stopped and examined the moment in which they were living. Life is all just like, that’s my parking space, you’re taking too long, I want the last bagel. I don’t know. I was feeling very lost. I still think the moment is what matters. You have to be in the moment. The moment is the unit of being.”

  “So,” Piper said, subsiding back into her sweater, “are you a vegetarian?”

  “I am tonight. I’m allergic to lobster.”

  “You ate your weight in smoked salmon,” Dicky said, attempting to smother a burp. “Salmon isn’t a vegetable.”

  “Do you meditate?” Piper asked. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

  Livia could tell Francis was annoyed. She had had a similar conversation with him when they first met and since then had witnessed others trying to get to the bottom of his Buddhism. People tended to be intrigued by the idea of an Upper East Side WASP turning away from materialism and cleaving to lotus blossoms and banyan trees, but since Francis hadn’t gone so far as to back up his faith with actual practices, his inquisitors were left with a muddled feeling of having been duped, and he, in turn, felt thwarted and misunderstood. “Not exactly,” he said.

  “Francis is going to be reincarnated as a dung beetle,” said Dicky.

  “You’re going to be reincarnated as a pig’s asshole,” Francis sho
t back.

  “You can’t be reincarnated as just part of something. Even a fake Buddhist should know that.”

  “Hey,” said Greyson. “Hey now.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to believe in that stuff, though?” asked Piper.

  “Unfortunately,” Francis said, “I was born with a logical mind. I’m always struggling to reconcile my spiritual side with my intellect.”

  “Don’t worry, Piper,” said Greyson. “We’ve all tried. We think he’s in it for the bracelet.”

  Francis held out his wrist. “This was a gift from a lama in Nepal.”

  “You bought it on Canal Street,” Dicky said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Your glasses aren’t even prescription.” Dicky almost spat the words.

  “So?” Francis said. “I like them!”

  An uncomfortable silence. Dominique shrugged at Livia.

  “Maybe we should think about packing it in,” Greyson said, and then Sterling came walking up the lawn.

  “Where have you been?” Livia demanded, striving for mock haughty but coming off, she feared, as shrill.

  He sat down beside her, filling the only gap in their circle. At once Francis backed off, pulling his chair away. There were eight of them, and Livia felt like they were on a camping trip, sheltering in the lee of the house, getting ready to tell ghost stories. “I went for a walk,” he said.

  “Where’s Agatha?” said Francis.

  Sterling shrugged. “How should I know?” He seemed perfectly sober. Daphne had said he was like a black hole for alcohol, swallowing it up without a trace.

  Francis lifted his eyebrows above his decorative glasses. “We thought maybe she was with you.”

  “Well, she wasn’t.” He glanced at Livia, and something slid through his eyes that she did not like. In the short time she had known him, she had seen him wear either a blank, shuttered expression or a knife-and-fork-sharpening look of sexual appraisal. This was neither. Breaking her stare, he pulled a beer from a six-pack under his chair and cracked it. Foam welled up. On an impulse, she leaned forward and sipped the yeasty froth off the top of the can. When she straightened, his odd expression had returned. Through the whirl of her own intoxication she could not be sure, but it looked like compassion.

  “Livia.” Her mother was peeking around one of the French doors. She was wearing a cornflower blue cotton bathrobe and sheepskin slippers. The bathrobe was one of Livia’s father’s, with navy piping and a monogram on the breast pocket.

  “What is it?” Livia said rudely. Was it so impossible that she be allowed to sit on the deck and enjoy the party?

  Her mother beckoned, almost furtive. “I need to ask you a favor.”

  Livia stood. She was reluctant to leave Sterling alone now that he had come back, but she extricated herself from the circle of chairs and went to her mother. Biddy pulled the door shut behind them. “Did Daddy tell you about the lobster?” she asked.

  “What lobster?” Livia glanced out at the deck. Sterling hadn’t moved, but she was afraid he would make a break for it as soon as her back was turned. It was the maneuvering part of the night, time to stalk, feint, wait each other out.

  “The sick lobster.”

  “What sick lobster? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “When they delivered the lobsters, Daddy unpacked them all on the driveway, and one seemed sick.”

  “He unpacked them on the driveway? Why?”

  Her mother turned one of her slender hands palm up, like Who can explain Daddy? Only the light above the stove was still on, but even in the dimness she looked worn out. She said, “I didn’t know what to do with the sick one, so I put it in the refrigerator in the garage.”

  Livia wasn’t sure she was keeping up. “What?”

  “I put it in the refrigerator in the garage.”

  “Is it dead?”

  “I don’t know. Will you just please go over there before you go to bed and take care of it for me?”

  “You mean like feed it?”

  “No.”

  Comprehension worked its way through her intoxication. “You want me to kill it?”

  “It’s probably already dead.”

  Livia looked outside again. “Can’t it wait until the morning, then?”

  Her mother followed her gaze. Her hand moved up her robe and held the neck closed. “Never mind,” she said. “I’ll do it. Otherwise I’ll worry all night. I felt bad for it. I put it in the fridge because I heard that the cold makes them sort of hibernate.”

  “Why can’t Daddy do it?”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  Her mother seemed vulnerable, almost frail, standing in that bathrobe, its sash tied neatly at her waist. Livia remembered how she had not forced her to apologize to her father and was grateful. She said, “You go to bed. I’ll take care of the lobster.”

  Biddy seemed more relieved than Livia could understand. “Thank you,” she said, backing toward the doorway. “See you in the morning.”

  Livia watched her go, momentarily distracted from her own sexual prospects. Her mother was as unknowable as Dominique, possibly more so, but she excited neither envy nor curiosity in Livia, only tenderness and anxiety—anxiety for her happiness, her approval, anxiety that Livia might end up being just like her. This last fear was improbable given how different their temperaments were, but her mother had always seemed to live in default mode, gliding along in a well-oiled rut that, theoretically, Livia might be unknowingly shunted into at any moment. She heard a door close upstairs and went back outside and sat down.

  “Is everything all right?” Dominique asked.

  “Yeah,” said Livia. “My father has disappeared, and Mom just put a hit out on a lobster.”

  Dominique was unfazed. “He sleeps with the fishes.”

  “My dad?”

  “The lobster.”

  “I think he’s sleeping with the beer in the garage,” said Livia.

  Francis frowned. “Your dad?”

  “The lobster,” said Livia and Sterling together.

  LIVIA LED THE WAY around the back of the house with Sterling following behind her, Indian file they had called it when she was little, as though by walking one after the other any group of schoolchildren was transformed into a band of hunters creeping silently through a forest. Sterling’s silence bore down on her, heavy with what was to come, and she was aware of the muscles in her legs working and the damp springiness of the grass under her feet. Patches of fog obscured the stars. She turned onto the path that led to the garage and heard Sterling stumble and land hard in the gravel. “Fuck,” he said. “These little rocks sting.”

  A flashlight would have been a good idea. She was not fully prepared, either logistically or psychologically, to embark on a drunken mission to kill a lobster, but Sterling had offered to come with her and, as he said, do the dirty work, and she had been so eager to be off the deck and away from the late-night grumpiness brewing there that she had immediately accepted. She wanted to make good on the promise of the early evening and their easy, carnal rapport, which had felt so adult, so mutually recognized and accepted but then had been tainted by the bitter anticipation of a letdown. Was it possible that Sterling had, in fact, already hooked up with Agatha and now was going for her as a nightcap? No, he wouldn’t. But she did wish he were more obviously the aggressor.

  As soon as they were out of sight of the deck he should have seized her and kissed her to break the ice instead of just trudging along in her wake.

  Only a faint light filtered through the trees from the porch, and as she reached to help him up, her fingers accidentally found the softness of his face. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to poke your eye out,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it.” He squeezed her hip as he stood, whether to steady himself or as an overture, she couldn’t tell. “We’ve got a lobster to kill.”

  In the garage, she did not turn on the lights but told him to wait and ventured alone into t
he musty darkness. She set her course by the refrigerator’s hum, moving slowly with her arms stretched out, worrying about spiders and rodents but more about how she would look in the harsh fluorescent overheads: tired, and with smudged mascara and an oily nose. She caught her shin on one of the sawhorses that held the canoe and cried out in surprise. “Did the lobster get you?” Sterling asked.

  “Just a canoe.” She made the final blind crossing to the refrigerator and pulled it open, wincing at the sudden light. There was no lobster she could see, only beer and wine and cartons of orange juice and liter bottles of tonic, but then she found the unfortunate crustacean on a bed of seaweed in the salad crisper, its mottled purple claws limp as the gloves of a passed-out boxer. A troop of beer bottles stood in even ranks on the floor, and Livia supposed her mother had taken them out of the drawer to make room.

  “Is it dead?” Sterling asked from close behind her.

  “I think so.” Grasping the lobster by its thorax, she held it up and studied it. Its claws and antennae dangled. None of its legs so much as twitched. “Yeah,” she said. “Looks like it.”

  “Kind of sweet that your mom put that seaweed in there.”

  Livia set the lobster on the cement floor and reached in to scoop out the seaweed. “I guess. I don’t know what she wants us to do with him.”

  “Bury him?”

  “Seems like she might as well have left him in the fridge until morning. I don’t think she wants us to dump him in the trash.”