Seating Arrangements

by Maggie Shipstead

  The anesthesiologist snapped a line into her IV and fit a plastic mask over her face. “You might experience a metallic taste,” she said. “And a tingling in your fingers.” The mobile revolved slowly. Livia would go to the gates, but she would not see inside. “Count backward from a hundred.” She tasted aluminum. She thought of the number ninety-nine and ninety-eight and then nothing.

  • • •

  WINN, LEAVING a gray flap of fish skin behind on his plate, escaped from the flickering, wind-rattled room and made his way to the bathroom. He stood at the urinal and then washed his hands, watching himself in the mirror. He had the impression of large eyes, a vague face. Everything seemed slow and indistinct. There was a pulse of air as the door swung open, and Jack Fenn’s reflection appeared, his shaggy red eyebrows lifting.

  “Hello again,” Winn said.

  “Winn,” said Fenn. “Fee said you were here. Enjoying your dinner?”

  At the table, Winn had barely been able to hold still and eat, electrified as he was by animal agitation. Glass after glass of wine disappeared down his gullet, enough that the smiling, portly man of indeterminate Duff origins seated across from him had joshingly asked if he was the one getting cold feet. Over the salad, he had caught Agatha’s eye and given her his wink and a small nod. He thought she had understood. “Yes,” he said to Fenn. “I think the new chef is all right. You?”

  “No complaints.”

  Fenn faced a urinal and assumed the stance. Winn dried his hands and listened to the other man pissing. “Say,” he said, “while I’ve got you here, there was something I wanted to mention.”

  “Fee told me about the incident with—”

  “I was just thinking today,” Winn interrupted, “when I was waiting to get my leg sewn up, about the Pequod and how much I’m looking forward to being a member.” Fenn did not say anything, nor did he break stream. Winn blundered on. “I was also thinking how unfortunate it would be if something from the past, our past, was getting in the way. This is my third summer on the wait list, as you know, and that’s starting to seem like an awfully long time, long enough that I’m starting to wonder if the holdup isn’t something personal, and I’d like to know everything uncomfortable has been put behind us. Especially after this business with the caddy.”

  “Hmm.” The last of Fenn’s piss drip-dropped onto the porcelain. He zipped and flushed. “I’m not sure what you mean, Winn,” he said, pumping soap into his hands and scrubbing them under the tap. “I’d hate to think you’d try to leverage this accident with Otis to your advantage. My advice to you—knowing the club the way I do—would be to let that alone. The accident will be noted, but you won’t do yourself any favors by harping on it. As for the rest, I’d hate to think you’re alluding to what happened between our children. Teddy’s had a hard time, and I’d guess, from what he’s told me, that Livia’s had hers, too. I’d hate to think you’d think I’d keep you out of a golf club because … because why, exactly? To punish you? Or to show solidarity with my son? Teddy doesn’t have hard feelings toward you or Livia. He wishes Livia all the best.” He tugged a paper towel from a dispenser and leaned against the counter, drying his hands.

  Winn was taken aback. “No, I didn’t mean Livia and Teddy.”

  “What then?”

  “Maybe for how I treated Fee?” he posited.

  “Fee? Winn, let me tell you, she’s over it. We’re both glad you let her go. She wouldn’t have married you anyway.”

  “I’m fairly sure she would have, Fenn.”

  The other man only smiled tolerantly.

  “Well,” Winn said, irritated, “I guess I meant the Ophidian, too.”

  “The Ophidian?” Fenn was still smiling.

  The door opened and a young man came in. He sidestepped between Winn and Fenn to the urinals.

  “Look,” Winn said, glancing askance at the interloper’s back, “I’m sorry you didn’t get in, but that was more than thirty years ago, and I think it’s time to let go of the grudge. You were going to Vietnam anyway. You wouldn’t even have been around to enjoy the club. Yes, some of the guys thought we should take you anyway because of the legacy, and I admit I opposed that, but I hardly think I can be held accountable.”

  Fenn, usually so placidly affable, looked astonished. “Hang on, there. You think I’ve made it my personal mission to keep you out of the Pequod because thirty years ago I didn’t get into the Ophidian?”

  “You’ve always disliked me because I kept you out of the club.”

  The boy at the urinal hurriedly finished up and, eyes lowered, left without washing his hands.

  “Winn, I never cared about the club.”

  “Of course you did.”

  Fenn shook his head, almost mournfully. “I never cared about the club.”

  “That’s convenient, since you didn’t get in.”

  “I didn’t want to get in.”

  “What? But you punched. You wanted to join. Everyone wants to join.”

  “No. I wanted to please my father, but when I didn’t get in, it turned out he didn’t give a shit either.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “No, he didn’t. The Ophidian wanted the Fenns; the Fenns were happy to oblige. The Fenns wore the special ties and sang the songs and sent back swords and snakes because the Fenns love a good time. And I’m sure the Ophidian is a good time. Part of me was sorry to miss out, but Winn, the thing you’ve never understood about the Ophidian is that it doesn’t matter.”

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Fenn.” Winn’s hand with its admonishing finger rose feebly and then fell back to his side. His heart wasn’t in it. “Why,” he began, struggling to put all the pieces together, “why, if you didn’t care about the Ophidian, and Fee didn’t want to marry me, then why aren’t you letting me join the Pequod? I don’t understand it.”

  Fenn tossed his balled-up paper towel in the trash and put a paternal hand on Winn’s shoulder. “Listen,” he said, “you might as well have some peace of mind. I don’t think your chances of joining the Pequod are very good. I think you should let go of the idea.”

  “What do you mean?” Winn said.

  “It’s just not in the cards.”

  “Why not?”

  “Tough to say. Chalk it up to bad luck.”

  “No,” Winn said. “There’s no luck involved. This isn’t a raffle.”

  Fenn hesitated. “Look, if you really want to know, the committee doesn’t think you’d be a good fit, socially. I put in a good word, but this is out of my hands.”

  “I don’t understand.” Sluggishly, his mind trailed after Fenn’s words, but nothing added up.

  “No one can be universally popular,” Fenn said. “Don’t take it personally. The Pequod’s stuffy anyway. Play on the municipal course. You’ve got a great family, you know, lots to be thankful for.”

  “The municipal course?” Winn demanded, incredulous.

  Fenn held his eye. He gave Winn’s shoulder a farewell squeeze. “Say hello to Biddy for me. And Livia,” he said, slipping out the door.

  ON HIS WAY BACK to the table, Winn encountered Mopsy standing in the bar and turning in a slow, suspicious circle. “I’m trying to find the manager,” she said. “It’s so cold in this restaurant. I don’t know why you chose it.”

  “I didn’t choose it,” Winn said. “Dicky and Maude did.”

  “They wouldn’t have. They know I don’t care for the cold.”

  “Maybe,” Winn offered, “you’re feeling the chill of approaching death.”

  She gave him a long, gloomy squint. “This family is falling into the middle class,” she said.

  He left her there and went back to the party, catching a glimpse of the Fenns at their table, everyone except for Fee with that ostentatious red hair, the bunch of them looking so pleased with themselves even though Fee was having to lean over and cut Meg’s food for her. “What’s wrong?” Biddy whispered when he returned to the table, but he just frowned at her. By the time Mopsy rea
ppeared and Greyson jumped up to pull out her chair, the time had come for toasts. Francis was first to his feet, chiming his butter knife against his wineglass while waitresses hovered around like white moths, filling coffee cups, setting down ramekins of crème brûlée, and pouring the dregs from the wine bottles. “I would follow my brother into battle,” said Francis, “and after what I went through today, I have a better idea of what that would be like.”

  Laughter. Christ, thought Winn, enough with the whale. Francis said he would follow Daphne anywhere because she was so darn pretty. Winn poured cream into his coffee, and it bloomed up like a white rose. What did Fenn know anyway? Fee had loved him, would have married him, he was certain. He had even felt a frisson of attraction when he kissed her cheek in the bar, a gravitation of the scattered iron filings of an old passion. Her body was the same body he had once possessed, and yet it wasn’t. Time had wrought its changes, but the difference was not only age. She seemed fundamentally different, transformed by his lack of ownership. He had always thought that when sex was over, everything was over between two people. Nothing was taken or left behind, with the obvious biological exceptions. Two partners disengaged and went their separate ways. No psychic filaments hung between them, stretching through the miles and days that took them farther and farther from their last encounter. If such things existed, the world would be meshed over with them; no one would be able to move; everyone would be held fast, like flies caught in a web. He wanted to think he had taken nothing from Fee and vice versa. But those amorous little filings, that magnetic rust that had responded to her presence might actually be decades-old particles of Ophelia Haviland lodged in his inner workings.

  She was pretty, after all his cruelty. Was she prettier than Biddy? He couldn’t decide. A memory came to him of her as a young woman: she was sitting in a chair beside the window in her Beacon Hill apartment, her ankles propped up on the sill, rooftops and green leaves outside. She wore a white cotton robe patterned with yellow dragonflies; it was barely closed; he could see the flatness of her sternum, the curve of her breast, her pale thigh. She turned to look at him: green eyes, their slight protuberance suddenly without importance. He had been so silly. She had been good to him; she was good. She cut her daughter’s food without complaint. He had lectured Sterling on being a gentleman, and yet he himself was someone who would not be welcome at the Pequod, not now and not ever.

  Maude followed Francis to give a toast, the words “lovely” and “wonderful” punctuating her sentences like cymbal crashes, and he noticed that his leg was feeling better, perhaps thanks to the booze or to Sam Snead’s pill. He took a bite of crème brûlée. The burnt sugar ground loudly in his ears. Livia offered something short, witty, and heartfelt, putting on a good show of sororal happiness. Dicky Sr. told a story about Oliver Wendell Holmes. Piper wove an endless, tipsy yarn about Daphne’s adolescent exploits, ex-boyfriends, clandestine dorm sneakings, and covert drinking until Dominique reached out a long arm and pulled her back down into her chair. Then Dominique stood, her orange dress catching the candlelight. “Daphne and Greyson,” she said, “a bouquet of clichés for you. May you be healthy, wealthy, and wise. May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back, and may you always have a guest room open for me.” She sat down.

  “Hear, hear!” called Dryden from the other table.

  Dicky Jr. tapped his coffee cup with a spoon and, explaining that he was a newlywed himself, shared a few tired lines about the wife always being right. Mrs. Dicky sat stony faced beside him, her fingers drumming the tablecloth, staying limber for her BlackBerry. Next would be Winn’s turn. Biddy hated making toasts. One of the longstanding amendments to the constitution of their marriage was that, when a toast needed to be made, Winn would be the one to make it. Usually he enjoyed toasting. He liked the courtliness, the requisite self-possession, the public display of wit and graciousness. Standing over a room of people at the end of a feast, he felt like a real patriarch. But now he was drunk and stoned and had not thought about what he was going to say. Still, when Dicky Jr. had at last subsided back down into his seat, he clinked his glass a few times and, pushing so hard on the table that he dragged the tablecloth and all the dishes and glasses a few inches toward himself, got to his feet.

  “Well,” he said. The upturned faces waited. He looked down at the cracked shell of his crème brûlée and searched for something to say. Nothing came. He cleared his throat. “Well.”

  He sat back down. And then he was up again at once, not because he had thought of something to say but because during his descent he had seen a look of hurt bewilderment come over Daphne’s face. “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “Francis isn’t the only one who had a misadventure today. I’m a little woozy. I feel … a little foggy. But … I wanted to say … I wanted to say .… congratulations to Daphne and Greyson. What a fine match this is. I couldn’t be more pleased that these two fine young people have found each other. I don’t claim to be an authority on love, but I’ve been married for almost thirty years, almost half my life.” He paused. He thought someone might applaud, but no one did. “And I will say to Daphne and Greyson that marriage is difficult, perhaps the most difficult thing you can ever do, besides being a parent, which you’re also about to learn something about, but I think these two fine young people are up to the challenge. Here are two steady, responsible people who, I believe, understand the dire commitment they are about to make and will choose to keep that commitment. Because it turns out to be a choice, commitment—not some done deal. When you leave the altar tomorrow, there will still be a lifetime of choice and temptation and doubt and uncertainty in front of you. I didn’t know that at my wedding. Getting married doesn’t change you. Marriage changes you, though. Imperceptibly. Over time. You don’t notice the change until you are changed. I don’t know who that person is, back there. I mean the person I was before I got married. I thought I’ve stayed the same all along, but I’m beginning to think I’ve turned into someone else. Or maybe just everything around me has changed.

  “That’s neither here nor there. What I want, all I want, is for my daughter to be happy, and I think happiness comes from realistic expectations. It seems to me that what people want from romantic love is perfect understanding and infinite forgiveness. But if you want that, you should probably ask God for it. That’s what people used to do, isn’t it? I guess some people still do. People place demands on their husbands or wives that no human can meet. We’re not divine. We’re human. In my experience, we should be grateful for constancy and continuity and companionship. Let’s call them the three C’s—you heard it here first. Because we are the kind of people who get married. What else is there to do? You can’t date forever. We don’t want to be alone. We marry, and we live out our lives. Then … well, marriage, even a happy marriage like my own and like I’m sure yours will be, Daphne, is a precursor to death. If you never leave your partner and you’re faithful, marriage has the same kind of finality. There is nothing else.”

  He sat, took up his spoon, and tapped at his crème brûlée, breaking what was left of the sugar into brown shards. The result was gritty and creamy in his mouth, sweet with a faint, burnt acridness. The room seemed very quiet and, beside him, Biddy was very still, but he did not look up until he heard the chiming of a glass.

  “Well,” said Greyson, standing, “thank you, Winn. For those of you who haven’t heard, Winn was knocked off his bicycle today and sustained some injuries for which I think he’s probably been given some painkillers. Hopefully he has enough to share with us all. Getting back on track, Daphne and I wanted to thank you all for making the trip out to the island and for being here tonight. We’re very excited about our marriage, which, incidentally, we hope will be nothing like death, and about the new baby.” He paused. Daphne was staring at her lap. Greyson rested his hand on the back of her neck, and she looked up at him. He raised his eyebrows, and she gave a timorous nod. “We were planning to wait and surprise you all,”
he said, “but we decided this afternoon that we wanted you to know the baby is a girl.”

  A pleased murmur raced along the tables, and then Dicky Sr. burst into applause, standing and clapping and grinning, thrilled to have a change from all those boys. Cheers and whoops rose from the relatives and bridesmaids. Daphne was beaming again and twisting in her chair to take in all her well-wishers, offering each one the chance to bask with her in the beautiful idea of a baby girl. Winn half rose from his seat, wanting to kiss her, to touch her hand, but as her eyes passed over him, he felt her anger push him away, exiling him from her joy.

  Sixteen · A Weather Vane

  As Winn drove, hunched forward and staring with bleary intensity through the windshield, the road tilted from side to side. For a tantalizing moment it balanced on the level before pitching over in the other direction as though trying to tip him off the earth. The world was alive and unstable. The upraised branches of the trees waved like drowning arms; orange tails of mist swept down through the streetlamps and up into the low maroon sky; a cacophony of wind chimes jangled from porches and balconies. Beside him, Agatha rode in silence. The dinner was only fifteen minutes behind them, but Winn pushed at it, trying to drive it farther into the anesthetized ward of his memory. He had told everyone he was taking her to get her finger X-rayed, and when first Dominique and then Greyson pointed out that he might not be in tip-top driving condition, he had blustered and reassured and argued that he should be the one to take her because he wanted someone to check on his leg and it didn’t make sense for a whole crowd of them to go back to the hospital. To prove his point, he had hoisted up his trouser leg and again displayed the dark blossom of blood seeping through the bandage. Wordlessly, Biddy had handed him the keys.

  Of course, he thought as they escaped from the shingled labyrinth of town onto longer, darker roads, of course Daphne’s baby was a girl. Of course, of course. What else could it be? He would have a granddaughter named Duff. Hearing his name and hers said together, no one would be able to tell they had anything to do with each other. She was the green shoot, the furled purple rocket of a crocus, and he was one of the withered leaves she would have to fight her way past.