“Again?” Megan took another step out of the kitchen. Elizabeth smiled sympathetically at chubby Deena, wishing she could hear more of Megan’s conversation.
“Hey, Elizabeth.” Jeffrey put his fork down. “Do you know what gas makes Neptune look blue?”
“Swamp gas?” suggested Lolly not-helpfully.
“Poo gas?” Deena giggled like mad and earned a scowl from Vera.
Jeffrey ignored his sisters. “Do you know, Elizabeth? Take a guess.”
“All right, then, Dad.” Megan sounded impatient to be off the phone. “Yes, okay. Thanks for letting me know.”
“I can’t even guess.”
“Methane!” he announced triumphantly.”
Lolly choked on a swig of milk. “That is poo gas!”
“Ha!” Deena turned on her brother, barely able to speak through her giggles. “I was right.”
“Okay, kids, enough.” Vera watched Megan coming into the room. “Everything okay?”
“Yes, fine.” Megan spoke brightly, but put her piece of pie back into the serving dish, which she took to the counter. “Dad is moving again. To New Jersey this time. That’s all.”
“Good heavens. No moss on that man.” Vera pushed her chair back. “I’m going to get my knitting and sit on the porch.”
“I’ll help you with the dishes, Megan.” Elizabeth stood to clear her plate.
“Ooh, good idea.” Lolly nodded enthusiastically.
“You will not, that’s Lolly’s job. Deena and Jeffrey help too. Go out on the porch and talk to Vera. She likes company.”
“I can at least do something.”
“We’ve got it covered. You go have fun.”
“If you’re sure.” She backed up a few reluctant steps. “I can take a walk, I guess.”
“Good idea. It’s beautiful out tonight. Today wasn’t too hot.” She all but made shooing motions with her hands.
Elizabeth hesitated in the doorway, on the verge of asking if Jeffrey wanted to come with her, then stopped at the sight of the kids all chipping in, like something out of a perfect-family TV show, Jeffrey clearing plates, Deena scraping them and Lolly wrapping up leftovers to put away.
She turned and left the room, nostalgic for her childhood fantasies of belonging to a family like this one. Not that she hadn’t spent time with her mom and grandmother—she had, but grudgingly, with an eye toward getting out to meet this or that boyfriend, sneak into this or that bar, get naked in the back of this or that car. Vera would love those stories. Next dinner Elizabeth would toss out a few and get herself recommended for exorcism.
Out on the porch Vera’s sturdy rocking chair waited in the soft evening air, which smelled of mowed lawns, flowers and mountain wind. Elizabeth pushed the smooth wood gently, imagining the chair starting to rock impatiently at this time every night, anticipating its occupant’s arrival.
Elizabeth would be different if she’d grown up in a house like this, warm, homey, fresh and uncomplicated. She’d be stable and peaceful like Megan, raising her children uncomplainingly while her husband was out hunting the bacon he’d eventually bring home. Maybe she’d already have married Dominique and be happily settled.
Or maybe she was doomed to be a restless soul regardless. In which case she’d turned her blame and her back on a family that didn’t deserve either. And maybe on Dominique too.
She stepped off the porch, then impulsively returned through the house to get her sketchbook. Two steps from the back door, a nearby male voice exploded in hoarse shouts and furious curses.
Elizabeth spun around, staring into the kitchen, where Megan and Lolly were still cleaning up, though the raging was clearly audible through the window.
“I…don’t you hear that? Shouldn’t we do something?”
Lolly chortled; Megan turned back to her sink, smiling.
“That’s David.”
“Well what’s…what’s it about?”
Lolly cracked up again. “Believe it or not, squirrels.”
“Squirrels?”
“They get into his bird feeders. Drives him crazy.” Megan braced her hands on the edge of the sink, gazing out toward his yard. “He loves birds.”
“He’s been through like three different feeders in the last month, all supposed to be squirrel-proof.” Lolly shoved the foil-covered pan of meat loaf into the refrigerator and closed the door. “The squirrels got into all of them.”
“Is he always so angry?”
“He’s really nice when he wants to be.” Lolly moved toward the kitchen door. “Mom, Sarah and I are going to a party at Chuck’s tonight, okay? His parents are home. Sarah’s mom is driving us.”
“Back by ten.”
“I kno-o-w,” she sang. “Bye Elizabeth.”
“Have a good time.” She watched the teenager hurry out of the room, remembering how thrilling it had been to get away from Mom and Babcia and go out with friends at that age. Contrasted with how often she was home alone now, wishing for quiet time with Dominique. “She’s lovely.”
Megan pursed her lips. “She’s starting to realize that.”
“Ah. Yeah.” She had no idea what else to say, because the things she did at Lolly’s age Megan undoubtedly didn’t want to know. “Is everything really okay with your father?”
Megan pinched her lips together.
Elizabeth wanted to smack herself. Why had she bothered asking? “I’m sorry. I speak before I think. None of my business.”
Megan glanced at her, then hung the kitchen towel carefully back on a rack under the sink. “He’s moving again and called to tell me. That’s all.”
“Okay.” An agonizing moment of awkwardness while Elizabeth thought of a million more questions she couldn’t ask.
“So…what’s up with David? Why is he so cranky?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Because he doesn’t seem real cuddly?”
Megan actually grinned. “Classic case of bark worse than bite. Though he does both.”
“I gathered.” Elizabeth traced the edges of the beautiful lace doily under the peonies. She’d have to see someone knitting this stuff before she believed it possible. “He seems out of place here.”
“He grew up next door from teenager on. Raised by his great-aunt.”
“No parents?”
“His mother…couldn’t handle him. I don’t think his father was around much. You’ll have to ask him the rest. If he wants you to know he’ll tell you.”
“If not, he’ll tell me where to go.”
“Undoubtedly.” Megan pulled the elastic from her hair and re-formed her ponytail. “If you talk to him, tell him hello. I’m going to see what Jeffrey and Deena are up to.”
“Sure. Okay. Thanks again for dinner.” Elizabeth let Megan precede her out of the kitchen before she allowed her smile to droop. Progress, but not much. Megan’s barriers were mighty.
In the backyard, on her way again to get the sketchbook, she peered over the fence and saw David in the middle of his yard on one of two chairs with a table between, the rest of the patio set incomplete on the flagstone terrace next to the house. He wore a red T-shirt and black shorts and was scowling—the only way she’d seen him—a drink clutched in his hand. His shadow made an elongated human stripe across the ragged, patchy lawn, a study in spareness compared to Megan’s lush garden.
“Hello?” She spoke impulsively. “You okay?”
“Ms. Det-laff.” He turned and said her name slowly, savoring the syllables. “Nice to see you again.”
“I heard you shouting.”
“And?”
“I thought you might need help.”
He laughed bitterly. “The amount of help I need is beyond your ability.”
“Squirrel issues?”
“Rat bastards.” He twisted to glare at the bird feeder on a pole next to the patio. “Outwit me every time. No one should have to feel inferior to a rodent. Join me in a cocktail?”
His invitation took her aback; he po
sitively radiated charm compared to their first meeting. “What are you drinking?”
“Ah.” He raised his glass to the setting sun, which sparkled appetizingly through the clear liquid. “‘The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest lived.’”
“Yours?”
“Bernard DeVoto, American historian and author. Have one with me?”
“Will you be nice to me this time?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Then yes, I will. Thank you.”
“I’ll meet you inside.” He got up and strode steadily enough toward his back door.
Elizabeth hurried through Megan’s house, relieved when she didn’t see anyone. She felt guilty and surreptitious, as if she were about to consort with the enemy.
Still no sign of Vera outside, so Elizabeth gave the rocker another push and headed to David’s bungalow. Maybe he was meant to teach her something too.
She mounted the steps to his porch and peered through the screen door into the dim interior. “Knock knock.”
“Back here, come on in.”
She wandered through the small dusty living room, furnished in Bland American Drab, the stone mantel strewn with those porcelain figures Dominique made so much fun of. Then through the dining room, past a sturdy wood table and beautiful built-in china cabinets she restrained herself from peeking into. Then the kitchen, probably remodeled in the fifties, yellow metal cabinets, green formica counters, and, incongruously, a new enormous black refrigerator, futuristic in context.
“Poor Elizabeth, stuck with teetotalers next door.” David opened the freezer door and pulled out Bombay Sapphire gin, a shaker, a glass, and a small pitcher.
“I’ll manage.”
“No, you’ll suffer. But you can always come here.” He poured an enormous amount of gin into the shaker, sloshed in vermouth and dispensed crushed ice from the door of the Darth Vader refrigerator. “‘One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.’ James Thurber.”
Elizabeth laughed and ran her hand over the faded counter. “I know one too. Dorothy Parker…Give me a second, I can’t remember it all.”
“Take all the time you need. I’m going nowhere.”
She moved toward the back door, frowning in concentration. It was the kind of oh-so-witty quote Dominique’s friends were fond of outdoing each other with. “It’s a little poem, very funny. Something about being under the table.”
“Don’t know that one.”
“It’ll come to me.” She examined a wall hanging, a linen tea towel with pictures of wooden-clog-wearing Dutch children holding hands. “What do you do, David?”
“Besides plot against squirrels and mix pitchers of martinis?”
“Besides that.”
“I’m a professor of English at Boston University.”
“Impressive.” She prowled further. A few old-lady-type decorative items, a glass apple, a dusty arrangement of dried flowers in a pewter vase. Not much she’d equate with David’s personality. Weaponry and poison would be more fitting, maybe S&M gear. “So you live here in the summer?”
“You’re such a Northeasterner.”
She walked back and leaned on the counter next to him, seeing up close that he was older than she thought. Maybe late thirties or early forties. Touch of gray at his temples, lines at the corners of his eyes, the faintest loosening of the skin on his stubbled jaw and long, masculine neck. “What do you mean?”
“Northeasterners don’t chat, they interrogate, without compunction or introduction.” He tumbled the gin and vermouth; condensation on the shaker turned to frost. “Olives? Lemon? Onion?”
“Lemon. Like yours. But I’m a transplanted Midwesterner, so your theory doesn’t work.”
“Learned behavior.” He bent to get a nearly zestless lemon from an otherwise empty vegetable bin and pared off the last strip, squeezed the peel, then ran it around the rim and the inside of the glass before he let it drop. “My great-aunt lived in this house.”
“I knew that. I asked you if you live here every summer.”
“No, I don’t.” He poured the drink expertly into the fresh glass, topped his off, then drained the rest into the pitcher. “I’m here for the same reason you are. To escape life.”
“I’m not escaping.” She took the lid off a cookie jar in the shape of a chicken and peered inside. A tiny dead bug, otherwise empty. “Escaping is a looking-back thing. I’m doing a looking-forward thing.”
“Ah, right. Completely different. Here you go, Queen Elizabeth.” He handed her the drink and picked up the pitcher.
“Come outside with me and we’ll get smashed.”
She followed him out, peering at a pile of mail on her way. David Langley. Where had she heard that name? “Megan says hi.”
“Which necessitates a ‘hi’ back?”
“If it’s that much strain, don’t bother.”
He turned to grin at her, light brown eyes doing this incredibly sexy Paul Newman down-at-the-corners thing. The transformation made her want to gape. “I like you, Elizabeth. Have a seat.”
“Thank you.” She sat on the surprisingly comfortable wooden chair, a little flustered.
“Welcome to my nightmare.” He clinked his glass with hers, then drank and closed his eyes. “Mmm, that virgin sip is always the best.”
“Cheers.” At her first taste of the fragrant icy liquid the Dorothy Parker quote popped. “‘I love to drink martinis, two at the very most. Three I’m under the table. Four I’m under the host.’”
He actually laughed that time, and Elizabeth felt another quick shock of attraction. “Shall we get you to four and see what happens?”
“Um…no?” She took a larger swallow, feeling a dopey blush coming on. “What’s your nightmare, gin? Squirrels? Your backyard? Comfort? Life?”
“I’m surprised no one has rushed to fill you in.”
“Megan said I should ask you.”
“Really.” He ran his finger around the rim of his glass. A musical note rang out from contact with the wet crystal. “That was fine of her.”
“Will you tell me?”
“You’re probably the only person in the country who doesn’t know.” He shifted down in the chair, butt nearly at the edge of the seat, shoulders hunched, muscled legs stretched long. “My wife wrote a book called When Women Rule, the premise of which was that war-making men have freed women throughout centuries to take charge, and that when each war was over, they’d cede some authority, but not all. Her theory is that we’re heading gradually toward a world in which women will rule.”
Elizabeth gasped. David Langley. The story on the cab radio must have been the latest on his wife, Victoria something. “Yes, yes, I haven’t read it, but heard of it, of course, who hasn’t?”
“Exactly. All the world loves a scandal. And there is such a lovely headline-grabbing irony in the fact that for her New York Times best seller, she ripped off her theories and roughly an eighth of her prose from an obscure book written during the Depression.”
“By a man.”
“By a man.” He laughed; the sound was painful.
“I heard a story on the radio only recently…” The reporter had mentioned David. Was Victoria being prosecuted now? Was their divorce being finalized? Elizabeth hadn’t listened that closely. “I knew your name was familiar. I just didn’t put it together.”
“Well now you have, and congratulations.”
“I’m sorry. Really, David. That must have been awful.”
“It still is.” The beginnings of a slur made her wonder how many martinis he’d had before she showed up. “My Vicky flew too high with wings of wax, if I might borrow a tired mythical metaphor.”
“Beats feet of clay.”
“I suppose.” He glared murderously at a squirrel perched on the fence between his and Megan’s yard. “She not only broke our marriage, but sacrificed scholarship in pursuit of celebrit
y. That, I’ve had the harder time forgiving her for.”
“Then maybe it wasn’t much of a marriage to begin—” She smacked her hand over her mouth, then lifted her fingers.
“Sorry, David. Note to self, engage brain before speech.”
“Yes, it was an average marriage. But it was my average marriage, Elizabeth, and therefore painful to lose.” He watched the squirrel disappear over into Megan’s garden. “Love is the great ruination of our species. Tennyson got it all wrong.”
“Tennyson…”
“‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’” He gulped the rest of his drink, poured out another from the pitcher. “Tennyson never got divorced.”
Elizabeth frowned at her martini. Everyone she knew whose marriage failed went through temporary insanity. People like her mother never recovered, to the degree where their ongoing misery became a point of pride. “But he must have experienced some loss.”
“A friend of his died. It’s not the same.”
“Grief is grief.”
He turned toward her, eyelids drooping slightly. “Ever been dumped on your ass, Elizabeth?”
She rolled her eyes. He wanted her to feel guilty for not being in the club. “I hate suffering contests.”
“I didn’t think so.”
She laughed. No, she hadn’t been dumped on her ass. She always evolved out of relationships before the man did, was always ready first to move on to the next experience, the next adventure. Not therapy-textbook healthy, but she didn’t know how to adjust wiring that ran so deep.
“Because if you had been, you’d understand how much more peaceful and healthy it is to keep your pride and your heart intact, your sanity whole and vigorous, your faculties untarnished by the corrosion of anger, pain, jealousy, regret.”
“Therefore welcome to your nightmare. I get it.”
“What’s yours?” He quirked an eyebrow when she looked surprised. “C’mon. Everyone has one.”
“Well…I guess mine got to be New York.” She drew her finger around the rim of the glass, but couldn’t get it to sing for her. “Somewhere along the way I stopped existing. Or maybe I finally want to start.”
“So you’re here to f-i-i-ind yourself.”
Knit in Comfort Page 6
