Wedding in Great Neck (9781101607701)

by McDonough, Yona Zeldis

  “And you don’t see that there just might be a connection between the two? That how you act just might be predicated on how you feel.”

  “I know that, Ms. Amateur Psychologist.”

  “Good,” she said. “So now put your knowledge into action.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Go and talk to Caleb yourself. If you understand how he’s feeling, maybe you’ll have a clue as to why he’s acting this way.”

  “You coddle him,” Teddy said. “But, then, you coddle everyone, Gretch.” Had she actually thought mere moments ago that she had detected a chink in his frat-boy armor?

  “Asking your brother what’s wrong is hardly coddling,” Gretchen said. “I’d call it decency. Or compassion.”

  “We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one, Gretch,” said Teddy. And, picking up the towel, he ambled off.

  Twelve

  Betsy stood quietly in her bedroom and stared out the window at the rain. In her arms she held the whimpering dog—nervous even at the best of times, the poor thing went nearly berserk from the thunder. Contrary to the expectations of her family, she did not cry or carry on. With her lips drawn together, as if she did not want to let even a word of complaint escape them, she just looked at the water dripping down the windowpanes in sinuous rivulets.

  How could it rain today of all days? How? She had not even seen Angelica since the skies had opened up; she had wanted to compose herself first. The dog, still shivering, pressed its small, furry head against her clavicle and looked up at her adoringly.

  “You don’t like the rain either, do you?” asked Betsy. The dog’s plumelike tail stirred.

  Betsy knew she had to get a grip. The rain was not all that was upsetting her. The rain was an annoyance, to be sure. But she was prepared for the rain, as she was prepared for most things. Of course the cocktail hour, which was to have been held in the rose garden, would have to be moved to the dinner tent instead, but the waitstaff had already been alerted to the possibility, and they knew what to do. It would be a pity, because the garden was particularly beautiful this year, with a dense profusion of blossoms dripping from the latticework top of the octagonal pergola to create a most fanciful bower; Betsy had already arranged for photos of the bride and groom to be taken inside it. Although she had not planted any of the roses—arrayed in a deepening spectrum from purest white to darkest crimson—herself, she loved the garden and spent hours with the gardener, Clyde, overseeing every aspect of its care.

  No. She had to admit that she was also upset by Pippa and the inexplicable hold she seemed to have over Angelica. Angelica, whose affection had always seemed to Betsy just the slightest bit out of reach: tantalizing, elusive, and never quite fully hers.

  Didn’t the kids always complain that Angelica was Lincoln’s favorite? Well, it worked both ways; Lincoln—perpetually plastered, irresponsible, impossible Lincoln—had been Angelica’s favorite. No matter how soused, how sloppy, how rip-roaring drunk he got, Angelica’s devotion did not waiver; she was the compass needle to his North Star.

  It had galled Betsy quietly for years, and it was galling her less quietly today. How could this daughter she had done so much for—the countless miles clocked ferrying her to this practice and that study session, the extra job Betsy had taken to pay for the fancy camps, the tennis and riding lessons, the weekends devoted to inspecting all those colleges—have preferred Lincoln? There was no sense in this and no justice either. But, then, when had sense or justice ever been governing forces in the inexplicable workings of a family?

  The bedroom door opened, and Betsy turned. “You okay?” Don said. He was a big man, a bit bearish, but Betsy thought he carried himself well.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

  He crossed the room in what seemed like two long strides. “Come on, tell Papa all about it,” he said. He put his massive arm around Betsy, and she let herself melt into the embrace. Even when the dog—as jealous as she was high-strung—growled at him, he didn’t get rattled, but delivered an affectionate swat to her snout. “That’s enough out of you, midget,” he said. The dog seemed startled, and her growling stopped at least for the moment.

  “It’s just everything,” she said. “The rain, the kids, Ennis, Lincoln—”

  “Did he do something that upset you?” Don interrupted.

  “No, it’s not that. But seeing him brings up the past. And of course his being here affects the kids.”

  “Aren’t they glad to see him? He’s their father after all.” Don didn’t have children of his own, but had embraced Betsy’s fully and without reservation.

  “Yes, but it brings up all the old tensions. The drinking, the fighting—they remember all that. Remember it and resent it. You know how it is…” She was babbling, leaving a trail of partially accurate emotional breadcrumbs to divert him from the real issue, which was that she, Betsy Kalb Silverstein Grofsky, mother, grandmother, and sixty-four years old in April, was so jealous of Pippa Morganstern that she fantasized about pushing her smug, overly made-up face straight into the multitiered, elaborately decorated wedding cake.

  “Weddings always bring up the old, unfinished business in families,” Don said. “That’s why we decided to skip having one, remember?” It was true. One glorious September weekend half a dozen years ago, Betsy and Don had driven up to New England, where they had risen early, canoed in a pond, walked in the woods, snapped pictures of the changing leaves. And at the end of it, they had become man and wife, courtesy of a justice of the peace (an elderly man with gold-rimmed spectacles—really! truly!) they found in Dorset, Vermont, who had been happy to marry them on the spot. Betsy’s kids had groused of course, but she suspected that secretly they were relieved they had not had to witness her marrying the man who had replaced their father in her heart.

  “I remember,” she said. “But Angelica wanted a wedding, and I said I would make her one.”

  “And you’ve been doing a helluva job too,” Don said. “As for what’s out there”—he pointed to the rain-streaked windows—“it’s beyond your control, and it’s not going to matter anyway. You’ve got the tents, the umbrellas, the runners—everything. And whatever you didn’t remember, that wedding planner person, Poppy what’s-her-face—”

  “It’s Pippa,” Betsy said, failing to suppress the humiliating little sob from escaping her throat. “Pippa Morganstern, and I’ve never in my life hated anyone quite as much as I hate her!”

  “So fire her,” Don said calmly. “Right away.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “I’ll do it for you. Just say the word.” Don ran a good-sized company with a hand both fair and firm. He treated his employees well, but when someone had to go, they were gone; he didn’t waste any time, because that just made things worse. Swift, clean, and a decent severance package, he always said. That was the best way to handle it.

  “Angelica would be furious,” Betsy said. Her glance went back to the window, still dripping with rain. Who knew what state her daughter would be in at this moment anyway?

  “Who’s paying Pippa Morganstern’s fee?”

  “We are,” Betsy said.

  “Then do it,” said Don. “Now.”

  The idea bloomed easily in Betsy’s mind: confronting Pippa, thanking her for her time, and escorting her out. She experienced an anticipatory frisson as she imagined the astonished look on Pippa’s face, the satisfying slam of the front door. “You really think I should?” she asked.

  “I know you should,” said Don. “Don’t let her spoil the day.”

  “It’s Angelica’s day,” Betsy felt compelled to point out.

  “That we have bought and paid for.” He gave her a gentle little shove in the direction of the door.

  But Betsy stopped, thinking again of the rose garden. Although the décor in both tents had been confined to a sophisticated palette of white, silver, and gray, Betsy had suggested a warmer color for the napkins and carpet runners (those old bricks that made up the paths were charming, but u
neven and slick with moss in places) in the garden. “What about pink?” she had said. Pink was so feminine, so pretty; pink would set off the colors of the roses nicely.

  “Pink is so obvious,” Pippa had said disdainfully. “What about lilac? Or a very subtle periwinkle blue?”

  “Yes!” Angelica said, clearly delighted. “Periwinkle is the exact color of a drawing room I saw in Moscow; I thought it was the most exquisite space I had ever seen.”

  “Oh yes, it’s a real Muscovite color,” Pippa said, and Betsy had to keep her mouth from falling open in stupefied disbelief. Muscovite color? How on earth would she know? Then again, how would Betsy know that it wasn’t? She had never been to Moscow. So Betsy said nothing, and the carpet runners and napkins had been ordered in periwinkle, a color she privately found both anemic and uninspired. Recalling all that, she seethed afresh. She looked down at the dog, whose head remained snuggled against her chest. “You wait here,” she instructed, depositing the animal on the bed. Then, shoulders squared and head erect, she marched down the stairs and straight into the lion’s den.

  Thirteen

  As soon as Gretchen opened the door to her room, she yanked her wet shirt up and over her head. The powerful central air-conditioning was making her shiver. Once she had dry clothes on, she’d feel more comfortable. And then maybe, just maybe she would go off in search of her father, who had to be skulking somewhere around here.

  Gretchen had just started to unbutton her jeans when she realized that she was not alone. Ennis sat quietly in the flowered (what else?) armchair that was tucked into one corner of the room. At least he hadn’t had the gall to sit on her bed.

  “What are you doing in here?” she said, scooping the wet, discarded shirt from the floor and using it to cover her midsection. Of course—of course—she was wearing her oldest, rattiest bra; had Lenore seen the disgraceful thing, she would have disowned Gretchen.

  “I told you: I wanted to talk to you. You’ve been avoiding me all day.”

  “No, I haven’t,” she said. But it was a lie. She had most certainly been avoiding him, and she would like to continue avoiding him, only it was difficult when he barged uninvited into her room. “And, anyway, you could have waited instead of sneaking up on me like this.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” he said. “I wanted to do it before the wedding. It’s important.”

  “Well at least let me change,” she said testily. She dug through her suitcase, disappeared into the bathroom, and shut the door tightly behind her. The wet jeans were difficult to pull off; they stuck to her skin and seemed to take forever to remove. Which wasn’t so bad, because it gave her time to prepare herself for talking to him.

  Even when she was finally free of the jeans and attired in a moderately rumpled but still passable-looking skirt and gingham blouse, she took her time, combing out the wet tangle of her hair and dabbing a little blush on her face. She had wanted to present herself to Ennis wrapped and ready: a new dress, a new attitude, a new Gretchen. She didn’t like being caught off guard; it was unsettling and unfair. Glancing at the lace-bedecked window, she briefly entertained the viability of climbing out, but the long drop down to the stone-covered driveway below stopped her. That and the realization that she would need to face Ennis at some point this evening; she might was well get it over with now.

  “So,” she said, finally emerging from the bathroom. “We meet again.”

  “It’s good to see you,” Ennis said quietly, ignoring her wan attempt at wit.

  Gretchen didn’t know what to say to that; it was not good to see him, but it seemed gratuitously rude to say so. Instead she perched tensely on the end of the bed, which had been expertly made in her absence.

  As soon as she sat down, Ennis popped up as if responding to some internal cue. She noticed then that he’d lost weight—not that he needed to—and appeared a bit gaunt. Maybe life on his own wasn’t so terrific; well, it served him right. She lifted her chin and sucked in her stomach. Some people lost interest in eating when they were in turmoil, but Gretchen, alas, had never been one of them.

  “What was it you needed to tell me that couldn’t wait?” she said finally.

  “It’s about Eve,” he said.

  Just the name uttered here in this room felt like a slap. Gretchen could see the girl’s pale, miserable face after she had appeared at their house and told Gretchen she had only minutes before swallowed thirty Ambien tablets, a month’s supply; she proffered the empty bottle as proof. She said she had decided to do it when Ennis was teaching, because she hadn’t been able to face him. But she’d had no problem facing Gretchen, had she? And what about the girls? Had she thought of what it might be like for them if they found her in their home in that condition? So Gretchen had dialed 911 and done her best to soothe Eve until the ambulance arrived. And then, because she really was so pitiful and seemed to have no one to lean on at all, Gretchen rode with her to the hospital and waited outside the emergency room until she was sure Eve was all right.

  “What makes you think I want to hear that name ever again?” said Gretchen. But she did want to know whether Eve had had her baby yet and whether Ennis was as smitten with it as he had been with Justine and Portia. The twins did not yet know they were going to have a half sibling. They had reacted so poorly—Justine in particular—to the separation that Gretchen had not wanted to tell them immediately.

  “They’ll hate you for keeping it from them,” Ennis had pointed out during the tense phone call they’d agreed upon to discuss the subject.

  “I don’t care!” she’d said hotly. “It’s just too much to handle right now, and I want you to back me up.”

  “It doesn’t seem right,” he had said. “You’re coercing me into keeping a secret that I don’t want to keep.”

  “Ennis,” she said, “if you tell them now, I’ll keep you from seeing them.”

  “No judge would go along with that,” he said. But he didn’t sound so sure.

  “Oh? How about when the whole sordid story of how you knocked up your student comes out? Maybe a judge would view you as a less-than-fit sort of parent.”

  Ennis was silent. “All right,” he’d said sullenly. “You win.”

  Her eyes had filled with sudden, hot tears; she was grateful he could not see them. “Ennis, you lied to me, cheated on me, and someone else is having your baby. How can you say I’ve won?” And then she’d gotten off the phone.

  Ennis stared at her now. “But I have to talk about it,” he said. “You’ll see why when I tell you.”

  “All right,” Gretchen said. She sat up as straight as she could, still sucking in her stomach. Damn, but this proper posture business was work. “Shoot.”

  “After I left,” said Ennis.

  “You mean, after I kicked you out,” Gretchen said.

  “After you kicked me out,” he repeated, rubbing his fingers over the bridge of his nose, “I felt terrible. As if I’d ruined everything, thrown away everything that ever mattered to me.”

  “You did,” Gretchen said. She had always loved Ennis’s elegant, aquiline nose and was supremely gratified when it appeared, in a somewhat modified form, on the faces of their daughters.

  “But I also felt this—this sense of responsibility to Eve. I’d done this monumentally stupid thing that affected her too. She was really and truly devastated by what had happened.”

  “Ennis,” Gretchen said sharply. “Spare me these details. I don’t care one iota about Eve’s feelings! Do. Not. Care. Get it?”

  “Would you let me finish?” he said. “Please?” But a knock on the door silenced him. Gretchen glanced in his direction before saying, “Come in.”

  “Mom, have you seen—Oh! Daddy! I didn’t know you were in here,” said Portia, looking from Gretchen to Ennis and back again.

  “Sweetheart, hey,” Ennis said. “I like the hair.” Portia was sporting a newly shorn coif, which had the perhaps unintended but nevertheless fortuitous result of neutralizing—almost eradicating, in fact�
��the fuchsia streak in her hair.

  “Do you? I do too. I wanted to show Justine, but I can’t find her anywhere, so I thought I would check up here. Have either of you seen her?”

  “I haven’t,” Gretchen said, and Ennis added, “Neither have I.”

  “Can you help me look?” Portia asked. Gretchen suppressed a sigh. She did not want to look for Justine at the moment; she was keenly aware that Justine had no desire to be found by her. And though she was reluctant to admit it, she wanted to finish the conversation with Ennis, wanted, despite everything, to hear whatever it was he thought was so essential to tell her.

  “Not right now,” Gretchen said. “Your father and I are…talking.”

  “Talking?” Portia was instantly suspicious. “I thought you two weren’t talking. That was the whole point of Dad’s moving out, wasn’t it?”

  “Just because I’ve moved out doesn’t mean I don’t talk to your mother,” Ennis said with unexpected dignity.

  “Well, okay. I’ll look for her myself,” said Portia, and she turned to go. But then she stopped. “Mom, do you like my hair? You didn’t say.” There was something shy, almost pleading in her tone.

  Gretchen, not one of those mothers who cooed, It’s a masterpiece! over every scribble her kids produced, looked hard at her daughter. “Come here,” she said, and when Portia complied, Gretchen took her chin in her fingers, tilting it this way and that, to see how the haircut played off the various angles of Portia’s face.

  “It’s very sophisticated,” she said at last. “It makes you look older.”