A Dual Inheritance

by Joanna Hershon

  “She taught us,” continued Kitty, “how to pick honeysuckle. How to suck the sweetness from the stem.”

  Though he’d had only two glasses of wine, he felt slurry in his head and couldn’t have been thinking clearly, because it suddenly seemed abundantly clear that Kitty wanted to sleep with him. Kitty Ordway James, eldest and married daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Guy Ordway, sister of Helen—

  “Ed?” Helen said.

  Ed looked at Helen for what felt like the first time since their arrival. She was flushed, as usual after having some wine, but there was something else. Something agitated. He often had the feeling that she was angry with him, but the one time he ever asked her if this was so, he thought she was genuinely hurt by the question. She was the most perplexing person.

  “Well, hello,” he replied. “Enjoying your boeuf?” He was playing the fool because he felt like one, because it was obvious he didn’t belong here. There was a reason that people created clubs at which they dined and swam and golfed and danced with those most like them. He was not like these people. He didn’t care about cranes. He understood that this was all some kind of fairy tale, complete with the frosty queen mother seated to his right, and who else could he be here—who, besides the fool?

  And yet this queen had taught her daughters to suck honey from a stem. She likely had been just as lovely as her daughters before her grouch of a punctual and financially astute husband wore her down.

  Who could be safe from such women?

  Hugh? Maybe. Maybe Hugh. But Ed still had his doubts.

  He drank a long sip of water and dragged himself from the petal talk, the musk, and the honey; he was light-headed. He needed to have a conversation with men.

  “But it is an opportunity of a lifetime,” Hugh was saying, with a tone that somehow didn’t betray any tension.

  “I just don’t understand, Hugh. You are an intelligent fellow.”

  “Father,” Helen said.

  “Now, don’t misunderstand me,” Mr. Ordway said, leaning back in his chair. “I mean it when I say that I don’t understand what he’s doing. I only want to understand more. Where he is going. What he is doing. What he is actually doing. You are engaged to this man, are you not?”

  “Sir,” said Hugh, “with all due respect, I don’t understand finance at your level, but—”

  “But you could,” Mr. Ordway suggested. “And if you are interested in the world, Hugh, as you say you are, I assure you there is nothing more powerful than currency as a means toward understanding, toward becoming, that man of the world.”

  “Helen,” Hugh said. He shook his head.

  “Father,” Helen started.

  Two maids appeared to clear. Mr. Ordway shooed them away.

  “Young man,” said Mr. Ordway.

  Hugh nodded, sitting back in his chair, and Ed had to hand it to him: He looked relaxed as hell; he crossed his legs and pushed away from the table ever so slightly, as if to lay claim to even more space.

  “If you are interested in Africa,” said Mr. Ordway, “why not make yourself useful there? Some of these countries may have theoretically gained their independence, but don’t kid yourself, there is much to be done in the way of creating anything close to functioning systems.”

  “Mr. Ordway, are you suggesting that I join the Peace Corps?”

  “Good God, no.”

  “Then what?”

  “I know in your book this is a dirty word, but there are profits to be made. And you are an American. You are not a colonialist. That could go a long way.”

  Mr. Ordway speared a piece of his meat and dipped it in ketchup. He took his time chewing. Just when Ed was wondering if Ordway might not be finished with this conversation, he leaned forward and lowered his voice: “I am suggesting you don’t fritter your education and connections out in the desert, like some kind of … dabbler.” His lowered voice came across as more aggressive; he may as well have been yelling. “I am suggesting you get a job. A man needs a job. I imagine that your father—though perhaps he may not be interested or … able to express these things—I imagine he might agree with me.”

  Hugh nodded again.

  “How about you?” Ordway suddenly called in Ed’s direction. “What are you doing?”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “This summer and beyond. Are you going to Africa with your best camera, too?”

  Ed brought his napkin to his mouth a touch too carefully. He cleared his throat. “No, sir.”

  “Well, what, then.”

  Hugh said, “Ed’s going to business school. Harvard.”

  “Let the man talk,” said Ordway. “Though he’s yet to bear this out, I have a feeling he’s a talker. What do you make of Hugh’s plans, Ed?”

  Ed balled up his napkin in his lap, took a tactical sip of water. “What do I make of Hugh’s plans?” Ed said, stalling. He looked at Hugh as if to say—what? Help me out here? “Well … Hugh is my friend, Mr. Ordway.”

  “And?”

  “And … our friendship … I’m proud to say, is not based on anything so banal as common interests.” Ed laughed, but no one else did. Nobody was bailing him out. “Look, I respect Hugh’s vision,” said Ed. “He’s—he sees things differently from anyone I know.”

  “Yes,” said Ordway, “that’s all fine. But what do you make of this … vision?”

  Ed glanced at Hugh, who was focused on his plate with distressing intensity.

  Ed cleared his throat several times and then made himself stop. “Like Hugh,” he said, “I believe in equality.” He wished that Hugh would stop looking so obviously grim, which was making him feel badly enough that he was fumbling and losing all sense of purpose. “Look,” said Ed, with reinvested vigor, “I’m afraid my own interests are simple.” He forced himself to look directly at Mr. Ordway, as if a direct appearance might make up for such a woefully inarticulate response. “I’d like to build a fortune.”

  As if summoned by the God of Awkward Silences himself, the maids emerged at once.

  “Go ahead, then,” Mr. Ordway grumbled in their direction. And in they pounced—clearing, bringing dessert plates. Coffee cups. Coffee. For Mr. Ordway, a tall glass of milk.

  “Calcium,” Mr. Ordway explained, as if this extravagance, above all others, called for justification.

  Ed took a bite of something that looked like vanilla pudding and berries but tasted far worse. What he would have given for an Oreo. He looked up at Hugh, who wasn’t looking back at him. But Helen was. She was shaking her head, but she was also smiling. He had the distinct feeling that she was somehow feeling particularly fondly toward him, but he wasn’t sure why. It was disconcerting. Ed turned to Kitty, and—flustered by her undiminished scent, by botching the opportunity to impress Mr.

  Ordway, by the stream of alcohol that had more than made up for the forgone cocktails and the fact that Ordway was a teetotaler—he knocked her dessert fork clear off the table. Before he could stop himself, he bent down to retrieve it. It was while he was under the table that he saw something he would always remember—more than the view from the porch, more than Helen’s head-shaking, unusually fond smile or even the sight of Kitty under the table, her legs amazingly parted and inviting him to look right up her skirt and see if the carpet matched the drapes, the glorious flame-red drapes—as the most significant sight of that weekend.

  As it turned out, the Irish maids didn’t possess excellent hearing and the Ordways didn’t have more-innate timing than every other dinner table across America. They just had a little button. Right atop the table at Mrs. Ordway’s spot. And as Ed was retrieving Kitty’s fork, he spied the wire that led to that button, which would obviously be ringing in the kitchen.

  “Leave it,” Mrs. Ordway said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Ed, bolting upright. He felt as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t have—not Kitty’s glorious parted legs and (sadly opaque) white panties but the button—and of course this was absurd. It was only Ed who’d perceived the orchestrati
ons of the evening as magical. This was childish thinking. Everyone at that table had known about the button. And now Ed did, too.

  They talked as they rode bikes along that same narrow road, flooded with dappled sunlight. Hugh had a gift for maintaining focus regardless of interference—whether animal or car—and he called back and forth to Helen about John Profumo, whose scandal involving a showgirl had been—as far as Ed was concerned—more than sufficiently covered at the breakfast table. But Hugh and Helen had evidently been left unsatisfied; they seemed dedicated to outdoing each other in a contest of nonchalance.

  “Commitment has to mean something,” said Ed, before pedaling madly to pass them by.

  On hearing their laughter, he’d gone red-faced, but he’d also felt victorious about passing. And he believed what he said. It irritated him that they were so casual about a married Member of Parliament carrying on with a teenager and so casual about their own plans. If Ed, by some means, in some otherworldly scenario, had been the one to put a diamond on Helen’s finger, there would’ve been nothing casual about it.

  As he pedaled ahead, he coasted down a hill so green he thought: Ireland. He imagined he’d go to Ireland one day and that by then he’d think: Fishers Island. He’d tell someone a story about this weekend; he wondered what it would be. He passed a pond, a graveyard, and three girls drawing in colored chalk on the road. Riding a shiny red bicycle—probably brand-new this season—a husky kid shouted, “I’m gonna beat you!” and—in an uncharacteristic move—Ed let him.

  They arrived at the yacht club, and it was shabbier than Ed had anticipated. It smelled vaguely of floor wax. There were shelves full of trophies and cups in need of a polish and walls of framed photographs featuring rugged, triumphant men who looked nothing like anyone in his family. He followed his friends through the wood-paneled reception area and onto the dock, where Helen’s red-faced uncle was dressed in worn-out tennis whites, looking as if he’d just finished three sets and run from the courts. “Wind’s up,” he said, while hurriedly shaking Ed’s hand. “Haven’t you been sailing before? Can’t wear those shoes.”

  “Oh, we forgot to remind you,” said Helen. “That’s fine,” she said. “You can go barefoot.”

  But Ed didn’t want to go barefoot. His feet were pale and hairy, and it was still technically springtime. He felt such sudden rage toward the two of them for letting him wear the wrong shoes that he said nothing. He just tossed his shoes and socks in a heap before walking toward a gleaming sailboat.

  “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” the uncle told Hugh. “Look at her. Forgive me, Helen, but she’s in a tight race with you for elegance.”

  “She’s beautiful, Uncle Larry.”

  Though he didn’t like knowing nothing about what to pull or where to sit, as they pushed off into the whitecapped sea, Ed started to relax again. The gulls were hypnotic in their flight and the water was undeniably lulling, until there was such a great blast in his ear that Ed truly thought a bomb had exploded and was baffled as to why a bomb would be detonated right here off Fishers Island. He’d gone so far in his mind as to deduce that the high concentration of banking families and likely CIA operatives who called this island home might be the reason and, of course, there he was, stupidly thinking it was some kind of paradise.…

  Hugh and Helen were talking, but he only saw their lips moving. He saw the sun still shining. But then he made out the thinnest sound of laughter, and when he saw Helen’s uncle Larry right beside him (Larry, Ed had learned during the brisk business of untying the knotted ropes, had become an ambassador to Austria after winning some big case at a New Jersey law firm), Ed realized it was Uncle Larry who was laughing. Laughing and holding his bullhorn. Which, Ed also realized, had been sounded directly and intentionally into Ed’s ear.

  “Uncle Larry!” cried Helen. And before Ed could think too much about it, he grabbed for the bullhorn.

  “Easy, now,” said the Austrian ambassador.

  “Give it,” said Ed, ignoring the waves, which were increasing in size and tossing the boat side to side, or the fact that he knew nothing about sailing protocol. Maybe it was normal to sound a bullhorn in your guest’s ear, potentially bursting their eardrum. Maybe it was, but Ed was so angry he didn’t care. “Give it here, you bastard,” said Ed.

  And, amazingly, Larry did.

  “Apologize,” shouted Ed. “That was a rotten thing to do.”

  “Come about,” called Hugh, and Ed knew just enough to duck down low while the boom swept over their heads.

  “This is my goddamn boat,” said Uncle Larry. “Who named you captain?”

  “We’re headed back now,” said Hugh.

  “Come on,” cried out Larry, “don’t be a spoilsport.”

  Seemingly out of nowhere, another sailboat sailed close by, and when everyone on that boat smiled and waved, Hugh, Helen, and Uncle Larry smiled and waved right back. Ed watched the boat sail off into the distance. The name was Fifty-Fifty. Ed wondered what it could mean.

  As soon as the boat was gone, Larry spoke up. “I was just having some fun with your friend.”

  Nobody spoke.

  Helen inched closer to Ed. The wind whipped her hair about her head. She was going to have a wrinkle shaped like the letter V between her brows someday.

  Uncle Larry worked assiduously on coiling ropes. Then he and Hugh docked the boat in silence. They’re graceful, Ed observed, without taking any pleasure in the observation. They each knew exactly what to do without speaking or even seeming to look at the other, and this was—for a few moments, anyway—enough to distract him from the ringing in his ears and from what he could have sworn were tears in Helen’s eyes. He’d never seen Helen cry and couldn’t imagine why she’d do so now.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry,” said Ed. “Clear as a bell.”

  “I’m sorry about my uncle,” whispered Helen. “I’m really sorry.”

  Ed was struck mute by her obvious and touching concern.

  “Did you hear what I just said?” she asked.

  But Ed didn’t answer, and she didn’t ask again.

  They went next door to a house full of pallid cousins, one thinner and paler than the next. They lunched on ham, olives, and not much else, before changing into their swimming suits and heading down yet another dock.

  Kitty’s children chased them, and before Ed quite realized what was happening, the cousins had pushed him, Hugh, Helen, and Kitty into the water. When Ed surfaced, he was startled, until he realized that Kitty was laughing and calling out, “Well done, you got us this time!”

  Here was yet another tradition of which he hadn’t been warned. He watched Kitty’s children scream with laughter and run up the lawn.

  “We’ll see them over at the country club,” Helen explained, a bit breathless from treading water. “Mother will take them.”

  “Are we swimming there?” asked Hugh. “God, this water feels good.” And he dove under, a plodding crawl leading into a preposterously flawless butterfly.

  “Just follow us,” said Helen. “It’s about a mile.”

  “I didn’t know you were such an athlete,” Ed cried.

  “I told you we’d keep you busy!” And off she swam.

  Ed followed at a distance with bursts of swimming, surfacing all too frequently to orient himself, to make sure he wasn’t going too far out of the way. The water was bracing and he was grateful for it, pleased to do something that required nothing but skills he already possessed. He pictured his mother at Nantasket, in a worried stance with her hands on her hips, watching him from the shore. But right as he began to see what looked like a beach in the distance, he found himself tangled in what he was sure were water snakes, and he began to scream. He fought to get out, but they were everywhere. Ed had followed the others, so why wouldn’t someone have called to him, warning him to turn back or at least to swim farther out to sea instead of hugging the coast? As he cursed the others and cursed himsel
f, he bore his way through the slimy mess of snakes, hollering and splashing, only to realize that the snakes were not snakes, of course. They were seaweed. And as the seaweed stroked his cheeks and twined itself with his calves and thighs, he promised himself that, when he finally made it to that beach club, he would keep to himself just how deeply he disliked this swim.

  By the time he broke free, his heart was pumping as if he’d come face-to-face with a shark instead of a goddamn underwater plant, but there he was, feet on warm sand, before a scattering of lithe men and women lounging on chairs or watching their children or reading the newspaper, and there were Kitty’s children cheering (they were chanting his name!), and a brunette offered him a towel. There was beer, so much beer, and the beer tasted better than beer had ever tasted, even better than after he’d done nothing but lay pipes in the ground for eight hours straight in terrible heat, and by the time they all piled into someone’s convertible, Ed had no idea what time it was, but the light had softened and Kitty and her children were all in the backseat with him, and he was drunk. He was drunk already and it wasn’t even dusk. He would have thought four years at Harvard would have prepared him for this kind of pace, but at Harvard he hadn’t been asked to swim at least a mile—most of it through seaweed—only to sit next to Kitty Ordway James and her damp red hair.

  “What?” Kitty was smiling, her breasts right there, barely restrained under a navy one-piece, a towel wrapped around her waist.

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Ed.

  He sobered up long enough to take a bath in his room, long enough to manage with his cuff links and a tie, long enough to realize, with something of a shock, that he was having a really good time. He wondered if Hugh was having even a fraction of the fun he was having, and he realized that it deeply mattered to him whether Hugh was having fun. I’ll make a point to let him know this, Ed thought, and then it occurred to him that he was not, in fact, yet sober. Fifty-Fifty: The boat that passed them earlier popped into his head. Was the boat jointly owned? Or was it a comment about odds? He realized that he was starving.