Finn looked around and made a face. “This seems like the kind of thing I could see him having a hand in.”
“You’re just jealous,” Peck teased as we filed back down the stairs. “He’s too good-looking for his own good, that’s what his problem is. Nobody trusts a guy who is that pretty.”
When we got back to the porch the backgammon game we’d left there had been finished, all the red pieces stacked neatly in the slot along the side of the board. Most of the black ones on Finn’s side were still out, as if he’d lost the game.
“This has to be Biggsy,” I said, looking around. “He must have known we were up in his room. But where is he?”
“I told you he was a stalker,” Peck said, clapping her hands. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she called in delight. “We’re not afraid of you, little ghostie boy!”
But he didn’t appear. “Lydia would have enjoyed this,” Peck said, pouring herself another drink. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’m going upstairs with my dressing drink.”
Finn’s eyes, lit up with amusement, met mine. “Dressing drink?”
“I coined that term, you know,” Peck called over her shoulder as she headed for the screen door.
“No, you didn’t,” Finn teased. He leaned back in his chair and I couldn’t help but notice as his T-shirt rode up slightly, revealing the flat muscles of his stomach. “There were dressing drinks long before you were born.”
Finn and I exchanged another glance as she left us alone on the porch, and then we focused our attentions on setting up the board for a new game. We played a few more games, but with Peck gone it seemed the spell was broken. The magic between us had gone. Or we were tired. After the easy flirting banter of earlier, we grew polite with one another.
“When do you go back?” Finn asked me, in the stiff manner of someone making small talk. He was unfailingly polite, one of those well-brought-up men who’d been trained to stand when a woman entered the room and help with coats and allow ladies to go through doors first. Usually he’d try to be funny, but he would, of course, be nice to anyone who was related to his friend Lydia. I suspected now that what I’d perceived as a spark of something chemical between us was simply good manners. He was probably charming that way with everyone he met, even men.
“Not until the end of the month,” I told him, trying not to sound disappointed at the shift. I was, after all, just saying I would be leaving soon. And then I’d probably never see him again. And clearly my overactive imagination had played tricks on me, assuming he’d come over here for a reason other than simply a passion for the game of backgammon or a sense of tradition.
Did I imagine a look of disappointment on his face? Or was he just bored, ready to move on to the rest of his evening like Peck had? “You think the house will be sold by then?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it.”
Peck came down in a long pink chiffon gown that dragged on the floor as she swung open the screen door and posed for us. “Vanity Fair, get a load of this one.”
“Great dress,” Finn said to her.
“Isn’t it?” She looked down at herself with pride. “But I don’t think it’s right for one of Hamilton’s Tuesday night suppers. I’m going back to try again.”
Finn looked questioningly at me as she headed off. “Vanity Fair?”
“She seems to think she should be on their Best-Dressed List,” I explained as I stood and stacked the chip bowl on the drinks tray.
“Can I help you bring this stuff in?” he asked, picking up our glasses. This aspect of him seemed uniquely American, a healthy ego and brash confidence lurking under the manners. I’d had a few boyfriends (an Italian, two Australians, a Swede who lied about everything) before Jean-Paul, none of them American. Finn Killian was so different from all of them. He insisted on paying me the five dollars he owed me for the game and then he held the door for me. “Sorry,” he said as his elbow grazed my arm slightly. “Let me get that.”
We brought the dishes into the kitchen. I ran the water in the sink to rinse the glasses. He was behind me and I felt his presence like an electric jolt, as though there were a force field between us. For a fleeting few seconds I thought—okay, I hoped—he might spin me around and kiss me.
I waited for it. I tensed as I heard him move behind me. But then he sounded farther away and I turned to see he was at the door.
“See you around, kid.”
6
It was all gay, all British on Hamilton’s festively lit patio when we arrived next door that evening. (Note that I said British, not English, so as not to offend Scotty, the proud Scotsman.) The men were tan and close-shaven, and all looked like they’d just been styled for a magazine spread in white pants and perfectly draped blazers. Their shirts were pink, pale blue, and bright orange. Some wore fitted T-shirts. They all looked fantastic, every one of them groomed and impossibly elegant, even the ones who weren’t as thin. I was totally underdressed in my jeans and top. My wedge sandals now felt clunky and unstylish. I should have listened to Peck, who’d shuddered dramatically at the sight of my shoes when I came into her room earlier in the evening.
“When you socialize with gay men, Stella, you have to make an effort,” she’d said, gesturing with her lipstick. She herself had settled on a set of pink-and-green hostess pajamas a stylish housewife in the seventies might have worn to a key party. She’d teased half her hair and pinned it up in the front and applied false eyelashes and glittery green eye shadow. Very Fashionina. “They despise wedges, by the way,” she’d added with grandiose authority.
“Finally,” Hamilton exclaimed. “Some female company. Look at you.” He nodded approvingly as Peck spun around so he could get the full effect.
“I’m sorry about my sister,” Peck said, handing him a bottle of the scotch he liked tied with a ribbon. “She thought you really meant casual casual. Not Southampton casual.”
He ushered us into the center of the patio, where we were swept up in a sea of hugs and cologne. They were so American, all those pink-cheeked men, welcoming and open and sophisticated, but not like any I’d either imagined or known. They weren’t like the tourists I occasionally ran across in Lausanne, coming out of the Mc-Donald’s across the street from the train station, or waiting for the bus at the Place Saint-Sulpice, loudly and heavily exclaiming about the famous Swiss punctuality. And they weren’t like the expats either, the ones who’d made their permanent home overseas for so long they were only half American, the other half nothing, a shifting desert of acquired characteristics.
“These boys were all friends of Lydia’s,” Hamilton explained to me. “She was quite the fag hag, you know. Oh, don’t look so shocked. She loved when we called her that. She was a crusader for gay rights. Wanted all of us to be able to marry. I said, ‘Darling, what do I want to get married for? If I wanted a sexless relationship, I’d be better off marrying you.’ ”
I laughed while Peck wandered off and found a shy young man in a flowered shirt who, she was thrilled to learn, was interviewing for an internship at Vanity Fair magazine.
Hamilton steered me toward the bar, where a man who looked like an aging soap opera actor was fixing cocktails. “Are you having fun in Southampton?” he asked, handing me a glass of wine. “Lydia would have wanted you to enjoy this while you’re here. You should go to the beach. There aren’t any beaches more beautiful in all the world.”
“That’s what Lydia always said. She would tell me to take my notebook and try to capture the way it felt to breathe the ocean air. And then she would add, ‘But description can only get you so far.
Plot is a verb. Don’t you forget it.’ I’ve been trying to write about my time here. There seems to be so much to figure out.”
“You’re a clever girl. Don’t worry,” Hamilton said as the party grew louder around us. “Just relax and let the circus unfold around you.”
“Is that what you do?” I asked.
“Darling,” he said. “I am the circus.”
I asked him what he thought of Peck’s theory that Miles Noble had taken the painting from above the mantel.
“I suppose anything’s possible,” he said, indicating with his eyebrows that he didn’t really buy it. “I’ve heard the fellow’s house is absolutely dreadful. And he went through four or five architects and designers. He has awful taste. Perhaps he’s also a thief.”
“Peck thinks it could be some sort of courtship dance,” I added. “But she hasn’t heard from him.”
“Good heavens,” he said. “That’s complicated. I wish I had more to tell you about that painting. Lydia didn’t go on about her things the way people do now. We weren’t all giving each other tours of the house and explaining every piece of art and furniture. We just lived, you know. Lived in the spaces of our homes and enjoyed each other’s company. The only one she really talked about was her dead brother, the brilliant artist.”
Someone dimmed the lights on the patio and the crowd seemed to grow more jovial. A platter of brownies was passed around. I was about to take one when Hamilton put a hand on my arm. “Maybe you’d better not.”
“I’m addicted to sweets,” I said, helping myself to a small one. “It’s one of my many vices.” I popped the brownie into my mouth.
He smiled. “These are special. If you know what I mean.”
The chocolate, rich and gooey, was already dissolving in my mouth when I realized what he meant. They were pot brownies. “Oh well,” I said. “When in Rome.”
“Lydia was a bit of a pothead,” he explained with a grin. “She liked it for its medicinal qualities.”
“There were a lot of things I didn’t know about my aunt,” I said. “Or about any of my family.” They were all gone now. Every one of them. Only Peck and I were left.
Hamilton was chewing thoughtfully on a brownie of his own. “She was extraordinarily generous, not just with money, but with her time and her energy. I always told her to be more careful about allowing these ghastly people to live with her. I gave her a gun, you know.”
“We didn’t know,” I said. “Until Peck found it.”
“I want you to be careful of that gorgeous young thing living above the garage,” he said. “Lydia knew I wasn’t keen on any of them. Except our man Finn, of course. But he was different. A family friend. The rest of them . . . not much talent there . . .” His voice trailed off.
“I wish she were here to explain it all,” I said. I missed my aunt terribly. “Some good characters here,” she would have whispered in my ear. “Listen to them talk. Write them into a novel.” Missing her—that physical ache in the heart that made it feel as if it could sometimes break in two—dredged up the feelings of loss over my mother from which I’d thought I’d recovered. And layered into the emotional cocktail that had me feeling like one big nerve ending were, I was starting to suspect, some deeply suppressed sentiments relating to the early loss of my father. All this, I told myself, explained why I felt like I was going mad that first week at Fool’s House, alternately too quick to laugh or cry.
“Lydia cultivated a daffy persona,” he said with a smile. “But she was a very intelligent woman. I suspect she’s enjoying all this attention from the grave.”
The night had grown cool, but it was warm under the canopy hung with sparkling lights that covered the patio, where quickwitted men made saucy remarks and we ate perfectly tiny bite-size morsels of delicious food, lamb lollipops and miniature bacon-lettuce-and-tomato tarts. A few other women joined the colorful swirl. I noticed Laurie Poplin towering over the rest of them. She was coming directly toward me, elbowing poor little Scotty out of the way in her eagerness to get to me, grinning like she was bursting with something to tell. She was wearing a pink-and-white dress that barely covered her ass. Okay, I thought grumpily, we get it: you’ve got legs. No need to shop in the children’s department to make sure we all see them.
“Hey,” she called as she got closer, awkwardly throwing one arm around my shoulder in a half hug. I got the impression she didn’t want to say my name, either because she couldn’t remember it or because she didn’t know whether to call me Cassie, or Stella, as Peck did. Hamilton left us to check on the music.
“I remembered where I met that boy at your house before.” She was a bit of a sprayer, one of those unfortunate people who gather saliva in the corners of their mouths when they get excited.
I took a step back to avoid being showered. I was starting to feel stoned and the too-tall Rockette loomed over me, making me dizzy. “Biggsy?”
She nodded with great enthusiasm, the cords in her neck even more pronounced by such vigorous extension. “He wasn’t Biggsy then. He was Jonathan something or other. He lived in the pool house.”
I was trying to follow what she was saying while also backing away from her, but she kept getting closer. “Whose pool house?”
“I’m about to tell you,” she said. She could afford to be coy, now that she had my attention. “It was an estate sale. An old woman, real Waspy and elegant. The house had been in the family forever. You know the type?” She paused, as though she wasn’t sure, since I was so foreign, that I would understand.
I assured her I was able to extrapolate, given our location.
“She lived there totally alone all summer, except for this guy in the pool house,” she continued. “Not even the staff lived in; they all just came during the day. She was isolated. The family was gone, all except this grandson in Los Angeles, a hipster filmmaker.” She paused again, to be sure I was following her.
I nodded. Hipster. Filmmaker. Got it.
“One morning the housekeeper arrived to find the newspapers still in the driveway. And she knew something was up. The old lady always read the papers first thing in the morning.” Another nod kept her going. “She died under mysterious circumstances. An overdose of her regular medication, they thought. The police investigated. But nobody pressed charges and nothing conclusive was found. The thing is, this guy, Jonathan, the one who’s living at your place now? He wouldn’t leave. He moved into the main house—this was a major property, and I’d arrive for a showing and find him swanning about in a silk bathrobe, like the lord of the manor. It was creepy.” She stopped. “Sorry. He’s not related to you or anything, is he?”
I assured her he was not, as far as we knew.
“So, the kid who inherited the place, the grandson, he never came to see it. Just wanted it sold. The housekeepers moved on to other jobs. But nobody made the guy leave. He stayed there all summer. It was so weird. Finally the house got sold.”
“And then he left?”
She nodded impatiently, as though frustrated with my lack of attention. “We heard he’d died. I never saw him again. Until he resurfaced at your aunt’s place, having been there with another older woman who lived alone. Who is now . . . dead.”
“Aunt Lydia died in Paris,” I said. “It was a heart attack.”
“All I’m saying . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Well, you have to admit, it’s strange, that’s all. Especially when he was rumored to be dead himself. I heard he was hit by a car.”
“Where did you hear that?” I asked. “Why did everyone think he was dead?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. But you can imagine my surprise when there he was. Just like a ghost.” She looked around, her neck craning as she sized up the crowd. “So,” she continued. “I heard you saw Finn today.”
I nodded, picking up the proprietary tone in her voice.
“Played a little ’gammon, huh?” She waved her glass at me. “Did he win? He always beats me when we play, he’s just too good. You know he has a regular game with Jack Louis? The big IPO guy? That one never wants to pay his debts, either. Finn and I are having dinner tomorrow night. Maybe we’ll shake the dice a bit first. Or after—”
I interrupted her. “Excuse me,” I said, holding up my empty water glass. In my pot-addled state I didn’t feel the need to hear any more about Finn from her. I got it: they were together. She seemed intent on mak
ing that clear. And that was totally fine with me. Why wouldn’t it be? I wasn’t interested in him. I couldn’t be. I had too much to do and only three more weeks to do it in. “I’m going to get some water,” I said, moving away from her. “But you’re going to show the house, right?”
“Well, yes—” she was saying as I headed on toward the bar, where Peck was still entertaining three of the original admiring group of men that had surrounded her at the beginning of the evening, still audibly declaring her “fabulous” and “a piece of work.”
“Stella!” she cried out. “I’m sharing my tale of irony.” She pulled me close and continued speaking to the group with me at her side. “So here I’m thinking he’s throwing this Gatsby theme party for me. It seemed pretty specific, right? The book had become this symbol, I thought, of our love. We were madly in love, you know. For almost five years of my life.”
Every time I heard Peck tell the story of her love affair with Miles, the length of time they’d been together expanded. She was almost twenty-one when she met him. He was twenty-six or so, she’d told me. Within months they’d talked about getting married. But she had to finish school, she still thought. Later, after she’d dropped out and kept busy with acting class and auditions, he moved in with her for a while. They broke up after he went to Hong Kong and told her he’d met someone else. She lied and told him she’d met someone else too. She was twenty-five. So it was three years, to my calculations. But somehow in the telling it had become three and a half and then four and now five years of her life.
“This wasn’t some drunken one-night stand or anything,” she explained. I’d heard her use these exact words so many times. “For all these years I’ve told myself the same story. I once knew this great love. We can only go through that one time in our lives. Believe me, I would never do it again.”
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