“Don’t think about it,” Oliver tried to soothe me.
I shook my head. “If I purposely try never to think of him, he’ll always be half there, nudging at my consciousness. What happened was that both my children went back to college, my son’s at Villanova—he’s a biochem major—and my daughter studies philosophy at Providence, and once they’re gone … it’s amazing but it’s as though they forget all about you. I know they don’t really but that’s what it feels like. All those years of love and having them around and then, poof, you drop them off at some ivy-covered building and if they answer your messages twice a week it’s a lot.” I heard the whine in my voice. “Oh, I know they’re all like that in the beginning. It’s just … hard to get used to. …” I looked at my hands. Even I had stopped eating. “Well, anyway, I let myself get involved too quickly with Enoch. I see that now. It becomes now suddenly clear that his … tastes lay elsewhere.” I felt sorry for myself and had to shake my head briskly so I wouldn’t start blubbering. I held my ear in my hand and pressed hard. “And now, because I came out to see Jenny Rose, one thing’s led to another and, well, here I am!” And then, looking around the table at these faces and with a gush of sudden clarity, I realized what exactly I was feeling. Not sorrow. I lifted the delicate glass of white wine to my lips and tasted its clear refreshment. What I was feeling was relief.
“My dear, you can count on us.” Paige leaned across and covered my hand with her light touch. “We’re not going to desert you, are we, Oliver?”
Oliver, fully in favor of such melodrama, poured himself another glass of wine. “Certainly not,” he swore, his face steamed and flustered with outrage for all mistreated womankind.
Paige, smiling kindly at me, reached into her sleeve and handed me her lace-trimmed handkerchief. I thought, This gal’s really something. No wonder Morgan Donovan is going to marry her. I’d marry her myself if I were a man. She was perfect. Ironed lace-trimmed handkerchief at the ready. Who had such things? And of course she was still of childbearing age. He could raise a family with her. What was she, thirty-five? Thirty-six? Still ripe. Still bleeding. Still juicy. What had I been thinking? Dried-up old me. He was just sorry for me. And of course I could be useful. You want something done, you get an old broad to do it. He knew that. That was what he’d said, wasn’t it? Well, look, I told myself. I’d had a good run. I felt his eyes upon me. If Enoch wasn’t what he’d seemed, then I hadn’t been either. How could I have been, having feelings for a perfect stranger right after I’d caught my guy in the clinch? I tried to think reasonably. I wanted to fit in. I should be happy just to be here with these intriguing people. I realized I had to rethink this. Morgan was taken. That much was clear. I had this perfectly respectable, handsome, appropriately aged, funny, rich—I repeat—rich guy right in front of me. So what was so terrible? A movie or dinner would be so bad? People grow to appreciate each other, after all. I smiled wryly and attempted to move on, “Jenny Rose, I was wondering if your paintings had arrived?”
“Oh, yeah. Truth be told, I haven’t even unpacked them yet.”
I remembered what she’d said about her disappointment at that art gallery in Cannes. Disregarding present company and fortified with wine, I urged, “Don’t let some man who knows nothing about you stop your passion from becoming real!”
Jenny Rose blushed furiously. She rolled her eyes and made a face, saying, “Hey! Don’t take it so seriously. It’s not like I’m Cézanne or something.”
It was interesting that she chose Cézanne, because if there were one artist whose work hers reminded me of, it was him. I cleared my throat. “Please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. It’s just … you’re letting one person’s judgment interfere with your future—your whole life.” And then I heard myself telling these people I hardly knew, “Years ago, when I still thought of myself as an artist, someone told me that I had no talent. I’d just arrived in Germany and still had hopes of becoming a real painter. He was a critic, an art critic. I took what he said to heart and stopped drawing and painting. I stopped right then. I will say he didn’t leave me without hope. I had these photos I’d taken of scenes I intended to paint one day. He pointed out that as a photographer I really did have talent. I followed his lead and pursued photography. What I’m trying to say is that I took his word as truth. Even though all my life until then I’d wanted to be a painter, I let a perfect stranger dictate my future—tell me what was meant for me.”
Just then, along came an intricate, show-offy salad, all aged balsamic candied pecans and oak leaves and goat’s cheese and cranberry bits at the bottom. We groaned appreciatively.
I went on, “It’s not like I didn’t have a wonderful career as a photographer. But there are times I pass the odd gallery and I peek in and think, wow, that could have been me, you know?”
And from the end of the table, behind Oliver’s chair, Mr. Piet, who’d stood perfectly still in the shadow for the last of my soul searching, said, “Like: I could have been a contender?”
“Yeah.” I smiled and looked into his deep brown eyes. “Like that.”
Jenny Rose, who’d been watching me skeptically, pushed away her salad, fell back in her chair, and yawned and stretched with a great show of nonchalance. “All right, all right. I promise I’ll think about what you said.”
I added with heat, “Any talent I might have had is nothing compared to yours.”
“Hmm. Really?” Paige’s fork stopped in midair and she regarded Jenny Rose with new interest. “And do you do portraits?”
“She surpasses herself with portraiture,” I told them all.
Paige said to Oliver, “That’s perfect. She can do Wendell and you.”
“I’d rather do you, to start.” Jenny Rose closed one eye and scrutinized Paige.
Well done, I thought.
Mr. Piet hurriedly collected the dishes and returned with a purple cake decorated with nasturtium. “Oh, you must try it!” Paige insisted. “It’s raspberry-jam filling surrounded by layers of real whipped cream. Those are edible flowers.”
Obediently, we gorged our way through another achingly delectable gamut of textures.
“I have an idea!” Paige turned to me. “You can do our wedding pictures.”
If I’d have wanted to do weddings, I’d have stayed in Queens and opened a shop on Austin Street. Still, it would be ungracious to refuse. “Any photographer would be privileged to shoot you,” I compromised by saying—a little too late—and hoping she wouldn’t exactly take it the wrong way. And, yes, I admit it, sort of hoping she would.
When the meal was done and Jenny Rose had taken Wendell off to bed, the rest of us traipsed through to the living room. I stayed behind and struggled to rearrange the crotch of my tights, which kept creeping down my thighs.
Paige turned in the doorway. “Is something the matter?” she frowned.
“Tch. My tights. They don’t fit,” I confided.
“You have to go to CVS, just south on Carpenter Avenue for tights. That’s where I get mine. Here. I’ll write it down. Let me get my pen.” She went to her desk and riddled through it. Then she went through her purse, but it wasn’t there either.
I said, “There’s a pencil on the desk.”
She wrinkled her forehead, “It’s not that. I seem to have lost my good pen.”
Aha, I thought. I was about to say I’d seen a fancy pen at the cottage, but something—perhaps the culpability that crossed her face—held me back. She wrote the way to the shop on a piece of stationery with a pencil and then led me through to another elegant room, this one with tall ceilings lined with shelves stocked with fancy books, everything wood paneled and with a fire blazing at one end. Even the crown moldings wore tooled etchings. A grand piano, off center, graced an antique gold-and-ruby Persian carpet. A library. It was certainly one of the most impressive rooms I’d ever been in. I said so.
&nbs
p; “The walls,” Oliver said proudly, touching them in a downward, loving stroke, “are chestnut and oak. Every panel had to be refurbished. That’s how I came upon Mr. Piet. He did carpentry and I was looking for someone to bring them out. Every contractor I interviewed wanted to either polyurethane them or paint them over.” He took a satisfied smack of the matching amber liquid and caressed the glowing walls with a glance. “Mr. Piet’s idea, on the other hand, was to scrub them down with hot water and Murphy’s oil soap, then a mixture of Patsy Mooney’s pecan oil from the kitchen and beeswax and lemon. I hired him on the spot. He got our Teddy to help him and he did them himself! They glow, don’t they?”
Paige, handing around after dinner drinks, chimed in, “Teddy is our nephew. Oh, they worked so hard!”
Oliver said, “Yes. Until Teddy walked out.”
“For heaven’s sake! He had to go back to school!
“Paige decorated the place.” Morgan spoke proudly from his camel-colored leather easy chair.
I held my smile and turned to him. So this was where he belonged. This was his future. Here he would sit on a Sunday and watch soccer, munch pretzels. “It’s absolutely beautiful!” I tried to say with genuine feeling. And it was. Morgan’s feet, though, were not up on the hassock. They were being polite and long and thin in moss green deck shoes. Old deck shoes, worn and chafed, the tops of his elegant bare feet tanned and narrow. I pulled my eyes away. As lovely as the place was, you’d never call it homey. Gracious, that was it, an elegant family room in a palace.
Just then there was conversation out in the hall and in strode a handsome young man, flushed with the cold.
“Teddy!” Paige raised herself up to be kissed. “Speak of the devil!” The young man went around greeting us all and as he stood before me I thought I recognized him.
“Sorry I couldn’t make dinner, Aunt Paige,” he apologized, flopping his overcoat down onto a sofa with easy familiarity. It was the same young man who’d waited tables at Once Upon a Moose.
“Teddy lives out on that romantic schooner you see in the harbor,” Paige announced, “the Dream Boat.”
Teddy said, “Well, I’m refurbishing her. I wouldn’t exactly call it living.”
“We’ve met!” I said as he shook my hand. “My niece and I were having tea at the Moose.”
He continued to shake my hand warmly, but I could see the light still hadn’t dawned. Of course he hadn’t noticed me at all because he’d been captivated by Jenny Rose. “She gave you a picture,” I reminded him, “of the interior of the Moose.”
“That girl? Your niece?” His eyes grew wide. He let go of my hand.
“Teddy is studying at Hofstra,” Paige added. “He’s going to be a teacher.”
He didn’t seem to hear her but remained before me. “The girl who did the picture is your niece?”
“Yes.” I disengaged my hand.
“I still have it,” he said. “I put it over my desk. Uncle Oliver, you saw it! I was surprised at the time that you didn’t take more notice of it. You, of all people!”
Oliver looked nervously to the side. “Ah … yes. My mind was somewhere else. I was having a quick lunch … on my own,” he said again and I looked up. Because he hadn’t been alone. I remembered now. He’d been with that girl in a green loden mantel. I wouldn’t have thought of it but that he mentioned again so pointedly that he’d been on his own.
“I’d advise you to hold on to it, Teddy.” I laughed. “That’s an original Jenny Rose Cashin.”
“Jenny Rose,” he murmured, tasting the name like she was a sort of dream. He helped himself to a beer, choosing to drink it from the long neck of the bottle.
“Jenny Rose is our new au pair, Teddy,” Paige said.
“What sweet news!” Teddy laughed. “Now you won’t have to be bothered with the kid.”
Morgan frowned. “I’ve never heard Paige complain about Wendell.”
Leaning herself prettily against the Florentine credenza, Paige informed me, “Wendell was Annabel’s last purchase.”
“Oh, shut up,” Oliver said.
“Well, it’s true. She had to have this and she had to have that. She was a shopaholic. It all came too easy to her. The only thing she’s really passionate about is shopping …”
“She certainly had good taste,” I said in an admiring tone, looking anywhere but into Oliver’s increasingly sodden eyes. Then I thought, The poor guy. His wife up and leaves him. Why wouldn’t he drink too much? I said, “The house is filled with wonderful pictures. So many maritime oils.”
“Yes,” Paige agreed. “That was one thing she did have, Annabel. Talent for the right subject.” And as she said this she looked meaningfully at Morgan. Morgan didn’t react, but I noticed a flicker of annoyance in the tightening of his mouth.
Paige smoothed her neat lid of platinum hair. “Here’s a person with every advantage handed to her and she throws it back in your face! It’s a pity, really. No, it’s a sin.”
Morgan spoke up, more kindly. “She knows how to make a beautiful home. She’s romantic. We all wish she would have stayed and duked it out, you know?” Then, thinking he’d spoken out of turn, he defended himself, “We all miss her, I guess.”
“I happened to make the mistake of taking her out to sea,” Oliver said, enunciating his words with the careful spacing of the intoxicated. “That was one thing I wasn’t allowed to do. I could wave to her on the shore …” He swayed precariously above the addictive spicy raw pistachio dish. “But I dare not take her with me. I forced her, you see. We’d been arguing. I didn’t realize how terrified she would be. … I put her in her life jacket and she was trembling. I should have listened. You see. So.” He collapsed into the leather chair. “I couldn’t get her back to shore fast enough and … Well, that was it.” He raised his unhappy face to me. “And then she left. That … next … day.”
“I suppose all your trips to Atlantic City and the arguments that followed had nothing to do with it,” Paige remarked churlishly.
I pretended not to hear the trouble in Camelot, and Teddy, tired of all this, spoke up enthusiastically. “You really would be interested to see that picture Jenny Rose did, Oliver.”
“Mrs. Lassiter did mention she paints,” Oliver said, shuffling over to the drinks table. He glanced, puzzled, at Paige. “Wasn’t that why we took her on?”
“There used to be no end to the maritime oils in this house,” Paige commented, somewhat exasperated, crouching down and straightening the flap of Morgan’s hassock. “Annabel deemed them all outmoded. Oliver would encourage her to take things into her own hands, change things around.” She gave a hollow laugh. “She got a bit full of herself and went about changing all the paintings in the house. Taking down every decent old thing, some of them quite unique, and”—here Paige sneered—“replacing them one day, as a surprise, with the sort of thing that screams Home Goods! It was a surprise all right.”
“You were the one who agreed with her that they were old-fashioned!” Teddy accused.
“Yes, well, James E. Butterworth is old-fashioned. It doesn’t mean one donates him to the thrift shop!”
“Is that what she did?” I gasped.
“And we had to make a pretty fancy donation to explain it all away.” Oliver pursed his lips. “But in the end we got most of them back.”
Paige added, “And then when Annabel left, we had to get rid of the new monstrosities!”
Oliver stifled a burp. “To whom did we give them? I can’t remember.”
“Mrs. Lassiter at the rectory,” Paige said. “That’s how we learned about Jenny Rose, remember? Mrs. Lassiter was the one who went mad for the colony prints.” She put a hand over one side of her face and cautioned Oliver, “Only let’s not go on about those colony prints. Morgan wanted them, himself, remember?” She leaned over and whispered to me, “Rather a sore spot. Even I had no idea what the
y were worth. Poor Morgan. He’d been counting on them.”
Morgan erupted, “They were seventeenth-century English school prints of the Spanish Silver Fleet, and, as if you didn’t know, they were my mother’s!”
Paige made a chagrined face for my benefit and said, “Oops.” She slipped down beside Teddy. “Of course we knew once, but we’d forgotten. They’d been hanging there so long. It was Noola, Morgan’s mother, who made us hang them there over our fireplace, remember? Noola said the spot deserved them. I don’t think even she knew how much they were worth. We had them in fours. Burled beechnut frames. Until Annabel swept through with her Monet replicas!”
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“Mrs. Lassiter still has them. The one good thing is Annabel kept the frames. She liked them for her Home Goods collection.”
“Well,” I ventured, thinking it was one of them, “I have to admit I like the one in the front hall.”
Paige said, “To be frank, it only looks so captivating because it’s in that massive gilt, hand-carved nineteenth-century frame. I’ve been meaning to move it. It’s too amateurish to be in such a revered spot.”
“Just leave it,” Oliver warned.
“Yes,” I agreed, “it does seem amateurish. And childlike. Maybe that’s what I love about it. The uninhibited strokes and bright colors. It draws you in. It’s like its own little world in there. Maybe the word I’m looking for is fetching. Or fey. Is it a place … beyond the boats?”
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