Twillyweed

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “When someone dies from a heart attack, it’s so sudden—and death is so final.”

  “Mmm, she’d been failing for some time, though. And the truth is she died of an overdose.”

  I said, “I know how old people are. They take their medicine then forget they took it. My own parents—”

  She interrupted, “There was some … skepticism about her intentions. There’s an unpleasant stigma attached to that sort of death. It was understandable that she might forget and take more than her daily dose, but to have taken five times that … Well, we all rather protected Morgan from her intentions.”

  Or someone else’s, I thought. “No one suspected there might have been”—I glanced around—“foul play?”

  “No. No! We all loved Noola. But, you see, she couldn’t do the things she loved anymore. She knew she was getting rapidly incapacitated by Alzheimer’s. What I’m getting at, as sophisticated as Morgan is, there’s something idealistic, almost naive about him as well.”

  “Oh?”

  “I wouldn’t want to think he was laden with distraction.”

  Did she mean me? I put down my fork. “You don’t have to beat around the bush, Paige. I’m a big girl.”

  She pursed her lips. “Yes. We both are. I think we understand each other.” We were silent for some moments. Then she put in, “I’d like to think we are on the same side.”

  I turned this over in my mind. So much had happened. It would be unwise of me to burn my bridges before I’d even landed. And I had no doubt this woman would know just how to go about getting me ejected from Sea Cliff.

  A boy in an immaculate white jacket stepped in and refilled our water glasses then slipped discreetly away. I gave her my loopy you’re right and I’m wrong smile. “Okay.”

  “Good.” She sat back. “You know, Claire, we might even be able to help each other. Wendell particularly has been a great problem for us. He and Annabel were always up there with Noola. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my brother doesn’t have the slightest idea how to raise a child. He’s on another planet.”

  The waiter returned with two iced gin-and-tonics stuffed with limes.

  “What about Annabel?” I took a heavenly sip. “Will she come back, do you think?”

  “Phhh. She wouldn’t dare show her face in this town. Refreshing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Delicious. Just the thing. It got warm so suddenly, didn’t it? I have to agree with you about Annabel. I think any woman who would leave her own child is despicable. But I was just wondering. If she was such a fly-by-night, why did they give her a child? It seems to me, she started off well intentioned, didn’t she?”

  “Ah, yes”—she raised her eyes—“the well intentioned.”

  I thought, The power is in the intention. Now where had I heard that? “You sound a little cynical,” I said.

  “I’m not. And I’m dead serious. The gall of that woman! To keep writing to Oliver like he’s an old friend! It’s beyond belief.” She drained her glass. “Bring me another,” she said to no one without raising her voice.

  “Yes. You’re right,” I said, trying to understand. “But it must have been that she’d fallen hopelessly, horribly in love.”

  She rubbed her arms, chilled. “Love!” She practically spat the word. “That’s not love.”

  “It does happen,” I went on. “To just leave like that. … She must have been so ashamed.”

  “Uch. Please. Don’t go finding excuses for her. You don’t know her. She’s all excitement and enthusiasm one minute, sadness and sorrow the next. And what really bothers me is that you won’t hear a bad word about her from Oliver.” A waiter from nowhere appeared with another drink. “He dismisses all her bad behavior as his fault. I can’t bear it. He blames himself. He left her on her own too much, he thinks. Instead of Atlantic City, he should have ‘taken her to more plays and museums,’ he told me last week, ‘That’s what she likes.’ But the truth is he couldn’t have done more. She’s just selfish and egotistical. Oh, she had us all fooled,” Paige went on. “She swept into his life with her goody-two-shoes routine and took everything she could and then swept out of it. Jewelry. Family jewelry. That’s the kicker.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “No, you don’t. You think it’s because I wanted those pieces for myself. But I don’t care about them. Not really. All right, I suffer to think those emeralds are gone. But mostly I wanted Oliver to be happy. He was, you know. For a good while. He was luminously happy. You could hear it in his stupid car when he drove up, see it in his eyes when he came in the door, all goofy and merry. The house was like a fairy-tale port in an everyday world. There was music, fires in every grate. He loved a fire. She always made sure the house was perfect, I’ll give her that. You should have seen Twillyweed while she was there. She named it that, you know. Silly name from a silly woman,” she said scornfully. “The house never had a name before she came along. Romantic. Read those stupid novels one after the other. Always at the library. ‘My best customer,’ Mrs. Wetjan, the librarian, called her.” Paige’s face softened, despite herself, remembering. “It was so beautiful last autumn. Every window gleaming. She’d sit on the sill upstairs and Radiance in another and they’d polish the windows—as if they enjoyed it! She liked being a housewife, she said. She certainly had the knack. And then with the snow. It was like a fairy-tale castle, all ashimmer. The only thing missing was a child. And then she even had that.” Her voice was tinged with desperation. “It was me, if you want to know—I saw to that—to my shame. Even though I should have had my doubts—about whether she’d stick with it. Wendell can’t have been easy at first.” She frowned, cooling her soup with her breath. “But oddly enough she took to Wendell right away. Despite myself, I thought it was the great success, the perfect fit. Until she left. You see? Even happiness wasn’t enough. And she snuck away.” Even across the table I could hear her rasping breath. “And now there’s me. Filling the place with loathing.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Yes.” She gasped and sobbed. Tears, so long in check, sprang from the well of her blue eyes.

  I was completely caught off guard. She always seemed so in control. And she wasn’t pretending, that was sure. She, too, had been hurt by all this. Wounded, deeply, from the wrenching look on her face. Quickly, though, she blew her nose and pulled herself together, glancing around to see who’d taken it in.

  “The worst of it is she keeps writing to him, torturing him, really. Going on and on in her neat little handwriting on the very writing paper Oliver gave her for Christmas, pale pink with dahlias along the edges. Telling him how happy he should be she’s gone and how he should get on with his life. Giving him advice!”

  “So at least we know she’s not dead, anyway,” I said.

  She gave me a frozen look that seemed to say it would be better if she were, then she went on, “She’s in Virginia Beach. Writes about what a big art center it is now. How he would love it!” She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry, but Virginia Beach is no such thing as an art center. Not by a stretch! And not a word about Wendell. That’s the worst of it!” She bit her lip and shook her head. “You’d think … If he wasn’t the right child for her she could have given him back, you know? Worked with us. Found him another family. There are people who find themselves in such circumstances. It happens.” She clenched her napkin and wrung it. “I told Oliver. I said, ‘Go down and get her. Bring her back, if you can’t live without her!’” She crunched over and shook her head. “Then he showed me her letter. How anyone so sweet can be so vindictive is beyond me.” She bit her lip. “Even torturing him about his inadequate lovemaking! It’s beyond cruel.” She gave me a sharp look. “Yes, I know Oliver is fussy about clothes. But we were brought up to be elegant. Annabel used to make fun of him for it, but to use it to be deliberately vicious … and untrue! Oliver is very male, trust me.”

  Uncomfortable,
I changed the subject. “What were Wendell’s birth parents like?” I probed.

  Paige puffed as if to blow out a candle, indicating her difficulty. But she was too far into her story now to stop. “I shouldn’t say …” she started and then went on, regardless, “His mother was just a girl. They were from the Midwest. Went too far with her boyfriend, the old story. Didn’t know she was pregnant until too late. It was summer. Her mother came with her and left her here. Wendell was born early September. The mother came back and picked up the girl. She never even looked at Wendell. Never went in to take a peek!”

  Carmela! I thought. Just like Carmela. I said, “One day she’ll come looking for her son.”

  “Who, Wendell’s mother? No she won’t. They left together like they’d been on vacation and the girl went back to school. No one knew. The mother put her here because she couldn’t tell her husband. He’d kill her, she told us. I don’t really think that was true, but a baby certainly didn’t fit in with their social agenda. She pretended the girl was at camp.” She snorted. “French camp! She even paid Radiance to go over there every day and speak French with her. We didn’t place Wendell because we always thought one day … maybe … She never did, though. Not one inquiry! Usually the boy babies are snatched up right after they’re born. However, there’s little call for a baby with a vision problem. I know he looks frightening with that big head and short little legs and that eye—”

  “No!” I protested. “He’s just a little boy! He’s adorable!”

  “Yes, well, you’re kind. In Wendell’s case it’s nothing more than a lazy eye—correctable in time with glasses—but his is particularly grievous.”

  “That’s a sad story.” I sighed. “But Annabel wanted to be good.”

  Paige reared her head. “Oh, no. I’ll tell you what she wanted; she wanted to fit in with the moneyed North Shore set. She was a nobody from the South Shore. She worked at the gift shop in Locust Valley. She knew what she was looking for, all right. That’s how Oliver met her, buying a birthday gift for me if you can believe it; he complimented her bow tying. Told her she’d tied a perfect clove hitch. He teased her, saying he could have her hoisting his mainsail in no time at all. She hoisted his mainsail, all right. The minute she met him she switched gears and became a volunteer. Made herself a peer. Oh, she knew just what she was doing.” Paige rubbed her chin along her arm. “I have to admit they seemed to be happy as long as he was role-playing. You could tell they liked each other. As soon as he went back to his regular ways, though, gambling, sailing all the time, things started to go wrong. They began to argue. And she hated the water. But she wanted to come to lunch here, at the yacht club. That she wanted. She came. She sat right there where you’re sitting now. Thought it was ever so chichi. But the truth is these women don’t care about things like that. Fancy things. They just love to sail. It’s in their blood. They live for it. And she doesn’t want any part of it, Annabel. It made her a nervous wreck, the sailing. She couldn’t do it. When she realized she’d never really fit in, she put on a new dress. One that would fit her better. A runaway.” Paige spat the word. “She’ll find out she’s no good at that, either. It’s bad enough about Oliver. But Wendell wasn’t a dog you adopt from the pound and then abandon. It’s criminal. She’s a criminal. And so is Patsy Mooney if you must know, always speaking well of her, defending her, never letting it go, making Oliver suffer, on and on …” She actually shook her fist in the air.

  I shrank back. “But why didn’t she just get a divorce? Surely she would have been better off.”

  “Oh, that was the other thing. He made her sign a prenup. To protect me, he told her. She would have had to stay around a good while to have gotten anything. That’s why she left. That’s why she just took off.”

  A rugged-looking woman approached the table. “Hello, Paige. Who’s this?”

  “Hello, Taffy. Taffy Henderson, this is Claire Breslinsky. She’ll be photographing the race for Town and Country.”

  “Ah!” She gave my hand a hefty shake. “Don’t forget to get a good shot of the Dauntless. We’ll be the winning skiff.”

  “Oh, no you won’t,” Paige promised. “The Corinthian will win. She always does.”

  “We’ll see about that. Your luck’s changed, I hear.” Taffy closed one eye and aimed her tanned face at Paige. “Well!” She turned and hit her hips. “Nice meeting you, there, Kate.”

  “It’s Claire.”

  “Yes. Claire. Enjoy your lunch.” She scuttled off.

  I said, “What was that all about? Town and Country?”

  “I just told her that,” Paige said, shrugging. “I lied. Serves her right. She was very rude coming over and asking who you were.”

  I laughed. “It didn’t bother me a bit.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t have. You’re my guest. But these women sort of despise me because my outfits are coordinated. You know what I’m saying.”

  I did.

  She squinched up her face. “And they think I overanalyze the wind. They don’t think I’m a natural sailor. That sort of thing is very important to them.”

  A terrific-looking, elderly blond woman with blue-white teeth approached our table. She held up her clipboard and pen. “All right. Think about how much I can shake you down for. I’ll be over after dessert to sign you both up.” She moved athletically off.

  “What was that?”

  Paige said, “There’s a garden contest every September. She’s selling the seeds now.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about things like that,” I said.

  “But it’s for charity. You’ll want to play! The winner gets half.”

  “Oh. So what do they usually collect?’

  “Twenty thousand, give or take.”

  “Ten thousand dollars to the winner?”

  “Ten, yes. Or fifteen more often. Half to the winner and the other half to her specific charity.”

  “I’ll take a package.” I scrounged around my purse. “Sign me up,” I said. Just then my cell phone burst out a series of thunderous rings and I shuffled around in there to retrieve it. When I opened it, I realized every single person in the club was staring at me. “Ach,” I said to loudly to everyone, “it’s the pope. He always calls when I’m eating.”

  Paige lowered her eyelids at me. “Put it away, darling. There are no cell phones at the club. Ever.”

  I closed it without even answering. We finished a bowlful of fragrant berries and Paige, on her third drink, signed up for the contest, then left. Considering the way she’d been belting them down, I figured she was toasted so I told her I’d drive.

  “Don’t be silly.”

  But I slipped the keys from her easily and once buckled up, she nodded off into a cacophony of snores. These were music to my ears, for I could only mean-spiritedly think how unfeminine they would sound to Morgan.

  I dropped her and her car off and hiked up my hill.

  Teddy, bless him, had been a man of his word. He’d delivered a good twenty big cardboard boxes to the side of the road and had weighted them down with huge Montauk stones from the garden. The boxes were soft from the fog but not wet so I lugged them in. He’d left a thoughtful note on one of them. “Claire,” it read, “Will stop by later to help you chop up that old vine. Teddy.”

  I’d be sorry to see it go, but I was glad for the help disposing it. The first thing I did was seek out those shallow aluminum serving trays from the shed and fill them with dirt. I lined them up along the south window and made little furrows and sprinkled in the seeds. I cut out the names on the envelopes and taped them onto toothpicks. In the back of the pantry I found a tin of anchovies and cut the fishies up into tiny pieces and poked them into the dirt. In three weeks there would be sprouts and not long after that flowers. What, Paige was the only one who could have a money garden?

  Jenny Rose

  That night, Jenny Rose sat by h
erself in the dark at the kitchen table. Patsy Mooney came in balancing a blue-and-white Limoges dish of half-eaten sausages and she snapped on the light. She came to a sudden halt seeing the girl, and the sausages rolled dangerously to the edge of the plate. “Jesus! Holy mackerel, you gave me a start!”

  Jenny Rose stirred her soup. “I can’t sleep. I hope you don’t mind. I’ve opened a tin.”

  “Why would I mind? Saves me the trouble.” Patsy went to the stove and heated what was left in the pot to a boil. She sniffed the air and made a face. “Oxtail soup? Uch. Better you than me.” She waited another moment then spooned the rest into Jenny Rose’s bowl. She went to the bread box and tore off some Italian bread, got the good olive oil from the shelf, and set it down. She whittled away at the rest of her sausage and, with a great show of kindness, divided the pieces and nudged the other half onto Jenny Rose’s saucer.

  “Well, thanks.”

  “Now what would you like special for saving Radiance? Come on, anything you like!” She eyed the vodka bottle over the fridge. “We’ll have a real celebration!”

  Jenny Rose mulled over this thought, then suddenly her head shot up and she said, “What I’d really like is to switch rooms with you, Patsy Mooney.”

  Patsy Mooney moved back in her chair, scraping the floor and upsetting a basket of onions, most of them rolling off into corners. She bent over to pick them up with a groan and Jenny Rose sprang from her seat to help.

  “That don’t make no sense. Why would you want to leave that gorgeous apartment you got? And for my drafty place?” She leaned her fat elbow on the chair cushion and dabbed away at little dustballs from under the stepping stool with her hem. “There’s plenty of rooms here. Paige’s always saying how ‘charming’ they all are.” She sat back on her haunches, her pinafore straining. “You notice she don’t help her nephew Teddy out by offering him a room, though. That she don’t do. And here they have this big house.” Thoughtfully, she rubbed at a smudge on the floor. “She’s always bragging about how smart her nephew Teddy is and how ambitious. Talking him up. Like she’s …”—she furrowed her brow in thought—“overcompensating. It’s like she wants to pawn him off on someone else, like. And here they’ve got it all. You’ll notice she’s not so fond of sharing. Sends off a check in the envelope each week. Keeps the poor at arm’s length, that’s what. That’s the rich for you, Jenny Rose. Don’t you ever forget it.” She sucked a tooth.