April & Oliver (19 page)

“Bede was just a little boy,” Nana says, her eyes filling. “I should have protected him.” She touches the cross again, bringing
it to her lips.

April caresses her back, nodding for Oliver to leave. “It’s okay, Nana. Nicky’s gone. He left years ago.”

“Where’s my Bede?” she says. “Why doesn’t he come to see me anymore?”

April bites her lip, opening the door and helping Nana inside. Oliver puts his fists in his pockets. “I’ll call you,” April
says. He nods, though she sees that he does not believe her.

T
HE TABLES ARE SET
with gold-trimmed Lenox china and long-stemmed crystal. Oliver handles the utensils carefully, conscious of Bernadette’s
mother beside him and her father across from him. He measures his sips of the dry, oak Merlot, drinking just enough to be
sociable. He needs to keep his mind sharp.

The place is crackling with conversation, the doors of the great room open to the radiant June day. Seven pm, and still the
sun shines brilliantly on the rows of lavender and baby’s breath just outside. The heady fragrance drifts in to Oliver, along
with the sound of children’s laughter. Bernadette has invited the kids she works with and their families. Most of the children
are outside adoring the family dog. One girl, short and round with hooded eyes, trots over to Bernadette. Her heavy, flat-footed
gait causes people to look up from their meals. Bernadette extends her arms even before the girl is near, and she comes faster,
landing upon Bernadette with a cumbersome hug. They giggle.

“Miss Bernadette, watch my split,” she says, demonstrating her uncanny flexibility. Bernadette cheers as if it were the first
time the girl has ever shown her. Oliver squeezes Bernadette’s hand under the table and leans over to give her an admiring
kiss. The little girl frowns.

Bernadette is wearing a cream-colored, sleeveless dress, stained now by the chocolate hands of children. She is unconcerned.
Her golden tan shoulders shake with laughter at something the little girl says. Oliver feels hot and constrained in his suit;
the day is made for shorts. He looks at the gift table piled with presents and fidgets in his chair. Neither he nor Bernadette
believes in engagement parties, but her parents were insistent.

Oliver’s father catches his eye, smiling at the pigtailed girl, now doing cartwheels for Bernadette. Oliver smiles, glad for
his father’s presence at the table. The other seats are occupied by Bernadette’s family, except April’s and Al’s, which are
vacant. He has a game, and said he would drop by late, if at all. No one knows about April.

The dessert plates are served at last, and Oliver feels relieved that it will soon be over. The pigtailed girl trots back,
her dress covered with grass stains. “Miss Bernadette, can I have more cake?”

“Here,” Bernadette says, pulling up a chair. “Have mine.”

The girl sits down gleefully, her short fingers around her fork, and digs in. Between bites, she hums a monotone version of
“My Fair Lady.” A mustache of blue icing appears on her lip. Bernadette’s mother smiles affectionately from across the table,
but her brother, rocking his chair back on two legs, winces at the girl. Brad is in his early thirties, Oliver guesses, with
a blunt-cut ponytail. He’s a computer geek, too successful for his own good, according to Bernadette. His hair is as blond
as Bernadette’s and even sleeker. He wears an Armani suit jacket, narrow leather tie, and Levi’s with holes in the knees.
He glances at his watch listlessly and signals the server for coffee, making no effort to hide his boredom.

At first, Oliver was disappointed that April didn’t show, but now he is glad. He can’t picture her here. Just as he thinks
this, his father waves at the doorway. Oliver turns to see Al and April standing together in the long, slanting light. Sunshine
pours through the open French doors horizontally, and their shadows stretch to the opposite wall. Oliver waves to them, but
they don’t see. Brad lifts his coffee cup almost to his lips and stops to put the cup down.

April and Al catch sight of Hal and cross the room. They stop at the gift table, where April places a box covered with satiny
lilac wrapping and a large bow. Al tosses an envelope.

“There’s my other son now,” Hal says, smiling at Bernadette’s parents. “A sportswriter,” he adds. “Always leaving early or
arriving late.”

“And his wife?” Brad says.

“No, no. My goddaughter, April.”

Brad wipes his mouth with his napkin and buttons his suit coat. Oliver feels his throat constrict. April wears a charcoal
dress, calf-length, with long, narrow sleeves and a high, classic neckline; pearls that she must have borrowed from Nana,
with matching earrings; black heels, dark stockings, hair pulled back in a bun.

Oliver has never seen her like this. He thinks he ought to like it, but doesn’t. She looks beautiful, but wrong. He prefers
her in blue jeans with her hair disheveled, laughing inappropriately. She holds herself with quiet reserve, formal and remote.
She chose everything perfectly in an effort to blend in, but Oliver can’t keep from staring. He takes a drink of water, wishing
he could loosen his tie.

Bernadette’s father stands as they come over. “Allen?” he says, extending a hand. “Such interesting names in your family.
Allen Ignatius, Oliver Jonah. Who knows what we can expect for our grandchildren? Dmitry, perhaps? Antonia?” He laughs heartily.

“Call me Al,” he says coolly. “This is Rose.”

“April,” Hal corrects. “Come, have a seat.”

“We can’t stay,” Al says. “I have a deadline tonight.”

“What about April?” Bernadette’s father says admiringly.

“We came in one car,” she explains. She still has not looked at Oliver. Not even a glance.

“We’ll find you a ride home,” Brad says.

Oliver looks at him. Brad is leaning forward in his seat, hand over his mouth, studying her openly. April’s face flushes.
“I’ve got some things to get back to,” she says. “We just came to say a quick hello.” She looks at Al for support.

“Stay,” Al says. “It’ll do you good.” He squeezes her hand.

After a few moments, she walks Al outside and they stand for a moment beside the open door of his Jeep. Through the window,
Oliver sees her dress move in the breeze. Both in dark formal clothes, standing together in the slanting light, she and Al
look like figures in a painting, their closeness suggesting an aura of intimacy. Oliver’s stomach feels queasy.

The little girl beside Bernadette lifts her plate to lick it.

“Eh, eh,” says Bernadette gently. “I know the icing is good, but use your fork.”

“Is there more?”

“Not now,” Bernadette says, stroking her hair. “You go run and play.”

“Who’s the lady?” says the girl, pointing.

“That’s April. She and Oliver were friends when they were your age.”

“Who’s Oliver?”

“You remember him,” says Bernadette, patting Oliver’s hand. “He’s the lucky guy who gets to marry me.” She winks.

“But he doesn’t have blond hair.”

“You don’t have to marry someone with your hair color, silly,” says Bernadette.

The girl looks at Oliver and frowns. “He should have blond hair,” she declares and trots heavily out the door.

“Hm,” says Oliver gravely. “I’ll dye it, if that’s what it takes.”

“You’d look hideous.” Bernadette grins.

Oliver hears the noisy idle of Al’s Jeep as he pulls away. No sooner is he gone than Brad is out of his seat, meeting April
at the door. He motions toward the kitchen. April touches her pearls, shaking her head. Not hungry. Brad touches her back
lightly and directs her in a gesture she cannot politely refuse.

Hal catches Oliver’s eye and raises a brow. April and Brad disappear into the kitchen.

Bernadette frowns, taking a sip. “He didn’t waste any time, did he.”

Oliver clears his throat. He wants to ask something.

“He doesn’t like my kids being here,” Bernadette says. “You’d think growing up with a sister like ours, he’d be a little more
tolerant. He can be a real dick sometimes.”

“Hm.” Oliver says no more, and waits for April and Brad to come out of the kitchen. They don’t.

After the guests have gone home, Oliver and Bernadette sit on the deck and open gifts in the cool night air. Hours before,
Brad took April home in his black Porsche with the top down. She looked wan and subdued, a bit apprehensive, but at the same
time serene and polite. She kissed Bernadette and Oliver good night, thanking them for the party. “Safe home,” Oliver said,
squeezing her elbow. She smelled dusky and sweet, like burning fields, and he wished he could be alone with her, for just
a moment, to be sure she was all right. He imagines Brad speeding along the winding north shore roads, narrow and canopied
with trees, April’s hair coming undone in the wind. Better Brad than T.J., Oliver tells himself. He tries to shift his thoughts.

“Your parents enjoyed the day.”

“They love a party,” she says, checking over her thank-you list.

“Your dad’s quite gregarious.”

“He can be.”

Oliver watches her, waiting for something more. When she doesn’t say anything, he picks up the last gift, wrapped in lilac
paper. “What do you think about April and Brad?” he asks hesitantly.

“He’s just looking for a good time,” she says, running her finger down the list. “Who knows?”

Oliver tenses, holding the package.

“I told him he’d better watch out, though,” she says, erasing something. “That she has a hell of a boyfriend. That Ken guy,
I mean.”

“I don’t think that’s a steady thing.”

Bernadette shrugs. “Are you going to open it?”

“You don’t think it’s a possibility, April and Brad?”

“He won’t do her any harm, if that’s what you’re worried about. But if he can charm the dress off her, he will.”

“Right.”

“Don’t worry. If there’s anything April isn’t, it’s naive. She’s got his number.” She caresses his arm. “She did look pretty
tonight, didn’t she.”

Oliver hands her the package. “Let’s open this so we can get out of here.”

Bernadette puts her pen in her mouth, tears open the lilac wrapping, and shoves it in the trash. She puts the box on the floor
between her ankles and pulls out a delicately carved, antique hourglass. The pen drops from her mouth. “Wow,” she says. “My
dad will be impressed.” Her father collects antiques, especially clocks, sundials, odometers, anything that registers time
and distance. “Who’s this from?” she says, glancing at the list.

“April.”

“God, how could she afford this?” She turns it over carefully and lets the sand flow. The wood is intricately carved, the
glass tinged with age, and the sand white as the vast, unruined beaches they played on as children.

“Oliver?”

“Hm?”

Bernadette puts the hourglass back into its box to empty out in darkness and then sits on Oliver’s lap. “Sometimes you get
this look in your eye.” She runs her fingertip over his eyebrow. “Where were you just then?”

Oliver feels her weight on his thigh. The dress is taut over her backside. “Are your parents asleep?” he asks.

She nods.

“I’d like to do it in your father’s Studebaker.”

She laughs, covering her mouth. “He’d kill us.”

“Where is it?”

“In the storage garage, the old stable.”

He grasps her hand and leads her down the deck steps. When they are some distance from the house, they begin to run, hand
in hand, Bernadette holding her shoes. The grass is dense and moist, black in the darkness.

They enter the converted barn, breathless, and close the door behind them. It is dark. Startled birds flutter in the rafters.
Though it has not been used as a stable for decades, Oliver swears he can smell hay and leather, the heat of animals. He pulls
the cover off the car and moves his palm along the gleaming, curvaceous chassis, a 1950 Champion with a split windshield and
bulbous headlights.

“Don’t knock anything over,” Bernadette says, breathing hard. “He knows exactly where everything is.”

Oliver opens the car and helps her in. He feels removed from himself, as in a dream. “We have to be careful,” she says. He
guides her onto his lap, straddling him, and moves his hands over her elegant neck and shoulders, the delicate collarbone.
He unzips the dress. Her eyes are dark and dilated, her mouth open. He kisses her hungrily, without tenderness. He feels detached
from himself, gripped by a sudden, bleak desolation.

He closes his eyes, and without wanting to sees the gray dress, her fingertips grazing the luminous pearls, the hourglass
running out in darkness. Bernadette cries out, tears moving down her cheeks. He holds her against him, caressing her hair.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Did I hurt you?”

She laughs, clutching his shirt. Normally he handles her carefully, like something that could break. “Bernadette, are you
all right?”

She glides her hand down his chest, inside his shirt, and leans her head on his shoulder. “Finally,” she says, “I know you
mean it.”