Twillyweed (16 page)

“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 they 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?”

My little speech seemed to please Morgan and he smiled at me. “I think it's supposed to be Duffy's Point,” he said. “A fantasy view, perhaps.”

“Evidently,” Paige surmised, her leaden tone putting an end to our discussion of Annabel, “Wendell painted it.”

Oliver turned away and went over to stir the fire, then, not liking to dirty his hands, changed his mind and implored, “Morgan?”

Morgan roused himself good-naturedly and pulled the fence away and put on another log. He brushed his hands against each other, glancing over at me. “So, Claire, Jenny Rose is your sister's child?”

Before I could answer, Paige murmured, “There was no father there, I believe . ..” Then, lifting her eyes to the door, she interrupted herself. “Ah, there you are, Glinty.”

Relieved by the intrusion, I turned to see another young man, lithe and fashionable, dressed all in black. I hadn't heard him come in. He was just suddenly there.

“Glinty” strode silkily across the room, took Paige's hand and kissed it.

“I was beginning to think you weren't coming.” Paige indicated the chair beside her with an inviting pat.

“Would I leave you high and dry?” he said, smirking. He, like Morgan, had a strong Scottish burr.

“We were starving or we would have waited,” Oliver reprimanded him fondly.

“But you know me. I'm never hungry,” Glinty said smoothly, “only thirsty.”

He was very young and bold and his hair inky black as a rock star's.
Probably
dyed
, I thought with sudden mean spirit, my loyalty resting with the clean-cut Teddy.

“Claire Breslinsky, this is Malcolm McGlintock. Glinty, to us. Glinty, say hello to our new neighbor. This is the lady who's taking Noola's house.”

“How do you do.” He eyed me briskly but thoroughly up and down as I held out my hand. Just a second too short, as far as I was concerned, because his distraction indicated he was unimpressed. He was, to me, immediately disagreeable, druggy thin as a fingersmith, and there was an odd, fancy smell to him, like weed and vetiver or something. And the tiny diamond in one ear looked real. I know what you're thinking. She doesn't like sexy handsome men. But Morgan irritated me in a different way. In a sexual way, if you must know. This one … this Glinty, he had something … Rolling Stones-y and aloof about him. I couldn't imagine how he fit in with this upstanding crew. And when he heard I was to have Noola's house, he emitted a black silence I could practically feel.

When Jenny Rose came galloping back in, she reared to a sudden stop.

“Jenny Rose”—Paige lifted one gracious hand to the air—“come in and meet our Glinty.”

Glinty was quick on his feet. “Well, hello!” And then, still holding Jenny Rose's eye, “We've seen each other, I think, but we haven't officially met.”

They shook hands and Jenny Rose's cheeks burned red. I knew at once she was attracted to him. Oy. The wrong one. The bad boy. Of course.

“At the marina, wasn't it?” Glinty grinned way too familiarly at Jenny Rose.

“Yes. I think so,” Jenny Rose stammered.

Teddy stood the moment he saw this, knocking over the valuable chess set and making things worse by falling all over himself to pick the things up. Glinty saw it, too.

“And this is Teddy, our nephew,” Paige said, and Jenny Rose simply waved a hello. I watched Teddy; his troubled complexion and high-set, pointy ears, his pale, disappointed blue eyes. My heart went out to him.

“Sound asleep, our Wendell,” Jenny Rose said, though no one had asked, and she came and sat next to me and smoothed the soft fold of her short purple skirt. She didn't look directly at him but there was the flutter of her lashes in Glinty's direction. Why is it that women go for the bad guy?

From the corner, Glinty watched Jenny Rose. I didn't like the way he looked at her. Now that he saw Teddy wanted her, he wanted her, too, and the game was on. He was luring her somehow, hypnotizing her, and I felt a little sick. He took out a zippered baggy of cigars from his jacket and, handling them with genuine affection, gave one to each of the men for later, explaining how his friend brought them in regularly from Cuba. I was reminded of Roger Hasenfuss on Third and McDougal, who'd assured us senior girls of the potency of his nickel bags and then lured us back to his roach-infested apartment for his roommate's masala dosa. I could still remember that endless ride home on the F train and having to throw up in the garbage pail on Union Turnpike.