Twillyweed (20 page)

Jenny Rose and I said nothing.

Mrs. Dellaverna smacked her ear with the heel of her hand. “
Santa Maria!
I gotta go. I still got my sauce on the stove!” She went out, slamming the screen.

“Look, Wendell,” Jenny Rose said. “The fog's lifted! Want to go, now?”

He jumped up in a shower of buttons. “Please can we go to the boatyard?” he pleaded.

“I don't see why not.” She bent to pick up the buttons and suddenly cried, “Wendell, a kitten!”

“She's my stowaway.” I laughed, savoring Wendell's rapt expression, padding over to open the screen and gathering her up. I lowered her into Wendell's outstretched arms. “I guess she's decided to stay.”

His eyes gleamed and he cuddled her gently, lovingly, to his face.

“She hasn't got a name,” I said. “Maybe you can think of one?”

His mouth dropped with the shock of this great idea and his glasses steamed with intensity. “I can,” he swore. Then he looked worried. “Now? Do I have to say it right now?”

“No,” I said as I filled the sink with soapsuds, “she's been nameless so long a little while longer won't matter. But let's keep her here in the cottage, shall we? You can see her anytime you want.”

“All right,” he agreed solemnly, planting a dry kiss on the little head.

“Auntie Claire …” Jenny Rose put her cup in the sink. “You'll be all right?”

“
Tch
.” I clicked my tongue reassuringly. “I'll be fine. I'm a nervous Nelly, that's all. Just don't mention my flipping out to Morgan. He'll think I'm crazy.”

“I won't.” She kissed me on the cheek. I walked them outside and they took off down the hill. There was no car to be heard, no airplane overhead, just the bright caw of the gulls and the flap of the flag.
I should be grateful for what I've got
, I reprimanded myself,
not thinking about another woman's fiancé!
Back inside, I found Noola's phone book and telephoned Paige.

“Ah!” She sounded happy to hear from me. “I was just thinking of you.”

“Really? I wanted to thank you for the lovely dinner. And I thought I might reciprocate and ask you to lunch,” I said.

“No, absolutely not. I'll take you to my club. It's Wednesday, Ladies' Day. You'll love it.”

“Great.”

“Shall I pick you up in an hour?”

“Fine.”

“Oh. And no jeans.”

The wind flew in. I regarded my one and only suit fluttering respectably on its hanger. “Not a problem.”

The club turned out to be one of those prestigious white and navy affairs with touches of polished brass. It was situated in a pretty cove with a half-moon beach at its lip and tennis courts discreetly off to the side in a huddle of bushes. Striped canvas awnings pooled the wraparound porch in shade. In the main dining room, old-fashioned propeller fans whirred and dangled from the ceiling. I was the only human being not wearing white. We helped ourselves to fancy salads and fresh sandwiches at a table indoors and took seats at a round table set away from the clique of other women.

“They won't like that we sat over here,” Paige remarked. “The women always sit together at one table. But I thought we might talk.”

“Sounds good.” I covered my lap with the creamy linen napkin.

“By the way, I notice you've got your camera with you. Please don't photograph anyone here.”

“All right,” I agreed, hoping no one had noticed me shooting while she was in the ladies' room.

A waiter came over. “G-and-T for both,” Paige specified without consulting me, then scrutinized my face. “Are you settling in?”

“Not really. It's a mess. And last night the wind took down that huge wisteria vine. Such a tragedy! I'll have to have someone help me remove it. But I'll get there,” I hurried to say, not wanting her to pull out her do-gooder persona and invade my space.

“Just how
did
you and Morgan meet?” She jumped right in—not a girl to waste time.

“I saw his sign from the beach, actually. Then I ran into Mrs. Dellaverna.”

She looked out toward the fleet of little sailboats heading into shore. “Good old Mrs. Dellaverna,” she said. But it was the way she said it. So she was nobody's fool. Then she added, unnecessarily I thought, “I told him not to hang that sign. He insisted only locals would see it from the beach.”

“I see.”

“You know,” she said, toying with her earring, a tasteful gold knot, “Morgan has a lot on his mind.”

“Yes, I realize he's just lost his mother.”

“Well, Easter. She died just after Easter.”

“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 him
self
. 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—”