“Direct anyone you don’t know to the hors d’oeuvres.” She gestured dismissively toward several tables lavished with towers of food against the far wall.
“And where will you be, Mrs. Baumgartner?” asked Barb. “In case we have any questions.”
Cerise shot her a look. Suck up. Barb smiled back.
“Everywhere.” Violet fluttered her hands about the room, indicating that her territory as hostess extended to every corner and everyone. “I go wherever I’m needed.” And with that, she was off, heading for the waiter with the appetizers, who saw her coming and turned on his heel to flee.
Over the next hour, guests trickled in by pairs. It was most fun to see old family friends, people she’d known as a child and who’d watched her grow up. She greeted Mr. and Mrs. Abelson from church, who owned a State Farm agency and who’d sold her the insurance for her first car. And she saw her parents’ neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Carlson, who’d always given her banana-flavored Popsicles on hot afternoons and who spent their summer evenings chatting in matching lawn chairs on their back stoop.
Finally, just before eight o’clock, Mr. and Mrs. Endres walked through the doors.
“Mrs. Endres!” Cerise gave her a warm hug. “Thank you for coming. It’s wonderful to see you.”
Eldris nodded and sputtered something about being thankful she had something to wear. Cerise had forgotten this quirk of hers. It was as if her head was a Boggle cube that she had to shake and wait for the letters to settle before making words.
“I just hope we’re dressed appropriately.” She fluffed the folds of her elaborate, black velvet skirt, then turned and straightened Mr. Endres’s cuffs. “Your mother has such good taste, you know.”
Cerise reached for her elbow, reassuringly. “You look wonderful.”
Eldris continued to bobble and fuss. Cerise turned her attention to Richard, who snatched his cuffs away from his wife’s worrying grasp. “Hello, Mr. Endres. Great to see you.”
He reached out to shake her hand. “C’mon, kiddo. Call me Richard. We’re all adults now.”
“Fine then... Richard.” She smiled and took his hand, noting that he’d just called her kiddo and an adult in the same breath. “I’m sure you’ve met my partner, Barb.” She put her hand on the base of Barb’s back and ushered her gently forward.
“Of course. Good to see you again, Barb.” He shook her hand. Almost too formally, with a little nod and a bow, as if making a point that their relationship didn’t bother him.
It happened all the time. Barb seemed to spot it, as well, because she nodded and bowed back as if to put him at ease.
“Kyle and Rhonda should be here anytime now.” He peered over Cerise’s head at the faces in the room. “I got a text that said they were on their way.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “I made sure Mom put them on the list. I need some of my friends here, too!” She laughed playfully, hoping to keep the moment light. She couldn’t help but notice the strain between Mr. and Mrs. Endres. Eldris was now fussing with the shoulders of Richard’s jacket and he looked about ready to bodycheck her. The Endreses had never been a particularly placid couple, Richard forever barking orders and Eldris never seeming to know how seriously to take them. Maybe the tension was all in Cerise’s imagination. Then again, she knew Richard was out of a job—Kyle had told her months ago.
“Please,” said Cerise, gesturing toward the center of the room, “go say hello to my parents. They’ll be thrilled to see you.”
The Endreses made their way through the crowd and Cerise found herself breathing a sigh of relief.
“That was chilly,” said Barb, watching them.
“Arctic cold,” agreed Cerise.
“Ironic that they’re both wearing black and white tonight.” They turned to each other and said in unison, “Penguins!”
“Come on,” said Barb, taking her hand. “Let’s go see if any of those Champagne flutes are filled with plain old sparkling cider.”
“And get some food,” added Cerise. “Shrimpy wants a few of those shrimp cakes.”
Violet Baumgartner knew food. The spread on the evening’s banquet tables was proof, though Cerise had already known it to be true. Her mother served Brie and Buffalo mozzarella and handmade, hand-fired salsa back in the ’90s before they were things. Tonight’s delights were no exception.
Cerise piled a plate with shrimp cakes, Brie-en-croute and sun-dried tomato chutney, then layered smoked trout onto wafer-thin baguettes and slathered them with chilled cucumber-dill sauce.
“Oh, my god,” moaned Barb. “Taste the Havarti. It’s as rich as ice cream.” She held up a piece and gave Cerise a bite.
It was. She loaded a few slices onto her plate, too.
While they stood, sampling and eating and reloading their plates, Cerise saw her mother excuse herself from conversation and make her way toward them from across the room.
“Incoming,” she said to Barb under her breath. “She’s spotted the boobs. I’m sure of it.”
Barb laughed. “Let’s see how this goes.”
“Enjoying the food?” Violet appeared quickly. She always did have the power to part a crowd.
“Wow, Mom. This Brie-en-croute is amazing. Everything is amazing.”
Her mother smiled graciously and smoothed the pearls at her neck, but said nothing more.
“You have wonderful skills as a hostess, Violet,” said Barb. “The food, the setting—the entire evening has been lovely.”
“Well, our dear Ed deserves every bit of it. He’s been nothing but generous to Cerise and me.” She turned and eyed Cerise. “You look different. I’d ask if you’d done something with your hair, but I know it isn’t that.”
Cerise stiffened and slowly turned so that she was fully facing her mother, eliminating her profile. “Well, it’s not often you see me dressed up like this.” She held out one of her shoes to show off her high heels. “Plus, I gained an inch or two.”
She saw Barb out of the corner of her eye, watching the exchange carefully. “Violet,” Barb said, interrupting the moment, “will you please tell me who your caterer is? I have some friends planning a wedding and their taste is nearly as fine as yours.”
Nearly as fine. How did Barb ever manage to get so good at sucking up? Maybe it came as an accessory to the prep school uniforms she wore in all her childhood pictures. Or maybe it was the result of what her mother would have called good breeding.
“Remind me next week and I’ll give you their card.” Violet snapped from her study of Cerise’s je ne sais quoi. “But for now, I have to get things started on the Champagne toasts.” And again she was off.
“Thank you for saving me,” whispered Cerise, taking Barb’s hand.
“Anything for Shrimpy,” she whispered back.
The sound of a finger tapping a microphone quieted the room and a gentle spotlight brought the guests’ attention to Violet, standing beside the head table, urging the microphone into her husband’s hands.
“Just welcome everyone and thank them for coming...” She was whispering, but the microphone was strong enough to pick up her voice, nevertheless.
A few guests tittered. Another hollered, “Speech, Ed! Let’s hear from the man of the hour!”
Guests made clinking sounds, knocking their wedding bands against their glasses, and calls of “Hear! Hear!” rose throughout the room.
Cerise felt a warm glow at the sight of it all, pride and joy and love—everything at once. Her mother was right: Ed Baumgartner was a brilliant but simple man who asked for little and gave much. She had been lucky enough to be on the receiving end of his great generosity her entire life.
She knew without looking that her chest and face flushed red with emotion.
“I—well. Huh.” Her father had taken the microphone and begun to speak. Cerise wasn’t surprised he didn’t appear to have p
repared anything in advance. “This is all...wonderful. A wonderful night. Wonderful friends. Violet and Cerise, thank you.” He paused and turned to Violet, his hand on his heart. She returned the gesture, beaming at him.
Cerise wasn’t far from where they stood but she knew he wouldn’t be able to quickly spot her in the crowd, so she raised her hand and blew him a kiss.
“Ah, there’s Cerise,” he said, pointing at her.
“Congratulations, Dad!” she called.
He smiled and waited a beat for the room to settle again before continuing. “I know I’m not a man known for many words, so when I do speak, I like to make them count. Which is why I just can’t resist telling this joke one last time.”
The crowd groaned. They knew what was coming. Cerise’s father had told the same joke for as long as she could remember, the only arrow in his comedy quiver.
“What happens when a clown passes gas?” Then he held the microphone out to the audience, an invitation to join in on the punch line. Only to have Violet snatch it from his hands. The amplifier squealed in protest and everyone in the room went for their ears.
Violet thumped the microphone back into submission with her fingers. BOOM. BOOM.
“Now, Ed. We know how you feel about that joke. But before you go on, I need to announce that we have a very special surprise guest tonight who just walked in. And I know she would love to say a few words.”
The confused audience gave a spattering of disappointed shouts, but Violet ignored them and swept her arms open to welcome Rhonda Nelson, rising Weather Channel star and fiancée to Cerise’s best friend, Kyle Endres.
Cerise waved to Kyle as he stood off to the side of the room talking with his parents. He shot her a happy, relaxed grin. She hadn’t seen him since his engagement party several weeks ago and it already felt like ages.
Cerise had known very little of life without Kyle in it, all the way back to their days in the Faithful Redeemer kinder-choir when he wouldn’t stop kissing her cheek as they sat all lined up in the front pew, wearing their angelic white robes and waiting to sing,
Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world.
Her mother had later ensured that Kyle never be allowed to sit next to Cerise again, but the spark had been lit.
They were friends throughout elementary and into middle school, weathering together that period of adolescence when even the most well-adjusted kids spent entire years hating their faces and their clothes and every single thing in their whole lives. They were friends in high school, when Cerise started to think about dating girls and Kyle actually did it. And they remained friends when, in college, Cerise told him why she’d never acquiesced to the handful of hints he’d given her about them kissing each other.
Now Kyle was engaged and Cerise was having a baby. And they were still friends. Somehow, with each other’s help, they’d managed to open the doors to adulthood and walk on through.
Cerise’s mother, however, had never warmed to Kyle, even despite his long-standing loyalty to her daughter. The highest compliment Violet ever paid was to call him “not unpleasant,” which Cerise knew was also how she would have described white sheet cake—necessary for a potluck, but never a dinner party standout. Tonight, however, Violet was keeping her mouth shut about Kyle, as his engagement to Rhonda Nelson had provided her a direct path to the evening’s celebrity emcee.
Rhonda took the microphone like she was born to it. “What a marvelous affair! Am I right?”
Her charm was contagious, and Cerise and Barb exchanged impressed glances as the room again came to life with cheers and applause.
“So first things first. What does happen when a clown passes gas?”
Now it was Rhonda holding the microphone out to the crowd, and they merrily followed her lead.
“IT SMELLS FUNNY!” they all called. And again the room erupted.
Cerise saw her father double over, laughing at his own signature joke. She then caught sight of the smile pasted to her mother’s face. Was she happy? Or was that the look of disgust? She couldn’t tell. But Cerise did know that if her parents had ever decided to divorce, that joke would have been her mother’s chief complaint.
Rhonda continued, “Now, Mr. Baumgartner. This is your night. And while I haven’t had the pleasure of knowing you well over the years, I believe we can all join in celebrating and thanking you for your extraordinary medical achievements.” She paused for further applause.
“As happens in every book, one chapter has come to a close and a new one begins.” She held up her glass of Champagne for a toast. “So, without further ado, here’s to as wonderful a tomorrow as your yesterdays.”
The room raised their glasses and toasted in kind.
Rhonda then turned her attention to Violet and continued, “Now, if I may add one tiny more thing...”
Violet opened her palms by way of saying, Go on!
“A little birdie tells me that the two of you aren’t likely to be bored during retirement.”
Violet and Ed looked artificially horror-struck at the passively sexual innuendo, and Ed waved his hands at Rhonda as if to say, Say no more! Say no more! It was the closest Cerise had ever seen her parents come to hamming it up.
More laughter. A few bawdy hoots from boisterous men.
She noticed then something on Rhonda’s hem—a torn strand of sequins, like she’d snagged them with the heel of her shoe or a hurried fingernail. Then again, maybe it was just the light bouncing off the dress and playing tricks on her eyes...
Cerise heard the room go silent and realized, crap, she’d quit listening. What just happened? Rhonda had been talking, her parents laughing and Cerise had been taking it all in. But now Cerise was still struggling to register the moment when she heard her mother cry, “Holy GOD!”
Then the crash of crystal and the electric crack! of her mother’s head hitting the floor.
6
Violet
ED AND THAT foul clown joke of his. Of all nights. To think he was still telling it, decades after he and Cerise found it in an issue of Highlights Magazine. Had Violet even an inkling of what that joke would do to her family, she would have immediately written the publisher and demanded her money back.
But then, as if on cue, there was Rhonda Nelson, fresh faced and stage ready, emanating from the crowd like an angel. Violet’s salvation.
“So first things first,” Rhonda cooed. “What does happen when a clown passes gas?”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. The woman was supposed to elevate the evening, not continue its desultory spiral. Violet steeled her spine against what she knew came next.
“IT SMELLS FUNNY!”
The room exploded in laughter. Of course it did. This was precisely why she’d opposed a cocktail hour. Alcohol and good sense never mixed. But the caterer overruled her. “These are sophisticates,” he’d said. “They’ll expect a drink.”
Why hadn’t she followed her instincts? An evening that started as a ballroom filled with Minnesota’s best and brightest had suddenly degenerated into a bloated gaggle of grown men and women surrendering themselves to the spells of a broadcasting bubblehead.
Well, Violet would not succumb. Rhonda may have a certain appeal, but Violet possessed something far more powerful. She had manners.
“Always a pleasant face, Violet,” her mother had taught.
“Never forget that family is the face we bear to the world,” her father had said.
So, Violet brought her chin up, her chest out and her tummy in, and there she stood, smiling until her face hurt, chuckling for the whole room to see as Rhonda carried on with her nonsense.
Always a pleasant face, Violet. Do it for Edward. For Cerise.
She smiled at Dr. Samuel Alcott, the state’s leading orthopedic surgeon and the man who singularly reconstructed dear Edward’s elbow
after his disastrous fall on the ice three years ago, and who now stood hooting and thumping his wife on the back with such meaty force that her martini rained from its glass, thump by awful thump.
She gazed pleasantly at Elaine Overberg, Chairperson for the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra Fund and personally responsible for clawing the foundation’s coffers from red to black with a series of fund-raisers so wildly successful she was now rumored to be forbidden from resigning. And to think Violet had just heard her snort, piglike, at a joke about a gassy clown.
Finally she spotted Cerise, rose cheeked and smiling, her pinkie finger entwined in Barb’s. Cerise was happy, clearly, and Violet felt the briefest moment of relief wash over her. But something else struck her about Cerise tonight, an angle in her face that hadn’t been visible before. Was it in the chin, the way it rose into her jawline? Or maybe the way her cheekbones filled the once-hollow curve just below her eyes. Whatever she saw, it was new, and at the same time, familiar. The face, she realized with a start, reminded Violet of her own father.
For heaven’s sake.
Here she was, a grown woman—a married woman—watching her husband cross into retirement and thinking of her father. Of all things. This was Ed’s moment—their moment. A Baumgartner celebration. It was not the time for reliving ancient sorrows.
But still. Her father had died a month after his own retirement party. How could she not think of him? How could she, even at this moment of great achievement, avoid asking the questions that draped themselves over his every memory? Would life have unfolded differently if her father had lived? Would he have defended himself where others did not?
Scandal was near enough impossible to fight during one’s lifetime, but to see him attacked so viciously after death was nothing short of cruel. Mere weeks after he’d passed, the whispers turned to words, the words to howls. Why couldn’t the university have let the questions go unanswered? What did it matter if the research wasn’t his alone? He was gone, dead and buried.
Her mother should have fought harder. Violet would never quit holding her to account for what unfolded. There was so much more she could have done to save his work and legacy. And yet, she’d let it die, gave up, failed him as quickly as his heart. “There’s no sense in getting ugly,” she’d said. “I won’t let this shadow the life I have left.”
Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners Page 5