Aubrey’s iPhone does that quasi-silent ring; she holds it up. “I think it’s Dr. Noel’s office.” She pulls the iPhone toward her face, squints, holds it out toward me. “The area code—Lauderdale?”
“You’re right. It’s her office.” I’m taking shallow breaths, too shallow.
“This is Aubrey.” She puts it on speaker.
“Ms. Cutler?” A woman’s voice, without emotion, flat.
“This is she.”
“This is Dr. Noel’s office. Dr. Noel wanted you to know that the test is positive and you’re pregnant.”
The entire interior becomes flecked—a precursor to fainting. I watch my sister; she is exactly the same.
“Ms. Cutler? Did you hear me?”
“I did, I did hear you,” Aubrey says. We look at each other.
“Please call Dr. Noel in the morning to discuss particulars, how to proceed. Cautionary steps. Next we will call your sister, Elodie Cutler.”
“No, no need to call my sister. I will tell her. I’m with her right now. I will!”
She clicks off before the faceless voice with our news insists she must call me.
“It is strange, unexpectedly fast. Elodie. Oh my God, I’m pregnant!” She sits down on the couch and I sit beside her.
“I know, it’s what we’ve been waiting for. This is it.” I look at my sister, my little sister, pulling through for me. I quake, then quickly slink out of it.
Simon’s grandfather clock ticks sonorously. We listen as we did when my sister was in grade school and loved the sound.
After a full minute, Aubrey starts laughing. “Our first try! This is insane!”
“Aubrey! Aubrey!” I am relieved, ecstatic. Not only that this part of the process is over so quickly, but that it is Aubrey handing her body over to grow a baby. Plus, we’re skipping over a few appointments with Dr. Noel—no more need for statistics, calendar days, ovulation pointers. I am now a bystander, while Aubrey alone has entered the ring.
We come close, hold hands. “Oh my God!” Aubrey shouts.
“I should tell James. Mom and Dad? Mimi? I mean, the first insemination. It’s hard to believe.” I might cry.
Aubrey, pregnant with our baby.
“Yeah, sure. I mean, whatever you want, Elodie.” Aubrey strokes her stomach, like celebrities in the magazines once they announce their pregnancy. Something treasured, altered.
We are bewildered, stupefied.
“I know, I know what you must be thinking,” I say.
“You do? I’m not sure what I’m thinking,” Aubrey says.
“About how much I need you for this and how I’ve always acted like the perfectionist daughter, the striver, the one who accomplishes whatever she sets out to do,” I say.
“Am I that wayward?” Aubrey’s voice is sad. The gold light hits her face from the bay window.
“You came through, totally.”
We sit together; the rain keeps hitting the windows, the house. “Can I get you a glass of water?” I ask.
“No, no thanks. I’m fine.” She comes closer. “I know, let’s hold on to our news for right this minute.”
We hug dizzily.
“But what about when they walk through the door? Maybe with Mimi. She and Mom will leave the Society together. Mimi always seems to drop by. Dad’s bridge will wrap up by around…” I’m getting nervous.
“Okay, then we’ll tell them.” Aubrey sounds calm although we both know this is real news, big news for our family.
“So.” Aubrey moves toward the credenza. Photos of our family are lined up as if we are royalty. Baby pictures of each of us that I look at as I’ve never looked at them before. Then the showpiece—I’m eleven years old, holding my little sister. We are both dressed in white, in this very living room. “Let’s do the names thing everybody does, at least among my friends after finding out there’s going to be a baby. Let’s do names that we like.”
She’s looking to me to share this, to assure her she’s not alone, pregnant with someone else’s baby.
“Well, James and I have talked about names every time I’ve conceived. Up until the point that I would miscarry,” I say.
“Oh, okay, maybe not, let’s nix that idea,” Aubrey says. “Skip it.”
Déjà vu. The same apprehension as when I was pregnant before, yet again. The sense that you can’t get ahead of anything, can’t make assumptions. I breathe in deeply from my stomach, like every yoga teacher has stressed.
“No, I can do it,” I say. “Some names I love and flirt with. Like I love Charlotte, but it’s too popular. Lily, too Edith Wharton. The same goes for Isabella, India, Mariel, Emmaline, Hanna, Grace.”
“India is cool, definitely,” Aubrey says. “How about Grace? Wasn’t she the prettiest girl but impoverished in that Trollope novel?”
I take another deep gut breath. “The Last Chronicle of Barset. Yes, true.”
“I like the name,” Aubrey says.
I need to look at other names, ones I have never pondered. “What about boys’ names?” I say.
We start laughing. “Don’t we want a girl?” Aubrey asks.
“Yeah, but in case, you know, the fifty-fifty chance … Okay,” I say, “it could be Samuel or Baxter, Jackson. He could be called Jax.”
“Baxter makes me think of a badger.” Aubrey laughs, stops. “Oh my God, what about telling Tyler? I mean, I didn’t expect this to be so fast.”
“You’ll tell him,” I say. “I’ll tell James. I’ll call him.”
“Tyler might be traveling some in the next few weeks. To L.A., where there is this one band that he’s seeking out.”
“You could stay in Palm Beach when he’s gone. You can be with us—we have room. Later there’ll be tons of space in our new house. You could practically—”
“I doubt I would,” she says.
“Well, maybe once in a while, now, since things are changing,” I keep at it.
“I like where I am, how I am,” Aubrey says.
“I meant in season. While Veronica and Simon are around. James and I won’t go anywhere this summer if we’re having the baby. Your due date would be mid-September—right? The house will be finished. But before that, James will be here overseeing every move, the foreman, the crew.”
While Aubrey will resist the lure of the Cutler clan, I’ll want her around. I’ll be panicked; I know this deep within me. I’d rather chase a poet laureate and beg her to come to the Literary Society than be responsible for an infant, a helpless infant. As soon as I realize this, I propel the idea out of my head. I should be mature, ready.
“That’s not happening.” Aubrey speaks in that steely tone she gets when she is about to push back.
“Well, first I ought to reach James. Then call Dr. Noel’s office.”
I lift my iPhone from the corner of the mosaic-tiled coffee table and go into the den. I take a step that is neither jaunty nor flat, like I’m about to enter a mysterious space. I walk into the marble foyer and cross to the other side. I close the door before I hit speed dial for my husband. The news is good. It isn’t like the other announcements; this one has promise.
* * *
“Halllooo?” I hear Veronica trilling, above and beyond my husband’s eager voice. “Girls? Are you there?” Veronica almost shouts.
“It’s my mother,” I whisper into my iPhone.
“You might want to let her know, both your parents.”
“I’m mustering the courage. Aubrey and I should have brought them up to speed. That we’d done a round of in vitro.”
“Aubrey ought to tell your father,” James says.
“I know, probably.” I sigh. “James?”
“I’m shocked, really. Jesus.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know. Incredible.”
“Have you spoken with Dr. Noel?” he asks, sounding less choked up. “Did she mention a first ultrasound? How does Aubrey look? Now we’ll worry, is she rested? Is her diet healthy enough?”
“She’s fine. Co
mpletely.”
“We’ll celebrate tonight!” Meaning he’ll bring home a bottle of Armand de Brignac Gold Brut that someone gave him at the office. I can drink it with him, because I’m not pregnant. I feel pregnant, in this metaphorical way.
“Elodie? Agreed, tonight?” James is ready to end our conversation. Success leaves us breathless.
“Sure,” I say. “I love you.”
“I love you back.” James says it as he always does. Overused, common.
Then Veronica’s voice rises again as James clicks off. “I’m here, in the kitchen. Girls?”
* * *
I walk into the kitchen through the main foyer and see Christina shaking out our mother’s Burberry folding umbrella. I don’t see Veronica, who must be in the mudroom, taking off her rain hat and sensible mid-heel beige suede pumps. Aubrey is in the pantry, drinking a glass of buttermilk.
“Aubrey, that could be old, that buttermilk,” I say. “You know how they keep milk that is rancid.”
None of us has ever figured out why this is true, although it’s been going on since we were kids. Christina lets it happen because my mother is insistent that expired milk and yogurt and cream cheese, too, are fine if a week or two beyond their expiration date.
“Oh, don’t worry, I doubt that spoiled dairy could hurt our baby so early on. Our baby!” Aubrey is digging around the pantry closet and emerges with a box of Mallomars.
“Look at what I found!” She spies our mother beside Christina at the granite island. “Jesus, I thought it was Elodie, I didn’t know you were in the room.”
“We just walked in. Dad’s in the library.” Veronica’s eyes light up. “Couldn’t you hear me calling you? And to learn your news! My goodness!”
Christina, who has four sons in their twenties, starts bobbing her head. “I don’t understand.” She tugs on her white shirt, then starts tucking it into her white trousers—my mother’s idea of a uniform. She looks at us curiously. “Who is pregnant?”
“Christina, it is amazing news! Not for public consumption yet, but Aubrey is having Elodie’s baby—a joint effort. I’ll explain the entire plan, but I want to find Mr. Cutler first, to tell him.”
“A joint effort?” Christina frowns, runs her hands over her forehead.
Aubrey and I look at each other and instinctively move toward Christina. Aubrey hugs her. “It’s fine. Elodie and I decided I could help out and it worked!”
“Christina, have you seen my husband?” Veronica asks.
“I’ll find him.” She smiles at my sister and me as she backs out, practically into the laundry room. Who can blame her—the tension is mounting. We are left with Veronica.
“I’m telling Tyler tonight,” Aubrey says. “Elodie has called James already.”
“Tyler? Not until we tell Dad does anyone leave this house. Dad has to hear now.”
Our mother rushes past the pantry, past the blown-up photos of each of us as early equestrians—maybe I’m fourteen and Aubrey is six—at Wellington. She doesn’t, as usual, stop to admire us or our horse, Daisy Dragon. Named by Aubrey and allowed to stick. Instead, Veronica glances for one second at the wall where a shot of her with Simon at the Arts and Media Ball is framed. Then she edges toward the front entrance to the house.
* * *
We hear her voice as it lifts and then descends.
“Simon?” I imagine her tilting her head at that unhealthy angle. She does it whenever she is preoccupied or afraid.
“Let’s go,” Aubrey says.
We follow our mother. Simon stands by the library, appearing tired. He has his iPhone in one hand and his iPad in the other.
“What is the noise about?” he asks. “The market is down. The Dow is at—”
“We’re about to announce our big news!” I say.
“Can you wait until after I make a call?” Simon asks. He holds up his iPhone as if it has special powers. He’s stalling, isn’t he?
“It cannot wait, Simon, please.” Veronica is speaking to him as if he needs to read between the lines, as if we are too covert.
“Big news!” Aubrey says. “Momentous.”
Despite that there are enough rooms to sit in for our conversation, we stay in the foyer.
“I’m pregnant, Dad!” Aubrey announces.
I like how happy she sounds, how direct she is. The announcement rattles around the unfurnished space. I watch our father’s face and the face our mother takes on for our father’s sake.
“Why, it’s sensational, isn’t it, Simon?”
Her staunch smile, her social smile, preserved for events outside the home. Why would she need it here? Simon doesn’t react.
“Simon? The baby, the girls. Aubrey is pregnant. It worked!” Veronica says.
Without looking at us, he steps back.
“Dad?” I say.
“I had no idea things had advanced to this degree. That the insemination had taken place.”
“Your father has his deals, his buildings on his mind,” Veronica says. “I didn’t give him a running commentary.”
“What has happened has happened quickly,” Simon says.
“Yes, it’s miraculous—so easily,” Aubrey says.
Simon looks ill, that food poisoning or seasickness kind of ill.
“Of course this baby will love chocolate, play every sport, be a genius, and have great hair, Dad,” Aubrey says. “A Cutler through and through.”
Our mother claps her hands. “I am delighted! We are delighted! Aren’t we, Simon?”
Aubrey links arms with our mother and me. Veronica leads us to where Simon stands and tries to lure him into our finite circle. He hesitates and then his cell rings, an acceptable distraction. He gets to duck out.
CHAPTER 16
ELODIE
“You know,” Veronica says three days later as we trace our steps from the master suite to the nursery in the new house, “the timing couldn’t be more perfect—and it is simply gorgeous.”
She contemplates each room, mesmerized by the progress. I value how emphatic my mother is. She and James are the ones who share the house project. I am the thread, included in texts, emails, and supposed verdicts regarding the paint colors and flooring, hardware, including vintage Sheryl Wagner doorknobs. The antique claw-foot bathtub found on 1stdibs.
“James is a genius,” she says. “For the estate section—with historic homes, Sims Wyeth, Mizner, John Volk—yours is slightly courageous. Quietly lavish.”
I frown. I recognize how diligent James has been about the balance between young, innovative, and traditional.
“I know. Look at the double-height beamed ceilings and where there’s going to be a fountain,” I say.
I’m doing my best while again there’s that gnawing feeling about the entire project. I’m trying to call to mind why I was game, why I said, Sure, let’s build a very big house. Build? Wouldn’t it be arduous enough to purchase one and do work on it? Then I do remember. I was miscarrying. James wanted a fancy house. I owed him, didn’t I? Because I kept losing our babies, it was my fault, I had failed us.
“Wood floors everywhere?” she asks. “Wide planks throughout the house, including the kitchen?”
“Yes, we are, throughout.”
My mother isn’t a fan. I’m sure she believes it’s not Palm Beach enough, there should be limestone as well, at least. For her sphere, the old guard, that is the case. The ones who prefer marble floors, cream-and-white living rooms.
“James is fine with it. Homes have bare wood floors nowadays.” I am polite.
That Aubrey is pregnant muddles my brain. Why aren’t we talking about the baby? I suppose because the news is new, there is a wide veil of confusion.
Then Veronica says, “Well, we must insist that Aubrey comes next time. Especially for the layout of the nursery. A layette from Baby Mirth on the Avenue and a Caravan crib by Kalon will be lovely.” Her head is turned toward the Intracoastal when she speaks.
“Did you say Caravan crib?”
“You’ll be pleased, Elodie,” she says. “The baby’s room is going to be tranquil, delicate.”
I try to imagine Griselda’s life, single, living in Palm Beach Gardens and proud of it. Her home, known for the right taste and wrong location by Palm Beachers, has been photographed for its aesthetic in the Daily Sheet. She’s sought after and certain, and when she shows me a swatch for my home office, for the master bedroom, the dining room, it isn’t about what I like. It’s how she expects the house to be. Although James and I have hired Griselda, it is my mother who appreciates her the most.
“She’s innovative,” Mom likes to say. Mimi seems incredibly gushy over her, too, although she has described her as too pretty to hire, too young-looking. Griselda always carries around fabric swatches, color themes, and samples of hardware. Today she’s superpeppy because my mother is with me. When we are alone together, Griselda and I, it’s rougher going.
“Mrs. Cutler, Elodie! I raced through a few things to find you, and voilà!” She pushes her aviator sunglasses over her crisp blondish brown chin-length hair as if they’re a headband. She is wearing bronzer on her face and her arms and legs and has missed a patch of skin on her neck.
“Today I thought we’d concentrate on the kitchen.” Griselda takes her melon-colored leather-bound notebook out and frowns at something.
“Lovely. The nursery, too, if not today, next.” Veronica smiles almost slyly. “Soon.”
“Really? I didn’t know that was the sequence. I didn’t prepare any swatches for today,” Griselda says.
“The kitchen, then. A very large kitchen,” Veronica says.
A wind kicks up from the east, as it has almost every afternoon for the past few months. Because Palm Beach is a tropical climate, it begins to rain in little pellets. Veronica is tugging her portable straw hat farther down to cover her hair. She opens a hunter-green umbrella that has Palm Beach Literary Society in white letters across the bottom. She attempts to cover us both while rain splats against it.
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