“And you found out where Mac sleeps, why he sleeps there, whether John and Olivia have separate rooms, what kind of birth control, if any, they use, and a whole lot of other intimate details of everyone else’s life?”
“Olivia stores her wedding gown in a walk-in closet in what she calls ‘Mommy’s room.’ After Olivia said that, Judith looked embarrassed, and she said that she and Uli snore, and she has insomnia, and Uli gets restless in the morning and wakes Mac up. I didn’t pry. Besides, lots of couples have separate rooms. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“Don’t let it give you any ideas.”
“I won’t. And if all five dogs and I snored all night in your ears, it wouldn’t bother you. Speaking of which, Mac is the least animal-oriented veterinarian I’ve ever known. I’ve known a few who didn’t have animals because they didn’t have time to take care of them, but that’s always been temporary, and it’s pretty rare. Time isn’t an issue with Mac or Judith. With Mac, it’s got to be a lack of interest. I find that pathological.” |
Steve laughed. “The Holly Winter One-Item Mental Health Assessment Instrument. If you don’t have dogs, you’re crazy.”
“Exactly. Other than that, Steve, I have to admit that as I watched Mac, I was the one who felt crazy. Yes, he cheats on his wife. But Mac as a serial killer? He isn’t isolated. He isn’t depressed. He’s warm, connected, sociable... and he’s very successful. Also, he knows he’s successful. He doesn’t feel rejected or unrecognized or resentful. He’s self-confident. He doesn’t fit the profiles. But you know who does?”
“Ian. In some ways.”
“Ian. I hate the thought.”
“He’s a genius. He’s the real thing.”
“Largely unrecognized as such. Somewhat withdrawn. Odd. Shy. No relationships with women, at least that I’ve heard of. Or with men, although I don’t think he’s gay.”
“He gets along okay with his sister and his mother. He helps with Uli. No one else in the family did, that I saw.”
“Not that I saw, either. Actually, both children seem very devoted to Judith. After all, Olivia practically married her mother! John looks so much like Judith! It is really weird. But it’s a compliment to Judith, I guess.”
“Logically, that gives them a motive. Ian and Olivia." “But wouldn’t the logical target be Mac? He’s the one who cheats on Judith.”
“He’s their father.”
“That didn’t stop Oedipus. But it might stop Olivia. And speaking of Olivia, she really cannot stand Claire. At the table, when Claire told her to move and started singing ‘Daddy’s Little Girl,’ I’ll bet that Olivia felt like killing her.”
“What is it about Claire that you don’t like?” Steve sounded genuinely puzzled.
‘‘Her hostility. Her meanness to her perfectly nice husband. Her high-handedness. I could go on.”
‘‘I love you when you’re catty.”
“Veterinarians have special dispensation to be catty, and you practically never are,” I said. “I love you anyway.”
We were rescued from greater excesses by our arrival at home. As we walked to the door, Steve, who’d enjoyed Mac’s generosity with wine and spirits, wrapped his arms around me and began kissing my neck. I was midway between giggles and rapture when the back door flew open to reveal Rita, who called hoarsely out, “Thank God you’re home! Do you have any Valium?”
The floodlights gave us a clear view of her. Her eyes were swollen, and her nose was running. For a second, I stupidly wondered why she wanted Valium for the common cold. Then I heard her sob. In no time, Steve and I were holding her, leading her to the kitchen, asking her what was wrong, and offering everything from Ovaltine to tea to brandy. Just as canine instinct compels dogs to lick the wounds of their own valued pack members, so human instinct apparently drives us to force beverages on our injured loved ones.
Seated at the table, Rita blew her nose loudly and said, “Could one of you get Willie for me?”
Rita was normally the sort of genteel person who avoided blowing her nose in the presence of other people. If she had no choice, she performed the operation silently and unobtrusively. Furthermore, although she loved Willie and took great care of him, she typically sought comfort from human friends.
“I’ll get him,” Steve offered.
Rita handed him her key.
As he left, I said, “Rita, talk to me! You never take Valium or anything else. You believe in talking. I’m here!” Only then did I notice that Rita was trembling. “I’m getting you a blanket, and I’m going to make you some tea.” I put the kettle on.
With a hint of her old spirit, Rita said, “I don’t want tea. You and your English novels.”
Dashing to my bedroom, I grabbed a soft fleece blanket. When I returned to the kitchen, Rita had her head on the table. I wrapped the blanket around her and gave her a hug. Her shoulders felt thin and brittle.
“I read good English novels,” I said. “Would you rather have Ovaltine?”
She shook her head. Her hair was a mess. “I look awful,” she said.
“You look upset.”
Steve returned with Willie, who, for once, didn’t bark at me or eye my ankles. Instead, he ran to Rita. She always kept him as perfectly groomed as she kept herself. As usual, his coat was freshly clipped. His eyes glowed, and he radiated energy. For style, you just can’t beat the Scottish terrier. It is not, however, a mushy breed, and Willie was not a cuddly dog. Even now, he didn’t lean against Rita or jump in her lap. Instead, he stood boldly before her with his little tail flying back and forth. Then he uttered a single bark. At Willie’s display of bravery and good cheer, Rita again started to sob.
The kettle was boiling. I made sugary tea and put a cup of it in front of Rita. Then I took a seat next to her. Steve sat opposite us. He reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m not real talkative myself,” he said. “You want me to leave?”
“Of course not!”
“Rita,” I said, “please tell us what it is.”
“Holly, I can’t even say his name. All I want is Valium. Ativan. Xanax. Sonata. Anything! I just want to go to sleep. What I cannot endure right now is consciousness.”
“You and Artie split up,” I said.
“I have not even spoken to him, and God knows he never said anything to me that would ever have... oh, Holly, I just can’t believe it. It’s so grotesque! I just can’t believe it. I am such a fool!”
Steve covered her hand with his. “Welcome to the human race.”
Rita managed a hint of a smile. “You married Anita. At least I... except that I would’ve married him. I wanted to! I am too stupid to live.” She finally took a sip of tea. “This is awful. Do you have any gin?”
“Wine,” Steve suggested.
“Wine it is.”
While Steve opened a bottle, Rita went to the bathroom and then returned with her face clean and damp. “I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to see both of you. I couldn’t stand to have anyone else see me like this.”
Steve had poured wine for all three of us. He handed Rita her glass. “Hey, we love you.”
Rita raised her glass, and the three of us clinked. “In dogs we trust,” she said, “as Holly’s always saying. I should’ve known. He and Willie never liked each other.” She sighed. “So, I had dinner with Ceci and Althea. I was supposedly there to help set up for your shower tomorrow, but Ceci’s maid had done everything, really. The reason I was free— and by myself—is that he was at a bird conference at Cornell. Or so he said. And gullible moron that I am, I believed him.”
Steve said, “Stop. Whatever happened, it wasn’t your fault, Rita.”
“Thank you. You are a love, Steve. So, I left early. Early for me. Late for Althea. At nine or so. I took that shortcut you told me about, Holly, the one that goes down Norwood Hill to Oak Square in Brighton. I’d gone a few blocks. I was still in Newton, still in the part with the gaslights. They’re charming, but they don’t give much light, and the s
treet signs are hard to see. I took a wrong turn. Did I ever! In more ways than one. And then what did I see but—” She broke off without saying Artie’s name. “What did I see parked on some little dark street but a distinctive Citroën. It was unmistakable. So... I am so stupid!”
“You are not stupid,” Steve said.
“I want to get this out and over. That shithead knew that I was having dinner with Ceci and Althea, so I assumed that for some reason, he was in town after all and that he’d decided to look for me. Hah! And that he’d gotten lost. There was a little light coming from his car. And I pulled up and got out and went over to it. I did not suspect one single thing. And there he was in the back with that piece of hypocritical pornography in lard, Francie Julong.” Rita squeezed her eyes shut.
I said, “Rita, I am so sorry.”
“On a public street! There he was with that gushy, smarmy little pig! That lump of lying filth! Turning tricks in cars! What did I ever do to either of them to deserve this?”
Steve said, “Nothing. Not a thing. Rita, you’re beautiful. You’re intelligent. Any man who cheats on you has something seriously wrong with him.”
“I could kill him,” Rita said. “I could kill her, too.”
CHAPTER 30
“My objection to bridal showers,” I told Rita and Leah, “is that marriage is not about things. ”
“In your case,” said Leah, “it’s about dogs.”
At two o’clock on Sunday afternoon, the three of us were crammed into Rita’s bathroom, where my friend and my cousin were trying to do something about my hair and my face in time for my shower.
“Not exclusively, although I would like it if Rowdy and Kimi would shape up so India doesn’t steal the show. That hurts!”
Rita refastened a clip in my hair. “As everyone’s mother used to say, you have to suffer to be beautiful. Leah, she needs more blush.”
Rita had asked Steve and me to say nothing to anyone about Artie Spicer and the scene she’d witnessed. Before Leah’s arrival, she’d showered, soaked her face in ice water, and performed various cosmetic miracles. Her eyes weren’t swollen, her face wasn’t puffy, her makeup was careful, and her lightly highlighted hair was sleek and snazzy. I could see tension in her jaw and shoulders, but she looked good enough to fool everyone else.
“Also,” I said, “I hate the idea of extorting presents.”
“Your implication,” said Leah, “is that whereas other brides are gross materialists, you are a saint.”
Rita did something to my eyebrows. “Rites of passage are inherently social transitions. Your loved ones want to participate.”
“Loved ones! You make them sound like the dearly departed. And I’m sure you’ve done enough to me. I need to get dressed. I can groom a malamute for the showring in less time than you’re wasting on me.”
Leah ordered me to close my eyes. “If Rowdy and Kimi hollered like this on the grooming table, you’d muzzle them. Hold still and behave yourself, or you won’t get any treats.”
“You’re not giving me any now.”
“Ceci and Althea will, but only if I tell them that you were a good, good girl.”
Leah evidently gave the elderly sisters a positive report. When we arrived at their house just before four o’clock, the dining room table and sideboard were laden with what I’ll refrain from describing as liver goodies for people. Ceci’s china, silver, and crystal displayed cakes, pastries, strawberries, raspberries, and dainty sandwiches with the crusts cut off. A fire burned in the living-room fireplace, and flowers were everywhere. Ceci, dressed in champagne, flitted nervously about.
Althea, looking a thousand years old and none the worse for it, was resplendent in lavender. “Do you know the poem about old women and purple? I’ve faded beyond it.” She sat in her wheelchair amid the potted palms in the conservatory area at the far end of the living room. “Holly, move close to me so I can see you properly. There! You look marvelous.”
“Thank you. Leah made me wear black. Rita tried to veto it, but Leah has a gift for getting her own way.”
“Skill in getting one’s own way is not to be disparaged. Ceci enjoys the same gift.”
“They both put it to good use with dogs. I don’t look funereal?”
“Not in the least. You are all sophistication.”
“I bought the suit for Paris. The dogs won’t be with us, so I didn’t have to worry about camouflaging undercoat.”
At my insistence, we’d kept the guest list for the shower to about twenty-five. Although Rita was one of the hostesses, Ceci had insisted on having the shower at her house. The wedding, which was only a week away, had swollen beyond our original vision of a small, intimate gathering, and I’d been determined not to stick Ceci and Althea with two great big parties one right after the other. The doorbell rang for the first of what nonetheless seemed like many times, and Rita greeted my dear stepmother, Gabrielle, who had driven all the way from Midcoast Maine. As I watched Rita, I admired her strength in putting up a brave front.
Before long, new guests arrived, and I was busy making introductions and replying to questions about the wedding and honeymoon. The collective sound of women’s voices reminded me of the twittering of a flock of birds. I kept the perception to myself. The People’s Republic of Cambridge had made me paranoid about expressing gender bias. In the vicinity of Harvard Square, I’d have been afraid to observe aloud that women were shorter than men. Or that men were taller than women? The safe course was to limit myself to reporting that in Alaskan malamutes, the American Kennel Club standard called for a height of twenty-five inches at the withers for males and twenty-three inches for females, the withers being the part of the back that’s above the shoulders and below the neck. In assessing the height of dogs, we don’t measure heads. If we figured human height at the shoulders instead of at the top of the cranium, women would eventually turn out to be shorter than men, but it would take ages to remeasure everyone, and we’d all enjoy a politically peaceful interlude during which we’d have no idea how tall or short anyone was and would thus be temporarily liberated from the hideous possibility of causing height-related political offense. Just to prove how weird Cambridge is, let me add that it was perfectly acceptable in Cantabrigian circles to say that women possessed greater emotional intelligence than did men. I thought that the assertion was a sneaky way to suggest that women were stupid. But maybe I’d better be quiet about that topic, too, and confine myself to stating that although the American Kennel Club standard for the Alaskan malamute said nothing about preferred IQ differences between males and females, the girls were, in general, smarter than the boys.
Birds. We did sound like them. Our striking plumage was, however, more characteristic of avian males than of females. Steve’s vet techs and assistants weren’t wearing scrubs, and my friends from dog training weren’t in kennel clothes. Still, I’d have bet that almost every outfit had pockets and that a lot of those pockets contained dog treats. Faith Barlow, Rowdy’s handler, wore a dress I’d seen in the showring. Its color was a pale rose, chosen, no doubt, to hide dog hair, as Faith’s dress almost did. Rowdy’s breeder, Janet, wore a rather severe gray suit, but large sterling silver malamutes dangled from her ears, and her hair bore a startling resemblance to the stand-off coat so desirable in our breed.
Birds. I wouldn’t mention them to Rita, who had, of course, met Artie when she’d taken up birding. Didn’t some feathered species mate for life? Not Artie. As I chatted with friends, I kept darting glances at Rita. She’d discovered Artie with the gushy, perfidious Francie in this same neighborhood only the night before. To preserve our friendship with Rita, Steve and I would have to tell her about the scene I’d witnessed at the Wayside Wildlife Refuge. But not yet, not until she regained some strength. At the moment, she was in animated conversation with Gabrielle, who was due to spend the night in Rita’s guest room. Rita held a cup and saucer in her left hand, but she wasn’t drinking anything, and she wasn’t eating, either. She’d told me
that she’d been unable to swallow more than a bite of the scrambled eggs she’d fixed herself for breakfast. My concern for Rita made me realize that many of my best friends were absent. One of the few disadvantages of forming friendships through dogs is that you end up with close friends who live thousands of miles away. Some of mine would be there for the wedding, but they couldn’t make separate, expensive trips just for a shower.
The one guest who wasn’t exactly a friend of mine was Carla Guarini, who was doing the flowers for our wedding. Carla also had the distinction of being the only guest invited because her husband was a Mob boss and I’d consequently been scared to exclude her. For once, Carla’s dog wasn’t with her, and for once, I was glad that someone had left a dog at home. Under my tutelage, her tiny dog, Anthony, had progressed beyond disobedient insufferability, but I hadn’t cured Carla of tucking him into her bosom, as if he were a silk scarf that prevented her from showing a lot of cleavage, a function that Anthony did not, in any case, serve. As usual, Carla’s dress plunged. A turquoise satin cocktail dress with dyed-to-match pumps, it looked like an especially hideous bridesmaid’s gown. Soon after Judith Esterhazy arrived, I was surprised to find that Carla, having learned that Judith was a famous novelist, had engaged her in what Carla clearly intended as literary conversation.
“You write books!” Carla exclaimed. “I just love to read! I’ve always got my nose stuck in a book. My favorite is Cecilia Ann Vesper. Don’t you just adore her?”
Slim and refined, Judith Esterhazy was possibly the last woman on earth who’d accessorize by sticking a dog between her breasts. “Vesper?” she inquired.
“Well, some people think she’s old-fashioned. She doesn’t go in for these modern settings and career women and all that, but, hey, I live modern, and I’m a career woman myself, and when I settle down with a book, I want barons and baronesses and castles and ruins, because that’s romance, and if romance is what you pay for, romance is what you should get, right?”
Judith’s sangfroid remained intact. “Cecilia Ann Vesper. I don’t think I’ve read her.”
Bride & Groom Page 17