Mating Rituals of the North American WASP

by Lauren Lipton

  Peggy had chosen her future, and it didn’t include him. Hidden in a shop doorway, he’d watched her after she’d turned her back, watched her run into the arms of that muscled lug on the sidewalk, considered running after her and…and what could he have done? Challenged the guy to a duel? Stung him with his wit, WASP versus Goliath? The contest was over, the match lost. Maybe Peggy had never felt anything more for him than friendship. And now that was gone as well.

  Luke dropped his worthless sonnet into the nearest trash basket. He wished only for one thing: that in that closet, he’d inhaled more deeply the lingering fragrance he’d come to associate with Peggy and held it in his lungs as long as he could.

  He drove home as if anesthetized. The Hudson River was alive with sailboats, the trees lining the parkways lush with leaves, the farms of Litchfield County overrun with spring calves and foals on spindly legs. Luke saw all of it and absorbed none of it. He thought of his ancestral home, soon to be barred to him. He passed Pilgrim Plaza, its parking lot a lustrous slab of asphalt, and thought about the Widow in the Woods. He came to the Sedgwick land, the last bit of his heritage. The ground breaking had begun the previous week. Luke had watched in silence as an excavator had taken the first grab of land with its greedy steel arm. In just a few days, this single machine had reduced the grassy meadow to dirt. Now Luke parked on the shoulder and watched it work, and something inside him, something he hadn’t known was there, ripped open—a gaping wound out of which poured sorrow and anguish and self-reproach. He was a Sedgwick, like it or not. Maybe it was impossible to truly break away from one’s heritage. He saw Abigail Agatha Sarah Sedgwick saying, Nobody but Sedgwicks shall ever live under the Sedgwick roof. He wasn’t angry with her for leaving the house to the cat. In her own off-kilter way, she’d been trying to save what was theirs when her last living relative was hell-bent on destroying it.

  It had been months since Peggy had been to Brattie’s Sports Pub, but nothing had changed. The TV screens were still broadcasting a hodgepodge of events, from track and field to golf—the U.S. Open; a pantheon of New York sports saints including Patrick Ewing, Joe Namath, and Babe Ruth watched over the proceedings from their photos on the walls. The sameness was comforting after a day of changes and endings. “In fleeting world of lies, you are the truth,” Peggy whispered to her grubby reflection in the ladies’ room mirror. Now that a few hours had passed since her scene with Luke, she was sorry for her ungracious exit. She might have said a proper good-bye, told Luke how much she’d liked his poem.

  Enough. She made a face at herself and rubbed dirt from her cheek. She was a mess. How about regretting not having gone home to shower and change before agreeing to come here with Brock?

  Her fiancé was entertaining the crowd at the bar with stories of his work on the documentary. Somebody started an off-key chorus of “Here Comes the Bride” as Peggy reappeared, and hands reached out to pat her on the back.

  “Come over here, Pegs.” Brock slid his arm around her and tugged her to his side.

  The Commissioner poured Brock a beer. “Why the hell’d you wait so long to pop the question, Clovis?”

  Everyone looked at Brock—including Peggy. It was the question she’d wanted answered for months. Had he proposed because she’d followed through on her ultimatum? Because he’d been jealous she’d started dating? Because he’d realized there wasn’t anything better out there? Now she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the reason. She held her breath.

  “Commish, gentlemen, I’ve thought a lot on this very subject.” Brock was enjoying himself. “And you know what I say?”

  “Tell us what you say, brother!” the Commissioner shouted, and the crowd laughed.

  “There comes a time in life when you need to take a good, long look at things and ask, ‘What do I have, and what do I want?’ That’s what happened to me last fall. I said to myself, ‘Clovis, you jackass, here you had this great thing, and you went and lost it. If you want it back, better do something about it.’ So I did something about it.” Brock clutched Peggy more tightly around the waist. “Vince Lombardi said it best: ‘The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.’ ”

  “Lombardi,” said a guy to Brock’s left. “The man was a poet.”

  “Good for you, Clovis,” the bartender said. “Way to go, Peggy.”

  Peggy couldn’t believe it. The Commissioner was looking her in the eye. “I’ll be back,” she said, and slipped out of Brock’s grasp and onto the sidewalk, taking her phone from her purse.

  If Bex’s mother was worn out from spending all afternoon shutting down the store, she didn’t sound it when she answered the phone. Bex was asleep, Sue reported apologetically. Did Peggy have a message to relay?

  It was better this way. Peggy was sad and emotional and tired. It would be too easy, were Bex to get on the phone, to pick a fight with her about Luke. Peggy didn’t want to fight. Bex had many faults. She was a know-it-all and a busybody, but she was Peggy’s best friend, and Peggy loved her. Bex would never come to terms with Brock. But it was all right. The friendship had survived this long, despite Bex and Peggy’s differences. It wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Just please tell her I’ll come by tomorrow,” Peggy told Sue.

  “See you then,” Sue said. “And I can’t wait for the wedding.”

  “I can’t either.” Peggy meant it. It would be liberating to put the past behind her and step into the future.

  She went back inside Brattie’s. “It’s midnight—our wedding is exactly a week away,” Brock said. He planted a definitive kiss on her lips and ground himself against her pelvis. “Come home with me. I can’t take it anymore.”

  She couldn’t sleep with him—not yet. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t until after they were married. Feeling like a prude, she separated herself from him, her hands against his chest. “It’s just one more week.”

  On Saturday morning, Luke was up at dawn in spite of (or perhaps because of) having played umpteen games of mental tennis most of the night. As he came through the grand parlor, he spotted Quibble, who, exactly as in Luke’s collapsing-house daydream, was perched on the mantel. The house remained standing. “Look at you, acting like you own the place.” Luke scratched the cat fondly under the chin. “Too bad you’re legally obligated to live here, or I’d take you with me.” To where, beyond Hartford, Luke still didn’t know, but Quibble didn’t press him for an answer.

  By nine, Luke and Angelo were up on the roof with a bucket of roofing tar, enveloped in the heavy odor of hot asphalt. It was the next step after the blue tarp to stave off leaks and a temporary fix at best; in six months or a year, the leaks would be back. As he had many times since reading Abby’s will, Luke wondered how the meager Sedgwick Family Trust could possibly cover the cost of maintaining the Silas Sedgwick House in perpetuity. Mayhew was right: Luke should contest the will. He mulled over the idea briefly and rejected it. Taking on this house would be a terrible decision made in an irrational moment. Even with his Budget Club windfall, he couldn’t afford the place.

  Luke set down his tar-spreading broom and leaned out over the widow’s walk balustrade and looked through the treetops to the town green. The protesters were gathering already, their numbers fortified by the weekenders from New York, who had flocked back for the summer. Their chants carried faintly. Luke waited until Angelo looked up, then gestured with a tarry hand toward the green. “Did you want to go? I can finish up here myself.”

  Angelo’s boots left gummy black footprints as he came over to peer through the trees. “Nah. Looks like they’ve got it covered.”

  “Listen, about Budget Club…” Luke had an unaccountable need to explain himself. “You and Annette aren’t originally from New Nineveh. Neither are most of the people down there on the green. I respect that you all came here because New Nineveh was a picturesque little town, and that you’d like to keep it that way. And I know it’s hard for you to understand why we locals seem so keen on selling it out.”

>   Angelo tilted his head upward—just enough of a nod to verify he agreed with what Luke was saying, but not so much that it might provoke an argument.

  “It’s hard for me, too. My family built this town. We built the Congregational Meeting House, and the courthouse, and the clock tower, all in the name of progress. If my great-great-great-grandfather were alive today, I suspect he’d call this progress, too. All I can tell you is that land is the only thing I have left. My decision was purely financial. If I could support myself and still write some other way, I would.”

  “No worries, Luke,” Angelo said. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

  Luke was no less burdened for his confession. “One more thing. Mayhew will be looking for a caretaker for the house once I’ve moved out. Someone to come in and feed the cat, keep an eye on the place, and make repairs. The salary’s pretty good. I’m sure the job would be yours if you’re interested.”

  Angelo wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. It was going to be a hot day. “I’m interested,” he said.

  It was one thing to relax about. The Fiorentinos would take good care of the house. Abby would be pleased if she knew. Luke excused himself and went down into the cool, dim library, over which Silas presided, as ever, from his portrait.

  “What would you have done?” Luke addressed his ancestor. “You’re all for progress, aren’t you?”

  It was laughable, his seeking counsel from a painting. This was how it must have started for Abby—first talking to herself out loud as an antidote to the loneliness, eventually conversing with unseen companions. After that, it was only a short hop to believing in ghosts.

  Luke locked eyes with the portrait and waited for a sign.

  Silas glowered.

  “I thought so,” Luke said. He had the answer at last.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Wedding Day, June

  It was as if every good deed Peggy had ever done, every ounce of worry she’d ever expended, every bit of luck she had coming to her, had all converged on this single day. She’d slept like a baby and awoken to the most beautiful June weather imaginable: a benevolent sun against a limitless blue sky. Her mother had checked her anxieties at the door, and her father, waiting with Peggy in the foyer of the Unitarian church on Amsterdam Avenue as sunlight streamed in from the street outside, hadn’t complained once about wearing long pants.

  It was a perfect day to get married.

  Peggy knew she looked every inch the bride. Her makeup was dewy. Her nails were pristine. Each meticulously blonded hair—no dark roots would mar her photos—had fallen into place with military precision. Even Bex had gasped when Peggy had arrived at the church.

  “Oh, sweetie. You’re getting married!” And for once, there had been nothing behind her words but wonderment.

  Peggy had twirled in front of Bex’s chair, her dress floating around her like a white silk cloud. “Do you approve?”

  She’d meant of the dress, but Bex had laid a swollen hand on Peggy’s arm. “From this day forward, whatever choices you’ve made, whatever choices you will make, I’ll support you.”

  Now, through a crack in the church door, Peggy could see Bex was seated at the altar, round and serene in a dove gray dress. Brock’s brother, Brent, stood next to her. Brock was there, too, in a suit, as handsome as any groom in a magazine. The first notes of the bridal processional filled the room. The guests stirred.

  It was Peggy’s moment.

  “You ready?” Her father offered his arm.

  Peggy took it. “I’m ready.”

  I hope, she added silently.

  She would remember little of her trip down the aisle, only the indistinct faces of the guests as she passed, the weight of the white rose bouquet in her hand, Brock’s dimple. She would recall the minister’s thinning hair and rimless glasses, and portions of the ceremony, but other thoughts floated in, too, as she stood with Brock at the altar. She thought of the store on the first day she and Bex had opened for business, of the candle-flame flicker of the twins’ heartbeats. Of a dream she must have had once, forgotten and just now rematerialized, with colored lights and bells and a man who made her happy.…

  A rustle of motion brought Peggy back to the present, and before she could help it, her heart leaped—could it be Luke, coming in to stop the wedding after all?

  But the rustle was Bex, gesturing that Peggy should pass over the bridal bouquet. Peggy blushed under her makeup and took a long, last look at the roses as she gave them to Bex to hold. Perfect. The flowers were perfect. Creamy white with the gentlest wash of pink, as if they, too, were blushing.

  The minister turned to Brock. “Do you take Peggy to be your wife? Do you vow to celebrate with her in times of joy and give her strength in times of sorrow, to walk beside her into the future, to be her partner as long as you both shall live?”

  Brock boomed out his “I do” as if he’d been waiting to say it all his life. He glided the wedding band, a full circle of diamonds, onto Peggy’s finger. It glittered alongside her engagement ring. Flawless. Just like the day, her dress, the white rose bouquet Bex was keeping for her.

  “Do you, Peggy, take Brock to be your husband?”

  Peggy hesitated, immobile, a bride-statue in a wedding tableau.

  All she’d ever wanted was to be married. For seven years, she’d waited for Brock to put a ring on her finger. For almost seven months, she’d played the role of Luke’s wife. Now she could see a third choice. She could marry no one. She could stand on her own. She could leave the church and have the strength to survive—to thrive—without any man. She was a whole person. If she chose to marry, it would be because she wanted to, not because she needed to. She took a tentative breath; there was no fear. She could breathe clearly.

  She was no longer anxious.

  “I do.” She slipped the ring onto Brock’s finger. She looked at Bex, who nodded. She looked out into the audience, at the faces glowing back at her.

  “Wait, stop,” she stammered. “I don’t think I do.”

  She’d half expected a collective gasp, but the room was suspended in silence. The guests, the minister, Brock—they appeared, all of them, afraid to move. Their uncertainty was galvanizing. Peggy stepped forward to the edge of the altar. She picked out faces in the room: Her mother. Josh. Sharon Clovis, one lacquered hand to her mouth.

  The minister leaned toward her, his breath minty against her cheek. He whispered, “Would it help to take a minute?”

  “I don’t think so,” she whispered back, feeling nearly as bad for ruining his performance as she did for Brock—who was gawking at her, his mouth slack.

  She turned to him, wishing she knew what to say, wishing she’d not let things come this far. “I’m sorry, Brock. I care about you, but something isn’t right. I’m not sure it’s ever been right. Maybe someday you’ll forgive me. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.” She took off her wedding ring, then her engagement ring, and dropped them into his hand. “Please know I never meant to hurt you.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bex give her the tiniest smile.

  Peggy turned to address her guests. “I’m sorry, everybody. I intend to explain this to each one of you individually. But right now”—she took a deep breath—“right now I have to go.”

  And before she could have second thoughts, she retrieved her bouquet from Bex, gathered her skirt with her free hand, and ran with her veil streaming behind her, down the aisle toward the doors through which she’d come in, out into the sunshine, into her future.

  “I can’t believe you waited this long to tell me,” Ver Planck said.

  “It wasn’t intentional.” Luke kicked at a clod of soil upended by the excavator, marveling that there were still wildflowers—buttercups—growing out of it. Nature didn’t accept defeat easily. “I thought I might change my mind. But it’s been a week, and I still feel the same way. This land wasn’t meant to be paved over and developed. It isn’t right.”

  They were standing in the shade of the
sleeping excavator. It was Saturday, and a parade of cars with out-of-state license plates crawled past them on Route 202, heading to the New Nineveh Home Tour, the town’s biggest day of the year.

  Ver Planck shook his head. “Those picketers really got to you, didn’t they?”

  And it’s Peggy’s wedding day, Luke noted with a twinge of pain. He knew the subtext behind Ver Planck’s question. His friend was using “picketers” to mean just one picketer, Peggy.

  “Budget Club won’t be happy about you yanking away their lease,” Ver Planck said. “There will be legal fees and breach-of-contract fines. It’ll cost you a big chunk of change.”

  “I’ll cover it. I don’t care about the money. I’ll go back to Hartford Mutual. I’ll be the first Sedgwick to go into bankruptcy, if that’s what it takes.” The thought of being penniless, truly ruined, pained Luke as well, but nowhere near as much as the loss of Peggy. He checked his watch: It was close to eleven. The wedding was at one. Bex had told him.

  “In case you try again,” she’d said when he’d called to tell her the news—that he’d decided to follow her advice and failed.

  “She’s made up her mind.” With any luck, Bex had understood. He would not be trying again.

  “You have no idea,” Ver Planck said, “how glad I am to hear you say this.”

  For a split second, Luke thought his friend was talking about Luke’s decision to let Peggy go. But that couldn’t be it. Ver Planck was referring to the land deal.