Owen said, “Charlotte, let me get in the driver’s seat and find a parking space. You and Oliver go on in.”
Charlotte put the Jeep in park. “Good idea, Owen, thanks.”
They squeezed their way through the foyer with its tables set with gigantic spilling vases of flowers into the huge main room, as large as a basketball court, with wooden floors and a high ceiling hung with burgees and banners. At one end of the room, a band was playing soft jazz; the dancing wouldn’t start until after the buffet. All around the edge of the floor, tables and chairs were set up, each table set with flowers and a candle centerpiece on blazing white linen tablecloths. At the far end Nona was holding court, greeting her friends who flocked up to wish her happy birthday. Beside her chair was a long table, also covered in white linen, decorated with more flowers and holding a guest book for people to sign, and the table was quickly becoming laden with beautifully wrapped presents.
“Drinks first, I think,” Oliver told Charlotte.
“Absolutely.”
Passing through a wide double door, Charlotte and Oliver entered another reception room, with a bar set up at one end and a buffet table just being organized at the other. Stewards in white jackets hurried to and from the kitchen, bearing great wooden bowls of salad and heavy stainless steel trays.
Against one wall was a giant peg-board covered with photos of Nona at different ages.
“Auntie Grace really did an amazing job organizing this,” Charlotte told Oliver. It was so noisy in the room she had to shout to make herself heard.
“You’re right. I’m going to make it a point to be grateful to her, the poor old obsessive-compulsive bat.” Oliver turned to shout their drink orders at the bartender, then handed Charlotte a flute of champagne. “I never did tell you how beautiful you look tonight.”
“Oliver, thanks! You look pretty smashing yourself, but then you always do.”
“I want to hear all about your garden,” Oliver began, but at that moment an old friend threw herself upon him.
“Oliver! Darling! I was hoping you would be here! I don’t see Owen! Have you broken up? Have you gone straight, by any chance? Oh, please say yes.”
With a grin, Charlotte allowed Oliver to be idolized and made her way through the crowd in Nona’s direction. She didn’t get far. Everyone stopped her, kissed her cheek, told her she looked lovely. These were her friends, after all, or her parents’ friends, or her grandmother’s friends, or her aunt or uncle or cousins’ friends. She’d sailed with these people or played tennis or badminton with them ever since she could walk, she’d gone to parties with them, and to boarding school and college, and had dated some of them. She’d even been in love with one or two.
“Hello, Charlotte. Great party.”
Glancing up, she saw Whit Lowry standing there, in his tux and red tartan cummerbund and bow tie, his black hair falling over his forehead, looking like an ad for a very expensive Scotch. She’d always thought Whit looked like a male version of Snow White, with blue eyes and pale skin and natural roses in his cheeks.
“Whit, hello, how are you?” Charlotte always felt awkward around Whit. He was her father’s best friend’s son, and she knew he was as irked as she was by their fathers’ barely concealed desire that they would fall in love and marry. He had been very kind to her when she’d tried working at the bank. He’d saved her ass several times, actually. He was very good at what he did, he understood stocks and bonds and foreign currencies and asset classes and diversification, and sometimes she had just wanted to kick him because he was such a reliable, unrebellious son. She hadn’t seen him for almost a year—it was here, last summer, when she saw him last.
“Did you see Oliver?” Charlotte had to yell to be heard. Guiltily, she was glad she was wearing this wonderful dress, a long streak of gold silk that made her hair, worn loose to her shoulders tonight, appear gold, too. She was glad the dress had a plunging neckline.
“I’m just on my way over,” Whit yelled back. “Did Owen come?”
“He did. He’s somewhere in this crush. And Teddy is here. Have you seen him yet? He’s brought a girl with him.”
“Wow, I haven’t seen Teddy in years. How is he?”
“As mischievous as always.” Before she could say more, one of Nona’s dowager cronies swooped down on her, embracing her in a cloud of talcum powder and bugle beads. “Hello, Mrs. Burton,” Charlotte said, and was released from the hug in time to see Whit wave a quick goodbye and head off in Oliver’s direction.
A waiter came along, smartly bearing a tray of drinks at shoulder level. Charlotte snagged a second champagne flute and held them both up high, so people would think she was taking a drink to someone as she squeezed through the crowd. Finally, she arrived at the end of the room where most of the family stood. So many people crowded around Nona, Charlotte could see only the top of her grandmother’s white head, and her parents and other relatives were equally engaged by friends. Charlotte took a moment to study her mother. Helen had always been a little eccentric about her clothing. Aunt Grace and the Ms and the group Helen ran with on the island tended to wear L.L. Bean for day and something like Lilly Pulitzer with a string of pearls for dress. No one ever tried to be fashionable, nor was Helen actually fashionable, she was just colorful. More—Charlotte had heard Grace use this word often—Bohemian. Certainly she was tonight. She wore a crimson floor-length silk skirt with a high tight waist and a long-sleeved white shirt with a scoop neckline. Her ornate necklace of brass studded with huge ruby, emerald, and sapphire stones looked antique, as if it had been made from old Romanoff medals, crosses, and rosettes. Her gray hair had become, with the evening’s mist, something between a cloud and a tangle. She looked good. To Charlotte’s eye, her mother looked suspiciously attractive.
Charlotte’s father was talking to Whit’s father, Lew Lowry. Both men were tall and, for their age, relatively slim in their tuxes. They stood slightly apart from the crowd, the very set of their shoulders giving off an air of superiority and self-satisfaction. Their handsome heads were bent close to each other. They were scheming about something. Those two always were, always had been since they were boyhood chums.
Charlotte was searching for Teddy and spied him backed up against the wall by a cluster of admirers. Suzette stood next to him, staring down at her bare extended belly as Teddy bantered with a little herd of young women with silk headbands and yacht-club teeth. Teddy had a possessive arm looped around Suzette’s shoulders, and from time to time he would sort of jostle her affectionately. Suzette would force a smile in response, but she never glanced up from her belly. She looked out of place and miserable.
“Suzette!” Charlotte put the champagne on a nearby table and swept up, as brisk and commanding as Nona often was. “Sweetie, what on earth is Teddy thinking, making you stand up this way! Come sit down with me. We have so much to talk about!”
She took Suzette’s limp hand and drew the girl out of the circle of Teddy’s admirers. “Here,” she said, pulling out a chair.
“Thanks.” Suzette slumped down.
Charlotte pulled her own chair close. “You must find this bewildering, thrown into the pack all at once like this,” she said encouragingly to the young woman. “Teddy is a little thoughtless sometimes.”
“It’s okay,” Suzette mumbled. “I know what Teddy’s like.”
“Well!” Charlotte leaned closer. “Tell me about yourself, Suzette. Where did you and Teddy meet?”
Suzette continued to stare at her belly. “At AA.”
“Oh! Well, that’s good. Um, where?”
The girl shifted, looking peeved. “In a church basement.”
Charlotte laughed. “No. I mean, what town?”
“Tucson. Tucson, Arizona.”
“So! You’re from Tucson.”
“No.”
Charlotte stared at the girl. Was she being purposefully rude or was she socially inept? Perhaps she was just painfully shy. Charlotte softened her voice. “I hope Teddy told you
all about his crazy family.”
Suzette shrugged.
Charlotte grabbed up her champagne and knocked it back. “Do you have anything to drink, Suzette? Would you like me to get you some sparkling water or some juice?”
“I have juice.” She nodded at the other side of the table.
“Well, let me get it for you!” Charlotte made her way around the table, got the glass of juice, set it before Suzette, and sat down again. “So you know all about Nona, our grandmother; she is wonderful. We all adore her. I don’t know if you got to meet Oliver and Owen, it was so rushed back at the house with the photographs and everything. Oliver’s over there talking to that really tall woman, and Owen is trying to get to Oliver with some drinks. Aren’t they just about the handsomest men on the planet?”
Defiantly, Suzette declared, “Teddy’s handsome.”
“Yes, he is. I have two handsome brothers.” After a long inspirational sip of champagne, Charlotte asked, “Do you have any brothers, Suzette?”
Suzette didn’t answer for a few moments. “A stepbrother,” she conceded. “But I haven’t seen him for a while.”
Charlotte looked desperately around the room. Everyone else seemed to be having a fabulous time, exchanging gossip and laughing uproariously. “Well, I’m the oldest of three children. I’m Teddy’s big sister. I guess he told you that. And I’ve been trying to build up a little market garden business here on the island. Perhaps you noticed my little farm when Teddy brought you to the house?” She waited for some kind of response, got none, and plunged ahead. “I grow lettuces and other produce and flowers. I sell the produce at posh restaurants, plus I have my little roadside stand.”
Suzette continued to stare at her belly.
All righty, Charlotte thought. “So, when is your baby due?”
“September.”
“Oh, lovely. And do you know whether you’re having a boy or a girl?”
“No.” But for the first time Suzette lifted her head. She smiled shyly. “I hope it’s a girl.” She ducked her head.
“Oh, I do, too!” Charlotte agreed. “Girls’ clothes are much more fun!” Before she could continue her friendly chatter, the piercing ring of a tapped mike sounded, and she heard her father’s voice.
“Hello, everyone! We are so glad to have you all here to celebrate Anne Anderson Wheelwright’s ninetieth birthday! After dinner, there will be dancing and a few extremely brief speeches, but for now the buffet line is open, so please begin!”
The noise level changed as people flocked out of the large room into the smaller reception room to line up at the buffet tables.
“Would you like me to get you a plate?” Charlotte asked.
“I can do it.” Suzette pushed herself up off her chair.
Teddy appeared from the squeeze of bodies. Wrapping an arm around Suzette’s shoulders, he leaned forward to kiss Charlotte’s cheek. “Hey, Char. You’re looking well.”
Now that she had an opportunity to see him close up, Charlotte studied her brother before answering, “You look good, too, Teddy. Really good.” She studied his jeans, his wrinkled dirty cheap martini-glass-dancing shirt, his worn camel’s-hair blazer. There was a hole in one of the sleeves, and part of the breast pocket had come loose. “But couldn’t you have come just a little bit earlier? We didn’t get a chance to meet Suzette properly, and this must be a pretty overwhelming way for her to meet your family.”
“Don’t be such a big sister,” Teddy scolded. “Any way of meeting this family would be overwhelming.”
Charlotte relented. “That’s true. Well, I’m glad you’re here, Teddy. I can’t wait to have a long long talk with you, you and Suzette, about everything. What are your plans?”
“My plans?” Teddy’s grin glinted with the old mischief. “Suzette and I plan to stay at Nona’s for the summer. So you and I will have lots of time for long long talks.”
Ten
It was not the first time Helen had felt emotionally apart from the other Wheelwrights. But this was separateness of an entirely different magnitude. Everyone else was talking, laughing, gobbling up the delicious food, and tossing back the drinks, and Nona, now seated at a table enjoying her own dinner, seemed glowing and happy and right in the moment. Helen sat next to Owen, with Oliver on Owen’s right, and Suzette next to Oliver, who was trying to make conversation with the young woman. She wasn’t responding much, mostly staring down at her belly, although Helen was glad to see that she ate rapidly and finished everything on her plate. Teddy was on Suzette’s other side, with Nona on his right. The glass in his hand, a tall tumbler filled with ice, seemed to be only water. Helen had been watching and she didn’t think he’d had an alcoholic beverage yet. Teddy leaned toward Nona, chatting and laughing, and Nona glittered under his attentions. On Nona’s other side sat Charlotte, talking with her father, both of them as fascinated with each other as if they hadn’t been together for months.
What a handsome family. What a fortunate family. All this champagne, this wealth of friends, this summer evening, this celebration. Helen allowed Oliver to engage her in a lighthearted conversation about current movies; she hoped she was managing to keep her anxiety concealed.
She had believed that once her children were adults, out of college, moving forward in their own lives, she would be less burdened with worries, or that the worries would be less compelling. She had been wrong. When her eye fell on Suzette, Helen’s thoughts went wild. Was Suzette’s baby Teddy’s child? Were they really married? Had Suzette been on drugs or alcohol earlier in her pregnancy? Helen had heard heartbreaking stories of fetal alcohol syndrome. What were Teddy’s plans? How could he support a child? He’d received a small inheritance when his grandfather died, but he’d run through that already, and had nothing substantive to show for it. And Teddy had always been unstable.
She was so concerned about Teddy and this new twist in his life that her grief over Worth’s affair receded into the background, but it did not disappear. From experience, she knew how to compartmentalize her thoughts and emotions, and she thought she was doing it pretty well. But she felt as if she had been dropped from a great height. She was shattered, every cell of her being in shards and sharp pieces, and she was holding herself together with a thin layer of skin and teeth-gritting determination.
She and Worth hadn’t spoken intimately since they set foot on the island. No chance, really, not with the rest of the family slamming in and out of the house. When they arrived tonight at the yacht club, they were, as always, separated by their good familiar friends, with gossip about marriages and babies in Helen’s case and tips about the stock market in Worth’s. Helen spoke mostly with other women, Worth with other men, but occasionally Helen would glance across the room to see one of Worth’s female friends sidle up to kiss him on the cheek and, laughing, straighten his tie or take his arm. She was pretty sure none of his yacht club friends could be Sweet Cakes. But she was glad it would be Worth and Grace doing the master of ceremonies bit tonight. Helen thought that if she tried to speak aloud she might choke on the clot of misery in her throat.
People were through eating. The waiters had cleared the plates away. From a nearby table, Grace waved at Worth, who nodded and rose. They went to the bandstand together and took turns speaking into the mike. Grace was her usual clipped bossy self—she was a good leader and a great captain of a racing boat—but it was Worth who made the crowd laugh and applaud and cheer. Helen couldn’t concentrate on his words. She was staring at Worth, thinking of his body, that elegant, healthy male body, naked with another woman.
She would have understood if Worth had had some kind of flirtation. Worth was sixty also, and while time had not ruined his body quite as much as it had Helen’s, he was a bit heavier, his skin was looser, and when he stood up, his knees creaked and he limped for a while, muttering “no more tennis,” although he still played. Helen often grieved—weeping, in real pain—for the loss of her youth, for the erosion of her beauty. She missed receiving the sponta
neous attentions of unfamiliar men the way she once had—a wink and a grin from a man in line at the post office, a flattering flourish of the arm when a strange man held the door open for her, a double take from a man at a restaurant. And she missed the electricity of attraction that had once connected her to Worth.
But they had been married for so long: thirty-five years. They had truly grown old together. Helen had thought that the sexual passion of their marriage had been gradually replaced by deep affection, shared memories, and a sense of comradeship equal to that of old soldiers who once fought side by side in the trenches. People said that a sense of humor was important in a marriage; how many women said, “I married him because he made me laugh.” Worth still made her laugh. They still shared so much, especially their family: their children, Nona, and Grace and her clan. They shared friends.
Perhaps that was not enough for Worth. Over the past few years, banking as an industry, and the world money market, had changed enormously. He couldn’t do it all himself. He couldn’t even oversee it all himself. So his sense of self-worth might have suffered, and his power had definitely faded. Helen could understand that he might want a fresh young woman to remind him that he was still, in all ways, virile. She did not want her husband to be unhappy, after all.
But she could not bear his infidelity.
She wondered whether Worth was in love with Sweet Cakes. She wondered whether he would ask for a divorce.
She realized she was wringing her hands under the table like a madwoman. But her hands were freezing cold.
People were making toasts now. Applause. Laughter. Appreciative sighs. The invisible bubble surrounding Helen set everything apart; she felt like an anthropologist surveying the rituals of a strange tribe.
The band launched into an old-fashioned Strauss waltz, that familiar lilting melody of a birthday song, and Worth stepped down from the platform, bowed to Nona, and gently helped her up from her chair. He led her to the dance floor, put one hand on her waist, and with the other took her hand in his. Slowly, with great dignity, he waltzed with his mother, who gazed up at her handsome son with adoration. With her stiff carriage, in her splendid floor-length deep blue gown, Nona looked like royalty. Helen felt bits of ice sparkle against her face. When she touched her cheeks with her fingertips, she felt tears. But that was all right, other people were weeping, too. It was a moving and wonderful sight.
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