Good Family (31 page)

Across the crowd, Jamie and Fiona are talking with Dana. “These people hold very narrow views,” I say.

“Unlike you.”

“My mind is so open, birds fly through it,” I say.

“Really?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then why are you acting so churlish?”

If we were filming a scene, all these people would be extras, the buzz of their conversation simulated by the verbal repetition of
nutsandboltsnuts-andbolts
. It is reminiscent of my wedding, and I suddenly feel a profound
longing for my mother—her graceful figure draped in peach as she elegantly and without hesitation walked into the lake.

“Churlish?” I say. “There’s a word.”

People approach us, say a few things about my parents. But mostly they want to ask what we’ll do with the Aerie now that the grown-ups are gone. Aunt Dottie Hobson with her bulldog eyes who grew up with my father, and Uncle Paul of the gaff-rigged Mallard; their son Larry—bald now, and going through a divorce (
Still single are you, Maddie?
says Aunt Dottie); Brett Bailey, whose sister Deb died with Tad Swanson and whose mother was a friend of my mother, but with whom I have nothing in common; Mr. Marks looking sad and pinched; the needlepoint types and the tennis types; the golfers and the sailors, and the people with whom they played bridge. They’re all here, buzzing like heat bugs with their own mortality. And now Adele, shorn-haired, her tunic glistening, is ringing her glass with a spoon and standing up on a chair.

“Brava!” yells Ian. “Brava!”

“Oh God,” I say.

Conversation trails off as people become aware of Adele. The discreet clink of forks on plates as everyone comes to attention. I look around wildly, expecting to see the raised eyebrows, the barely repressed laughter, but everyone looks at least politely interested.

“
Namaste
,” says Adele in the traditional Hindu greeting.

She waits, but only Derek, Beowulf, and Jessica
namaste
her back. Adele clasps her hands together, as if in prayer, above her head. Everyone must be grasping for a cultural touchstone—some point of reference like a yacht christening—to give a context to Adele’s display.

“Today, we celebrate a transition.”

I wonder where Dana is, and who, if anyone, encouraged Adele to take charge.

“Our bodies are but one manifestation of the divine.”

My eyes light on Dana talking to Jamie, who looks amused. Aunt Dottie
Hobson has lit a cigarette and is absentmindedly flicking the ash into her husband’s drink.

“…and when we go to the Land of Bliss, we will find a lake of pure, sparkling water whose waves lap softly on the shores of golden sand.”

Everyone nods with relief and dawning comprehension that Adele is talking about Sand Isle. I spot Jessica off to the side, standing next to Mac watching from behind his Ray-Bans. Her dark skin set off against a bright-patterned dress she has taken from my mother’s closet, Jessica resembles a fierce punctuation point in the midst of otherwise bland prose.

“…where we find Infinite Light and Boundless Life.”

“Maddie?”

I turn to see Jamie. He has extracted himself from Dana and is staring down at me with eyes that used to make me recite poetry. Itching from the black summer wool of my dress, I have the urge to touch the hairs on his wrist.

“In this world of lust, a person is born alone and dies alone; and there is no one to share her punishment in the life after death,” says Adele.

Jamie makes the same face he made in my freshman dorm when he saw my roommate’s “If by Chance We Meet, It’s Beautiful” poster. The mole on his cheek quivers as we try not to laugh. For the briefest moment, I feel like I have landed.

“Are you going to be around later?” he whispers.

I incline my head. “Later?” I repeat the word as if he has asked me something complex and significant. “Yes.”

As he touches my shoulder, a fleeting expression recalls that long-ago look of wounded anger, but then he nods and drifts away. Adele seems to be concluding her remarks, but before she finishes, I feel another presence at my elbow: Aunt Bibi Hester, Jamie’s mother, in gray ultrasuede and silk. Her sun-spotted hand, adorned with the faded but gargantuan Hester tiara diamond, is wrapped around a drink. She jerks her head toward Adele, and through her smile says, “Your mother would have been charmed.”

Given that my mother called Adele a “throwaway,” I doubt it. “Mmm,” I say. I look around to find Ian, who has drifted off to get a better angle on Adele.

“The law of cause and effect is universal,” Adele drones on. “Each man must carry his own sin to his own retribution…”

“Speaking of sin,” says Aunt Bibi, “did you hear about the Swansons’ lawn jockey?” Aunt Bibi’s eyes are electric blue. I’ve seen pictures of her in her twenties, along with my mother, looking gorgeous and dangerous.

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Painted,” Aunt Bibi whispers, the red of her lipstick creeping into the lines above her lips. “Defaced.”

“Seriously!”

“Gerald suspects sour grapes. Someone he trounced in the regatta.”

“You think?” I still flinch whenever I recall my sodden confession to Aunt Bibi that I was still in love with her son.

Adele concludes with a flourish about everlasting light and love and the divine reinterpretation of souls. Everyone amens as if she has just read from Psalm 23.

“No,” Aunt Bibi says flatly. “I don’t.” Then she smiles the conspiratorial smile that used to amuse my mother (the two of them gossiping on the beach) and, to my amazement, winks.

Conversation resumes—the Sand Isle denizens and the handful from Harbor Town, all of them engaging our oddball family as matter-of-factly as if we still belong. They touch our arms and look into our eyes, their light but enduring friendship binding us. Like a lifeline. Like a leash.

O
ne by one, we peel off from the gathering and return to the Aerie. The house smells of flowers whose water needs changing, and there is nothing left to do but pack.

We’ll all be leaving in the next few days. Sedgie is starting rehearsals, and Derek needs to get back to France. Beo is heading into his final year at
Oberlin, and Jessica will be starting her junior year at Cal State. According to Dana, Beo is moving out west after graduation to start a rock band. Dumping out the water from a bouquet of zinnias into the kitchen sink, Beo looks at me with surprise. “A band? Who told you that?”

I could swear it was Dana, but perhaps it was in the ether.

“Given the financial exigencies,” he says, “I’m going to apply to law school.” This from the young man who said school was a “temporal sop to the sublime.” He lifts his eyebrow. “I know. Who’da thunk it?”

I tell him that’s wonderful, that we need a lawyer in the family. And a rock star. And by the way, what’s the situation between him and Jessica?

Beo picks the dead head off a zinnia and stares at me with such a knowing expression that my assessment of his legal ability improves on the spot. “Kissin’ cousins, MaddieAunt. Surely you understand.”

There is a rank smell of old water. The refrigerator hums. I stand accused—though of what, I’m not sure. Could something have filtered through the airwaves? But whatever happened between my cousin and me was so long ago. Besides, no one knew.

I
hang up the phone and run to find Ian, who is in his bedroom packing. “We are so busted.”

Ian folds a shirt, inserting tissue, and places it into the gaping mouth of his open suitcase. “For?”

“Bibi Hester knows, Ian. She winked at me.”

Ian holds up a tie. “Bibi Hester knows
what
, Maddie?”

I narrow my eyes. Ian was the one who seduced me into a world of crime and painted lawn ornaments, and now I’m going to pay the price. “The Sand Isle Association has to approve even a bequeathed stock transfer. How will it look when this gets out?”

“Not a problem,” says Ian.

Fine for him. Ian’s not the fourth-generation family member who will end up disgraced because of a momentary lapse in etiquette, if not judgment.
Perhaps awareness of his own mortality renders him cavalier, but I have no such luxury. I am bound by obligation.

“They’ll decline us,” I say miserably, wondering if we have any brown paint in the basement.

Ian picks up the video camera and, focusing on me, says in a stentorian voice, “The Addison family who has resided on Sand Isle for more than a century? Declined? That’s absurd. It won’t happen. Besides, I thought you hated this place.”

“That doesn’t mean I won’t keep coming here.”

Ian squeezes one eye shut and continues to film. “Tell me, does Dr. Anke know about this destructive urge to repeatedly subject yourself to situations in which you’re uncomfortable?”

Ignoring him, I go on. “And now
Jamie
is thinking of buying the Aerie. He just called. I thought he wanted to see me, but Dana has talked him into looking at the house in case we want to sell. Aunt Bibi implied that she knows
exactly
who painted that jockey, and now Jamie’s sounding very confident that the house
is
for sale, and that we have no other choice.”

Ian flips off the camera and tosses it to me. “Here, get some more footage after I’m gone.” He shakes out a cashmere sweater and pulls it over his head. “What did Jamie Hester say, exactly?”

“He said, ‘Hi, Maddie. Wondering if I could bring Fiona by to see the house.’”

Pause. “From which you deduced all of the above?”

“This is Dana’s doing.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions. Besides, Mrs. Swanson thinks the Hesters did it.”

“What?”

“That’s what she said to me. Something about her husband and the regatta…”

“Why would she tell
you
that?”

Ian checks his watch. It is time to take his pills. He flips open the compartmentalized plastic case that is labeled by days of the week, hours of the
day. He shakes out a handful of vitamins, slams them into his mouth, and gulps them down with water. It takes him a moment to catch his breath, but when he does, he says to me, “Who better to talk to at a party than a quasi stranger you’ll never see again? Unlike you”—he looks at me pointedly—“I don’t fit in here, Maddie. That’s my virtue.”

J
amie and Fiona are in the living room talking to Dana. I crouch at the top of the stairs the way I did as a child, trying to overhear the grown-ups when they argued or gossiped. Dana is saying something about family history and letting go, but I’m sure she’s got it wrong.

Jamie makes a comment about the plumbing in these old houses. When he asks how many bedrooms there are, I cover my mouth. We used to cohabitate in a tiny dorm room, and now twelve bedrooms mightn’t be enough.

“What are you doing?” says Miriam, appearing behind me at the top of the stairs in an olive-green pantsuit.

“Shhh,” I say, indicating for her to sit down.

I jerk my head toward the base of the stairs and pantomime listening. “They’re looking to buy the house,” I whisper.

Miriam—bless her—looks alarmed.

Dana’s voice grows louder. She is laughing with Jamie and Fiona, saying, “This crazy great-uncle brought this silk back from Turkey. We always thought if we tore it down, the whole house would collapse.”

Miriam hits me in the arm. “They’re coming.”

I hear the creak of the dining-room door. Dana is showing them our marks measuring a hundred years of family growth, and I can see the top of Fiona’s auburn hair pulled into a French twist. No one has looked that elegant in the Aerie for years. Not since my mother was young. Not even Adele.

“What are you doing?” says Jessica, coming out of the bunk room.

“Shhh,” I say.

Miriam mouths,
Selling the house
.

Jessica looks horrified and sits down quickly.

I hear Sedgie’s baritone from below, followed by Dana making introductions. Sedgie says something indecipherable and starts up the stairs. When he sees us at the top, his expression doesn’t change. Slowly and elaborately, he steps over Jessica, turns around, and joins the huddle. Below us, Jamie, Fiona, and Dana disappear into the kitchen.

“Granite countertops,” says Sedgie. “I can see it now.”

“She’s going to paint,” I say.

“We’ll have to kill them,” adds Jessica.

“Hmmph,” says Miriam. “All’s you got to do is tell them the place is haunted.”

The three of us gape at Miriam.

I
intercept Jamie, Fiona, and Dana in the Love Nest. “Kind of a pigsty,” I say, glancing at the unmade bed covered with Derek’s clothes. “Squishy mattresses.”

Jamie says, “I’ve always loved this house.” He’s still wearing his blazer from the luncheon. Beneath his bushy blond eyebrows, he looks feral and proprietary.

“It has a wonderful view,” says Fiona.

“The weather slams it.”

Dana cuts her eyes at me and tells Fiona and Jamie to follow her upstairs. I trail after them. Fiona has knotted a cashmere wrap about her neck. Her satin mules click on the treads, and her arms are tan and lovely.

“Ignore the mouse droppings,” I mutter.

“Maddie’s feeling nostalgic,” says Dana briskly as if I’m not present. “We’re
all
feeling nostalgic. I mean, we grew up here, learned to swim. Well…some of us learned to swim.”

“How many bathrooms?” says Jamie.

“Ignore the hospital bed,” I say as we enter the master bedroom. Out of the corner of my eye, I see that some of Adele’s clothes are already hanging in the closet.

“Oh!” says Fiona, clasping her hand over her mouth. “This is where she died?”

“A lot of history…” I say.

“We’ll have it cleaned,” says Dana.

“Crazy great-uncle. Crazy cousin. Crazy great-grandmother.”

“I mean, it’s—”

“Crazy, crazy, crazy,” I say.

Jamie makes a snort that seems to indicate he agrees with my assessment.

“You’ll need to burn sage,” I say as Adele comes into the room. “Tell them, Adele.”

Fiona turns to Adele and holds out her hand. I’m surprised she can lift it with that ring. “I loved what you said today. About the infinite light and all.”