The Bubble Reputation (14 page)

“No I haven't,” said Lizzie. “I'm making light of it, but the truth is that I'm about to crack. One minute I'm ready to start this foolish game all over again with Philip. On the other hand, Charles and I haven't talked this much since before the babies were born.”

“As a wiser person than either you or I once said,
que
sera
sera
.”

“Doris Day?” asked Lizzie.

“The same,” said Rosemary.

***

The dinner was spaghetti again. It was the most convenient way to feed a large group of people and even Miriam had to admit that Uncle Bishop's sauce was exquisite. It was his own version of spaghetti sauce Bolognese, but he called it
spaghetti
sauce
Bishop
.

Uncle Bishop liked Philip immediately, more for his taste buds than for his legal sensibilities.

“Try this,” Uncle Bishop insisted, as he thrust a saucy spoon into Philip's mouth. Philip rolled the sauce on his tongue as though it were a rare wine. “An expert!” Uncle Bishop exclaimed to the others. He gave Philip a second spoonful.

“That's an incredible sauce,” Philip said, and Uncle Bishop glanced about to see if any sauce laymen had heard.

“It depends on how much sweet butter and olive oil,” Uncle Bishop whispered. “And good prosciutto, although Rosemary won't eat it.”

“This is a
remarkable
sauce,” Philip said again, seemingly surprised to find culinary delights as far north as Bixley. He returned the empty spoon to Uncle Bishop.

“And I soak the mushrooms in white wine for an hour,” Uncle Bishop whispered loudly. “I'm tempted to give you the recipe, but you understand, don't you, Philip? It's a matter of tradition.”

“Most of northern Maine has that recipe,” Miriam said. She had come into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of cabernet and now she was giving Philip a quick up-and-down scrutiny with eyes that lolled suggestively beneath heavily shaded green lids. Uncle Bishop nodded his chin at her.

“Have you met Medusa?” he asked Philip, who shook his head.

“A word to the wise,” Miriam warned Philip. “Keep your shoes tied tight.” She opened a bottle of Bacardi, poured a shot, and then emptied it into the glass of wine, mixing it well.

“Shoes?” asked Philip.

“Now here,” said Uncle Bishop, pointing at Miriam's glass, “you witness taste buds that have been sprayed with Pledge. This woman's tongue has an epithelium thicker than shag carpet.” Miriam drank the glass of wine-rum down and mixed up another.

“Shoes?” Philip asked again. Drink in hand, Miriam turned, flicked a finger under Philip's chin, and then puckered her lips to give him a pretend kiss. She swished past in her green pantsuit and into the dining room with her “mixed drink.”

“Nail your pants to your bones,” Uncle Bishop said. “Her pheromones have kicked in.”

***

The large rectangular table in Rosemary's dining room sat ten comfortably, so space wasn't a problem. But she had no idea how to arrange this strange assortment of relatives and bedfellows about its edges without causing some sort of battle. Raymond and Miriam were ignoring each other. This was what Rosemary had guessed earlier in the week when Miriam had chosen to babysit Mother without makeup. With tension in the air like heat lightning, the eight diners gravitated toward the dining room and found themselves standing at random behind empty chairs. Lizzie wound up in the captain's chair at one end, opposite Rosemary, who, as hostess, always claimed the end position closest the kitchen. Philip and Charles had both tried to claim the empty chair next to Lizzie. Charles was victorious and sank into it even as Philip tried to slide it away. Rosemary noticed that none of these three seemed to be speaking to each other as well. She caught Lizzie's eye.

“Assholes,” Lizzie whispered, then rolled her eyes at Philip and Charles. Philip sat in the chair next to Charles. He gazed up at the ceiling fan so as to avoid Miriam's wild glances. Rosemary seated Mother at Philip's right, at the place setting closest to her own. That way she could see to Mother's needs. Uncle Bishop had scuttled to Rosemary's right, on the other side of the table. To his great disappointment, Miriam ended up in the empty chair next to him, midtable on that side, and directly across from the brooding Philip. The faint smell of a cigarette was still lingering about her and there was a craziness in her eyes. Rosemary was worried about this. This was Miriam at her lowest stance. And, judging by the looks of Raymond, who had managed to get the chair to Miriam's right but
Lizzie's
left, the stance might get even lower. He seemed enamored of Lizzie who appeared uncomfortable that Raymond had headquartered himself at her left elbow. But then, Charles was at her right elbow, and she didn't seem too thrilled by that either. Rosemary glanced around the table at her guests. They sat stiffly, an austere gathering, looking very much like the characters in some Clue game. Lizzie. Charles. Philip. Mother. Rosemary. Uncle Bishop. Miriam. Raymond.
Mr. Green, in the Ballroom, with the Lead Pipe.
Uncle Bishop had loaded plates with spaghetti and sauce for Lizzie and Rosemary to carry to the table, and now the diners sat staring down at them. All except for Mother, who was ogling
The
Chinese Horse.

“Where's Robbie?” asked Lizzie.

“Too busy for his sister's fortieth birthday party,” Miriam said.

“He's gone camping downstate with friends,” Rosemary told Lizzie. “They made plans months ago.”

“I was lucky to get a card,” Miriam announced.

“You were lucky the card wasn't ticking,” Uncle Bishop muttered.

“So, let's eat,” said Rosemary. She cut Mother's spaghetti into short pieces. Charles poured wine from one of the two open bottles on the table. The gathering looked like a drinking crowd straight out of some battered USO club during the worst moments of the war. Miriam hiccupped, and then there was more awkward silence before everyone began eating, enjoying the garlic bread, the salad, praising the sauce. Rosemary had remembered to get several bottles of wine at Laker's. It would take many, she knew, to get them all past Miriam's fortieth birthday. Most of Miriam's birthdays had been dramatic showcases, the sixteenth, the twenty-first, the thirtieth coming quickly to Rosemary's mind. Now here was the big four-zero.

“The world is generally mistaken about the origins of spaghetti,” Uncle Bishop lectured, pleased that tonight his crowd was larger and more cosmopolitan.

“What about the origins?” asked Philip, and Uncle Bishop smiled.

“Well,” he said, “the Indians and the Arabians had noodles fifty years before Marco Polo came back from China.”

“Really?” asked Lizzie.

“The Arabians had a different word for it than the Indians did, but both words meant
thread
.” Uncle Bishop beamed at Lizzie.

“How interesting,” said Lizzie.

“It
is
interesting,” said Charles.

“Yes,” said Philip, not wanting to be left out, especially if Charles had been included. Mother merely stared at Miriam, who was returning from the kitchen with the bottle of Bacardi.

“To hell with decorum,” Miriam said. “It
is
my birthday.” She set the bottle down on the table.

“Then the Italians, those big thinkers of the Mediterranean, those early Perry Comos and Frank Sinatras, come along and call it spaghetti,” Uncle Bishop continued. “Which comes from a word that means
string
.” He was very pleased with his culinary classroom. He paused—Rosemary knew these pauses—just in case there were questions.

“Why don't you take some of that
string
and sew up your big fat lips?” Miriam asked. She filled her glass with straight Bacardi. Uncle Bishop stared at her. This was not the kind of question he had anticipated from his class. And anticipate he did, for he had all the colorful answers ready. The Indians called it
sevika
, and the Arabians called it
rishta.
And the Italians derived it from
spago
, or
string.
Rosemary had heard it all, many times, at spaghetti dinners in the past.

“When is Father getting here?” Mother asked.

“Any minute now,” Rosemary assured her. She noticed that Uncle Bishop was still staring at Miriam, fury in his eyes. “Lizzie, would you pass me the salt, please?” Rosemary asked. She didn't use much salt, but Uncle Bishop craved it. He called it poor man's cocaine. Rosemary would get him salt, quickly, and encourage him to cover his food with it. It might not be healthy, but it would distract him. This plan, however, only served to further embroil the situation by bringing out into the open exactly
who
was furious with
whom
. Lizzie picked up the shaker, looked to her right at Charles, then passed it to her left, to Raymond, who accepted it as though it were a lover's glove tossed down. But all too soon he realized the trap. It was only salt and he would have to pass it on. The logical choice was Miriam, not necessarily because she was his life's partner, but because she sat to his immediate left.

“Shit,” Raymond said, and shoved the shaker of salt across the table to Charles. Charles took it and, without even considering Philip, at his right, passed it back across the table to Miriam. In Miriam's hands it became a sexual talisman. She stared across the table at Philip.

“Pheromone alert!” Uncle Bishop announced. Miriam had no intention of relinquishing this shaker to
him
. Instead, it went back across the table to Philip, who was forced to accept it while avoiding Miriam's caresses on his knuckles.

“Here, for crying out loud,” said Philip, as he slid the salt shaker in front of Mother.

“He'd better not forget my chocolates,” Mother said, looking down at the salt as if to suggest that Father was playing some joke on her.

“He won't,” Rosemary said, and took the salt from Mother's hand. She set it loudly in front of Uncle Bishop's plate.

“Now salt your damn
thread
,” Rosemary said. She imagined this same angry crew at an old-fashioned bucket brigade, while behind them a house full of screaming occupants burned to the ground.

While the others ate, Rosemary kept her eyes on
The Chinese Horse
as it flexed its muscles in the light that flickered up from the candles, an old campfire light of branches gathered twenty thousand years ago by prehistoric hands. The artwork now seemed appropriate. They were no more than Cro-Magnons sitting around a shank of mammoth. And she wondered if this was what William was longing for in the dream. “I miss the human things,” he had said. Well, here
she
was still alive, still surrounded by human things. He wasn't missing much. Maybe he was even better off wherever he now was.

“I suppose you might as well be told,” Miriam said, dropping her fork onto her plate with a clatter. Raymond grimaced in anticipation. “Raymond and I are splitting up.” She said this as though she expected shock to ripple through her listeners.

“You must have ring burn,” Uncle Bishop said.

“A divorce is the only answer,” Miriam added.

“You
both
have to work to keep a marriage together,” said Charles. Lizzie pretended not to hear this.

“Let me tell you what my husband is planning this time.” Miriam uncapped the Bacardi bottle and filled her glass again. “He's leaving real estate and going into the Port-O-Let business. Shit houses on wheels. Is that or is that not reason to move to Japan?”

“You'll like Japan,” Uncle Bishop said. He was still eating his spaghetti. So was Mother. The others seemed to have had enough. “In Japan, Miriam, you can take rickshaws instead of cabs.”

“I could have gone into selling vibrators.” Raymond was quickly indignant. “I've had enough experience with Miriam's own personal collection to be familiar with the line.”

“Tell the truth,” Uncle Bishop said. “Was Miriam the cause of that blackout Bixley had last fall? Maybe she should have her own generator.”

“Come on, everyone!” Rosemary said. Again, she sounded like the perpetual high school teacher, and hated it. “We're in the middle of a birthday celebration.”

Lizzie excused herself and, therefore, so did Charles and Philip. They rose from their chairs like three paper dolls, cut out and hooked miserably together.

“Maybe we'll have cake later?” Rosemary asked. So much for the celebration.

“This is the last time I give my heart to a man,” Miriam was crying now.

“Try to visualize the tattered shape of that heart,” Uncle Bishop said. He made another stab at his spaghetti by rolling it around on his fork until it formed a ball.

“This celebration is officially over,” Rosemary said, and stood up. Uncle Bishop protested.

“But I was just beginning to like Raymond,” he said. “And you know how I never like her husbands.” Raymond grinned appreciatively.

“I never liked you before, either,” he admitted.

Mother's attention had gone back to
The Chinese Horse
.

“Where's Mr. Ed?” she asked.

“On a farm in Michigan,” Uncle Bishop whispered, and Mother smiled.

“Take her down to the den and give her the toy xylophone,” Rosemary told him. “I'll bring her some cake in a minute.”

“Can I stay for a few days, Rosie, until I'm back on my feet?” Miriam's eyes were moist.
Rosie.
Even as children it was
Rosie
only if she wanted something.

“I don't know, Miriam,” Rosemary said, stalling. “As you can see, I have a full house as it is.”

“She's not coming home with
me
,” Raymond assured the group. “And someone better come get that goddamn Chihuahua.”