The Ice Cradle (18 page)

“I’d kill to see the inside of that house,” Lauren continued.

I was vaguely curious, I supposed, but Rawlings had struck me as arrogant and entitled, and I really hadn’t liked the way he’d given me the once-over, as though I was a horse he was contemplating buying. To top it all off, I strongly disagreed with him about the windmills.

“I’m not a big cocktail party person,” I said, though this wasn’t entirely true.

“Oh, I love them!” Lauren responded. “Or at least the idea of them. Martinis and Manhattans and perfume and cigarette smoke—it’s so romantic and glamorous. So … fifties!”

“I won’t stay long,” I said. “I’ll have one drink to be polite and get out of there as fast as I can.”

“You may not be able to,” Lauren said. “You’ll probably have to listen to a speech. I’ll bet you anything that he wants something from you.”

“What could he want from me?”

“It’s just how he is.” She sniffed. “He’s not the type of guy who gives a party to be nice.”

I’m partial to old houses. I love worn floors and antique wainscoting, and I’ll happily tolerate the wind whistling through cracks and crevices and windows that rattle and stick. I admire modern residences, with their lines all elegant and sleek, but I can’t really see myself living in one. If there were ever a house with the power to change my mind, though, it looked to be the house we were now approaching.

Caleb, Sally, and I had decided to walk the half mile or so to the Rawlingses’ beachfront estate. Henry had immediately joined in a badminton game in the Wilders’ side yard, a loose jumble of flailing arms and flying racquets that involved, counting Henry, six children and at least twice as many shuttlecocks. Players on one side of the net were volleying randomly with kids on the other, and a babysitter who appeared to be of college age had hot dogs and hamburgers sizzling on a gas grill off the back porch.

I had an immediate fantasy of moving here. Bert and I would get together, and Henry would suddenly have a childhood like mine—
better
than mine, in that it would include a mother. A few seconds later, I came to my senses. Bert and I hadn’t even had a date yet. And how in the world would I earn a living here? Working in a restaurant or a hotel five or six months a year? Not likely. Besides, Declan wouldn’t be keen on the idea. Not the me-and-Bert part—Dec was in no position to object to that—the part that involved living eighty
miles and an expanse of the Atlantic Ocean away from his son. And what Dec didn’t like, Henry didn’t like.

Oh, well.

The driveway and walkways leading to the Rawlingses’ house were lined with little gold bags stabilized with sand and enclosing flickering candles. We tried this back in Cambridge two years ago, when the pumpkins we had carved were stolen and smashed by local ne’er-do-wells the night before Halloween. We didn’t have time to carve any more, so Ellie, the arts-and-craftsy septuagenarian from whom we rent our apartment, came roaring to the rescue with an issue of Martha Stewart
Living
, a stack of brown paper lunch bags, and a tray holding what appeared to be every votive and pillar candle in her cozily cluttered house.

We cut faces into the bags and made up for in volume what we lacked in pumpkins, and in the end, even tearful Henry had been dazzled by the flickering brown goblins that lined our sidewalk and porch. Then, alas, it started to pour.

There were no clouds in sight tonight, though, so the dozens and dozens of bright gold bags with little star cutouts appeared to be in no danger of being reduced to pulpy piles. Set back from a rocky bluff, against which the waves were crashing, sending up sprays of fine mist, the house simply glowed. I was surprised that the senator, reputed to be an ardent conservationist, didn’t object to what seemed like every light inside and out radiating brightness and warmth at the environmental cost of zillions of megawatts, but this made the residence a sight to behold. That, I suppose, was the point.

Massive panel windows revealed that inside, dozens of guests were already happily chatting and drinking cocktails out of festive flutes and martini glasses. The deep, wide porch was dotted with revelers in twos and threes, seated in teak armchairs facing
the ocean or leaning against the slim columns that supported the porch’s graceful roof.

“I’m underdressed,” whispered Sally.

“You look fine,” Caleb responded unreassuringly.

Easy for you to say
, I thought. Men are lucky to have a basic uniform. Add a tie or a jacket, change to nicer shoes, and they can go almost anywhere. As far as I could tell, Caleb had simply put on a fresh shirt, traded his Top-Siders for loafers, and slipped on a sports jacket. Sally, on the other hand, had clearly put time and effort into her choice of outfit, and I thought she looked really pretty in her flowered blouse, coral cashmere sweater, black linen slacks, and black satin ballet flats. But glancing around, I could see her point: we were in the land of heels and silk.

As for me, I had only brought one dress, and it was black and polyester, so even though I had gotten it at TJ Maxx for $19.99, it passed for dressy. My relative good luck ended at my hair, though. Not only had I forgotten conditioner, I’d neglected to pack the round hairbrush that was the one beauty tool I owned. Without aggressive subduing with this brush and a hair dryer, my bangs crimped up in a wavy little curtain. I tried to smooth them down, but they sprung resolutely back. Then I tried to think like a person who might style her hair that way on purpose—say, a performance artist who lived in Brooklyn and wore pigtails and Doc Martens and looked cute in bright lipstick. That didn’t work, either. This left only the deflating consolation of the phrase Nona used to fling at me whenever I went on ad nauseam about my appearance:
Nobody’s going to be looking at you
.

Sadly, this was probably true.

As we climbed the front steps and opened the door, I heard slow, sexy jazz that turned out to be live: a man in a tux was playing a concert grand piano on the far side of an expansive
room that stretched out widely on each side of the front entrance. To our right was the living room, lined with built-in walnut bookshelves and decorated in shades of cream and rose, and to the left, the living room’s mirror image: a dining room with a glossy walnut table that looked long enough to seat twenty. Huge black urns of pink peonies, purchased and transported to the island at a breathtaking sum, no doubt, since peonies wouldn’t be blooming for months, adorned the table.
The decorator is really good
, I thought. Despite its ultramodern design, the house was warm and inviting, and the antiques scattered throughout the rooms looked as comfortable in the space as did the sleek modern chairs and minimalist silver fixtures.

A woman dressed in black stepped forward to take our coats, but Sally and I had only worn sweaters and we both decided to keep them on. Sally helped herself to a glass of wine delivered by a waiter with a tray and drifted into the living room, where she had spotted some friends. I gazed longingly at the martini glasses held by some of the guests, obviously filled with drinks that looked like Cosmopolitans or those trendy “-tinis” made with vodka or gin and fruit liqueur. I really wanted one of those. And I had to remember to eat. I always came home starving from parties like this; I’d get talking to somebody, have a drink or two, and completely forget to hit the hors d’oeuvre table.

I reached for a plate. There were scallops in broiled bacon, runny cheeses with seeded flatbreads that looked homemade, and bowls of macadamia nuts and Marcona almonds. There were bite-sized pieces of the onion tart we’d been warned not to touch yesterday, tiny quiches in puff pastry, and polished silver bowls filled with strawberries and grapes.

My plate was half covered and my mouth completely full when I heard a voice behind me.

“I’m glad you could make it.”

I turned around. It was Senator Rawlings.

I nodded brightly, trying to gulp down the little quiche I had just popped into my mouth.

“Take your time,” he said as I struggled to swallow, then to have a sip of wine, in case there was egg or crust in my teeth.

“Sorry,” I said. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For inviting me.”

“My pleasure. I hear you’re from Cambridge.”

Where had he heard
that? “I didn’t grow up there, but I live there now.”

“I did my undergraduate at Harvard.”

“Really? I thought you went to Brown.”
Oops!
I immediately realized that perhaps I shouldn’t have said this.

“For my PhD,” he explained. “But I’m curious—how’d you know that?” He attempted a disarming smile, but it was anything but disarming.

I couldn’t think of a plausible bluff, so I had to go with the truth. “Someone was talking about the local school, and how it was designed by a friend of yours from Providence who’s an architect.”

“Yes. Adrian Gerstner. He did this house, too.”

“It’s gorgeous. Really beautiful.”

“Thank you. But I can’t take any credit. Adrian and Helen really did it together.”

“Helen?”

“Mrs. Rawlings.” He glanced around, apparently looking for his wife, but she wasn’t in sight.” She’s here somewhere.

“Caleb tells me you’re pulling together the
Larchmont
papers. How long do you think it will take?”

“Yes, I am. The volumes themselves are pretty straightforward, but a lot will depend on some other decisions we have to make.”

“What kind of decisions?” He took a sip of his drink, which was one of those appletinis, or whatever they were.

I didn’t know whether I should tell him anything about my high-flying ideas. The conversations I’d had with Caleb were just that, conversations.

“There’s a lot of material,” I commented vaguely. “If the money were available, the Society could do some really great things.”

“Like what?” he pressed.

I glanced around for Caleb, but I didn’t see him nearby. Rawlings had fixed me with a disconcertingly direct stare, and I found myself bumbling ahead like a child being grilled by the principal. After all, he
was
the head of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“There are some amazing photographs,” I said. “If they were properly matted and framed, they’d make a terrific exhibit. And there are other ways to bring parts of the story to life: audio recordings, other types of installations. But that would require a dedicated space.”

“And what would that cost?”

“I have no idea. There seems to be room in the building, but the space would have to be renovated.”

“And how long would that take?”

“I really don’t know. I could talk to Caleb.”

“Great,” said the senator, interrupting me. “Get back to me as soon as possible.”

“All right,” I said meekly, and then he was gone.

Lauren had been right about one thing: Rawlings had some kind of agenda, though I wasn’t quite sure what it was. And now it appeared she was going to be right a second time: the senator was getting ready to make a speech. I was sipping my melon martini when a young guy who looked like he might be an aide-de-camp came into the dining room and attempted to usher everyone into the opposite space.

I had every intention of following him, but Aitana had just appeared at the door to the pantry and was waving me over with a frantic gesture.

“I’ll be right there,” I said to the aide.

“Everything’s great!” I told Aitana.

“Thanks,” she answered distractedly. “But listen! The woman in the car …”

“What car?”

“The one that almost hit me! I think she’s here!”

“I thought you didn’t see them.”

“So did I! But I guess I saw more than I thought. I couldn’t have described her face to the police, but I swear it’s her.”

I glanced across the foyer, where people were settling in, all facing the back of the house, where Rawlings was presumably standing. I heard him say something I couldn’t make out, and the guests erupted in polite laughter.

“What should we do?” I asked.

“I’m stuck back here. But maybe you could talk to her—find out where she’s staying, I don’t know. If we could find the car, that would be a start.”