Claire and Present Danger (28 page)

“Yes,” I said. “Certainly. About boys, too.”

“Right. Of course. Our boys astound me, too. But I suppose I can understand Ohio Cliff’s reticence, because you never know what’s going to turn itself into an accusation that the school somehow failed the child. In any case, I’m happy to say, I couldn’t find any evidence of any more problems once she was here with us. She was a good student, in fact.”

Her voice had become pleasant background buzz to me, like crickets on a summer’s night. I wasn’t sure about that woman’s prerogative, or pure moodiness.

Then I realized that Joanie’s pace had slowed. Stopped. She’d been waiting for a response. “So I’m sorry I couldn’t get any more,”

she said, wrongly interpreting my missed cue as disappointment.

And once again, I told her not to apologize at all. And then I swung the conversation over to how she was doing with the new school year underway, and finally to why I couldn’t talk as long as I wanted to, what with the big dinner tonight. “Mackenzie’s going to pick me up in . . . a few minutes,” I said, lying about the time for expediency’s sake. I actually had almost an hour till we sallied forth to pick up his parents at their hotel, but for once, I wanted to dress and dry my hair at leisure.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you. Your in-laws! You’re getting married!”

And that, of course, is not an item to be lightly dropped into the end of a conversation, so we spoke on. She offered unsolicited old-married advice about mothers-in-law (“Beware!” being the con-densed version), and I asked about the exploits and achievements 218

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of her three children, and how the new term was going at her school.

And at mine. “I think it’s going to be all right. I like a lot of the new kids and they seem—for the time being—actually interested and motivated. And I was told that I’m getting good notices on their blogs.”

I was showing off, demonstrating not only my reported popularity, but my up-to-the-minute mastery of contemporary adolescent technology. Joanie was suitably impressed—and confused, so then I had to explain what little I knew about Weblogs. I was, however, truly intrigued by them because they seemed important—the next thing after telephones for keeping up nonstop teen communica-tions. And that was, given Olivia’s experience with them—and mine—a good and a bad thing.

Finally we reached the psychologically apt time for a polite farewell. Once again, I thanked her for her help, and then, after we made a date for an after-school cup of coffee two weeks hence, on a day she didn’t have to carpool, I could graciously, politely, hang up.

It’s conversational etiquette that makes Mackenzie roll his eyes and mutter—till I object—about how long it takes women to say goodbye. It’s one of the few aspects of his personality that depresses me, because it means he doesn’t understand part of the basic rules of civilization. If it were up to him, telephone exchanges would be about information and nothing more. Over and out with military precision, and that of course wasn’t the half of it. Anyone who works with teens knows that.

But even having completed the call according to my inner rhythms of social interaction, I didn’t feel finished with it. I stood near the phone, thinking I now knew something, but I couldn’t access it. If I stood still, I might catch it. So I stood a minute in my sheer-toes panty hose, hair drying in berserk patterns, trying to pinpoint that thing, that something that was so close—and then almost into consciousness and then it was there—it was that close—

And the door opened. “Hey, Manda?”

I needed one minute more to get that thought into range, so I 219

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put up my finger in the universal signal of “hold it,” and C. K.

stopped talking.

But not everyone did. “Our feet are killing us, so we thought we’d save time and come directly here instead of—whoops!”

Although her greetings had begun before she was visible, now, Gabby Mackenzie was inside the loft, which is, after all, one large cube, with only bedroom and bathroom partitions. And there we stood for a painfully long second, both of us wide-eyed with disbelief.

“Oh, my,” I heard from a male voice that was not my beloved’s.

My beloved, in fact, laughed out loud, which might be grounds for removing him from the category of “beloved” altogether. But I couldn’t give much thought to that, because I had turned my back and was running, hands clapped on my rear end, toward the sanc-tuary of the partitioned-off bedroom.

One thing about the experience was that it cured me of all concerns about what I’d wear when with my in-laws. As long as I wore something, I’d be ahead of where I was now.

220

Nineteen

BYthe time we were en route to Gladwynne and dinner, I’d gained proper attire and hairstyle, but had long since lost or abandoned the thread of the idea I’d been pursuing.

No matter, I decided. If I have questions, Emmie herself will answer them.

And then my niece and nephew, sister and brother-in-law were hugging me, and Horse the dog was bumping his head against my knees for attention and my parents and Boy and Gabby were cheek-kissing, hand-shaking and hugging, and round and round in every possible combination people demonstrated that an impending marriage trumps everything.

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I relaxed into the confused merriment. Why not? We were an island of loveliness filled with happy cooking smells, the beautiful surrounds of Beth and Sam’s house, their adorable children, and almost equally adorable dog. It was, in fact, close to the picture of comfortable domesticity that’s always supposed to be either a bore or a sham, but certainly wasn’t in this case. I knew this from careful and cynical long-term observation. And like a delighted audience at this performance of marital possibilities, the two sets of parents cheered.

I didn’t think I’d ever seen my mother this happy, and it made me the slightest bit sad for all the times I’d been annoyed by her matrimonial nagging. Her hints and prods had been irritating, infuriating, and often ludicrous, but they were from her heart, part of a sincere belief, however antiquated and ridiculous, that to be married was to be safe in some way she passionately desired for her daughters.

Now, thanks to my unintentional announcement of a marriage date, she considered me safe. Her work was done, and on this, the seventh day, she rested.

And though I’d promised myself not to think about it this evening, my mother’s contentment inevitably contrasted with my memory of Claire Fairchild, who also only wanted her child to be safe. A wave of sadness took the edge off the bright evening.

But not for anyone else. By blundering into a wedding date, I’d defused the potential tension of this evening, and the two sets of parents, so dramatically dissimilar, were united and excited about seeing this through in style. I thought I’d be building conversational bridges all night long, but there was no need. I could have left the building and the party would have raged on.

I looked at my mother in her little black dress, the one she insisted be a part of every woman’s wardrobe, her proper patent pumps, and her mother’s marcasite initial pin. She’d have looked like a Puritan preaching to a lady of the evening, had both she and Gabby not looked so delighted with each other’s company. Gabby, towering over her, was laughing at something my mother had said.

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She looked like a tropical bird in the emerald brilliance of her dress—scoop neck, bouffant sleeves, skirts flouncing with blue and red embroidered tracery—the sort of thing Marie Antoinette wore when pretending to be a milkmaid, except for the strappy red high heels.

Even the fathers, Mackenzie, and Sam had found common ground, and all four were nodding in agreement with a topic I couldn’t begin to guess.

My sister, supervising her own daughter who was carrying a tray of endive piped with what appeared to be crème fraîche and caviar, caught my eye and gave the thumbs-up sign. And then Sam poured champagne all around, and Mackenzie and I were toasted with only one minor glitch when my mother called the groom-to-be “Chuck” and Gabby did a double-take.

Joy reigned in Gladwynne. Poor Olivia and dead Claire Fairchild and mixed-up Emmie Cade faded into the distance till they disappeared altogether.

Dinner was a fine medley of barbecued lamb and crisp green beans and more wine and much laughter with Gabby, mother of seven married children who’d had thirteen weddings amongst them, regaling the table with tales of outrageous mishaps and mismatches. My mother looked worried by the stories at first, and then gave up and laughed along with everyone else.

Even the children, sipping apple juice in wineglasses, behaved, and when they started to fade, I took them upstairs. My longstand-ing role as spinster aunt included reading them bedtime stories when I was around, a perk I intended to keep. Now that Alexan-der was of an age to have favorites, each session followed a long ne-gotiation. “Not the poop book again,” Karen insisted. “Or else I get my own story.”

I didn’t have time for two books, and finally, they agreed on Best Friends for Frances, which seemed appropriately about siblings finding out they could be friends. I hadn’t realized or remembered that the book was concerned with Frances’s response to being excluded, but reading about it brought Olivia back into the room, 223

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the awareness of how much less aggressive and successful she’d been than a fictional badger.

Of course, badgers didn’t have to go to high school. That made their lives easier.

Beth, afraid I was being trapped by her children, came upstairs, and together, we finished the story and tucked them in.

And ultimately, it was a traditional ladies-cleaning-up scene, with all of us vying for the “most helpful” award, but thanks to Beth’s superpreparedness and modern conveniences like dish-washers, there was little washing, and no drying, and four women circling the kitchen until we divvied up the few chores. I was dele-gated to rescue the leftovers from Horse, which I did while we continued to talk about families, weddings, Beth’s event-planning skills, and how cute the children were.

The senior generation was in the dining room, clearing the tablecloth and protective pads while I put leftover mint sauce in the refrigerator.

“I like your in-laws,” Beth said. “They’re fun.”

“That they are. I can’t believe how it’s defused Mom. She’s kind of rolling with whatever anybody says.”

Beth raised her eyebrows. “Gabby is a bit . . . overwhelming,”

she whispered. “But in a good way.”

“She’s such a happy person,” I whispered back, although the two mothers were talking at such a feverish pace in the next room, they couldn’t have heard us even if we were louder. “As if life’s a super game, and she’s on a perpetual winning streak.”

I wondered if I could adopt some of Gabby Mackenzie’s reso-lute joy, and then I accepted the fact that I was not made of the same material, and I closed the refrigerator, checking what new shots of the children or invitations Beth’s refrigerator sported.

Snooping, to be blunt. I saw a mildly familiar item. Vicky Baer’s brochure. “What is she doing up here?” I asked. “The refrigerator is hallowed home ground.”

Beth laughed. “I haven’t actually had a chance to read it yet, but I want to check out whether there’s any crossover on there.”

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“Meaning?”

“You know. She consults all over the place, to all sorts of nonprofits, and I’m putting together a little dinner party . . .”

“May I suggest that subtlety isn’t your strong point?”

“Come down from your ivory tower,” she said, and that made me laugh.

“What’s the opposite of an ivory tower?” I asked. “A mud trench? That’s more like Philly Prep.”

“I realized I know somebody at a foundation she works with,”

she said, “and I thought it might be nice, since they already know each other, to invite them both. In fact, I called her—Vicky—right before you got here, but she was out. A woman who barely spoke English answered. I do wish people who have trouble with the language would simply leave an answering machine on.”

I made sure the wrap was tight around the last of the lamb and returned to the crammed refrigerator in search of a place for it. “So is she coming to your gala?”

Beth shrugged. “I only spoke—if you can call it that—to this woman, who said ‘the lady is with the friend who is feeling bad.’ It took me so long to get that, that I didn’t have the energy to try to leave a message. I’ll call her tomorrow. Check out the brochure.

She’s got an impressive business going.”

I had zero interest in it. Besides, Vicky had given me one as well and it must still be wherever I’d shoved it, should I ever want to check it out. But Beth seemed to want me to acknowledge what a trophy she’d snared and how clever she’d been, to officially approve of her networking savvy, so I obliged her, opening and skimming through it.

Vicky Baer had indeed developed an impressive business. Or a sufficiency of people willing to lie and give her nice little endorse-ments. There were tributes about increased endowments, a revised and three-times-more-profitable fund-raising plan, good service that didn’t end with the contract, et cetera. I didn’t personally recognize any of the sources, except Shipley School, but there were lots of them with the quotes, and then a sidebar list of still more.

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This was a career I’d never have thought of, almost an oxymoron, helping nonprofits make money. Helping herself as well, I had to believe. And sampling just a few names, she’d pleased the boards of the KBS Foundation in Philly, and One Hundred Percent for the Children in D.C. I had a brief and nasty moment thinking that nobody would know if she’d made these places up.

A King Henry School, that should have been in England, but found itself in Chicago; another, a more plainly named Prep school in Baltimore; and two in upstate New Jersey, right outside New York; The Family Foundation in Altoona; and The Learning Project in San Francisco for starters.