Mating Rituals of the North American WASP (13 page)

A few steps away, under a pastoral painting with a gilt frame Peggy realized she’d neglected to dust, Ernestine Riga had spotted
her. She’d been talking to a man and woman in their sixties who Peggy was pretty sure were the Sedgwicks’ next-door neighbors,
Annette and Angelo Fiorentino.

Ernestine caught Peggy by the sleeve with such enthusiasm, Peggy almost doused punch all over the Fiorentinos. “Emily Hinkley
called—she’s the president of the ladies’ auxiliary,” Ernestine informed Peggy and the bouncy-haired woman. “She wants our
house to be part of the New Nineveh Home Tour! Emily says they’re all impressed with our loving restoration of the former
Sedgwick carriage house. We’ll be the top-billed home. I hope we have time to spiff up the place—June isn’t that far off!”

“What an honor!” Either Peggy’s new friend didn’t think, as Peggy did, that Ernestine Riga was a self-important show-off or
she was too polite to reveal it. She held her punch cups steadily. “I’ve always fantasized about having my house chosen for
a tour. Which reminds me, Peggy. I’ll have to have you over for lunch soon.”

Ernestine looked the woman up and down. “Aren’t you married to that hedge fund mogul in Greenwich? That VanderSomething?”

“Tom Ver Planck. Yes, I am. I’m Tiffany. Please forgive me for not shaking your hand. Has the Sedgwick House been in a home
tour, Peggy? I’ve always loved this place.”

Peggy’s elbows were aching from holding the punch cups, and her head was reeling from too many names, and she’d been distracted
by a tear in the grimy wallpaper directly behind Ernestine’s head. “Home tour?” she repeated stupidly. She wasn’t sure what
a home tour was, let alone if this house had been in one.

Annette Fiorentino’s long gray braid thumped against her shoulder as she shook her head. “Oh, no. Abigail would hate all those
tourists coming through. She doesn’t like strangers in her home.”

Angelo Fiorentino had a faint Boston accent. “I’m surprised she let
you
in, Peggy.”

Peggy started to feel dizzy. But Angelo had been joking; Annette was laughing. “I know Miss Abigail is overjoyed that Luke
found you,” Annette said, serious again. “I don’t think any of us expected him to marry.”

“You plan to have kids?” Ernestine barked, but before Peggy could think of a polite way to suggest that Mrs. Riga mind her
own business, Tiffany excused the two of them charmingly and gently led Peggy away.

“Thank you,” Peggy said.

“Anytime. People can really be nosy, especially once you’re married. They think you should start popping out the babies right
away.” Tiffany wove expertly past a table stacked with wedding presents. Peggy hadn’t expected people to bring anything, and
just looking at all the hopeful, pastel-wrapped boxes made her feel awful. Tiffany stopped and gave her a conspiratorial grin.
“So.
Are
you two planning to have babies?”

Peggy felt her hands start to sweat. “No time soon.”

“Smart thinking. You lovebirds need time to focus on each other. I don’t think Tom and I have slept all night alone together
since our son was born.”

Peggy made a mental note not to repeat this story to Bex. “You have a son?”

“Milo.” The woman’s eyes softened. “He’s two. You’ll have to meet him.”

Their path ended at the library, where a half dozen or so men and women huddled in a close circle, some standing, some leaning
easily against the backs of armchairs. One man, whose wide, flat, boyish face was beginning to turn puffy with age and alcohol,
held a bottle of Scotch in one hand while yanking a book from one of the floor-to-ceiling shelves with the other.

“What did I miss?” Peggy’s ally passed out the punch. “I’ve completely forgotten whose cup was whose, but we’re all friends,
right? Hi, hon.” She stood proprietarily close to another of the men, smacking a lipstick kiss on his shiny, tan cheek.

“I see, Sedgwick, that your bride has befriended our Tiffany.” The puffy-faced guest looked at Luke, signaling something Peggy
couldn’t decode. He set down his bottle and introduced himself as Kyle Hubbard and the petite, thin-lipped woman next to him,
who seemed vaguely affronted by Tiffany’s abundant chest, as his wife.

Peggy remembered linking the short
i
in “skinny” with the woman’s name. At last, she could greet a guest properly. “Lizzie, right?” With luck, she wouldn’t have
to reshake anyone’s hand. Hers were tacky with sloshed punch.

“Liddy,” Kyle’s wife corrected, darting her gaze away from Tiffany. “Not to worry—you have a lot of names to memorize. That’s
Tom Ver Planck, Tiffany’s husband. This is Topher and Carrie Eaton, and Bunny and Creighton Simmons.” Her eyes crinkled as
she tilted her head toward a preternaturally cute man and woman who looked like brother and sister. “Bunny and Creighton used
to be our newlyweds, but you and Luke have dethroned them.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, Bunny,” Peggy told the woman, whose headband and diminutive gold earrings framed round, stuffed-animal
eyes in a face free of makeup.

“That’s Creighton,” Liddy corrected. “
He’s
Bunny.”

The circle erupted into laughter. Peggy searched for a sign of support from Luke, but he had missed the exchange completely.
He and Tom Ver Planck had moved to a quieter corner and seemed deep in discussion. She clasped her punch hands across her
elbows, then dropped them quickly. These people didn’t need to know how uncomfortable she was.

“I had a hard time keeping them straight at first, too,” Tiffany whispered sympathetically. “They do blend together.”

The puffy one, Kyle Hubbard, cleared his throat. “But where were we? Ah, yes. Quit talking business, my brother, and recite
us a little ditty.”

Luke looked over and frowned.

“You leave me no choice.” Kyle set down his drink and opened the book, flipping through the pages.

“You’re holding it upside down,” Topher pointed out, to more laughter.

Kyle flipped the book right-side up and began reading in a singsong voice:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this—

He paused. “Christ, this is dull.”

“It’s Yeats.” Peggy didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until she saw Kyle look up at her. “It’s one of the most romantic poems
ever written.” She didn’t add,
And you’re mangling it.

“Then by all means, let’s get your beloved to finish. Be a sport, Sedgwick,” Kyle called loudly. “Your bride would like you
to read this sonnet, or whatever it is.”

“I don’t, really,” Peggy protested.
And it isn’t a sonnet.

“All right.” Kyle sniffed and rubbed his pouchy eyes. “I’ll do it. ‘When you are moldy and grey, take down this book…’ ” Everybody
but Tom, Tiffany, Luke, and Peggy laughed.

“Put that away, you philistine.” Luke strode back to the circle.

Kyle held the book out of Luke’s reach. “You read, or I will.”

“Come on, Luke. Put him out of his misery,” said Creighton.

Luke pressed his lips together, as if to keep from speaking impolitely, and took the book from Kyle’s hand. He pushed his
glasses back on his nose and straightened his rangy body and began:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

He didn’t look happy, but he recited with a command of the poem that showed he was familiar with it. Peggy looked again and
realized he wasn’t reading at all but was reciting from memory, and she felt light-headed.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

He was handsome. His quiet melancholy made Brock’s broad-shouldered good looks seem cartoonish, inconsequential. He tipped
his head forward in concentration, a lock of hair falling over one eye. He wore the same dark suit he’d had on when Peggy
had woken up next to him in Vegas. It was hardly of the most up-to-date cut, but it was right on him.

This is my husband,
Peggy thought.
He’s my husband, and he’s handsome, and he knows Yeats.
Her legs felt as if they might buckle under her.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

He finished reciting, and the whole world faded away.

It could have been inadvertent. Or he could have intended to catch Peggy’s eye. All Peggy knew was that he looked at her,
and she looked at him, and all else receded—the party laughter and the tip of glasses, the rustle of fabrics—faded away, or
never existed, and there were just the two of them, virtual strangers who had somehow become the only people in the world.

Once before, a man had looked at her this way. Once before, she’d gazed into a man’s eyes and found in them this exquisite
understanding:
We belong together.
But who had it been? She remembered the feeling, the moment, but, cruelly, not the man.
It was Brock. It has to have been Brock,
she told herself, knowing it hadn’t been; that Brock Clovis had never seen her the way Luke Sedgwick was seeing her now.

Without thinking, Peggy extended her hand to brush back Luke’s hair and might have done it had someone not reached out and
caught her fingers.

“Look!” Tiffany cried, and the world came back into focus.

Peggy was weak with shame. Had she really been just about to touch Luke Sedgwick?

“It’s exactly like mine!” Tiffany held out her hand, aligning it with Peggy’s so their left ring fingers were parallel and
Tiffany’s flawless, starry-framed diamond aligned with Peggy’s flawless, starry-framed cubic zirconia. Peggy stiffened, preparing
for Tiffany to identify her and her ring as fakes, but Tiffany only giggled. “I take that back. It’s exactly like mine, only
bigger.”

Everyone except Luke leaned in.

“So it is. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d go flashy, Sedgwick,” Kyle drawled.

Peggy stole a peek at Liddy and Creighton’s wedding rings—plain bands as different from Tiffany’s as the two women were from
the glossy-mouthed, generously hipped Tiffany herself.

“That’s the ring of a man who’s deeply in love,” Kyle continued. “Wouldn’t you say, Ver Planck?”

It was becoming clear to Peggy that the more upset Luke was, the less he spoke.

“Actually, Hubbard, it’s the ring of a man who is deeply in love and who’s been far more successful as an investor than you
have,” Tiffany’s husband returned. Liddy raised an unplucked eyebrow as Tom, Tiffany, Topher, and Carrie burst into fresh
peals of laughter.

One thing was for sure. It was lucky Peggy didn’t have an inkling of feeling for Luke, because if she had, she’d be insulted
at his evident disgust over the suggestion they might be in love.

Kyle squeezed behind Peggy, caging her in a half hug around the shoulders. “You must be quite a girl, Mrs. Sedgwick, to have
inspired this Ver Planck–like display of extravagance.”

Peggy laughed politely and started to move away, but Kyle kept his arms locked firmly across her collarbone in an embrace
less sexual than possessive. Surely this time Luke would step in, Peggy thought, but he simply shut the book—“That’s enough
of that”—and replaced it on the shelf. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell if Luke meant he was through reading or that
he’d had enough of his friend’s behavior. Or was he saying he’d had enough of her? Was she embarrassing him by her mere presence
among his friends? Was it clear to these people that she didn’t belong?

“Do tell, Mrs. Sedgwick.” Her captor’s breath on the back of Peggy’s neck bore the not entirely repugnant tang of whiskey
and cigarettes. “How did you persuade our friend here to tie the knot?”

It seemed to overtake her, a desire to torture Luke a little. It was wrong, she knew, yet the urge reached out and wrapped
its tentacles around her as if to strangle her. Or it could just be that Kyle had tightened his arms across her chest. Panic
rose to take the place of the wicked feeling, but she laughed as if this sort of thing happened to her all the time. “Simple.
I propositioned him. He couldn’t say no. Could you, Luke?”

“I couldn’t.” Luke’s easy tone seethed with warning. “You gave me no choice.”

The men broke out in catcalls. Kyle squeezed Peggy harder. “Now recite one of your poems, Sedgwick.”

“Oh, do! We’ve never heard a single one!” Liddy seemed undisturbed that her husband had Peggy in a choke hold. Was it, too,
a “Yankee thing”—an arcane prep school hazing ritual? If so, there was no sense in struggling. She tried to relax in Kyle’s
clutches as the circle pressed Luke to recite.

“Peggy, you make him,” Carrie Eaton called out.

In an instant, Peggy was in the crosshairs of eight expectant stares and a ninth, enigmatic one—Luke’s. She was already sorry
for teasing him and sure he would rather not be the center of attention, sure that these people hadn’t seen his poetry because
Luke hadn’t wanted them to. Perhaps he thought his poems weren’t good enough. She should be a good pretend wife and bolster
his confidence, the way a real wife would. “Why not read the one about the sunveined southern winds? It’s really nice—” She
stopped herself, too late.

“You mean,” Luke said, “the one on my desk, upstairs, in my study?”

Hubbard chose this moment to release Peggy, and she stumbled forward and felt one of her heels grind into Luke’s foot.

Luke stepped back. “That poem isn’t finished,” he said.

Tiffany called, “Make one up!”

Peggy felt as if she’d just thrown Luke to the lions. These were Luke’s friends, weren’t they? Couldn’t they see he was miserable?
She wanted to tell them to stop it and leave him alone, that she’d made a terrible mistake, that she hadn’t meant to go through
his papers.