Mating Rituals of the North American WASP (22 page)

“Peggy, please.” Tiffany glanced at the wireless baby monitor next to her on the sofa cushion. “I know this place is a little
much. It has this effect on people; they kind of clam up and stare. But we have exactly forty minutes left until Milo wakes
up from his nap, and then it’s all over. Didn’t you have questions? Please, ask!”

“I don’t know where to start,” Peggy began. “I don’t know about anything Yankees are supposed to know about. I don’t even
understand the difference between Yankees, preppies, and WASPs. I haven’t a clue about prep school or sailing or polo. I’m
not descended from Pilgrims, and my family doesn’t live like…” she waved her hand around the room.

“This,” Tiffany finished the sentence. “Okay, I’ll tell you a secret. Liddy, Kyle, Topher—they don’t live like this, either.
When they come here, they’re appalled. They think it’s all very showy and tacky and new money, just like me.”

Peggy was shocked. “They say that?”

The housekeeper glided in with a tray of gemlike cookies and two glasses garnished with twists of orange peel.

“Ooh, yummy! Thanks, Clea. Try the water, Peggy. It’s infused with citrus and ginger.” Tiffany took a drink as Clea glided
back out. “Anyway, no, they don’t say that. They’re too well-bred to talk trash. But they all think I’m a social climber.
It doesn’t help that the first time they met me, I was slinging burgers at J. G. Melon.”

Peggy knew the restaurant. It was on the Upper East Side. “You were a waitress?”

Tiffany touched her nose, the Charades gesture that meant Peggy had made the correct guess. “They used to meet up there after
work on Thursday nights, back when everyone was young and single and living in Manhattan. Well, everyone but Luke—he’d gotten
a place in Hartford. Funny…” a faraway look came into her eyes. “You’d think Luke would have left Connecticut the second he
had the chance.” She reached for another cookie. “Anyhow, I thought Tom was so hot that one night I made the hostess seat
them all in my section. To them, I’m sure, I’m the gold digger who stole their friend. Which, for the record, I’m not. A gold
digger, I mean.”

“How do you know they think that?”

“I grew up among the Yankees, remember? I understand their ways. Tom says Liddy and Kyle and the others are boring and insular
and doubts he’d be friends with them anymore if they hadn’t all grown up together. Except for Luke, who doesn’t seem to buy
the old-money-versus-new-money, us-versus-them garbage, either.” She took a miniature meringue from the cookie assortment.
“The funniest part is, Luke and Tom have the bluest blood of the bunch.”

Peggy selected a diamond-shaped shortbread. “They all seem pretty blue-blooded to me.”

“But they’re not. Not by their own standards. Topher Eaton might wear Nantucket Reds and mix a mean Bloody Mary, but his mother
is Argentinian, which hardly makes him a WASP. And Bunny Simmons’s parents belong to the Maidstone Club, but—ever heard of
Crazy Carl Kirkendall?”

“Connecticut’s Carpet King?”

“Creighton’s dad. Talk about an outsider. People say he had to agree to resurface the school tennis courts before Choate would
let her in.” Tiffany slipped a lacy wafer off the cookie tray. “Kyle Hubbard is a swamp Yankee, two generations removed.”

Peggy took another cookie as well; she couldn’t help it. “Swamp Yankee?”

“A Connecticut redneck. I’m not saying these things to be mean. Lord knows I have no pedigree. My mom was a stewardess before
she met my dad, and now she’s office manager for an orthodontist. My dad was—probably still is, wherever he is—a swimming
pool contractor. But Tom is from this ancient Dutch family that settled in New York when it was still New Amsterdam. He thinks
it’s hilarious when those people make their cracks about how our car is too flashy or our house is too modern or our son’s
name is too trendy, or that Tom is far too interested in making a buck than befits a gentleman.”

Peggy shifted in her chair. “I would hate it if people criticized me like that.”

“Trust me. Tom doesn’t care. Neither do I. Neither does Luke, probably because he has the best credentials of all. He’s an
authentic white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and he went to an approved prep school, and he can trace his roots all the way to
the Pilgrims, which means he’s hit the trifecta: He’s a WASP and a preppy and a Yankee. They don’t make ’em like Luke anymore.”

“But I don’t care about any of those things,” Peggy said.

“Aha!” Tiffany planted her slippered feet back on the floor. “That’s exactly why he’s so wild about you!”

Peggy, who had just popped a sixth—or was it seventh?—cookie into her mouth, inhaled a little too sharply and got a crumb
in her throat, leading to an eye-watering, face-reddening coughing fit that went on for far too many mortifiying minutes.
Tiffany pounded her on the back, exhorted her to raise her arms over her head, assured her she wasn’t choking, because if
she were, she wouldn’t be able to cough, and finally, when the fit began to wind down, instructed her to drink some water.

“Whew!” Tiffany exclaimed after it was all over. “Was it something I said?”

Peggy laughed feebly.

“Here’s the thing, Peggy. Liddy and the others, they already assume you’re one of them. Unless they sense you’re trying too
hard, they probably won’t figure you out. And if they do, so what?”

Outside, the golden grass waved silkily. The baby monitor was still silent. If there was a time for Peggy to tell Tiffany
the whole story behind her marriage, this would be it. It would be a tremendous relief to have a friend to confide in.

“What’s bugging you?” Tiffany asked.

Peggy thought, with a stab of conscience, of Bex. Hadn’t her best friend been remarkably supportive? Hadn’t she listened with
interest to Peggy’s tales of the Sedgwicks and their idiosyncrasies, and of the Sedgwick House with its creaks and moans and
things that went bump in the night? Last night had been particularly creepy, with the storm outside and ghostly footsteps
up and down the stairs. She’d even felt something outside her door—
felt
it: a silent presence waiting for her. Bex was the only person who wouldn’t laugh when she related the story this evening.

Yet Bex was in New York, and possibly pregnant. Tiffany was closer to the situation, intimately familiar with the cast of
characters.

“I don’t know”—Peggy spoke haltingly—“that our marriage, mine and Luke’s, will last very long.”

Tiffany’s eyes lost their glow.

It was the first time Peggy had seen her new friend unhappy, and she lamented having begun this confession that would now
need to be spun out and explained. Too late, Peggy realized that admitting she’d wed Luke for financial gain probably wouldn’t
endear her to a woman who’d spent her adult life trying to prove she hadn’t done that very thing.

Peggy picked up the millefiori paperweight. “We got married quickly, and we’re from such different backgrounds and—”

She wasn’t at the party,
Peggy remembered. Luke had dropped that “she” so casually yesterday. Who else could “she” be but the redhead?

“—and I think he’s seeing another woman,” Peggy said. Hearing the words aloud made her ill. She hadn’t realized how deeply
the idea bothered her.

Tiffany laughed—a magnificent, snorting giggle. “Peggy Sedgwick, welcome to WASPville. We all think the same thing about our
husbands, I guarantee you—me, Liddy, Creighton, Carrie Eaton, all of us. Want my advice?” She leaned forward. “Be really good
in bed. No whips or leather, mind you—this, as you know, is preppy sex we’re talking about, very white bread with mayonnaise—but
my theory is, if Tom’s happy and satisfied, he won’t
want
to go anywhere else. Are you with me?”

“Mummy!” Milo’s distant cry sounded on the baby monitor. “Mummy!”

Tiffany pressed a button on the monitor and spoke into it soothingly. “I’m coming, baby. Be right there.” She got to her feet
and looked at Peggy. “I hope this helped a little.”

“It’s good to have someone to talk to,” Peggy assured her. “Thank you.”

Tiffany brushed her hair back from her shoulders and picked up the baby monitor, cradling it as if it were her child. “I’m
sure your marriage will be fine, Peggy. I really am. Just remember, people can pretend to be lots of things. But the way Luke
looked at you at your wedding reception—after he read the Yeats poem? I’ve never seen him look at a woman that way. That’s
why they call it true love, Peggy. There’s not a man in the world who can fake that.”

F
or the next week, Peggy had all the work she could handle at the store. December was approaching, their best sales month of
the year, and she spent hours receiving new inventory and restocking shelves in preparation for the holiday rush. But even
as she tried to keep her mind on her tasks, she’d catch herself ruminating on what Tiffany had said: “I’ve never seen him
look at a woman that way.” Each time Peggy replayed those words, the same electric current thrilled through her. It was a
sensation both enthralling and repellent, and she reached for it again and again, the way, as a child, she would press her
tongue against a loose tooth. Then she’d remind herself that Tiffany, perceptive as she seemed, knew nothing of Peggy and
Luke’s business deal, and a soft, smothering gloom would blanket her.

Worse, she couldn’t understand why she cared whether Luke had a girlfriend or not.
I must be lonelier than I thought,
Peggy told herself.

It was good, then, that she had Jeremy.

On Thursday afternoon, a flicker outside the shop door caught Peggy’s eye, and a deliveryman came in, dwarfed by a floral
arrangement wrapped in layers of tissue and protective plastic, a small white envelope stapled to the front. Peggy saw autumn
leaves peeking over the top of the tissue paper, and the current electrified her spine again.

She acted blasé until the man had gone, then she ripped the card from the bouquet and prepared herself: Luke couldn’t, wouldn’t
have sent it. The flowers would be from Jeremy; she’d seen him yesterday as well as the day before. She sighed and peeled
open the Lilliputian envelope.

On the front of the card was printed, “Thinking of you.” On the back, in unfamiliar handwriting Peggy assumed was the florist’s:

Missing you,
Brock

So the flowers weren’t from Jeremy after all. Peggy should have been upset that Brock kept trying to contact her. At the very
least, she should have been troubled by the redundancy of “thinking of you” and “missing you.” Strangely, she was touched—even
relieved. It made sense now why she’d been so blue. She must have subconsciously remembered November was the month she and
Brock had met. Today could even be the day.…

A glance at the calendar confirmed it. It was November 19, the eight-year anniversary of her first date with Brock.

Without thinking, she dug out her phone.

“You got the flowers?” From the clanking and grunting behind him, Peggy guessed Brock was at the gym. “Are they nice?”

Peggy had forgotten to look. She hastily tore the plastic and tissue from the arrangement. There were roses in peach and russet,
accented with the autumn leaves and clusters of deep red berries. “They’re perfect,” she said. Brock’s flowers always were.
“I guess you know what day it is.”

“Couldn’t forget. Remember we went to Brattie’s after dinner?”

“That was fun.” Peggy softened at the memory. She had enjoyed that night, slumming at the sports pub in her going-out clothes,
listening to stadium rock anthems on the jukebox, and drinking beer. All night, guys had come up to Brock to ask, And who’s
this lovely lady? “Meet the girl I’m going to marry,” Brock had told one of his cameraman pals, and Peggy had gone home with
that phrase and the tune of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” playing on an endless loop in her brain.

The shop door opened and shut, opened and shut, opened and shut, as three people came in one after another. Peggy smiled and
nodded at the third, a regular who came in almost weekly for a particular type of mint pedicure scrub; Peggy and Bex had speculated
that this woman must have the softest feet in New York.

“How about dinner sometime?” Brock asked.

“I don’t think so,” Peggy said, with genuine sadness, as the store phone began to ring.

“Peggy received a telephone call,” Abigail told Luke when he came downstairs for lunch on Thursday.

“Why would people be calling her here?” It was rare enough that Luke got a phone call at the house.

“Why wouldn’t they? She is your wife, after all.” Abby had a peculiar expression playing around her eyes—not quite the Look,
but close. It occurred to Luke that she might be aware of more than she let on. “The message is by the telephone,” she said.

The caller had been Liddy Hubbard, asking whether Peggy and Luke planned to tailgate with them and the Eatons at the Game.
The regrets would have to come from Peggy. Fielding social invitations also was part of what wives, at least Yankee wives,
did.

He dialed Peggy at the store.

“Do you have a minute?” He slouched into his favorite shabby chair near the phone, the one directly across from the portrait
of Elizabeth Coe Sedgwick in the flower brooch Peggy now wore on her sweaters at dinner, where its luster in the candlelight
rivaled Peggy’s luminous skin.…

“A minute.” Her voice wasn’t unfriendly, but she sounded busy. He told her about Liddy’s invitation.

“The Harvard-Yale game? When?”

“Yale-Harvard,” he corrected; an automatic response. “This Saturday.” The game was always the weekend before Thanksgiving.

“And a tailgate party? Did she say if we’re supposed to bring anything?”

Her reaction exasperated him. The last thing he wanted to do was spend a Saturday afternoon listening to Hubbard, who’d also
gone to Yale, and Eaton, who’d gone to Harvard, relive their glory days and argue, with increasingly liquored fervor, over
whose alma mater was superior. “Do you even care about football?” he asked Peggy.

Luke heard the click of a door closing, and the background noise grew muffled, as if Peggy had stepped into a small, private
room. “I haven’t been to a tailgate party,” she said. “It’s always sounded like so much fun.”