Mating Rituals of the North American WASP (40 page)

Luke set down his tar-spreading broom and leaned out over the widow’s walk balustrade and looked through the treetops to the
town green. The protesters were gathering already, their numbers fortified by the weekenders from New York, who had flocked
back for the summer. Their chants carried faintly. Luke waited until Angelo looked up, then gestured with a tarry hand toward
the green. “Did you want to go? I can finish up here myself.”

Angelo’s boots left gummy black footprints as he came over to peer through the trees. “Nah. Looks like they’ve got it covered.”

“Listen, about Budget Club…” Luke had an unaccountable need to explain himself. “You and Annette aren’t originally from New
Nineveh. Neither are most of the people down there on the green. I respect that you all came here because New Nineveh was
a picturesque little town, and that you’d like to keep it that way. And I know it’s hard for you to understand why we locals
seem so keen on selling it out.”

Angelo tilted his head upward—just enough of a nod to verify he agreed with what Luke was saying, but not so much that it
might provoke an argument.

“It’s hard for me, too. My family built this town. We built the Congregational Meeting House, and the courthouse, and the
clock tower, all in the name of progress. If my great-great-great-grandfather were alive today, I suspect he’d call this progress,
too. All I can tell you is that land is the only thing I have left. My decision was purely financial. If I could support myself
and still write some other way, I would.”

“No worries, Luke,” Angelo said. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

Luke was no less burdened for his confession. “One more thing. Mayhew will be looking for a caretaker for the house once I’ve
moved out. Someone to come in and feed the cat, keep an eye on the place, and make repairs. The salary’s pretty good. I’m
sure the job would be yours if you’re interested.”

Angelo wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. It was going to be a hot day. “I’m interested,” he said.

It was one thing to relax about. The Fiorentinos would take good care of the house. Abby would be pleased if she knew. Luke
excused himself and went down into the cool, dim library, over which Silas presided, as ever, from his portrait.

“What would you have done?” Luke addressed his ancestor. “You’re all for progress, aren’t you?”

It was laughable, his seeking counsel from a painting. This was how it must have started for Abby—first talking to herself
out loud as an antidote to the loneliness, eventually conversing with unseen companions. After that, it was only a short hop
to believing in ghosts.

Luke locked eyes with the portrait and waited for a sign.

Silas glowered.

“I thought so,” Luke said. He had the answer at last.

Wedding Day, June

I
t was as if every good deed Peggy had ever done, every ounce of worry she’d ever expended, every bit of luck she had coming
to her, had all converged on this single day. She’d slept like a baby and awoken to the most beautiful June weather imaginable:
a benevolent sun against a limitless blue sky. Her mother had checked her anxieties at the door, and her father, waiting with
Peggy in the foyer of the Unitarian church on Amsterdam Avenue as sunlight streamed in from the street outside, hadn’t complained
once about wearing long pants.

It was a perfect day to get married.

Peggy knew she looked every inch the bride. Her makeup was dewy. Her nails were pristine. Each meticulously blonded hair—no
dark roots would mar her photos—had fallen into place with military precision. Even Bex had gasped when Peggy had arrived
at the church.

“Oh, sweetie. You’re getting married!” And for once, there had been nothing behind her words but wonderment.

Peggy had twirled in front of Bex’s chair, her dress floating around her like a white silk cloud. “Do you approve?”

She’d meant
of the dress,
but Bex had laid a swollen hand on Peggy’s arm. “From this day forward, whatever choices you’ve made, whatever choices you
will make, I’ll support you.”

Now, through a crack in the church door, Peggy could see Bex was seated at the altar, round and serene in a dove gray dress.
Brock’s brother, Brent, stood next to her. Brock was there, too, in a suit, as handsome as any groom in a magazine. The first
notes of the bridal processional filled the room. The guests stirred.

It was Peggy’s moment.

“You ready?” Her father offered his arm.

Peggy took it. “I’m ready.”

I hope,
she added silently.

She would remember little of her trip down the aisle, only the indistinct faces of the guests as she passed, the weight of
the white rose bouquet in her hand, Brock’s dimple. She would recall the minister’s thinning hair and rimless glasses, and
portions of the ceremony, but other thoughts floated in, too, as she stood with Brock at the altar. She thought of the store
on the first day she and Bex had opened for business, of the candle-flame flicker of the twins’ heartbeats. Of a dream she
must have had once, forgotten and just now rematerialized, with colored lights and bells and a man who made her happy.…

A rustle of motion brought Peggy back to the present, and before she could help it, her heart leaped—could it be Luke, coming
in to stop the wedding after all?

But the rustle was Bex, gesturing that Peggy should pass over the bridal bouquet. Peggy blushed under her makeup and took
a long, last look at the roses as she gave them to Bex to hold. Perfect. The flowers were perfect. Creamy white with the gentlest
wash of pink, as if they, too, were blushing.

The minister turned to Brock. “Do you take Peggy to be your wife? Do you vow to celebrate with her in times of joy and give
her strength in times of sorrow, to walk beside her into the future, to be her partner as long as you both shall live?”

Brock boomed out his “I do” as if he’d been waiting to say it all his life. He glided the wedding band, a full circle of diamonds,
onto Peggy’s finger. It glittered alongside her engagement ring. Flawless. Just like the day, her dress, the white rose bouquet
Bex was keeping for her.

“Do you, Peggy, take Brock to be your husband?”

Peggy hesitated, immobile, a bride-statue in a wedding tableau.

All she’d ever wanted was to be married. For seven years, she’d waited for Brock to put a ring on her finger. For almost seven
months, she’d played the role of Luke’s wife. Now she could see a third choice. She could marry no one. She could stand on
her own. She could leave the church and have the strength to survive—to thrive—without any man. She was a whole person. If
she chose to marry, it would be because she wanted to, not because she needed to. She took a tentative breath; there was no
fear. She could breathe clearly.

She was no longer anxious.

“I do.” She slipped the ring onto Brock’s finger. She looked at Bex, who nodded. She looked out into the audience, at the
faces glowing back at her.

“Wait, stop,” she stammered. “I don’t think I do.”

She’d half expected a collective gasp, but the room was suspended in silence. The guests, the minister, Brock—they appeared,
all of them, afraid to move. Their uncertainty was galvanizing. Peggy stepped forward to the edge of the altar. She picked
out faces in the room: Her mother. Josh. Sharon Clovis, one lacquered hand to her mouth.

The minister leaned toward her, his breath minty against her cheek. He whispered, “Would it help to take a minute?”

“I don’t think so,” she whispered back, feeling nearly as bad for ruining his performance as she did for Brock—who was gawking
at her, his mouth slack.

She turned to him, wishing she knew what to say, wishing she’d not let things come this far. “I’m sorry, Brock. I care about
you, but something isn’t right. I’m not sure it’s ever been right. Maybe someday you’ll forgive me. I wouldn’t blame you if
you didn’t.” She took off her wedding ring, then her engagement ring, and dropped them into his hand. “Please know I never
meant to hurt you.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bex give her the tiniest smile.

Peggy turned to address her guests. “I’m sorry, everybody. I intend to explain this to each one of you individually. But right
now”—she took a deep breath—“right now I have to go.”

And before she could have second thoughts, she retrieved her bouquet from Bex, gathered her skirt with her free hand, and
ran with her veil streaming behind her, down the aisle toward the doors through which she’d come in, out into the sunshine,
into her future.

“I can’t believe you waited this long to tell me,” Ver Planck said.

“It wasn’t intentional.” Luke kicked at a clod of soil upended by the excavator, marveling that there were still wildflowers—buttercups—growing
out of it. Nature didn’t accept defeat easily. “I thought I might change my mind. But it’s been a week, and I still feel the
same way. This land wasn’t meant to be paved over and developed. It isn’t right.”

They were standing in the shade of the sleeping excavator. It was Saturday, and a parade of cars with out-of-state license
plates crawled past them on Route 202, heading to the New Nineveh Home Tour, the town’s biggest day of the year.

Ver Planck shook his head. “Those picketers really got to you, didn’t they?”

And it’s Peggy’s wedding day,
Luke noted with a twinge of pain. He knew the subtext behind Ver Planck’s question. His friend was using “picketers” to mean
just one picketer, Peggy.

“Budget Club won’t be happy about you yanking away their lease,” Ver Planck said. “There will be legal fees and breach-of-contract
fines. It’ll cost you a big chunk of change.”

“I’ll cover it. I don’t care about the money. I’ll go back to Hartford Mutual. I’ll be the first Sedgwick to go into bankruptcy,
if that’s what it takes.” The thought of being penniless, truly ruined, pained Luke as well, but nowhere near as much as the
loss of Peggy. He checked his watch: It was close to eleven. The wedding was at one. Bex had told him.

“In case you try again,” she’d said when he’d called to tell her the news—that he’d decided to follow her advice and failed.

“She’s made up her mind.” With any luck, Bex had understood. He would not be trying again.

“You have no idea,” Ver Planck said, “how glad I am to hear you say this.”

For a split second, Luke thought his friend was talking about Luke’s decision to let Peggy go. But that couldn’t be it. Ver
Planck was referring to the land deal.

“I don’t understand,” Luke said.

“Tiffany is threatening to leave me. She says you’re destroying the planet and contributing to sprawl, and I’m the one who
talked you into it. Seems the picketers got to her, too.” His mouth twisted into a shape halfway between a grin and a grimace.

“Ah, well.” Luke knelt and pressed the dirt clod back into the ground so the buttercups would have a fighting chance. “As
Uncle Bink used to say, what’s money for but to lose?”

Ver Planck laughed. “That, my friend, is what separates the Sedgwicks from the Ver Plancks. I don’t plan on you losing a penny.”

Peggy’s heart and mind were racing. She felt as though she’d just jumped from an airplane: terrified, breathless, energized.

Nothing underneath her but air. She realized she was still clutching her bouquet and set it gently on the black leather limousine
seat, not sure why she’d brought it in the first place. Out the back window, eight blocks behind her, the crowd that had followed
her out of the church—everyone, it looked like, except Bex, who’d be stuck in her chair—stood helplessly on the sidewalk.
The worried, confused, angry faces shrank smaller and smaller as the limousine sped up Amsterdam. Peggy hoped they’d all at
least go to the reception. They might as well—it had already been paid for, by Brock and his family.
Oh, lord,
Peggy thought.
I’ll have to pay them back.

“Where to?” The driver stopped at a red light and caught Peggy’s eye in the rearview mirror. He seemed unsurprised by the
abrupt change of plans. Perhaps brides pulled this sort of stunt all the time.

Peggy fidgeted with the edge of her veil. She’d been absolutely sure of her decision moments ago. Now, with limitless choices
before her, she wondered if she’d been rash. If nothing else, she was being terribly cruel to Brock. Hadn’t he done all she’d
asked of him? Was she being foolish, giving up on a life that, while perhaps not perfect, was perfectly acceptable?

She picked up her roses, feeling like crying, and buried her face in their soft petals.

The light turned green. Behind the limo, impatient drivers were leaning on their horns.

Peggy barely heard. She tested the roses once, twice, a third time. Nothing. They were beautiful but smelled like nothing.

The limousine driver said gently, “How about I drop you home?”

Peggy began to smile.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” She set down the bouquet and settled back into the soft, comfortable seat. “I’d like
to go home.”

It took ten minutes in the apocalyptic traffic for Luke and Ver Planck to drive the mile from the Sedgwick land to the town
green. It took five minutes for them to announce their decision to the assembled protesters. It took no time for the protesters
to put down their signs with hugs and shouts and accompany Luke and Ver Planck in a triumphant march to the Sedgwick House,
where Luke threw open the front door and invited everyone inside for an impromptu celebration. Debby Doff from the Cheese
Shoppe supplied cheese and crackers, and Luigi brought beer, and Luke dug out his twenty-five-year-old boom box, the one from
the Anne Marie Scoggs era, and the party grew and spilled out onto the front lawn under the shade of the Sedgwick maple and
into the back garden, where bees engaged in their own festivities around the peony bushes. Luke admired a fragrant white bloom,
then looked out across the garden toward Market Road and the Rigas’ home. Tourists flowed in and out of the former Sedgwick
carriage house. Many of those leaving the property carried bouquets of peonies from Ernestine’s flower stand.