Seating Arrangements (16 page)

“Don’t be difficult, Livia. I want you to set out that bluefish pâté with some crackers,” Winn said.

She wondered if she had done something wrong by sitting on the arm of Sterling’s chair. If her father had decided to run such obvious interference, then maybe she had wandered beyond flirtation into the
red lace slums of apparent desperation. But no, she thought. Sterling had been the one to draw her down beside him.

“That’s what you shouted at me for?”

“I did not shout.”

“You did, too. You completely interrupted my conversation.” She glanced back at where Sterling was sitting motionless, lizardlike, one hand wrapped around his glass. “Haven’t you done enough today?”

“What are you talking about?”

“ ‘How
is
Teddy?’ ” she said, mimicking her father’s chummy tone to Jack Fenn.

He gave her a long, steady look over his glasses. “I’ve known the Fenns for a long time,” he said. “I was only being polite.”

“I’ve had enough politeness,” Livia said. “Why can’t you be loyal to me and just the tiniest bit impolite?”

“There’s no
reason
to be impolite,” said her father.

She began Dr. Z’s trick, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth and counting to five.

“Stop it,” he said, pointing at her. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“You know what. That breathing thing. That shrink thing.”

She pushed his finger away. “If it’s so important to you that I forget about Teddy, you should leave me alone out there.”

“What does one thing have to do with the other?”

From the stove came the hissing and clicking sounds of the lobster pot boiling over. “You should check on that,” she said. She did not know if he watched her go, but she strode across the deck as though it were a stage and settled, preening, back on the arm of Sterling’s chair.

OATSIE WAS DRINKING
her vodka neat because she did not care for the way Maude made Bloody Marys, and the Van Meters did not have any clam juice with which she might have been able to doctor one to her satisfaction. Lately her drink of choice was a bullshot. Her friend Doris had put her on to the concoction—vodka mixed with
cold beef bouillon—and she took it as a sort of curative tonic, even though her grandsons laughed. Cold beef vodka soup, they called it. She watched Sterling sitting with that Van Meter girl on the arm of his chair. He looked like he could use some nutrition mixed with his booze. He had gotten fat but also sallow. The girl didn’t appear to mind. A wedding was always an aphrodisiac, full of temporary pairings driven by vicarious hope. Love was in the air, weak and snappy as static electricity. Let them do as they liked. She had met Harold at a wedding, and their marriage had been tolerable enough. She sipped and watched the boys and the Egyptian girl running on the grass. Francis swatted listlessly at the birdie, missing it.

Waskeke made Oatsie uncomfortable. She disliked the expectation that she should always be looking at the water, the sky, and so on. The sun had fallen into the trees, leaving behind air that was sweet and full of entomological strummings, but Oatsie could find no delight in a sunset. Beauty strained her nerves. The loveliness of the evening twisted itself into the sensation of longing—but for what? For more. For more, or for some end to it, some climax, but the sweetness only stretched on, like a violin string that is tuned to unendurable tautness but will not snap. No release, only fading, light leeching away.

Out on the grass, Francis shouted something rude at Greyson, and Oatsie thought of scolding him but could not be bothered. The Van Meter girl looked pleased with herself, there beside Sterling, even though he seemed to have gone off into one of his silences. Propellers droned overhead. One of those buzzy little twin-engine planes. Beyond, the almost-full moon was ascending in time with the purpling of the sky. A string of birds sped by. Oatsie could feel the world pivoting away from her, the unstoppable entropy. Was longing a pleasure in itself? She had been at a party once, not unlike this one, back when she was married and newly pregnant with her first child, and Freddy Maughn, whom she had known since childhood, had grabbed her hand and kissed its palm as she passed him in the hall on her way to the bathroom. She remembered Freddy’s dry lips and the tip of his tongue on her hand. He was three sheets to the wind and probably
only meant to be playful, but for months afterward, until her pregnancy became too much of a distraction for Harold, she had pressed her hand to his mouth while they made love and told him to kiss it. His lips never produced the same effect as Freddy’s, but she had persisted, irritably casting around for satisfaction. Her disappointment made her wish so fervently to be kissed again by Freddy Maughn that her desire spilled over and made her cling tightly to Harold, who strutted around afterward like a rooster.

And now she was an old woman, about to become a great-grandmother, sitting at a party on a summer evening and thinking about death. Greyson swatted the birdie over Dicky Jr.’s head into the grass and turned to make sure Daphne had seen. Love was just one more thing that would make it difficult to die. When had she become so morbid, so resigned? She didn’t know. The sun’s daily arc might have tricked her into believing she was following an infinite circle, but she knew she was marching a straight line. What a party guest she was. What terrible vodka the Van Meters had. She closed her eyes and pressed her palm against her lips.

Seven · The Serpent in the Laundry

T
he lobsters had turned the clownish red of death. Winn pulled them out of the pot with tongs, cursing under his breath at the heat and at Livia. Oil smoked in a skillet, and he tossed in Dicky’s tuna and thought again of Agatha sitting on the arm of Mr. Buckley’s chair. Why did these girls think they could go around sitting on the arms of men’s chairs? Livia acted as though
he
were the one provoking
her
, yet his behavior had been unimpeachable. All he asked of her was basic civility and an ounce of propriety, but she was like one of her sea creatures, goaded by the slightest disturbance into puffing up and flashing warning colors.

The two terrible phone calls had come not long before Christmas, the first on a night when Winn and Biddy had been to a party and were sitting at the kitchen table, half drunk and flipping through catalogs. Winn’s red bow tie was undone around his open collar, and Biddy, who usually did not drink much at all, was flushed and pretty from mulled wine, a sprig of mistletoe tucked behind her ear. When the phone rang, she answered. She smiled, and then her face changed.

He looked up from a page of dog cushions in different colors and plaids, monogrammed with dog names. “What?”

“She’s pregnant,” Biddy said.

“Who’s pregnant?”

“Livia.”

“Livia?”

He had wanted to seize the phone, had in fact attempted to seize
the phone; he felt an insane and overwhelming conviction that he had the means to nip the whole situation in the bud. All he needed to do was talk some sense into his daughter, to tell her that this was unacceptable, would not be stood for, was not the way this family worked. She absolutely could not, and would not, be pregnant if he had anything to say about it. But she was not standing on a ledge somewhere debating whether or not to get knocked up. The thing was done, the die was cast. Biddy fended him off, first with shooing motions, then by catching him by the belt when he made a break to pick up a phone in another room. She pressed the receiver against her shoulder. “No, Winn,” she said. “Not yet. You’re on the bench.”

He supposed she had been right to send him, scowling, back to the kitchen table, where he could only watch the conversation, spy on it really, gleaning from Biddy’s side that Livia had simply, whimsically decided to do without any kind of protection and had no illusions of keeping it. He felt a need to be busy, and he opened all the doors in an advent calendar that Biddy’s sister Tabitha had sent, popping the chocolates and their crumbs onto the table and then fetching the trash can from under the sink and sweeping the whole pile into it. There were long periods when Biddy said nothing, only made soothing noises that told him Livia was crying on the other end. What had she expected, he wondered. What on earth had she been thinking? He smacked the kitchen table with his palm and gritted his teeth.

In a few days, he calmed down. He had, at first, taken for granted that Livia’s situation would be obvious to the world. He had imagined her waddling home for Christmas break in maternity clothes, needing to be hidden away, the season’s celebrations ruined by public shame, but gradually the realization came to him that Livia was only barely pregnant, the keeper of a tiny, rudimentary embryo and nothing more. He felt generous enough to send her an e-mail expressing his support. “Dear Livia,” he wrote. “I was sorry to hear about this unfortunate turn. Everyone makes mistakes, and we will handle this discreetly. I hope you are not too distracted from your studies. Hang in there, kiddo. Dad.”

And Teddy Fenn of all people. Winn liked the boy well enough
(they were, after all, fellow Ophidians), and Livia was enraptured by him, but the relationship had obviously never been anything permanent. They were young; Livia was too emotional, Teddy less than committed. In truth, Winn had counted on the relationship ending, and the sooner the better because the thought of being tied to Jack and Fee Fenn with anything stronger than the gossamer threads of puppy love was repugnant. He hoped against all odds that Teddy had not told his parents about Livia’s condition, that Jack Fenn was not sitting in his own kitchen, in his own Christmas dishabille, pondering the possibility of their shared grandchild. Preferring not to dwell on the idea, Winn shut it away and prepared to wait the whole thing out. Then Livia phoned to tell them Teddy had broken up with her.

He had been at work in his study, worrying over some financial documents, and while Livia talked, his eyes strayed to the pages.

“I’m sorry to hear that, pal,” he said. “But everything will work out in the end. You’ll see.”

“No, it won’t.” A snot-filled snuffle traveled down the line and into his ear, nearly making him gag. “I lost my virginity to him, and this is what he does?”

Winn covered the receiver with one hand. “Biddy!” he called. “Phone!”

Biddy picked up in another room, and Winn listened to Livia tell the story again. Teddy had come to her and said he had been considering leaving the relationship for some time, and the pregnancy, for him, was too much to bear.

“He said it had gotten too hard,” Livia said. “Cry me a river, you know? Like this isn’t hard for me? And then he said he couldn’t be part of
this
, of what I was going
to do
. Oh, and the best part is that suddenly he’s Catholic. And I was like, well, you never go to Mass. And he was like, well, you don’t have to go to Mass to be Catholic. And I said maybe not, but it would be good corroborating evidence that you’re abandoning me because of religion and not because you’re a chickenshit dickhead.”

“I seem to remember that Jack was Catholic,” Winn said.

“Well, this is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“Hmm,” Winn said, digesting. “Has he told his parents?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. None of his friends know, of course.” Livia was gaining steam. “Because heaven forbid he should look like an asshole.”

“Or maybe he thinks the situation is private,” Biddy put in, “and doesn’t want to make you vulnerable to gossip.”

“His friends actually threw him a party,” Livia went on. “They called it the Emancipation Celebration. And they invited all these girls, slutty girls, like stocking a fishpond, who knew their fucking job was to fucking fuck my boyfriend. Congratulations, you’re easy! You’re really special! I know lots of people who went. People I thought I was friends with. Isn’t that so fucking obnoxious?”

“No need to swear,” Winn said. He twiddled his pen. He knew about these parties. You made sure there was enough booze, and you invited a few girls who would be sure bets for the newly single brother. Harmless, really. Just a show of support.

“It is obnoxious,” Biddy said. She was in the room above Winn’s study, and he heard her chair shift. “But, Livia, the bottom line is that you don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t love you.”

“He loves me,” Livia said. “I know he does.”

“If they’re throwing him a party then he must be in pretty rough shape,” Winn offered. “They probably wanted to cheer him up.”

“Daddy, they were supposed to be my friends, too.” Her voice broke. “But it turns out I’m just something to be free of.”

“Try not to take everything so personally.”

“Winn, how is she supposed to not take that party personally?”

“How would you feel,” Livia said, “if Mom left you, and then all her friends threw a party at the house and tried to get her laid?”

“Mr. Buckley could be the deejay,” Biddy said.

Livia hiccupped, almost a laugh.

“You have to understand,” Winn said, “that the fellows in his club have to be loyal to him first, and they’re doing what they can to help him through a hard time.”

“Winn,” said Biddy.

“This is just what they do, Livia. The party doesn’t have anything
to do with you. It’s a tradition. If your friends had thrown you a party like that would you have turned it down?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“The point is,” Livia said, “couldn’t they have done something nice for Teddy without rubbing it in my face that they think all I’ve done for the past two years is prevent Teddy from enjoying his God-given quota of pussy?”

“Livia,” said Biddy. “Find a different word.”

Winn struggled to control his voice. “I’m sure,” he said, “they just meant to give him a good time, take his mind off things for a night, show him there are other fish in the sea.”

“Winn,” Biddy cautioned.

“
Daddy
. Other fish in the sea? Could you please be on my side? I’m your daughter. Your jilted,
pregnant
daughter.”

The stairs creaked, and Biddy appeared in the doorway, holding the phone between her ear and shoulder. Eyes wide, she sliced horizontally at the air with one hand and mouthed,
No
. He waved her away. “Livia, all I’m saying is that the less importance you place on this party and the less attention you pay to what Teddy’s doing, the better you look. Pretend you’re not bothered. Go on with your life. People will respect that.”