Seating Arrangements (6 page)

“Have you been out on the links yet?” Winn asked Jack, a note of ingratiating fellowship creeping into his voice. His body was taut,
humming with too much enthusiasm. The possibility occurred to Livia that he wasn’t even thinking about her but only about the golf club.

“Just once,” Jack said.

“Good!” Winn said. “Good! Glad to hear it.”

Meg spoke, addressing Winn. “You like golf?” she asked, vowels dwarfing her sticky, guttural
k
and
g
sounds. Livia had explained to her father a thousand times that Meg could understand him, but still he froze whenever he had to communicate with her. He stared, neck straining forward, pupils moving over her face in a rapid search for comprehension, and then he gave up and examined his wristwatch.

Meg repeated herself, louder, and Winn looked helplessly at Livia. With an apologetic glance at Jack, Livia translated. “She said, ‘You like golf?’ ”

“Oh. I do. Very much,” Winn told Livia.

Jack lifted his daughter’s hand and kissed it. Meg’s eyes and her wide mouth closed, making her face look, in its moment of repose, normal.

“Do
you
like golf?” Livia asked Meg, and Meg laughed like a honking goose.

“Say,” Winn said to Jack, “I heard somewhere that you’re involved in the bluffs project.”

“Unfortunately.”

Winn chuckled. “Fenn versus nature.”

“The lighthouse is set to be moved next summer,” Jack said. “But that’s the easy part.” He went on about some scheme to shore up a disappearing beach with drainage pipes and to reinforce crumbling bluffs with rebar, concrete, and wire baskets of rocks called gabions. A line of expensive houses sat atop the cliffs, and every year their owners paid a foot or so of lawn in taxes to the wind and rain, the brink creeping slowly closer to their cedar porches.

“I hate to say it,” Winn said, “but those houses are goners. Five years and they’re in the drink.”

Livia saw an Atlantis of gray-shingled houses, weather vanes spinning in the currents beneath a white foam sky, fish at the windows
and in the attics, the shadow of a whale sweeping over the roofs like the shadow of an airplane. She marveled at the two of them, chattering on like this. Her father claimed things had been awkward with the Fenns since his college years, when he had belonged to the Ophidian and Jack, a legacy, had not been invited to join. Then Winn had slept with Jack’s wife (long before Jack met her, but still), and Livia had slept with Jack’s son. Then Teddy had broken her heart. She had sacrificed their child. What could be more intimate? Probably she should be grateful the conversation was only about rebar and property values even if something in her was longing for them to acknowledge, just once, what had happened. Not likely. Even when she and Teddy were still together, relations between the families had been less than comfortable. The few times both sets of parents came together for dinners in Cambridge they had all bravely skated the hours away on a thin crust of chitchat.

Jack shook his head. “I have to say I hope you’re wrong, Winn. That wouldn’t do the island any good.”

Winn raised a finger. “But you didn’t build there, did you? No sense taking that kind of risk when you’re finally getting your own place. Rent on the bluffs, buy on the flat.”

“I don’t know—we considered building there. Of course, we’re still renting. The new house won’t be livable until the end of the summer. Even that’s not for sure. How is your family? The wedding’s soon, isn’t it?”

“Saturday,” Livia said.

“Just a small affair,” Winn said. “Mostly family.” He touched his chin. Livia guessed he was worried Jack would feel slighted.

Jack said, “Remind me of the groom’s name.”

“Greyson Duff,” said Winn. “It’s a fine match. We’re all very pleased.”

“Congratulations,” said Meg, and Jack kissed her hand again.

Livia was astonished to feel her father’s fingers clasp her own, once, quickly, and then release. The touch was something between a caress and a pinch. She could not remember the last time he had held her hand. “Thank you,” she said to Meg.

“How is Teddy?” Winn asked.

Heat crept into Livia’s face. She willed herself to hold her gaze steady, not to fold her arms. Jack smiled. He had always been kind to her. “He’s fine,” Jack said. “In fact, he’s made a very big decision.” Livia braced herself, though she did not know for what.

“Oh?” said Winn.

WINN WISHED
he had gotten more of an opportunity to probe Fenn about the Pequod, but the man had stonewalled him as usual and then dropped the news about Teddy into the conversation like a meat cleaver. Teddy had joined the army. A chip off the old block—Fenn had done two tours in Vietnam. His time in the army was something people always mentioned about him, that and Meg. Now they would talk about Teddy, too, how he had traded Harvard for Iraq, and everyone would feel sorry for Jack and Fee because they must be
so worried
but thank heavens they had such stalwart spirits. Teddy’s decision seemed rash and odd to Winn, but at least it would take him far from Livia. Let the Fenns do as they pleased. Let them cultivate their moral superiority the way some people grew enormous, prizewinning pumpkins or watermelons that were, when you came down to it, really just freaks.

The damp fragrance of corn silk and the dusty, acidic smell of tomatoes overpowered the perfume of the Duffs’ flowers, which shuddered and bobbed between Livia’s knees. Leaving her in the car, Winn popped into the seafood store, and once he was back in the car, he found he wasn’t sure where he wanted to go. After hesitating long enough at a stop sign to draw the indignant horn of the driver behind him, he turned left.

“Aren’t we going to the Enderby?” Livia asked. She had not spoken since they parted ways with the Fenns in the market.

“First we’re going to take a look at this house of Fenn’s,” he said, choosing to ignore her petulant tone.

“Seriously? What if someone’s there?”

“Is it a crime to visit our friends’ house?”

“I can’t believe Teddy joined the army.” She said “army” as though it were the name of another woman.

“Well,” said Winn, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Jack is the same way, always having to showboat. That family has a holier-than-thou streak a mile wide. Just between you and me, I’ve never cared for it. He uses that girl like a shield.”

“Meg?” Livia said. “I think they’d probably prefer she was normal.”

“We all make sacrifices,” Winn went on, “but they expect everyone to praise theirs all the time. This army thing seems excessive. Why not the navy? Why not the air force? Coast guard? No, the Fenns have to make a show out of humility. Teddy should have gone to West Point if he wanted to go this route.”

“I don’t think this was the plan from the beginning. Not that I know anything, apparently.”

“I don’t see why he has to be a grunt like his father.”

“Wasn’t Jack drafted?”

“Yes, but he handled it in a very odd way. He could have deferred. Men like Greyson have it figured out. Greyson gives up the little things, little luxuries. He doesn’t overdo it. He’ll be good for Daphne that way.”

“I don’t think being selectively cheap is the same thing as enlisting.”

“So you’re on the Fenns’ side now?”

“I wish you hadn’t mentioned Teddy.”

“I was being polite. Better to hear the news from Jack, anyway. Now you won’t be caught off guard.”

“You can’t go around asking about Teddy like he’s just another person, Dad.”

“He
is
just another person, Livia. He should be, anyway.”

“Well, he’s not!”

“Ah,” Winn said, “here we are.”

In his opinion, the finest houses on the island were marked by dented mailboxes and rutted driveways. Only a chimney or maybe a widow’s walk should be visible from the road. Jack Fenn’s house, however, was a blatant, dazzling Oz set against the blue horizon of Waskeke Sound. Privet plants wrapped in burlap stood in wooden
boxes at regular intervals along the road like blindfolded prisoners, holes already dug and waiting for them in the rich-looking soil. After a few years, they would merge into a hedge and provide a semblance of privacy, but the driveway was needlessly wide, a blinding avenue of broken quahog shells that unspooled in a graceful S curve up to the house, where one offshoot led to a garage and the other to the front door, making a loop around a flagpole. To one side of the house, confined by an infant hedge of its own and a cage of dark green chain-link, a mountain of red clay waited to be spread and rolled into a tennis court. Yet another nascent hedge encircled an empty, freshly poured swimming pool and the wooden bones of a pool house.

Winn turned in between two glossy black post lanterns, crunching on the shells. The flagpole at the top of the driveway was the nautical style, a yardarm across a mast, and stood in an oval of dirt. No flags were flying, but the cords were ready, their clips dinging against the metal pole, waiting to hoist the colors when the Fenns were in residence. The windows still bore the manufacturer’s decals. Part of the ground floor had been covered with new, lemony shingles, stark against the tar paper. Two years might pass before they faded to the desirable gray, and until then the house would be a bright imposition on the subtle landscape. The beginnings of a yard—paving stones, sacks of cement, a heap of mulch—loitered in the broad expanse of dirt that would one day be a lawn. Tarpaulins covered bales of shingles on one side of the driveway. The roof was a steep landscape of peaks, dormers, and gables, all sheathed in new cedar shake that shone in the sun. Brick chimneys crowned with terra-cotta pots pointed at the sky. Above the whole mess presided the bright copper sails of the three-masted clipper ship Fenn had chosen for his weather vane. Winn’s weather vane was a man alone in a rowboat.

“Anyway,” Livia said, “Greyson’s sacrifices are completely superficial. They’re not any kind of real loss. They’re just symbolic of loss. You know, like giving up chocolate for Lent or rending garments or something. At least what Teddy’s doing is genuinely hard.”

“Would you look at the size of this place,” said Winn. “I’m surprised. Jack comes from a fine old family. This is … it’s showy.”

Construction debris was strewn around: rolls of wire, crumpled wrappers, twine, tape, pipes, buckets crusted with cements and sealants. Two beige portable toilets stood a discreet distance away. “The house is poorly designed,” he said, pointing up through the windshield. “It must be a swamp up on that roof after a big rain. You see? I can pick out at least two spots where water will pool. They’ll have leaks. They probably already do. Shake is tricky. If you don’t cover the nail holes properly, you get leaks.”

“Fine,” said Livia. “The Fenns have made a mockery of roofs. They join the army just to bug you, and they design their houses to really get under your skin.”

“You disagree?”

“I don’t want Jack Fenn to drive up and find us sitting here staring at his house.”

“It’s a ridiculous house. I’m telling you. Look at that roof. Millions of dollars just to have leaks.”

“Dad, people like living by the ocean. Why shouldn’t they have a nice house if they want?”

“So you think people should have everything they want even if what they want is an ostentatious eyesore?”

“I don’t think it’s an eyesore.”

“This house is an eyesore.”

“I don’t know—to each his own. We could have built a house like this if we wanted to, right? It’s just not our style.”

Leaning forward with his chest pressed to the steering wheel, craning to see the roof, Winn was gratified by Livia’s use of “our,” that she was including herself in his aesthetic of quality, longevity, and simplicity. Since their childhood he had told his daughters he was going to give away all his money before he died, and they should make or marry their own if money was what they wanted. Better that than letting them feel the same disappointment he had after his parents died, when he discovered his inheritance was little more than untenable expectations. He had done well enough, but he was thankful for the way a certain degree of gentle dilapidation could be made to suggest old wealth. Shabbiness of necessity was easily disguised as
modesty and thrift. Not that having a simple, hard-won summer-house instead of this castle by the sea would qualify him as shabby by most standards.

“Right?” Livia persisted. “We just do things differently. You aren’t a fancy house kind of guy.”

“What do they need such a big house for?” he said. “Is Teddy going to have a thousand children?”

Livia drew the Duffs’ flowers up onto her lap. “That’s the last thing I want to think about, assuming he lives long enough to have children.”

“Don’t be dramatic. He’ll be fine. Anyway, the girl’s not going to have any.”

“I can’t even wrap my head around … what if I was his only chance?”

The premise, simple enough on its surface, gave way beneath Winn’s consideration, dropping him into a feminine thicket of improbable hypotheses and garbled cause and effect. He clapped her knee. “Now, listen. I don’t want you thinking this army business has anything to do with you.” He drove around the oval and back down the driveway. Livia was obscured by pink and orange flowers and curls of green, leafy things, a tiger in the grass.

“What if Teddy and I get back together?” she said.

“I don’t think that’s very likely.”

“Thanks a lot!”

“Do you think you’re going to get back together?”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying.” She pulled the vase even closer to herself. “What would you have done if I had been born like Meg Fenn?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I would have gotten used to it.”

“Really?”

“I think when something like that happens you rise to the occasion.” In truth, Winn could not imagine holding the hand of his grown daughter as she bellowed beside a pyramid of tomatoes.

“If Daphne had been born like that, would you have had another child?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Would you have wished you had never had children?”

“This is a silly conversation.”

At the Enderby, Livia jumped out with the flowers and took them inside. When she returned, she looked naked without her portable jungle, and the car felt empty.