The Last Summer of the Camperdowns (13 page)

She tucked in her white shirt and then she turned around and walked across the dunes and back up the stairs and into the house. My crazy red hair blowing wildly and covered from head to foot in my mother’s fingerprints, I was left alone to wonder why this felt less like a victory and more like something dangerous let loose to run urgent and unchecked, zigzagging unseen and primitive through the tall ocean grasses.

“All right,” I screamed. “I’ll go.”

Chapter Twelve

A
FEW HOURS LATER AND MY MOTHER AND I WERE IN THE CAR
waiting for Camp. He was inevitably late and we were always early. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in a dress,” she said.

“Don’t get used to it. I don’t see a St. James bow in my future.”

“Too bad,” my mother said. “I think we could all benefit from you having a curtsy in your repertoire.”

“Are you going to vote for yourself on Election Day?” I asked Camp as he slid behind the steering wheel of the car, his dark hair still wet from the shower.

“That’s an odd question,” he commented.

“It seems strange, that’s all. Voting for yourself. Arrogant. Selfish in a way. I think it would be a noble gesture if you were to vote for the other guy.”

“I wouldn’t vote for that son of a bitch Joe Becker if my life were at stake,” my father said, referring to his Republican rival, an optometrist with several clinics in and around Boston.

“Oh, I don’t know,” my mother said, glancing at her reflection in the visor mirror. “He’s a war hero, after all.”

“Self-proclaimed. Another one of these self-mythologizing rear-liners. He drove a supply truck, for Christ’s sake. The worst danger he faced was from boredom as he waited for the all-clear sign. I consider it my moral duty to skin him alive at the polls.”

“I’d vote for you, Camp,” I said.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” my father said as I leaned forward and put my hands on his shoulders. He grinned over at my mother. “What about you? Can I count on your support in November, or do you think it would be more noble to vote for the other guy?”

“Don’t be absurd. What kind of question is that?”

My father laughed. “You never know,” he said, turning the key in the ignition, the engine sputtering once and then reluctantly kicking into gear.

My mother, shining diadem in a royal blue dress, parted the Red Sea with her entrance at the fundraiser. She made her way through the gawkers and the fawners assembled pop-eyed and gurgling, in the old-fashioned lobby of the inn. She loved the spotlight, reveled in the social power it bequeathed, but her spectacular misanthropy curdled any real delight she might have allowed herself to feel.

“How I hate the common man. They need to install a filter on the door,” she muttered, her bright smile like a veil concealing the filigree of frost that she wore underneath.

I never did get used to her daily professions of superiority. “We live in a democracy, remember? Everyone created equal and all that.”

“Yes, I see your point,” she said, indicating with a lift of her eyebrow a woman across from us who appeared to have swallowed a hippopotamus.

“The only thing that can improve that creature’s bid for equality is a tub of vanishing cream,” my mother said. I rebuked her with silent indignation while secretly sharing her revulsion. I consoled myself with the thought that at least I had the grace to feel ashamed of my prejudices. Glancing behind, I allowed myself to be conveniently distracted by the sound of my father’s big laugh filling the room.

“Come with me, Riddle,” my mother said, pulling me by the hand, gesturing for me to join her in shaking hands and greeting people. “The election has been a marvelous opportunity to educate our daughter in civic duty—and familial obligation,” she explained, upper-register inflections on display, as the people around her nodded and smiled. “Idiots,” she said under her breath. “Someone please explain to me why people have such an endless appetite for pap.”

“You should be grateful. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t have a career,” I said.

“Cheap shots represent the lowest form of insight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, having reached the outer limits of my wit.

I
NSIDE THE PRIVACY OF
a washroom designated for the family’s personal use, Greer stopped to arrange her dress and comb her hair. “How do I look?” she asked, checking her crimson lipstick with a hand mirror. She wore a strapless dress with a fitted bodice and full skirt that skimmed her knees—the kind of dress that only a certain kind of woman could pull off. I glanced down admiringly at her coral heels.

“Fine,” I said. “You look nice.”

“Damned with faint praise,” she said, clicking shut her compact, as she reached over and ran her fingers through my permanently disheveled mop.

“Hopeless,” she said with a sigh.

I pushed her hand away. “Leave it, please.”

“Do you know what your grandfather said on the day you were born? He said, ‘That hair color spells trouble.’ Imagine any evolved person saying such a thing.” Annoyed at the memory, she impatiently walked toward the door. “That is how hopelessly unenlightened your father’s parents were. Your grandmother extolled the scientific virtues of phrenology!”

“Why are you so angry?” I asked her.

“I’m not angry,” she answered, looking me up and down as if she was measuring me for a pine box.

“You’re so negative about everything.”

“The default allegation of the true bore, and from my own daughter no less.”

Forcing a smile as we rejoined the growing numbers of Camperdown supporters waiting to enter the ballroom, she watched offside as members of the press surrounded my father, who was graciously fielding both genuine and perfunctory well wishes. My mother caught his eye. He grinned over at us. She waved back, so did I, and I don’t know what exactly but there was something about her expression that put me in mind of what my father had said in the car when he joked about counting on her support in November. There was just something about how she looked and something about what he said, and in my mind’s eye I could see my mother entering the voting booth under the watchful eye of the election clerk and inserting her ballot—the ballot starting and stopping, bunching up, jamming slightly, she giving it an impatient poke until it recovered its slippery slide, but not before it opened and then folded, a revealing split-second bulge, time enough for me to see a jaunty little X penciled next to the name of the self-mythologizing Joe Becker.

She gave me a knowing look, as if she could read my thoughts. For a moment I wondered if she was imagining the worst of me, as I was in the habit of imagining the worst of her.

“G
OOD GOD,” MY MOTHER
said from across a banquet table piled high with a gelatinous array of finger foods, processed meats and jellied salads, surveying the bounty with all the enthusiasm of someone being asked to choke down a pureed mulch of church lady and Old Spice. “Are those marshmallows?”

They were hanging from the rafters, the hotel ballroom was packed with campaign workers, the party faithful, the press, the rank and file, Teamsters and academics, all gathered in the ballroom of this elegant Provincetown inn to support Camp’s high-profile bid for the House.

With mixed feelings, I watched him get swept away on a wave of exuberant roiling humanity, leaving me orphaned at the buffet table, munching on a gherkin pickle, feeling out of place, fielding and fending off endless inquiries from people who visibly inspected me for flaws, who spoke to me too loudly, who overwhelmed me with the vivid primary colors of their curiosity, posing questions in singsong voices that bobbed like mobiles hung over a crib.

“Are you enjoying all the excitement? You might try smiling, in any case,” suggested an oversize woman in organza, her fleshy fingers swollen and laden with dinner rings of flashing sapphire and emerald. She introduced herself as Mirabel Whiffet, Gin’s mother, returned to the States after living for several years abroad. I had never met this woman, though I had heard enough about her, but she immediately began rubbing against my legs like a pampered cat, as comfortable as if we had enjoyed a lifetime of intimacy.

“Such melancholia from such a lovely looking girl. Oh, well, I suppose it’s the fashion these days among young people to mope.” She leaned into me, her mouth mere inches from my face, her perfume a crude assailant, as I cringed and looked for escape.

“You don’t look at all like your mother.” She slowly enunciated each word as if she were expelling a series of hen’s eggs from the rouged oval of her mouth. “I’ve known Greer since she was just a little bit older than you.”

“You don’t look like Gin, either,” I pointed out politely. There was an understatement; it was as if the side of a mountain had given birth to a river rock.

I smiled, something I hadn’t done in weeks—or more accurately, I grimaced in grotesque replica of a smile, as if I were working out a charley horse. My curiosity was piqued. It never occurred to me that my mother had ever been my age.

“She was the most beautiful girl in all of New England. Everyone said so. That complexion. Like a vanilla milk shake. Elegant carriage even as a child. She looked like a fairy-tale princess, but . . .” My eyes widened in anticipation. Now, this was information that I could get behind. My imagination soared like a runaway balloon.

“But she was more like Rumpelstiltskin in disguise,” I said, finishing the thought.

Mrs. Whiffet laughed, relishing my enthusiasm. What Gin and his mother didn’t share as far as appearance, they made up for in the pleasure they derived from things that glowed in the dark.

“Well, you said it, my dear, not me. Temperamental or not, she had suitors lined up for miles. Mind you, she was strictly look-don’t-touch. Of course, she only had eyes for Michael.”

“Michael?”

“Michael Devlin. Who else?”

My head gave a violent start as if I had been slapped—the kind of symbolic thump upside the head that hurtles you into a whole new way of being. Mrs. Whiffet kept right on talking, unmindful of the psychic whiplash engendered by her remarks.

“Your mother was crazy about him. Ghastly, what happened between the two of them. It was supposed to be the wedding of the decade. I’ll never forget it. Everyone was there. Governors. Senators. Movie stars. Cary Grant was there! The vice president was there! The church was packed. Your mother was waiting in her white gown at the back of the church—well, you couldn’t take your eyes off her, that’s how gorgeous she looked, a devastating beauty, that’s just what she was.” She lowered her voice so I had to lean in to hear her. “Oh, but where was the groom? We waited and waited. It was a nightmare, the minutes ticking by like weeks. Michael was in a hotel in Prague. Imagine! He left her at the altar. Took off to Europe the night before.”

What? Why hadn’t I heard anything about this before? My mother was engaged to Michael Devlin? When? How did Camp fit into all this?

Staring blindly down at the floral centerpiece, I was trying to sort out exactly how I felt about what I was hearing. I had always viewed my parents’ personal lives as being the province of archeology. The idea that my mother had the potential to be interesting was not just new, it was revolutionary. Needing something to do, a place to put my head and my hands and all those feelings, I reached for a slice of blue cheese and a cracker, something to put in my mouth.

“Oh, my goodness,” Mrs. Whiffet said, expressing, too fast, a regret she didn’t feel. “You didn’t know? I just assumed everyone knew. It never occurred to me that your parents would be so secretive. I’m so sorry, dear.”

“It’s okay.” The cracker snapped between my fingers, crumbs falling to the floor. I bent down to scoop them up.

“Anyway, ancient history, and it all worked out, didn’t it? Your mother married Godfrey a couple of years later. People said she only did it to make Michael jealous but I never believed that to be the case. I so despise cynicism. I always wondered about the three of them, honestly. Seemed to me that there was always a queer little triangle at work. It was obvious to everyone that both boys were in love with your mother. Gin thought so, too,” she said as if she were conferring the imprimatur of ultimate authority, which, when it came to gossip and superficial subject matter, I supposed that she was. “However did they contain their feelings? Well, in the end, I suppose they didn’t, did they? You know, your father and Michael were the best of friends, did everything together, even served together overseas in the same unit, but something happened and the friendship died, just withered on the vine. Terribly sad. Do you know what happened, dear?”

“No,” I said, looking around desperately for something more to eat. I settled for a ginger ale.

“What’s your father’s opinion of Michael? Does he talk much about him? What about your mother?” Subtlety was not one of Mirabel’s gifts.

“I don’t know. They mention him occasionally. But they talk about so many people.” I hesitated, debating with myself. Even then, I was aware of the unwritten law that exists between people; you need to give information to get information. “Sometimes they argue about him. My father doesn’t respect him very much—at least, I don’t think he does.” Gulping down my soda, I struggled for an exit strategy. I wasn’t exactly a smooth operator.

“Really?” Mrs. Whiffet’s eyes popped and clicked, as if a whole series of camera flashes were exploding. Her Technicolor enthusiasm was enough to convince me that I was treading uncomfortably close to betrayal.

“I don’t really know anything about it,” I backtracked. “He isn’t a big topic around our house.”