The Love Season (24 page)

“You look tired,” he said. He turned the car around. “Let’s get you home.”

Renata closed her eyes.

When they reached Vitamin Sea, Renata expected both of the elder Driscolls to be stationed on the front porch exuding their disapproval, their suspicion, their disgust. But the house was quiet. Cade pulled into the white shell driveway, right alongside Suzanne Driscoll’s precious hydrangea bushes, the ones Miles had been watering that morning. Suddenly Renata felt contrite. The day had gotten away from her; it had turned into something she couldn’t control. She had acted irresponsibly, immaturely, immorally. There was no other way to look at it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I am so, so sorry.”

Cade took the key out of the ignition. He sighed in that way he had, like he understood the rest of the world would fall short of his expectations, but that he was full of grace and willing to forgive. He was, maybe, willing to forgive her.

“My parents are…confused by your behavior today. So I’m going to suggest something.”

“Yes,” Renata said. “Anything.” She would apologize to Suzanne Driscoll, beg her forgiveness, and cry doing it. Because along with everything else, Miles was going to quit. That, somehow, was Renata’s fault.

“I’m going to suggest that you call Marguerite and cancel dinner. My mother wants you here. The Robinsons are coming and she went to all this trouble with the lobsters and stuff.”

Renata was silent. She couldn’t believe Cade would suggest such a thing. He didn’t realize how important the dinner with Marguerite was. He didn’t realize that Renata, at base, knew exactly nothing about her dead mother and this was her one opportunity to find out. He didn’t get it. He didn’t care about Renata’s mother; he cared only about his own mother, who had made it clear without saying a word that she didn’t want Renata to eat at Marguerite’s.

“No,” Renata said.

“Go see her tomorrow,” Cade said. “We’re not leaving until four.”

“No,” Renata said.

“I wouldn’t ask you unless it was a really important dinner.”

“My dinner is important, too,” Renata said. “Very important.”
More important
, she thought.

“I just don’t know what my parents will think. You’ve been gone all day and you’re disappearing again tonight. You’re supposed to be joining this family.”

“I’m not
disappearing
,” Renata said. “Your mother knows about my dinner with Marguerite.”

“She does,” Cade said. “But she still wants you to eat with us.”

“Can’t you say something to her?” Renata said.

“I did my best to smooth things over this afternoon,” Cade said, and his meaning was clear.

Renata trained her eye on Cade’s right knee, knobby as it was, and covered with fine blond hairs. This was the knee she was going to spend the rest of her life with.

“I won’t ask you anything else about Miles,” Cade said. “Quite
frankly, I don’t want to know. I’m not going to bring it up and I won’t allow my parents to bring it up.”

“Thank you,” Renata said. “I’d appreciate that.”

“But I’d like you to cancel dinner.”

She stared at him. He had a faint white mask where his sunglasses had been. He was negotiating, playing diplomat.
I slept with him
, she thought.
He was bigger than you
.

“You can go tomorrow, first thing. You can stay all day. But please cancel for tonight. My mother wants you home, and so do I. I feel like I haven’t seen you.”

At that moment, Renata heard a door slam. She looked up. Nicole was descending the stairs from the apartment over the garage.
Tattletale!
Renata thought.
Snitch!
Nicole glared at Cade and Renata. Cade waved lamely; Renata lowered her eyes. Once Nicole entered the house, Renata got out of the car. She should have known it from that first night with Cade at the dance club; she should have known it from the way he’d drawn her out onto the street, away from the music, and her dearest friend, without a word. She should have understood that things always—always,
always—
went the way Cade Driscoll wanted them to.

It was not quite five o’clock, and yet Suzanne Driscoll was showered, dressed in Lilly Pulitzer pants and a pink silk shell, drinking a glass of white wine. She was lounging across the sofa with Mr. Rogers in her lap. Renata heard banging in the kitchen: Nicole, the little narc, preparing dinner.

“Oh, there you are, dear,” Suzanne said. “We were beginning to wonder what had become of you.”

“I’m sorry I missed lunch,” Renata said sullenly.

“Don’t give it a second’s thought,” Suzanne said, smiling. Suzanne Driscoll had red hair that she combed back over her head; the ends turned up under her ears. Every time Renata saw her, the hair always looked exactly the same. “I’ll just bet you had fun with Miles. He is such a doll.”

Renata studied Suzanne for signs of sarcasm but found none, which meant Suzanne was more slippery than Renata ever could have imagined. Before Renata could respond with an, “Oh yes, I had
lots
of fun,” Cade spoke up.

“Renata’s going to call Marguerite and cancel, Mom. She’s going to eat here tonight with us.”

Suzanne Driscoll squealed in such a grating way that Mr. Rogers jumped off her lap and left the room.

“Oh, good,” Suzanne said. “Good, good, good. The Robinsons are coming at six for cocktails. They are dear friends and they really want to meet you. What can I get you? How about a big glass of ice water? How about some crackers and cold grapes? How about some aloe for your skin? If you go upstairs right now, you’ll have time for a nap.”

I will not play into this woman’s hands
, Renata thought, but she found she was too tired to rebel, too hungry and thirsty and sore to stand her ground. Too guilty to do anything but nod yes.

5:00 P.M.

The stove’s timer buzzed again, making awful music in concert with the monkey in the clock as he announced the hour. Five o’clock.
Quitting
time
, Marguerite thought, though this notion was from some long-ago life—five o’clock had been quitting time for her father. He was always home, without fail, at five fifteen and Diana Beale had dinner on the table by five thirty. Later, after culinary school, Marguerite would view this early dinner as middle-class, provincial, midwestern. For most of her professional life, five o’clock was the hour when she returned to work—after a full morning of prep and an all-too-short afternoon break, a glass of wine with Porter, lying in the unmade rope bed.

The timer insisted. Marguerite took the bread out of the oven and checked it off her list. She considered preparing the béarnaise and letting it sit in a warm-water bath until dinnertime, but she never would have done that at the restaurant and she wouldn’t do it now. Marguerite set out the polished silver and then she moved the place settings across from each other. She wanted to look Renata in the eye.

So now the table was set, the china and water glasses buffed to a gleaming shine, the zinnias and dahlias crowded cheerfully in a crystal vase. The gladiolas were in the stone pitcher by the door. Marguerite had located cocktail napkins in a kitchen drawer that she hadn’t opened in ages. The napkins had, at one time, been red with white polka dots, though the red was faded to pinkish-gray and they curled up slightly at the edges like burnt toast, but they would do. Marguerite changed the CD to, of all people, Derek and the Dominos, because “Bell Bottom Blues” had been Candace’s favorite song. It was her anthem. Marguerite would tell Renata this.

All day Marguerite had been aware of time pressing down on her, and yet she suddenly found herself with two unclaimed hours. She wandered through her house. She had dusted on Wednesday and vacuumed on Thursday. The house looked fine. There was time for a few pages of the Theodore Roosevelt biography, her afternoon reading,
there was time for the Internet, but Marguerite would never be able to concentrate on either. Renata, her goddaughter, was coming here for dinner. Marguerite had had the whole day to digest this fact, but still it struck her as unbelievable. In the bedroom, Marguerite picked up the photograph of Candace and herself and baby Renata, four weeks old, newly christened.

Marguerite didn’t often pray. On those occasions when she’d found herself at church—Candace’s wedding, Renata’s christening, Candace’s funeral—she’d bowed her head along with everyone else, and when required she moved her lips, spoke the words she’d memorized as a child. But she didn’t feel anything. Marguerite was certain God existed and just as certain that God knew she existed, but for sixty-three years they had ignored each other. Marguerite had had no use for faith until the day Candace was killed, at which point Marguerite found her spiritual reserve empty. There was nothing to draw on, and rather than being angry at God for not appearing in her time of need the way he seemed to for so many others, rather than hating him for not providing her with a tool to make her way easier, Marguerite accepted his absence as her due.

Once Candace was gone, Marguerite frequently spoke out loud as she moved through her days alone.
Would you look at the bloom on that Jacques Randall? Elizabeth Taylor in rehab again! A wholly unsatisfying ending on the last story by Mr. Salinger, anyone would agree
. Marguerite assumed this was a symptom of her “insanity,” a consequence of her decision not to allow anyone into her day-to-day life, but every once in a while she recognized her mumblings as prayer. She was talking to Candace.

As Marguerite gazed at the photograph, she echoed the words she’d said on the altar the afternoon Renata was baptized. “
Will you, Marguerite,
as godmother, do the best that you can to…
” The priest went on to say something about guiding the child in the ways of the Lord, something about seeking truth, goodness, humility, grace, something about maintaining faith. Marguerite had agreed to do all these things, but only because she was relieved by the gentle phrasing of the question:
Will you do the best that you can?

Yes
, she thought.
I will do the best I can
.

Candace was pregnant through the summer. Her breasts swelled first; then her belly popped. Her hair grew at an amazing rate; at one point, it was nearly as long as Marguerite’s. Her left hand became numb with carpal tunnel; she suffered from debilitating heartburn when she lay down; she had to pee every twenty minutes. And yet still she worked, climbing the steep stairs to the Chamber of Commerce office each day; still she ran—five, six, seven miles—even though people would stop in their cars, roll down the windows, and tell her to get on home.

One day at noon, she showed up at Les Parapluies and found Marguerite elbow deep in prep work: roasting peppers, reducing stock, marinating tuna steaks. Candace kissed Marguerite on both cheeks and demanded lunch.

“This is not a diner,” Marguerite grumbled. “You know I don’t make lunch. Half the time, I don’t even eat lunch.”

“You don’t have to make lunch for me,” Candace said. “But what about the baby?”

Candace came in almost every day for ten weeks. She was used to bringing soda crackers to work, carrot sticks, a hard-boiled egg, which she ate at her desk, but it wasn’t matching her voracious appetite. Marguerite
made quiches, Caesar salads,
croque monsieurs
like the ones she’d eaten in Paris; she made gazpacho, BLTs, tuna salad. She began to feel like a part of the pregnancy. She liked having Candace in her kitchen while she cooked. She liked having Candace to herself. They talked, really talked, and it was almost like the old days, before Dan. Candace expressed her concerns about the baby.

“I can’t become somebody’s mother,” Candace said. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Who does?” Marguerite said.

“I don’t have the warm, fuzzy maternal feelings that other women have,” Candace said.

“They’ll come,” Marguerite said. “When the baby’s born.”

“I don’t even like babies,” Candace said. “I think other people’s babies are boring.”

“They say it’s different when it’s your own,” Marguerite said.

“How do you know so much?” Candace said.

Marguerite laced her fingers through Candace’s and said, “You’re going to be a wonderful mother.”

“You think?”

Candace had given up alcohol and she was easily tired, but still Candace and Dan came to the restaurant to have dinner with Porter and Marguerite two or three times a week. Marguerite insisted on it.

“You’re coming in tonight?” Marguerite would ask at lunch.

“Oh,” Candace would say. “I don’t know. I’m so tired.”

“You should come while you can,” Marguerite said. “Once the baby arrives, things will be different.”

In the end, Candace always agreed. “Okay, we’ll come. Nine o’clock. See you then.”

Candace’s belly was impressive—perfectly round and hard as a
rock. Customers of the restaurant couldn’t help themselves from stopping by the west banquette. “Boy,” one said. “The way you’re carrying, it’s definitely a boy.” The interruptions came so frequently, it annoyed them all.

“No one has any sense of boundaries,” Dan complained. “Everyone has something to say to a pregnant woman.”

“I know they’re excited for us,” Candace said. “But I feel like public property.”

Candace drank mineral water while Dan and Porter and Marguerite carried on with cocktails and wine—two bottles, three bottles, four, followed by a glass of port or a cordial. The three of them drank more heavily, perhaps, while Candace was pregnant. There were dozens of conversations about Reagan, who might succeed Reagan, did the Democrats have a chance, and if they were to have a chance they needed to run somebody who would make a better showing than Walter Mondale did the last time around.

One night, Candace stopped conversation with a hoot. “Baby’s kicking,” she said.

Marguerite reached over and laid her hand on the smooth sphere of Candace’s belly. The instinct to do this was perfectly natural, she thought. She, who would never have a child, wanted to know what it felt like, if only from the outside. She sensed the light but insistent tapping
—tap, tap, tap
, like the baby was trying to send her some kind of coded message. Without thinking, Marguerite moved her hand in a circle, as though Candace were a crystal ball.