The Love Season (27 page)

Now
, she thought.
Now!

She heard a sound. Mr. Rogers was at the side door, mewing. He wanted to come with her, maybe.

“Good-bye,” Renata whispered.

And she ran.

7:33 P.M.

Four glasses of champagne and nothing to eat—no wonder the room seemed off-kilter—and yet Marguerite couldn’t bring herself to move. She poured another glass of champagne, already dreading the headache she would have in the morning. She should go get the mussels from the fridge, the aioli. She should tear off a hunk of bread; it might act like a sponge. The problem with having no sense of taste was that food
held zero appeal and eating fine, beautiful food was an exercise in frustration. Marguerite would know, intellectually, that the mussels tasted like the ocean and that the aioli was heady with garlic and Dijon, and yet in her mouth it would be mush. She didn’t dwell on the loss of this sense much anymore—after fourteen years it was a fact of life—though she often wondered what it felt like to be blind, or deaf. Was it as disheartening to imagine a painting by Brueghel or Vermeer, or a sunset on a winter’s night, or your own child’s face, but be trapped in darkness, even with your eyes wide open? Was it as ungratifying to remember the exultant tones of the “Hallelujah Chorus” on Christmas Eve, or a guitar riff of Eric Clapton, or the sound of your lover’s voice, but be wrapped in baffling silence?

The grandfather clock went through its half-hour spiel. Seven thirty: the very moment this whole tumultuous day had been about.
Can I feel sorry for myself now?
Marguerite wondered.

There was a knock at the door. Surely not. But yes, Marguerite heard it: three short, insistent raps. She looked in the direction of the front hall but was too petrified to move. She sat perfectly still, like a frightened rabbit, well aware that if someone looked through the proper window at the proper angle, she would be fully visible.

Another knock, four raps, more insistent. Marguerite didn’t fear someone trying to hurt her as much as someone trying to help her. She rose slowly, got her bearings with the room, eyed a path from her seat at the dining-room table to the front door. She cursed herself for not getting dressed; she was still wearing the kimono. She thought about all the brilliant minds who had written about drinking—Hemingway a master among them with his wine bags made from the skin of animals and the simple repetition “He was really very drunk.” And yet no one had ever captured the essence of four glasses of champagne on an empty stomach. The way the blood buzzed, the way the eyes simultaneously widened and
narrowed, but most of all the way one’s perception of the world changed. Everything seemed strange, funny, outrageous; the situation at hand became blurred, softened—and yet so clear! Someone was knocking on the door and Marguerite, drunk, or nearly so, rose to answer it.

There had been many, many nights of serious drinking at the restaurant. The cocktails, the champagne, the wine, the port, the cordials—it was astounding, really, how much the customers drank, how much Marguerite herself had consumed on a nightly basis. Lots of times she had stumbled home, leaning on Porter, singing to the empty streets. Lots of times her judgment had been compromised—she had said things that were indiscreet, unwise, and possibly even cruel; she had done things she regretted (the episode in the pantry with Damian Vix came to mind), and yet she kept on drinking. She loved it to this day; she thought it was one of God’s marvelous gifts to the world—the sense of possibility alcohol inspired. As her hand turned the doorknob, she conceded that she had been lucky; alcohol had never gotten the best of her the way it had, say, Walter Arcain. She had never tipped back whiskey at ten in the morning and then hit an unsuspecting jogger from behind while driving erratically over the speed limit on icy roads. The mere thought sobered Marguerite so that when she swung open the door, heedless of who it might be—hell, it could be the mailman with his irregular hours—she was frowning.

“Aunt Daisy?”

Marguerite heard the words before she focused on the face.
She came after all
, Marguerite thought, and then checked to see if it was true. Renata Knox, her godchild, stood before her—red in the face, panting, sweating, with a plummy bruise to the left of her chin. Her white-blond hair was in a ponytail, she wore a white shirt and a pink skirt, and slicing through her small breasts was the strap of an unwieldy duffel bag. It looked like she had run in her sandals all the way from Hulbert Avenue;
it looked like she was trying to escape the Devil himself—and yet she was utterly beautiful to Marguerite. She was Candace.

“Darling!” Marguerite said.

“Can I come in?” Renata asked. “I’m kind of on the lam.”

“Yes,” Marguerite said. “Yes, of course.” She ushered Renata into her hallway, still not quite believing it. Was this really happening? She came anyway? Marguerite shut the door, and when Renata kept a steady, worried gaze on the door, Marguerite locked it.

“Thank you,” Renata said.

“Thank
you
,” Marguerite said.

Marguerite pulled the second champagne flute from the freezer and filled it to the top. Meanwhile, Renata dropped her heavy bag.

“Is it all right if I stay the night?” she asked.

“Of course!” Marguerite said. She was so happy for herself, and for whichever of the upstairs bedrooms that would finally be used, that it took her a moment to realize something must have gone terribly wrong at the house on Hulbert Avenue. Marguerite handed the champagne to Renata, who accepted it gratefully. “Go right ahead and drink. You look like you need it. We’ll have a proper cheers in a minute.” Marguerite had planned to serve the hors d’oeuvres in the sitting room, but it suddenly seemed too stuffy; the grandfather clock would watch over them like an armed guard. So, the kitchen table. Marguerite fetched the polka-dotted cocktail napkins, the toothpicks, the mussels, the aioli. She decided to stay in her kimono. She didn’t want to leave Renata for even a minute; she might disappear as quickly and unexpectedly as she had come.

“Sit, please, sit!”

Renata collapsed in a kitchen chair. Her face was still a bright alarm.
Sunburn. She impaled a mussel on a toothpick and zigzagged it heavily through the aioli.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Marguerite said, settling in a chair herself. This was supposed to be an evening when Marguerite did the talking, and she had worried about how she would negotiate the requisite small-talk-to-start. Now there was no need.

Renata didn’t seem keen on explaining right away. She was too busy feasting. She brought the mussels successfully to her mouth a third of the time—otherwise, dollops of aioli landed on the table, which she didn’t notice, or on the front of her white shirt, which she did. She swabbed those drops with her cocktail napkin, leaving behind pale smudges.

“Sorry,” Renata said. “I’m starving.”

“Eat!” Marguerite said. “Eat!”

“These are delicious,” Renata said. “They’re divine.”

She finished her glass of champagne, burped quietly under her breath, and tried to relax. She was safe, for the time being, though her whereabouts wouldn’t be a secret for long. Someone would come sniffing around shortly, but Renata wasn’t leaving. They couldn’t make her.

“Darling?” Marguerite said.

Renata had seen pictures of Aunt Daisy in her parents’ wedding album. In these pictures, she wore a purple dress; her hair was in an enormous braided bun that sat on top of her head like a hat. There were different pictures of Marguerite in the back of the album, pictures taken during the reception. In one photograph, Marguerite’s hair was down—it was long and wavy, kinked from the braiding—she had changed into a black turtleneck and black pants; she was holding a cigarette in one hand, a glass of red wine in the other. Renata’s parents were also in the photograph,
her uncle Porter, her uncle Chase, and one of the restaurant’s waitresses. It looked like a photograph from a Parisian café—everyone was half-smiling and sexy and smoky. Marguerite, though she wasn’t pretty like Renata’s mother, appeared very glamorous in these pictures, and that was the image Renata had clung to. Her godmother, a famous chef with sophisticated sensibilities, her mother’s best friend.

The Marguerite sitting next to Renata now had a short, shaggy haircut (truth be told, it looked like she’d cut it herself) and she seemed much older than she had in the pictures. She was wearing a pink silk kimono, an article of clothing that intrigued Renata; it was exactly the kind of thing Action would have picked out of a vintage shop and boldly made her own. The kimono looked like it had history, character; if Suzanne Driscoll owned such a kimono she would have stored it in the attic, pulling it out only for costume parties, Halloween. But here was Marguerite wearing it to dinner. Despite the haircut and the aging, Marguerite had style. And more important, most important, the thing Renata had counted on, was that she exuded generosity, tolerance, acceptance. Renata felt she could confide everything, just from the way Marguerite had said,
Can you tell me what happened?
Just from the way she said,
Darling?

“Well,” Renata said. “I ran away. Again.”

Marguerite nodded, and gave a little smile. “So I see.”

Renata wondered what kind of scene was enacting itself back at Vitamin Sea. Had her father arrived yet? Had anyone noticed she was missing? How long would it be until the phone rang? By leaving, Renata hoped she had made herself clear: She wasn’t going to marry Cade. She wasn’t going to conform to Cade’s idea of her, or the Driscolls’ idea, or her father’s idea. She was going down another road entirely.

“I cheated on my fiancé today,” Renata said. “I had sex with someone else.”

Marguerite’s eyebrows arched. The secret smile faded. Renata felt a wave of regret. Did Marguerite disapprove? Renata felt guilty about Miles, but mostly because she had been up in the dunes with him when Sallie had her accident. The act of sex bothered her less—though there were Cade’s feelings to consider, and now Nicole’s. The sex had seemed predestined, somehow, the inevitable result of the bizarre circumstances she found herself in today.

“If I tell you about it,” Renata said, “you won’t judge me, will you?”

“No,” Marguerite said. “Heavens, no.” She sipped her champagne, nibbled a mussel, and nodded her head. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m listening.”

The clock ticked; it ding-donged out quarter till the hour, then the eight strokes of the hour. The number of mussels diminished as the number of used toothpicks piled up on the side of the platter. When the mussels were gone, Marguerite brought Renata a hunk of bread to wipe up the aioli. The girl remembered her manners from time to time, placing her hands daintily in her lap—then, as she got swept away by her own storytelling, she would forget them, downing her champagne in thirsty gulps, polishing the inside of the aioli bowl to a shine. Meanwhile, Marguerite tried to predict the girl’s needs—more champagne, more bread, a fresh napkin—while trying to keep track of the tale she was spinning. Renata started with the engagement only a week earlier—a diamond ring in a glass of vintage Dom Perignon at Lespinasse. Impossible to say no to, Marguerite had to agree. Then Renata moved on to the house on Hulbert Avenue, and the boy’s parents, Suzanne and Joe Driscoll. Did Marguerite remember them? Marguerite couldn’t say that she did. Renata described the mother, Suzanne, very carefully: the red hair swept back and curled under the ears, the big blue eyes, the skinny forearms jangling with gold bracelets. Marguerite didn’t remember anyone like this—or rather, she remembered too many people like
this, so many years in the business, so many nights in the summer, it was impossible to keep track. Marguerite felt like she was letting Renata down by not recalling the couple who were to be her in-laws, but then Renata smiled wickedly and it became clear she was glad Marguerite didn’t remember them.

“How about the Robinsons?” Renata said. “She’s short with dark hair, weighs about eighty pounds. His first name is Kent; he wears half spectacles.”

“No, darling. I’m sorry. If I saw them, maybe…”

Again, the look of someone who had just won a secret point.

Marguerite heard about Renata’s jog to the Beach Club, the discovery of Suzanne’s wedding list, the conversation in which Renata told her father of her engagement, followed by the decision to go with this boy, Miles, to Madequecham Beach.

“I can see how that would be hard to resist,” Marguerite said.

“You don’t even know,” Renata said.

And then there was a change in Renata’s tone. Her voice grew somber; the words came more slowly. Marguerite heard about a girl named Sallie, decorated like a Christmas tree with tattoos and piercings. Sallie had a surfboard in the car; it got loose and smacked Renata in the jaw, hence the bruise. Renata disliked Sallie. But then came the discovery of the cross Marguerite had fashioned so long ago (she could remember pounding it into the ground with a mallet meant for tenderizing meat, her bare hands freezing) and Sallie was there, next to Renata as Renata knelt before the cross and kissed it. Next Marguerite heard about heavy surf Sallie handing Renata her sunglasses, Sallie kissing Renata on the jaw. Marguerite heard about the volleyball game, sandwiches smushed by beer bottles, Sallie and Miles sitting on either side of Renata, making her feel, somehow, like she had to choose sides. Marguerite heard the girl Sallie’s
words,
Will you keep an eye on me?
And,
Don’t go getting married while I’m gone
.

“I said I’d keep an eye on her,” Renata said. “But as soon as she was back in the water I disappeared into the dunes with Miles.”

Marguerite nodded.

“And she went down. Hit her head on her board and went under and when they found her, when they brought her out, she wasn’t breathing.”

“Oh,” Marguerite said.

“It was like I caused the accident,” Renata said. “I said I would watch her and then I didn’t, I was off doing this other horrible thing, and I feel…not only like I was negligent, but like it happened because of me.”