The Summer We Read Gatsby (25 page)

Her husband kept insisting they were simple people; they just wanted to be home with their kids and not participate in the social scene. They weren’t trying to make new friends, since they didn’t even have time to see the ones they had. And they weren’t trying to make a statement, like
some
people. He seemed convinced. “We don’t need his and hers marble bidets and a screening room—”

“—of course we don’t. We can come here when we want to see a movie,” his wife interjected. “Right, Miles?”

A joint was making the rounds. Heather took a deep drag and tried to launch a discussion about kids and drugs. “You have to talk to them about pot.”

“Sure, you do,” Ollie called out. “They have all the best sources.”

“I have a house for you.” Up to that point I hadn’t talked much except to ask questions of the Littles on either side of me, and they all stopped to listen. “We’re selling exactly the house you just described.”

I must have done a pretty good job talking them into Fool’s House, a place that was all about creativity and
charm
, as I told them, because by the time dessert was served—individual chocolate soufflés with enormous dollops of fresh whipped cream—they were practically ready to make me an offer. I described the supposedly famous creative energy of the place, the light on the lawn, the crumbling tennis court, and, of course, the gregarious porch. “It’s not just any house, Fool’s House,” I heard myself saying. “Not just a structure with rooms in which to sleep and bathe, but a lifestyle, an identity, a destination.”

They ate it up. It was a strange feeling, to be in possession of something to sell. I’d never thought of myself as a salesperson. At the magazine, the editorial team and the sales staff were kept totally separate, and the sales people always seemed so
other
to me. But that night, I enjoyed the experience, spinning a tale I knew they wanted to hear. It wasn’t difficult to make Fool’s House sound appealing. I’d grown to love the place.

“My sister fancies herself a writer,” Peck called out to them in warning. “She tends to
embellish
.” But she didn’t seem to mind the sales angle and even added in a bit about Lydia’s ghost and the unfinished backgammon game we’d returned to the porch to find played to an end.

“When can we come see it?” Harvarditis wanted to know.

“Maybe
we
should look at it,” Marni added. “We need a new house.”

Heather glared at her as her husband seemed to grow nervous at the thought of buying a house. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “Is this a time to buy? Or should we rent? What do you think, Miles? You seem to have the Midas touch.”

The whole table of people looked to Miles for a decree on the economy. Miles propped his feet on the table, taking a deep drag of the joint. He seemed used to being asked the question. He was a rich man, after all, the sort of alpha male who was in the habit of giving his opinion. “Don’t think you’re going to steal their house on the cheap. Real estate out here is gold. I had an offer on this place just the other day that would make your ass squinch.”

This made Harvarditis laugh so hard he kept gasping for breath and banging on the table. He laughed for what seemed like hours, and eventually the dessert wine was finished, after-dinner cigarettes had been smoked, and it was time to go home. We all got up at the same time and headed into the house.

Peck pulled me aside as we stepped through the door, allowing the others to move on to the front of the house without us. “I’ve made a
decision
,” she whispered urgently. “I’m going to
stay
.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t rush into anything,” I suggested. “I thought you were never going to fall in love again.”

“I’m not talking about falling in
love
,” she said with a coy smile. “I have no intention of doing that again. But at the same time, you can’t fight destiny. I’m talking about
marriage
.”

“Marriage?” I repeated, somewhat incredulously. “Why all of a sudden are you, of all people, interested in
marriage
?”

“What does that mean,
me, of all people
? I never said I didn’t want to get married. That was
you
.” Her voice had gotten louder, like she wasn’t afraid of anyone overhearing her. “Anyway, I’ve called Finn to pick you up.”

“You did what?” I stared at her. “I don’t need Finn to pick me up. He’s not a chauffeur.”

“He was out here anyway, at a client’s house for dinner just down the road,” she was quick to say. And then she launched into one of her observations, intended to distract me from what she’d done. “People are always having him for dinner. He’s what’s known as the extra man. He’s tall, he went to Princeton, he has a job. That’s enough to get a guy in this town invited anywhere. It’s one of the great injustices of our social system.” She paused and then added, with a mischievous smile, “I wanted him to see you in that dress.”

“You’re crazy.” I was half dismayed and actually half pleased that she’d summoned Finn on my behalf.

She grinned. “Runs in the family. Based on how quickly Finn agreed to drive over here, he certainly didn’t mind.”

“What about Laurie?”

“The praying mantis?” she scoffed. “Not likely.”

“Who’s a praying mantis?” Miles wanted to know as he came up behind Peck and threw one arm casually around her shoulders.

“Nobody you’d care to know.” She smiled at him. “My sister’s getting a ride home. She’s going to look after Trimalchio.”

“And I’m going to look after you,” he said, kissing her on the ear. She leaned back, tilting her head.

They walked me out to the front of the house and Miles patted my shoulder. “Behave,” he said, as though I were one of those three girls who’d graced his deck with their miniskirted presence earlier in the evening, the kind who had a tendency to get naughty.

“
Namaste
,” Peck whispered as she wrapped her arms around me, enveloping me in a cloud of Jo Malone fragrance and hair.

12

 

 

 

 

W
hen Finn’s jeep pulled into the courtyard, the muscles in my stomach clenched involuntarily from nerves. I stood and took a deep calming breath, telling myself it was just a ride home and to stop being such a ninny. For some reason this was the word that popped into my head—
ninny
. It wasn’t one I’d ever spoken aloud. Finn stepped out of the car as I moved from the stone bench where I’d been sitting toward the passenger side. He caught my wrist to stop me. “Don’t you look nice.”

I was tempted to dismiss the compliment in my usual fashion. Instead I simply said, “Thank you.” And then I added, channeling some of Peck’s regal graciousness, “Thanks for coming to pick me up. I didn’t know Peck was going to impose on you like that.”

He gave me a funny look as he opened the passenger door and helped me in. “I was happy to do it.” He went around to the driver’s side and I caught a whiff of his now-familiar soapy scent as he slid in next to me. I wished he didn’t have such an effect on me.

“Is this Brett Dennen?” I thought I was being so casual, chatting about the music, but my mouth was dry and my voice cracked slightly. “I thought I was the only one who knew about Brett Dennen.”

He laughed. The planes of his face, in profile, caught the moonlight, and I was struck, not for the first time, by how much I liked his looks. He wasn’t classically handsome in a way that was too pretty or called attention to itself, but his face in profile, with its straight nose and strong jaw, was striking. He looked, well, nice, but I guessed there must be something wrong with him, some dark secret, a syndrome whose symptoms wouldn’t manifest themselves until one had known him awhile.

“So,” I said, as nonchalantly as I could, once we’d been driving for a while. “You and Laurie Poplin are an item?”

He looked over at me in surprise. “An
item
,” he repeated with a laugh. “Is that what you kids are calling it these days?”

“You know what I mean, Killian.” I was trying for the bantering tone that had come naturally at first, but my words sounded too weighted, like I was interrogating him.

Finn, on the other hand, seemed able to banter just fine. “I don’t have any idea what you mean,” he said with another laugh. “Laurie Poplin is selling one of my houses. Is that what an item is?”

“You know what an item is.” I wanted to be offhanded and clever but it all came out too heavy. “She says you’re a
genius
.”

“I get that a lot,” he said, grinning. “Don’t you?”

“No,” I said. “Nobody has ever called me a genius.”

He smiled. “Your aunt Lydia did. But what about you? No cozy male friends waiting for you back in Lausanne? Any Swiss boyfriends?”

“Not Swiss,” I said, thinking of Maurizio, the Italian friend of Patrizia’s who’d invited me to dinner a few times, and Lorenzo, the new salesman at the magazine who’d been making eyes at me at our last meeting. “Italian.”

“
Italian
? You have an Italian boyfriend?” He looked over at me again with a disgruntled air. I was almost certain he was just being charming. This is the way he was with everyone he met, I suspected. He was a guy who was used to being popular. Peck had just told me that he was often the “extra man,” invited to social engagements precisely because he was
available
. His charm had a practiced air that didn’t detract from its effectiveness.

I shook my head in my own attempt at charm, trying to add a little laugh, but it came out more like a cough. “I wouldn’t call any of them boyfriends.”

“
Them
?” he repeated, mock horrified. “There’s more than one?”

“From what Peck tells me, Laurie Poplin is not the only woman in your life either,” I pointed out. “You’re quite the ladies’ man, I hear.”

He looked over at me. “Are you kidding? No, sadly, there are no ladies in my life at this moment. Besides, Laurie’s got loftier goals than a poor architect for hire. Miles Noble is more her speed. She told me she’s heard he’s a
leg
man.”

“Funny,” I said. “That’s what Peck said about you.”

“I
am
a leg man.” He was still looking in my direction even though he was driving, and a small smile played at his lips. “But I’m also a foot and elbow and hollow of the neck man. I’m especially a funny bone man. I’m known for that.”

“I’ve heard that about you.”

He was taking the back roads and he asked, “Would you mind if we stop at my house before I drive you home? It’s on the way. Sort of.”

“I’d like to see it,” I said, curious about his taste.

As he drove I told him we now thought he might have been right about our Fool-in-Residence and the missing painting. “It could be one of his pranks,” I said. “Like he’s planning a big reveal or something any day now. But we also think the painting might actually be something. Or Peck thinks so. I’m not sure. The initials on the back were J.P. And it resembles an early Jackson Pollock.”

He looked understandably incredulous. “You think Lydia had a Jackson Pollock?”

I shook my head, now unsure. “It was just a thought. We have to get the painting back before we can figure it out.”

“There’s no way Lydia Moriarty owned a Jackson Pollock and never told any of us,” he said. “J.P. couldn’t be Jackson Pollock. She never met him.”

“How do you know?” I asked him.

“You think she would have been able to keep it a secret if she had? How often did she tell you about the time she met De Kooning?”

He had a point. She’d loved to tell the story of how she met the famous artist through my father. “About a hundred times.”

“But now that you mention it, I do remember Biggsy telling me he was obsessed with Jackson Pollock. It’s one of the reasons he came out here in the first place. He went to visit the Pollock-Krasner House and he had to stay in the area.”

“Pollock-Krasner House? You mean where they lived?”

He nodded. “In Springs. It’s a museum now. You can tour the house and his studio. But he died in the fifties. Lydia would have been a kid. I don’t see how she could have met him and had him inscribe a painting to her when she was eight or nine years old and never told us.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said. “But it has to be something, doesn’t it? Why else would anyone have taken it? Did your mother tell you anything about it when she gave you that picture?”

He shook his head. “No, but why don’t we ask her? Come for Sunday dinner tomorrow on Shelter Island. You can meet the whole Killian clan.”

“All four brothers?”

“And all their wives and kids. And dogs. There are twenty of us,” he said. “Ten kids ranging in age from fourteen to two. My mom’s the matriarch, the only sane one at the center of the vortex. You’ll love her.” He turned onto a narrow dirt road lined with trees. “This is my place.”

I don’t know what I expected; he was an architect, after all. But I hadn’t given much thought to the type of house he would have created for himself. Everyone I knew lived in small rented apartments or, in the case of my editor, the top half of a house he shared with his elderly mother. I was the first of my friends to own even part of a house, and that was only due to the very generous, if mysterious, Aunt Lydia. Jean-Paul and I had shared an apartment belonging to his brother, which my ex-husband kept for himself after we split up. I didn’t know anyone—except Miles Noble—who lived in a house of their own design. Finn’s house was beautiful, a converted barn he’d spent three years redesigning, keeping only the old planks of wood, dark with the patina of age. The front of the house retained the original barn shape. The back, though, was open, like a dollhouse, all clad in glass, with sliding doors framed in bronze. From the front door you could see out the back.

“I had no idea you were this talented,” I said to him in genuine surprise as he led me in.

The first floor was an open plan with a dining area containing a long rippled table that could seat twenty and a living area with deep-cushioned sofas. The floors were bare and gleaming and there was a wall of bookshelves, stacked neatly with books, constructed from the same dark, aged wood as the floor. Everything was orderly, from the dishes on the shelves above the sink to the pens, papers, tape dispenser, stapler, and other items lined up on the desk. I guess the impossible neatness and order shouldn’t have surprised me. He was an architect, after all. But I’d never been in a man’s home that looked like this, not that I’d been in so many men’s homes at all, really.