The Three Weissmanns of Westport (28 page)

Leanne gave her an uncomfortable look. "He told you that?"

Miranda immediately regretted her words. She was aware that she occupied a delicate position with regard to Kit and Leanne. Her bitterness toward Leanne's ex-husband must be kept under wraps. She had discovered a long time ago that no one can attack an ex-husband or wife except the ex's ex. You can agree, but you cannot initiate. She had learned this over the years, though she had never really understood it. On the other hand, any positive comments or happy memories about the ex were equally off limits. There was nothing one could say that would not somehow offend the injured party. So one kept quiet. Particularly if one had slept with the ex. Particularly if one valued the friendship of the injured party more every day.

Miranda's friendship with Henry's mother was a revelation to her. She had never had a best friend before, not as an adult. And even as a child, there had always been Annie first and foremost. As she got older, she had friends, lots of friends. But that was the point--there were so many. And then there were the men. So many men. Now there was just this one woman in this suburban town. It was so different here. She was different, too.

Bankruptcy--the bright line between her old life and her new one. To her surprise, her reaction to bankruptcy had not been depression or anger but an overwhelming, sometimes disorienting sense of freedom. She was free of her success, free of her failure. She was . . . she suddenly remembered a word Frederick had used: she was "unencumbered."

She found herself tenderly protective of this new incarnation, consciously thinking of it as a slender green seedling, perhaps because she had begun gardening a little, an experiment in her new self, fascinated by the arbitrary bits of green that appeared in the yard. At Charlotte Maybank's house on Beachside Avenue, there were gardens galore, and she had begun to spend time in them, weeding and pruning, constantly consulting her laptop, as well as the old gardener who came once a week, to make sure she did not inadvertently kill an unfamiliar infant flower. She also took care of Henry when Leanne went to New Haven to the library to work. When Leanne stayed home to work, Miranda played with Henry, gave him his nap, made lunch for the three of them.

"I feel like I'm taking advantage of you," Leanne said.

"You can give me advice if I ever suffer an epidemic. In exchange," Miranda said, then remembered her mother's warning about Kit taking advantage of her and laughed.

She had begun to cook dinner at the cottage sometimes, too. It was easy to cook, she discovered. Not to cook well, necessarily, but to cook. You read the directions and followed them. How soothing it all was. A teaspoon meant a teaspoon, no more, no less.

She began pulling together a resume, which both depressed her and invigorated her. She researched headhunters and began to write the letters she would send out.

"But I was born to be a nanny," she said.

There were evenings when Roberts appeared and Leanne would be locked up with him and her aunt discussing business. Then it fell to Miranda to give Henry his bath. At other times, Aunt Charlotte would want Leanne to attend to her at bedtime, and Miranda would gratefully accept the job of getting Henry to sleep. "That one'll go," Charlotte would say, pointing to a portrait as Leanne helped her up the stairs. "On the auction block for you!" In his bed, Henry would point at his stuffed animals and say, "On the auction block for you! What's an auction block?"

When both their charges were asleep, Leanne and Miranda would sit in the living room and drink. They both liked to drink. Sometimes they polished off a bottle of wine, sometimes they drank bourbon, sometimes gin. They drank and they talked. But they had never discussed Kit. It was an unspoken agreement.

And now Miranda had stupidly mentioned Kit's tales about his childhood. All those sweet and intimate conversations Miranda had had with Kit about his sunny youth--of course, Leanne would resent that.

"Maine, huh?" Leanne said. She seemed as though she had more to say, but she gave a disgusted little sigh, no more.

"Maine? Maine has nothing we don't have right here in Westport," said Cousin Lou. "Forget about Maine. You come to our party, too . . . After all, you're Henry's mother . . . you're like family . . ."

"The Season," Annie said wearily after the third dinner in a row, "has begun."

Betty often begged off this new rash of meals, waving her daughters out the door with a sense of relief. "Find nice, rich husbands," she would always call after them, just for the pleasure of hearing their ritualized outrage. Then, at last: privacy. Alone to rest, to order interesting inventions that were advertised on TV. It had begun with OxiClean, which even Annie admitted worked wonders. But since then Betty had gotten a fleece blanket with arms, which you wore like a backward robe; a portable steam cleaner; and a wonderful brush that worked for both dogs and cats and came with a free bonus attachment that cut off burrs and tangles.

"But we don't have a dog," Annie said when it arrived in the mail.

"Or even a cat," Miranda added.

"Unpredictable times, my darlings," said Betty. "Unpredictable times."

She turned the TV on now and found the channel that reran soap operas. She liked to watch Kit sometimes. It excited her that she knew someone who was on television. She wouldn't have admitted it to her daughters, however. They were so cavalier about things like that. Growing up in New York had done that, she thought. Nothing impressed them.

"But it's wrong," Kit was saying to his handsome lover.

Wrong, Betty thought. So much was wrong in this world. Why did those two beautiful, healthy young men worry about a little thing like a kiss? She remembered the first time Joseph had kissed her. It was as clear as if it had happened that morning. It had been on a morning, too, but so long ago. They had met at a party a week earlier and he had asked her to come to see an exhibit at the Metropolitan. She couldn't remember what the exhibit was. Spanish paintings, perhaps? Afterward, they had gone for a walk in Central Park. Her children, her babies, were home with the teenage girl from the apartment next door. She remembered wondering if the girl was ignoring them, talking on the phone with some pimply boyfriend instead of playing dolls and peek-a-boo. That wouldn't be so bad, she had thought, as long as the girl didn't let them drown in the bathtub somehow . . . Then, suddenly, Joseph had taken her hand and led her to a thicket of trees and bushes. She heard the traffic on Fifth Avenue; she heard a dog barking and a mother telling her children not to go too far ahead of her, a siren in the distance, a squirrel scurrying through the leaves, or was it a rat . . . And then Joseph looked down at her with half-closed eyes and kissed her.

Her heart fluttered even now, remembering. She had fallen in love with him the first time they spoke at that awful smoky downtown party. Sometimes people are mistaken when they fall in love at first sight, or even second or third sight. But I was right, Betty thought. Pity he had to ruin everything.

She turned off the TV and sorted through some papers. When the phone rang, she saw on the caller ID that it was her lawyer and eagerly picked it up.

"How's my Case?"

"You won't believe this, Betty, but I think . . . well, I think we're making progress! Suddenly Joseph Weissmann's lawyers, who refused to even refuse my calls, are calling and asking for meetings to 'clear this all up.'"

Betty felt a sickening surge of relief, sickening because it forced her to acknowledge how frightened she was, how precarious, how vulnerable. Then, a blind flash of rage. Then, oddly, a pang of sorrow for Joseph.

"I don't know what happened. Maybe you've just successfully waited Joseph out. Not all women have the resources to do that," the lawyer said. "They settle because they can't buy groceries."

"Joseph would never do that," Betty said.

"Only because you haven't let him. You can thank your family for that."

Joseph is my family, she wanted to explain.

"We did it, we did it!" Miranda cried, dancing around the cottage, when she told them the news.

"Maybe!" Annie joined in. "Maybe we did it!"

Betty found the possibility of victory painfully anticlimactic. What on earth were they dancing for? She looked around the little cottage, at her furniture and rug, her paintings and vases, and tried to remember them in their original setting. If she really went back to her apartment, would she miss the cottage? She wasn't sure. She hoped so. She didn't like to think of these past months as wasted. But for her, there was no joy in the thought of return. Living alone in the apartment would be like drifting on an ocean in a tiny boat. Nowhere to go, and no real hope of getting there.

On one of the afternoons when Leanne was working in the library of the big house on Beachside Avenue, Miranda and Henry were searching for worms on the lawn in back. Long Island Sound stretched out before them. The sky was a vibrant blue and the wind was brisk. Aunt Charlotte had recovered enough from her surgery to be steered outside in a wheelchair. She was wearing one of the fleece blankets with arms that Betty had ordered from TV. "The second one was half-price," Betty had explained to an outraged Annie. Then she had given it to Charlotte Maybank, who wore it at all times, inside and out.

Henry curled his fingers in the bright grass and damp sod. The earth was dark and rich, almost black. A pink worm slithered out from the trench he had carved.

"Look!" he said.

"We can go fishing," Miranda said.

Henry's brow wrinkled. Miranda knew by now that this was the cloud before the storm.

"The worm will die," he said in the tremulous voice that preceded a wail. "The fish will die . . ."

Miranda quickly picked up the worm and took Henry's hand. She placed the worm in his palm. She said, "See that brown part? That's dirt. It eats the dirt and then the dirt comes out the other end and the dirt that comes out is better for growing things."

"Worm poop," Henry said, mollified.

As Miranda breathed a sigh of relief, she saw Roberts coming out of the house and walking down the flagstone path toward them. He wore his habitual dark suit. His shoes gleamed in an old-fashioned way. He looked even more grave than usual.

"Roberts?" she said, standing up. "Everything okay?"

He gave Miranda a halfhearted wave, turned to the old lady and said, "Charlotte, we really have to talk," then began to wheel her inside.

"Housewares, durable goods, knickknacks . . ." Charlotte Maybank's wavering voice came back to Miranda on the wind. "Oh yes, they'll all have to go!"

Later, Miranda asked Leanne if anything particular was up. "Roberts looked pretty spooked."

Leanne pursed her lips, then gave a quick shake of her head and said, "Just my aunt's nonsense. You know how she is."

On top of the dunes, Frederick stood with his bare feet in the cold sand. He was thinking about the night he gave the reading at the Furrier Library in Manhattan. He could picture Annie Weissmann, her eyes shining, a little imperfectly hidden smile of pride on her personable face. Cape Cod in the winter, his daughter had said with disdain. Annie's sister had said something nice but odd, some nonsense about paragliders, but also something about her feet in the cold sand. Gwen had never understood things like feet in cold sand. Neither, it appeared, did Amber. He leaned into the wind coming from the water. It was almost strong enough to hold him up. He felt it against his face, in his hair, on his scalp. His hands were red and cold. He never wanted to move. With the hollow rumble of the waves and the wail of the wind in his ears, embraced by the gusts of sea air, his feet planted, aching in the cold of the packed sand, Frederick felt safe from the life he led and alive in the life he truly lived. He stood on the edge of the dune until the light began to dim. His joints were stiff. He was refreshed.

When he drove home, he got a call on his cell.

"Where have you been?" Amber said. "I've been calling for over an hour. I thought you had a heart attack or something."

"I hope you're not disappointed. I was on the beach. I left the phone in the car."

"Listen, we're staying in the city a little longer. You don't mind, do you?"

Amber and Crystal had stayed on at Joseph's apartment, even after Frederick came back to the Cape. It had been over two weeks now. It seemed to Frederick that Amber had become quite indispensable to his sister and daughter, a kind of in-house house sitter. She ran errands for them. She babysat for the twins, took them to puppet shows and to the pediatrician. Felicity often asked Amber to run out to the market, to the butcher. They all three (Crystal seemed to bow out of a lot of these activities) would take the little girls to the park and then cross to the East Side to go shopping. Frederick tried not to think about any of them too much. He spent an hour or two each morning walking on the beach, then worked, then took another walk in the evening, then drank himself to sleep. He was a solitary person and was not unhappy with the way things were, only with how they would be.

"Daddy?" Henry said, pointing to the television screen. Kit was against a brick wall, a look of horror and fear on his face, a gun to his head. Henry started to cry.

"Baby, it's not real," Leanne said. "It's make-believe. That's Daddy's job--pretending."

Henry sobbed and wailed, his little body shaking.

Betty said, "Get a cookie. Get the child a cookie." It had never worked with the girls when they were little, but you never knew. Did they even have any cookies?

Leanne and Miranda took Henry into the kitchen and sat him on the counter.

"I'm really sorry, Leanne. My mother should not have been watching that while you were here."

Leanne was opening cabinets. "Where do you keep your cookies? Don't worry about it, Randa. Right, Henry? Mommy and Randa are right here. And Daddy is just fine. So try to shape up, sweetheart," she said to Henry, kissing his forehead.

"I don't have any shape ups left in me," he sobbed.

Miranda opened a cabinet and stared at the boxes of whole-wheat pasta, the saltines, the can of chickpeas, and the jar of almond butter. "How about sort-of peanut butter on a cracker?" Henry nodded solemn agreement. "Good," she said. "And don't cry about Daddy. He'll come back from the TV and see you really soon, right?" She looked at Leanne. "Right?"

Leanne shrugged.

"Right," Miranda said. "I know he will. Let's call him. You know, you can call him up on the telephone and you can see him at the same time talking to you on the computer."

Henry ate his cracker while he contemplated that.

"Okay," he said finally.

Leanne looked relieved. "Thanks," she said to Miranda. "It's so difficult sometimes with Kit in California."

"I understand. It's all been so painful and awkward."

Leanne nodded. "I guess." She stroked Henry's hair.

Miranda watched Leanne's hand. How easily it shaped itself to that beautiful head. She felt a confused stab of jealousy and looked away.

"Painful subject," Leanne said very softly.

Miranda took a deep breath. She exhaled slowly. It was going to rain. She gazed out the window at the putty-colored sky. Then she said what she had wanted to say for a long time, a simple sentiment, a statement of friendship and solidarity, but it had until now always seemed so presumptuous. "I'm so sorry he made you so unhappy."

There was an awkward pause, and then Leanne said,
"Me?"

"Well, me too. And I know how weird it is coming from me, but when your husband leaves you . . . I mean, look at my poor mother . . . You feel so abandoned. So hurt . . ."

Leanne was staring at her. "
Kit
didn't leave
me
," she said.

"More?" Henry asked, pointing to the crackers.

Miranda spread more almond butter on another cracker, then absentmindedly ate it herself.

"More
please
?" said Henry.

"
I
kicked
Kit
out."

Miranda picked up Henry and set him on his feet on the floor. "Go ask Betty if she wants a cracker, okay?"

She licked almond butter off her fingers as he scuttled away.

Finally, she said, "Ah."

In an irrelevant echo, a crow outside gave a hoarse caw.

The faucet dripped hollow, portentous plunks.

"Also, about Maine?" Leanne said at last.

"Look, I'm really, really sorry I mentioned that. I know it was awkward. I mean, even if you left him," she added. She got up and tightened the taps, first the hot, then the cold. The dripping continued. "It's a tricky subject. Especially between you and me."

Leanne produced an uncomfortable laugh and turned away.

"Okay, I know it's unlikely, our friendship." Miranda felt almost elated, declaring friendship, just like that. "Bizarre that Kit brought us together . . ."

"Henry brought us together," she heard Leanne say.

Miranda had never really discussed Kit with anyone, but now she found herself compelled to talk about him to the last person in the world she should. "I guess I just needed you to understand about Kit. Because you're the only one who really can." She heard how ungainly she sounded, on and on in an inappropriate, breathless rush, yet she couldn't stop. "All those stories from Maine, they meant so much to me; I was just so happy to be around someone who had such an idyllic childhood, especially after all my Awful Authors and their gruesome stories of childhood, which all turned out to be fake anyway; it was just so comforting, and inspiring, actually, to meet someone normal, someone who didn't have anything to hide, whose childhood was so real, and so real to him . . ."

As she was speaking, Leanne leaned toward her across the table in an almost menacing posture. After every few words she would try to interrupt Miranda, but Miranda stumbled on. She felt like a broken-down racehorse who has to reach the finish or his heart will break. It was suddenly urgent that she explain herself. "My whole career was built on cheesy lurid tragedy. Cheesy lurid tragedy that turned out to be
fake
cheesy lurid tragedy. Think how that felt. It felt like shit, okay? So think how refreshing it was to talk to someone who grew up in a family full of love and fun and birds and wildflowers . . ."

"Jesus!" Leanne said. "Stop! I can't stand it anymore. Love and fun and birds and wildflowers? I'm going to puke. Christ almighty . . ."

Miranda did stop. She became very serious. In a firm voice she said, "Look, whatever Kit did to me, or to you, it's crazy the way we never mention him. I've been worse than you, I know. But I was wrong, okay? We should be able to speak honestly about Kit."

"Honestly? About Kit? Really? Okay. For starters, Kit did
not
grow up in Maine," Leanne said. "Okay? Got it? He's never even been to Maine. And he didn't have any brothers or sisters. Not a one. He was an only child, okay? And his father? Left when he was two, never showed his face again. The mother? The mother was a drunk who barely knew he existed . . ."

Miranda sat down heavily at the kitchen table. "Gosh. Really?"

"It's a performance, Miranda. Kit
pretends
," Leanne said. "That's what he does."

Leanne was on a tear now--how Kit had usurped her Waspy name "because he's a snob, do you get that? Because it made him sound East Coast Waspy"; his pretensions in dress and speech; his irresponsible spending on clothes and cars and boats they could not afford in order to impress his friends; the grandiosity; the selfishness, the lying--always, first, last, and in between, the lying. "You found him boyish. I get that. But there's another side to boyish when the boy lives off credit cards he can't pay, when the boy is thirty-five years old and has never had a job . . ."

"He's thirty-five? He said he was thirty."

"Too old for you?" Leanne gave Miranda a sharp look, then her face softened into affection. "Poor Miranda."