Close to Hugh (50 page)

A silhouette, dark against pale pearl-grey porch rail, Newell looks at him.

Listen carefully, Hugh thinks. Remembering earlier, talking to Ken, how lonely you feel when your friends fail to understand you. When you wonder if they’ve ever known you.

Something in Newell’s face shifts, an inner gate moving from closed to open. “Oh, Hugh. He’d break my heart anyway in a year or two. I know he’s too young, but the heart can’t help wanting what it wants—”

A voice says, “When you find yourself sounding like Woody Allen, you know that’s not a good sign.”

It’s Della, coming out onto the deck. They turn to her. “In grade thirteen,” she says, “I was so in love with my French teacher, I thought I was going to die. He was married, I don’t suppose he ever thought about me for a nanosecond. I still love him.”

She blushes. The pink is visible on her long white face, even with her back to the living room’s pouring light. “Not that this is the least bit useful, I know.”

Newell puts out an arm and gathers her in, letting his chin rest on her head as he has done ever since he was first taller than her. “Come back inside,” he says. “You’re cold.”

“Just tired,” she says. Hugging close to him, taking warmth from his warmth. She puts out a hand to Hugh. The three of them were the world, all the time they were at Ruth’s. Being at Ruth’s was— Not their real lives, the real lives were the misery. Ruth’s was refuge. At Ruth’s they were together, shielded and shielding; strong and smart and unscathed, together. Able to think.

Hugh can’t think—he needs a pill or two.

He can’t think without thinking of Mimi, and there’s no thinking of her now.

CAKE SURPRISE

macaroon cake macaron mushrooms 30-year-old port

Ivy busies herself, helping L and Jason clear away dessert plates. The whole trompe l’oeil thing makes her love Hugh with every ganglion of her tired mind, every thrum of her tired heart: that he thought it up; that he thought it would be funny; that he got L and Jason to help; that he pulled it off, even though he almost didn’t.

Another bang at the downstairs door. Ivy peeks over the banister. Oh, good! A charming bustle, chiming laughter, a gorgeous welling of scent: Gareth Pindar rises, majestic, Léon harrying behind him, carrying his train. They are elegant and happy in beautiful suits, carrying more flowers, brandy, and cigars, half of them chocolate.

“Impeccable timing. Dessert,” Hugh says, coming in from the deck to welcome them. Della is kissing Léon, Ken being bear-embraced by Gareth, who must outweigh him by a hundred pounds. Jasper, asleep in a quiet corner, never stirs.

Della says, “We’ve had dessert! Fried eggs and baked potatoes!”

“No, no, that was joke dessert. There’s still cake. There’s always more cake.”

L appears carrying the rest of the cake and the port, and Jason brings the macarons (bitter chocolate/salted caramel, shaped like fat mushroom caps).

Places are found for Gareth and Léon, Della and Ken shifting their chairs closer together so that Gareth can sit beside her; Léon (who seems to have an eye for what is needful) sliding in to introduce himself to Burton. Hugh takes Ivy away to be his espresso slave, so she spends ten minutes shuttling up and down from the frame room with small cups, while he pulls Della’s pictures from their hiding place and gives them a last polish.

He points out the gold fillet he added inside the linen mat on the
State of the Union
piece, obviously proud of Della’s work. Ivy would like to
know if he still paints himself, but so far has been afraid to ask. Everybody is afraid all the time. Of asking or of knowing. Like about Mimi, how she is faring; and what’s the deal with Orion—Burton—Newell?

Another, another, until all the cups are made.

She follows Hugh up the stairs: his very nice backside before her. He is old, as old as she is herself, yet she does not see age and decay, only the answer to her long true question: who am I to love? He is my work, she thinks, following him. That’s good. Whether he’s painting or not, in pain or out of it, damaged or clear. I like to have a little job.

Hugh’s job at the moment is to fête Della, and by extension Ken. Arms full, he takes the head of the table and draws L to him with a cock of the head. “I—we have to confess, we’ve done the unforgiveable, Della. L and I went over your head and decided that some of your work is finished.”

He turns to the long low bookshelf behind him, and begins to deal out framed boats. L looks at her mother, with pride and worry. Della has half risen in her chair, at first just tucking one foot beneath her for more height, then almost standing. “My boats!” she says. She looks to Ken briefly, then to the framed pictures.

Her eyes flick over them until she comes to the middle picture, the sea-green mat, and Ivy sees her face relax. When we give someone else power over us, when we take power over them by loving, what a long string of obligation we begin to unwind through the maze of life.

“As you’ll see when you have a chance to examine these pieces closely,” Hugh is saying, “the boat in this one is called
State of the Union
—that’s what we’re here to celebrate tonight, the ship you and Ken have sailed, through all kinds of weather, for thirty years. You can all come and look in a moment, but first I have a present for Ken—in case you are feeling a bit left out, Ken. I know you’ve always thought you might paint too, once you retire.”

He reaches behind the chair and picks up the final oblong: a large white canvas, marked with a pale blue pattern—oh! Ivy laughs. Paint-by-number. Hugh flips the board around, and there is the original photo, a much younger Ken and Della, standing with their arms around each other’s waists, staring into the camera, defiant and determined.

Ken hoots, he almost honks. He rushes from his chair to take the canvas from Hugh’s outstretched hands, overcome, eyes blearing, napkin up. “I’ve always—this photo—”

Ivy is taken aback by this display of sheer emotion—the place is crawling with artists, but it takes a lawyer to show a little honest sap.

Almost under control, Ken wants to make a speech.

“I want to tell you all, I’ve had this photo, the original of this, beside my bed for the last week, while I’ve been trying to work out what to do. And a couple of my daughter’s drawings that I stole. They made my decision harder and easier. I won’t go on about all that now, while you’re all—but I hope you know, Hugh, that I do—that it, you’ve—” His throat closes.

Della stands to rescue him. She is calm. “Quick, Ken, drink some of this port with the big fat 30 on the label. It must have been bottled about the same time that you and I were getting bottled that night, All Souls night, when we were babies no older than these babies now bringing cake and port around. I’ll help you with the paint-by-numbers—we’ll fill in the outlines of each other’s faces, as we’ve done all this time. All my wrinkles, all my beauty, you’ve given me these last thirty years. And I account for your grey hair at least as much as Elly does. My friends, you are so kind to help us celebrate!”

She’s going to lift her glass, but Burton jumps up from his seat. “Boy!
Your
present! Kitchen!” He snaps his fingers, and Jason slides the wrapped box in front of Della.

“Oh,” Della says, seeming a little dismayed. “This shouldn’t be a present occasion, not really—Newell, honestly, you shouldn’t have.”

“Open it later,” Newell suggests.

“How do you know he shouldn’t until you’ve opened it?” Burton demands. “Open it now!”

Newell lifts his hands to his face, and for an instant Ivy can imagine what it must be like to have Burton on one’s back night and day. In his softest voice, Newell says, “Open the little present, Della, and try to be polite.”

Della blows him a surrendering kiss. “Okay,” she says. “Come help, Ken.” Ken moves down the table to see what she’s unwrapping: a creamy inlaid box with a silver hook. “Mother-of-pearl! Oh, beautiful.” Della pulls the pin on its little chain out of the hook, and opens the lid. It is a travel box. Peach velvet trays hold bottles with silver lids. Pearl-handled nail files and other mysterious implements, each in their ordained place, the ideal of ordered, elegant living. A silver tag on one side,
HERS
, and on the other,
HIS
.

“A marriage in a box,” Hugh says.

At that there is a little silence. Della touches the
HIS
pearl-handled knife and the spoon, spooned behind it. She runs a hand along the box, its smoothness conveyed to each observer’s hand by the ease of her gesture. She touches the satin ribbons meant to lift the velvet tray out.

“Fine, now back to the party,” Newell says. He reaches out a long hand and closes the lid, slowly enough that Della can pull her fingers out of the way. The mother-of-pearl tiles flash, opalescent in the candlelight. “It’s nothing, it’s a bagatelle. You can examine it later.”

“You are so kind,” she says to Newell.

“I found it in Jasper’s shop, you should thank him.”

She goes to where he is slumbering in the corner, leans over the back of his chair, and puts a hand on Jasper’s sleeping shoulder. She kisses his head, her eyes more darkly hollowed than Ivy has seen them before. She shakes his shoulder, a little. But it’s all right, Jasper wakes and stretches and manages a wavery dentured smile.

“Thank you,” Della says and gestures to the box on the table.

“Usually they’re broken up,” he says, nodding. “Rare to find one intact.”

Hugh stands and calls, “Jason! The widows!” Jason runs. “My friends, my family …” Hugh pauses, and Ivy looks up, worried that he might be in trouble. But he carries on (as Jason hands him the first bottle of champagne and stands ready with the next), untwisting the wire and foil and taking the cork, hands gentle on the bottle: “I wish our darling Mimi, who loves Della and Ken, was here to help us celebrate—and Ruth, who’s sitting with her now.”

He turns the bottle and the cork releases with that velvet clonking sound we love so well. He pours and pours and pours, and lifts at last his own glass.

“All of you who
are
here, let us praise our friends, absent and present, and help me raise a glass to the wish that—that you will never die, not one of you.”

(L)

Great Pindar’s girth expands to take in everything Jason puts in front of him, sampling all the other cakes to see what he and Léon missed.

L likes Léon, but is too scared of Gareth to look at him. Only the outer outlines, the shape sitting at Hugh’s table. From time to time she steals a look. Now he’s staring over at the framed pictures Hugh left in a line on the bookshelf—the boats her dad didn’t even actually look at.

Her dad never looks at her mom’s work. As if it is some intimate thing he’s not supposed to see, her panties strung on a line in the bathroom. Not that she ever does that, not even in their own bathroom. They are delicate with each other, each keeping private.

I’m not going to be like that. Nobody can be with me, L thinks, unless they
be
with me.

Jason, going by behind her, snakes a hand in under her arm and through to reach around and touch, touch, her breast. Then he is past, carrying champagne bottles back to the kitchen sink. Her breast! Sings!

Gareth gets up. He wanders to the bookshelf to look more closely at the boats sailing in a row. He stands, stops, moves, stops. He pulls different glasses from his pocket. Casts an eye over his shoulder to see if Hugh is watching, then if Della is. Léon strolls over, a long s-curve, sinuous beside him, and they talk a moment.

Strange and interesting. Because those boats are really good, in L’s IMHO.

Jason comes from the kitchen, her phone buzzing like a bottled fly in his hand.

12. FIND MY FRIENDS

At the head of the stairs, L motions to Ivy and whispers that she’s leaving—Orion’s on the back porch, won’t come up. “Will you tell my mom, I mean, say I’m sorry I had to leave?”

“Something up?” Ivy asks. Some sixth sense says she ought to ask. Not waiting for the answer, she trots down herself, to talk to Orion.

Nobody there. Black night—midnight already, how did the night go so fast? L emerges from the back door, whistles a winding tune. Orion steps out of the bushes.

“She can help,” L says.

After a moment, he nods. “Savaya’s gone to Toronto. I have to go get her.”

Ivy doesn’t say anything, just looks as open and unjudgemental as she can, waiting for more. He pulls out his phone. She takes it and reads,

> Indo para Toronto

Eu transei con Terry

e eu loitei con Nevaeh

todo é parafuso

She hands it back, eyebrows up.

“Sorry—” he says, sliding a finger on the phone and handing it over again. “Here’s the English side. When she’s got something going on, she Google-translates it into, like, Tagalog or Malaysian and then into Galician, in case her parents read her phone. Then I retranslate.”

Ivy looks down again, forces her eyes to focus on the tiny print.