Mating Rituals of the North American WASP (30 page)

Abigail was observing him; he could tell. He spun lines in his imagination, stalling for time:
Her light-struck mate turned to moss
.
Her bolt-cracked mate transformed to moss.
The widow tree would be gone now, he thought, bulldozed for the Pilgrim Plaza parking lot.

“I asked a question, young man.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” He didn’t, truly. There was so much wrong with his marriage. It could be anything.

“Why did she leave on Christmas? Why didn’t she stay the week?”

“People who own stores can’t up and leave work for a week.” Especially the week after Christmas, when stores were filled with
shoppers spending their gift money and buying themselves everything they hadn’t gotten for the holidays. Peggy had explained
this to Luke when he’d asked the question himself.

“They do in New Nineveh.” Abby’s face had that set, stubborn look.

“New Nineveh isn’t New York.”

His great-aunt clucked her tongue. “And why is Peggy still living in New York? She shows no interest in moving in with us
permanently. Meanwhile Ernestine spotted that Pappas girl driving past the house last month. This is no way to conduct a marriage.”
She stopped for a breath of air. “Neither do I believe Peggy’s parents are of the New Nineveh Adamses.”

Luke knew he was squirming under her unflinching certitude.

“I’ve been thinking”—he slipped the shopping list with his poetry into his pocket—“that we—Peggy and I—might be better off
ending things.”

“Ending your marriage?” Abby rubbed her ears, as if she’d heard wrong.

“We’re nothing alike.”

The old woman
tsk
ed.

“It’s true. We shouldn’t have married in the first place, and we shouldn’t have stayed married. We rushed into it without
considering whether we were good for each other.” Each word was a blow to Luke’s already battered heart. But admitting the
truth to Abigail was, in its own way, cathartic. “I know you care for her, and I know you want me to settle down, but…” That
was as far as he could go. He could hardly explain he couldn’t stay married to Peggy because she was engaged to another man.

The teakettle whispered breathily.

“Do you care for her?”

The kettle’s whisper climbed a few decibels.

“Yes,” Luke replied after a moment. “But it’s not that easy.”

“If it’s easy, you’re doing it wrong.”

The kettle had worked up its full head of steam. “I’d like you to consider changing your will again,” Luke continued more
loudly. “Now that you’re more comfortable with the idea of selling the house, we could still sell it—”

Abigail took the kettle off the burner.

“—without Peggy!” Luke shouted into the now quiet kitchen. He stopped, gestured at the stove, and continued in his regular
voice, “The burner.” It was still on.

Abby poured boiling water into her cup and poured the rest, hissing, down the drain. “My will stands.” She set the empty kettle
in the sink basin. “You and Peggy are to remain married for a year.”

“The burner, Abby.” Luke pointed.

“Otherwise there’s no selling the house.” She sat at the table across from him. Behind her, the burner continued to blaze,
a perfect crown of fire.

“Abigail, the stove!” Luke shoved his chair back and, with hands he hadn’t realized were clenched into fists, twisted the
burner knob to “Off.” “You can’t just forget the stove is on! Do you want to burn the house down?”

“It was a mistake.” His great-aunt stirred her tea. “You were here to take care of it. Now, you do understand me about the
will?”

“You can’t make that kind of mistake!” It was unfair to shout at her, but he was weary of pretending everything was fine.
Everything was not fine. Everything was an abject disaster. “We have no insurance, Abby. I had to let the policy lapse. If
this house burns, you’ll have nowhere to live and, more to the point, nothing to live on! Do
you
understand?”

“We have my box with the star. We can live on that.”

“There is no box.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I’ve been searching for weeks. I’ve found nothing. If Charles did give
you a gift, and I’m not saying he didn’t, it can’t possibly have any value. I’m sorry, Abby.” He was simply unable to fly
off the handle. To remain even-tempered was too deeply ingrained in him.

Abigail simply sipped her tea. “A box with a star,” she repeated, and for the second time Luke wondered if some of his great-aunt’s
dementia was an act. If she wanted a way to distract him from his talk of divorce and selling the house, she couldn’t have
chosen anything more effective. He dropped the subject.

Brock was a born host. He strode across his father and stepmother’s New Jersey living room, utterly at ease, stopping every
few steps to shake a hand, clasp a shoulder, or freshen a drink. He was brilliant at it. So different from—

No way. Peggy would not waste her New Year’s Eve thinking about Luke.

“Refill. Who all needs a refill? Bex? Josh?” Brock had a big voice Peggy could imagine bouncing off the room’s vaulted two-story
ceiling during more intimate gatherings. He held a champagne bottle and tilted it toward Bex.

Bex put her hand over her plastic champagne coupe, which Peggy knew held sparkling water, and declined without explanation.
Bex still hadn’t gone public with her pregnancy and wouldn’t until the first trimester was over. It was one of many secrets
Peggy felt terrible about keeping from Brock, especially since she’d already confided in Luke.
Dammit, Peggy. Stop thinking about him. Him and Nicki.
She wished she didn’t know that woman’s name.

“Josh, then. Here you go, big guy.” Brock paused as Josh polished off the last of his champagne, then he refilled Josh’s glass
to the brim. “Glad you both made the trip out here. We should move to Jersey, Pegs. Look at how much space this house has.
And our kids will need a yard to play in.”

Peggy couldn’t argue with the space, but the house was horrible, with its hollow decorative columns and wood laminate floors
and gas-burning fireplace, all brand-new and synthetic. It, and the other identical houses in its development, seemed to have
sprung up fully formed, like shiny plastic pieces in a Monopoly set. But the place was in excellent repair; she’d give it
that. Luke would kill for the ceiling, a pristine expanse of white plaster free of stains and bulges. Sealed, watertight perfection.
She blinked back the floating circles the sunken lights had left in front of her eyes. “We’ll see,” she said. She had no intention
of living in a house like this.

Brock was already moving toward the next group of guests. Most were people Peggy didn’t know: friends and business associates
of the Clovises. She spotted Brock’s brother, Brent, a shorter, blond version of Brock who’d be best man—the only other member
of the wedding party besides Bex. A few of Brock’s former football teammates from high school were swapping stories with Brock’s
father, Ron, while the friends’ wives stood separately, eating shrimp from an icy heap of seafood on the dining table. Peggy
realized this was the difference between WASP parties and everybody else’s parties: Here, people ate the food.

She scanned the room some more. There were no cameraman buddies; except for Brock, they were all over the country, setting
up for tomorrow morning’s bowl games.

“See how he’s changed? He turned down work on New Year’s just to be with me,” Peggy pointed out to Bex and Josh, as if the
two had been criticizing Brock—when neither had made a single disparaging comment since Peggy had finally told them of her
engagement. They’d been supportive and complimentary and all the things Peggy had hoped they’d be.

“I noticed.” Bex settled into a bony reproduction armchair, not even taking the opportunity to comment that earlier, Brock’s
stepmother, Sharon, had pretentiously described it as “Louis Quatorze.”

“Me too.” Josh took another gulp of champagne.

It was bizarre.

“I’ll be right back.” Peggy dodged through the crowd toward Ron and Sharon’s media room, where guests’ mink coats lay in perfumed
strata along the backs of the couches and chairs and rhinestone handbags littered the seats. Peggy found her own plain bag
and stood, her phone to her ear. On the wall-mounted flat-screen television, people cavorted live in Times Square, the sound
on mute.

“Happy almost New Year,” she greeted Luke when he answered.

“The same to you.” His matching polite, distant formality bothered her, which was stupid. It wasn’t as if she’d called to
whisper sweet nothings in his ear.

“Where are you?”

“You called the house,” he said. “You didn’t think I’d be out in a cardboard hat, singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’?”

“I guess not.” She laughed, feeling foolish. “How’s your great-aunt?”

“She went to bed hours ago.”

And where’s the redheaded strumpet?
Peggy thought. She took an anxious breath and let herself be mesmerized by the televised revelry. She and Bex and Jen and
Andrea and a few other college friends had actually gone to Times Square the first New Year’s Eve after Peggy had moved to
Manhattan. It had been tightly packed with people, and every so often, just for fun, Peggy had lifted both feet off the ground
and let the crowd carry her along.

“Is there anything you wanted to say?” Luke asked.

“Yes. I think we should call it off early. Our, uh, arrangement.” She couldn’t bring herself to say “marriage.” “I can’t keep
hiding this from my fiancé—”

“What about the money?”

The complete absence of hurt in Luke’s voice left Peggy more confused than she had been before she’d picked up her phone;
she’d thought the conversation would ease her mind. “I don’t care about the money.” She pictured Luke in the chair he liked
in the den, the one by the telephone table. “I’ll find some other way to save the shop. This isn’t worth it.”

“You’re right. I’ll find some other way to take care of Abigail. We can tell her as soon as Mayhew draws up the papers.”

“Great.” Her throat ached. “I have to go.”

Back at the party, the football wives were still attacking Mount Seafood and Brock was still chatting it up with his friends,
though Josh had joined them.

Bex, in her chair, looked up as Peggy approached her. “What’s wrong? You look upset.”

“Not at all. I’m happy.” Or would be, once the numbness wore off. And once she had broken the news to Bex. “Luke and I are
calling it off early. I hope you can understand, Bex. I just can’t pretend to be his wife anymore. Not now that I’m engaged.
Luke will have his lawyer draw up the papers right away, and we’ll break the news to his great-aunt together.” Miss Abigail.
What would become of her? Peggy refused to acknowledge the growing choking sensation in her throat. Miss Abigail wasn’t her
responsibility. She was Luke’s relative, Luke’s concern.

On the opposite side of the room, one of Brock’s friends was reenacting a dramatic football pass. “He goes long…long…and…”

Peggy turned away from the distraction. “The money will be a problem, I know. But we’ll figure it out, Bex. There has to be
another way to keep the store. We did pretty well this holiday.” They had; sales had been up over last year, according to
Peggy’s accounting. “Maybe we can do a little advertising. And look for a new space. On a side street, where the rent is lower.
I can’t be married to Luke and engaged to Brock. It’s just wrong. I hope you understand.”

“Five minutes to midnight!” a guest yelled.

“I understand.” Bex rested her hands in her lap.

“You’re not upset?”

“Why would I be upset? You’ve got to do what’s right for you.” Bex smiled, a little wistfully, perhaps. “It’s too bad, though.
If I were you, it would kill me to lose that house.”

“I would have lost it anyway,” Peggy reminded her.

“And here’s the other future Mrs. Clovis!” Brock’s bronzed, blonded, surgically enhanced stepmother swept up and clutched
Peggy’s upper arm enthusiastically. “I’m so excited! You have to set the date, Peggy. Don’t keep us in suspense!”

“Four minutes!” came the call.

The room felt packed to the walls, the guests tipsy enough that each seemed to occupy twice as much space as before.

Peggy squeezed between the flailing arms and swaying bodies and touched Brock on the shoulder. His friends hooted and catcalled
as she led him toward the glassed-in patio Sharon called the lanai.

They were alone.

“I’m ready to set a date. Is there a day you can take off in June, when you’re back from your documentary?” By then, her annulment
would be final. Her sadness at the thought of Luke got lost in the bursts of laughter and premature honking of party noisemakers
coming from the party room. “What do you think?”

“Ten! Nine!” the guests shouted. “Eight…!”

“Let’s go for it.” Brock grabbed her and squashed her to his machine-toned pectorals, his movie-star lips locking on hers
as the party guests on the other side of the glass embraced each other. The New Year had begun.

Midwinter, January

A
few days after New Year’s, Luke met with Lowell Mayhew, who warned that once Abigail understood he and Peggy were dissolving
their marriage, she would reinstate her previous will. Luke again asked who the beneficiary would be, as he had almost four
months ago, but Mayhew still wouldn’t tell him.

“Do you think we could talk Abby into letting me sell the house without Peggy?”

Luke read the answer to his question in Mayhew’s downcast eyes. “I wish you’d reconsider,” the lawyer said. “I wasn’t keen
on this arrangement in the beginning, but Peggy is a lovely girl, and you seem fond of her. Surely you can tolerate each other
until September. Why break up now with so much at stake?”

“It was her idea,” Luke said mopily.

He thought long and hard and went to play tennis at Ver Planck’s club. “I’m ready to talk to Grant Atherton,” Luke said with
no preamble as they strolled onto the indoor court.

Ver Planck didn’t ask what had changed Luke’s mind, as Luke had known he wouldn’t. He took the lid off a can of tennis balls,
which emitted a vacuum-sealed
whoosh.
“I’ll set you two up with a meeting.”