Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler Page A

hearth below. Rebecca said, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” but Mrs. Davitch said, “Anything for you, dear one!”
    Rebecca had the same eerie feeling that Joe’s fond smile often gave her. Did this woman know her from somewhere?
    Then here came the kid brother, bounding into the room like a puppy. Zeb? Yes, that was his name. Wearing a suit too short in the sleeves and a clumsily knotted tie. Before he could shake her hand—while he was stumbling over the rug on his way to greet her—the front door flew open with a slamming sound. “It’s only us!” a woman trilled. A heavily rouged, brassy blonde in a fluid black jersey dress, and a gray-haired man with a handlebar mustache. The man was unexpectedly familiar. He had passed the hors d’oeuvres at Amy’s party, Rebecca realized; only then he’d been wearing a waiter’s white coat and now he was in a maroon smoking jacket with quilted lapels. “Meet Aunt Joyce,” Joe told Rebecca, “and Poppy, my uncle. Folks, this is Rebecca.”
    “Look at you!” Aunt Joyce said, hugging her tightly. “You’re every bit as pretty as Joe told us!” She stepped back to pat her husband’s shoulder. “Poppy here is Joe’s father’s brother; I don’t know if you know. He and Joe’s father were identical twins, so if you want to see what Joe’s father looked like—”
    “Well, I’m planning to show her the album after dinner,” Mrs. Davitch said. “Would you believe I’ve finally brought that album up to date? I spent half this afternoon pasting pictures in, just so Beck could get to know the family.”
    Rebecca (who had never been called Beck in her life, or any other nickname) felt a combination of pleasure and panic. This situation seemed to be rushing on without her—Zeb saying, “Geez, Mom, you’re not going to show her those old photos! They’re so embarrassing!” while Poppy told Aunt Joyce, “Number one, we were not identical twins; we were fraternal. And number two, we looked nothing alike. Nothing whatsoever.”
    “Oh, lovey, you just don’t want to admit you aren’t unique,” Aunt Joyce said. “Get used to it! How about you?” she asked Rebecca. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
    “Well, no—”
    “Isn’t that a coincidence!” Mrs. Davitch broke in. “Joe was very nearly an only child too. I couldn’t get pregnant again for ages no matter how hard I tried, which explains why I have one son thirty-three and another just barely sixteen.”
    “Great, Mom,” Zeb groaned. “Let her know how old I am, why don’t you.”
    “Well, it’s not a state secret, Zeb. Poppy, could you pass the dip around? I’m going to check on dinner.”
    “Why doesn’t Zeb pass the dip?” Aunt Joyce asked Mrs. Davitch. “Poppy’s not on duty tonight.”
    “I didn’t say he was, did I? I only asked if he’d help.”
    “Be glad to,” Poppy told her, bending for the tray on the coffee table. But Aunt Joyce seized his arm and then wheeled on Mrs. Davitch to say, “Just because he fills in sometimes in a pinch doesn’t mean he has to spend a family night waiting tables, Liddy Davitch.”
    “Now, Joycie,” Poppy began, while Mrs. Davitch’s chin started wobbling and she said, “Oh, that’s so unfair of you!”
    “Would you ask your doctor to check your appendix if you met him socially?”
    “That is so uncalled for!”
    “I’ll just pass it myself, why don’t I?” Rebecca suggested, and she stepped between the two women to lift the tray. (Celery sticks and carrot sticks that had been sliced too far ahead of time, from the looks of them, with a bowl of sour-cream-and-onion-soup-mix dip at the center.) “Have some,” she told Zeb, who happened to be standing practically on top of her. Zeb seized a carrot stick, dropped it, and stooped to retrieve it. “Joe?” she said. “Celery? Carrots?”
    “Thanks,” he told her, but he stood smiling down at her without taking a thing. Rebecca flushed and moved on, finally.
    Mrs. Davitch