said, “Well, aren’t you nice.” She dabbed beneath her eyes with her index fingers and gave Rebecca a watery smile. Then Poppy asked, “Drinks, everybody?” and went over to the cocktail cart. This time, Aunt Joyce raised no objection.
Within the next half hour, several more people arrived—two male cousins, another uncle, and a middle-aged woman named Iris, her relationship to the others never specified. Each of them walked in without knocking, slamming the front door into the closet door, and each seemed to know all about Rebecca. “Did you find a summer job yet?” one of the cousins asked, and Iris said, “
I
majored in history, too; I expect Joe will have mentioned.” They filled the rear parlor, the women perching on the very edge of the couch with their knees set all at the same angle like a chorus line; and they talked about people Rebecca didn’t know, but they kept sending her complicitous smiles so that she felt included.
Dinner, when it was finally served (much too late, after some apparent crisis in the kitchen) was roast beef and mashed potatoes and salad. The roast was dry, the potatoes lumpy, the salad leaves transparent with store-bought dressing. Mrs. Davitch acknowledged all this with a moaning sort of laugh, but her guests said everything was fine. They spent most of the meal arguing about another cousin—an absent cousin—who either had or had not said something rude to Mrs. Davitch about her husband’s death. Mrs. Davitch was of the opinion that his remark had been very hurtful, but Aunt Joyce pointed out that suicide was suicide and she might as well face up to the fact. Mrs. Davitch set her fork down and covered her eyes with one hand.
Rebecca hadn’t known that Joe’s father was a suicide. She looked across the table at Joe, but he appeared to be concentrating on his meal.
Dessert was a chocolate layer cake blazing with twenty candles, the top layer slightly askew and held in place with toothpicks. For that, the little girls were summoned from upstairs—all three in pajamas and squinting crossly from an evening of watching TV in the dark. “Give Beck a birthday kiss, now,” Aunt Joyce ordered, and they hung back at first but eventually obeyed, each leaving a tiny star of dampness on Rebecca’s cheek. Then everybody sang “Happy Birthday,” while Rebecca gazed around the table and pretended that she belonged here—that she was the much-loved member of a large and boisterous family, just as she had yearned to be when she was a child.
Later all the adults settled once more in the parlor, and Mrs. Davitch laid the photo album across Rebecca’s knees so that everyone could explain just who was who. Here was Mrs. Davitch herself, unrecognizably girlish in flared khaki shorts from the forties. Here was Mr. Davitch, with Joe’s broad smile but, yes, perhaps a slightly shadowed look around the eyes. Here was baby Zeb chewing on a teething ring, and here a teenaged Joe—nudge, nudge—in a very loud houndstooth sports coat with shoulders sharp as wings. No attempt had been made at chronological order: the present-day Aunt Joyce, overblown and dumpy, was followed by Aunt Joyce in a willowy, wasp-waisted bridal gown. And there wasn’t a sign of Joe’s ex-wife, although several shots of his children had had someone scissored out of them.
Rebecca sat very straight-backed, and she refrained from touching a picture even when asking a question about it. She didn’t want anyone to think that she was presuming. She knew she was a guest here, she meant. She knew these colorful relatives weren’t hers.
But when Joe walked her out to the car at the end of the evening, he said, “Everybody felt you were like a member of the family. You fit right in, they told me.”
“Well, they were very hospitable,” she said.
“They think I ought to marry you.”
“What?”
“I’d told them ahead that I wanted to.”
She stopped at the curb and turned to him. “Joe—” she said.
“I
Within the next half hour, several more people arrived—two male cousins, another uncle, and a middle-aged woman named Iris, her relationship to the others never specified. Each of them walked in without knocking, slamming the front door into the closet door, and each seemed to know all about Rebecca. “Did you find a summer job yet?” one of the cousins asked, and Iris said, “
I
majored in history, too; I expect Joe will have mentioned.” They filled the rear parlor, the women perching on the very edge of the couch with their knees set all at the same angle like a chorus line; and they talked about people Rebecca didn’t know, but they kept sending her complicitous smiles so that she felt included.
Dinner, when it was finally served (much too late, after some apparent crisis in the kitchen) was roast beef and mashed potatoes and salad. The roast was dry, the potatoes lumpy, the salad leaves transparent with store-bought dressing. Mrs. Davitch acknowledged all this with a moaning sort of laugh, but her guests said everything was fine. They spent most of the meal arguing about another cousin—an absent cousin—who either had or had not said something rude to Mrs. Davitch about her husband’s death. Mrs. Davitch was of the opinion that his remark had been very hurtful, but Aunt Joyce pointed out that suicide was suicide and she might as well face up to the fact. Mrs. Davitch set her fork down and covered her eyes with one hand.
Rebecca hadn’t known that Joe’s father was a suicide. She looked across the table at Joe, but he appeared to be concentrating on his meal.
Dessert was a chocolate layer cake blazing with twenty candles, the top layer slightly askew and held in place with toothpicks. For that, the little girls were summoned from upstairs—all three in pajamas and squinting crossly from an evening of watching TV in the dark. “Give Beck a birthday kiss, now,” Aunt Joyce ordered, and they hung back at first but eventually obeyed, each leaving a tiny star of dampness on Rebecca’s cheek. Then everybody sang “Happy Birthday,” while Rebecca gazed around the table and pretended that she belonged here—that she was the much-loved member of a large and boisterous family, just as she had yearned to be when she was a child.
Later all the adults settled once more in the parlor, and Mrs. Davitch laid the photo album across Rebecca’s knees so that everyone could explain just who was who. Here was Mrs. Davitch herself, unrecognizably girlish in flared khaki shorts from the forties. Here was Mr. Davitch, with Joe’s broad smile but, yes, perhaps a slightly shadowed look around the eyes. Here was baby Zeb chewing on a teething ring, and here a teenaged Joe—nudge, nudge—in a very loud houndstooth sports coat with shoulders sharp as wings. No attempt had been made at chronological order: the present-day Aunt Joyce, overblown and dumpy, was followed by Aunt Joyce in a willowy, wasp-waisted bridal gown. And there wasn’t a sign of Joe’s ex-wife, although several shots of his children had had someone scissored out of them.
Rebecca sat very straight-backed, and she refrained from touching a picture even when asking a question about it. She didn’t want anyone to think that she was presuming. She knew she was a guest here, she meant. She knew these colorful relatives weren’t hers.
But when Joe walked her out to the car at the end of the evening, he said, “Everybody felt you were like a member of the family. You fit right in, they told me.”
“Well, they were very hospitable,” she said.
“They think I ought to marry you.”
“What?”
“I’d told them ahead that I wanted to.”
She stopped at the curb and turned to him. “Joe—” she said.
“I
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