intrepid party. Of course, there were the usual trifles, things learned to be forgotten, like card tricks or the script to a Bozo the Clown record the twins refused to tire of. But there were more lasting, more indistinct things as well: a flimsy feeling in the stagily cluttered rooms, the curiously intense behavior of the adults, conversing in pressured whispers behind half-closed doors. Most of all, there was stout, sighing, distant Cordelia with her childish braids and clumsy motion, the side-to-side uncertainty of someone on a pitching deck as here she came with more cocoa, another plate of pineapple rings. Small things required great effort from her. Sighing, she alluded to her exhausting responsibilities. What? There was a woman from the Virgin Islands to do her cleaning, a man in a pith helmet who mowed and pruned and raked, even hosed down all the white statuary. Well, something was bullying her, threatening any minute to leave her in a clumsy heap on the terrazzo floors. Was it grief? Five years—nearly half my life—had passed since the day Mr. Bontempi attempted to prime his Evinrude and fragmented into the sea.
Carla shrugged. “She drinks too much. So what?”
I went to my mother to confirm this observation, smelled the gin in her grapefruit juice before I’d asked anything. Her face was slack, her eyes seemed very old, and it scared me. Not as much as my sister’s developments, but enough. It was ten o’clock in the morning on the third day of rain.
By that evening the air had cleared, though a few drops still fell. I’d spent the afternoon in random observation, moving from room to room, a junior Sherlock, opening drawers and closets, reading things that were none of my business. Descending the stairs thoughtfully now, my head jammed with clues, I was confronted by a strange tableau: my mother snoring into the sofa, the twins inert among crayons, Carla, open-mouthed and held tightly in her own arms, fast asleep under an oil portrait of Mr. Bontempi, pensive in dark tweeds. Dire tactics! I suspected gas.
“The prodigal returns,” Cordelia said, clumping toward me in her scarlet muumuu. “Seems we’re the only ones left to enjoy the stars.”
That was it. Cordelia had drugged the cocoa. But too late; she’d already grasped me ferociously by the hand, was tugging me onto the patio. We stood in the soft mist, on the wet bricks, and looked up. My hand grew numb in hers.
“Winking lights.” She pulled me against her hip. “But don’t let anyone tell you that your life is written out up there. That’s rubbish, you hear?”
Yes yes, all right. Why was she shouting?
“My hand…”
“Misery may have your name on it, but you’ll be the one to put it there. You and nobody else.”
She let go of me to gesture bitterly at her looming home, and I took off. There wasn’t any way of locking the door to my room, so I braced a chair under the doorknob as I’d seen people on television do. Sleep would have to wait. I stood at the window and looked out over statues glowing thinly in the dark.
Next day we visited a chimpanzee attraction down the coast, where someone let the air out of our tires. Cordelia, dutiful hostess, left her Fleetwood in the parking lot and took us home in a cab. This necessitated borrowing her gardener’s car the following morning so she could take Dan in to have his stitches removed.
Not until our last full day did we make our first visit to the beach, a private beach, part of some club Cordelia belonged to. Waiters came with cork-lined trays when you got thirsty and the glasses, half-filled with ice, were drippy and slick. The members looked well-dressed in nothing but swimwear; they glistened and smelled of cocoa butter. My mother wore khaki pants and shirt, sunglasses, and a canvas hat that appeared to be melting—a redundant costume in the shade of a wide green umbrella, but, like the headache and the absorbing German novel, it went with her sulk. She dreaded returning
Carla shrugged. “She drinks too much. So what?”
I went to my mother to confirm this observation, smelled the gin in her grapefruit juice before I’d asked anything. Her face was slack, her eyes seemed very old, and it scared me. Not as much as my sister’s developments, but enough. It was ten o’clock in the morning on the third day of rain.
By that evening the air had cleared, though a few drops still fell. I’d spent the afternoon in random observation, moving from room to room, a junior Sherlock, opening drawers and closets, reading things that were none of my business. Descending the stairs thoughtfully now, my head jammed with clues, I was confronted by a strange tableau: my mother snoring into the sofa, the twins inert among crayons, Carla, open-mouthed and held tightly in her own arms, fast asleep under an oil portrait of Mr. Bontempi, pensive in dark tweeds. Dire tactics! I suspected gas.
“The prodigal returns,” Cordelia said, clumping toward me in her scarlet muumuu. “Seems we’re the only ones left to enjoy the stars.”
That was it. Cordelia had drugged the cocoa. But too late; she’d already grasped me ferociously by the hand, was tugging me onto the patio. We stood in the soft mist, on the wet bricks, and looked up. My hand grew numb in hers.
“Winking lights.” She pulled me against her hip. “But don’t let anyone tell you that your life is written out up there. That’s rubbish, you hear?”
Yes yes, all right. Why was she shouting?
“My hand…”
“Misery may have your name on it, but you’ll be the one to put it there. You and nobody else.”
She let go of me to gesture bitterly at her looming home, and I took off. There wasn’t any way of locking the door to my room, so I braced a chair under the doorknob as I’d seen people on television do. Sleep would have to wait. I stood at the window and looked out over statues glowing thinly in the dark.
Next day we visited a chimpanzee attraction down the coast, where someone let the air out of our tires. Cordelia, dutiful hostess, left her Fleetwood in the parking lot and took us home in a cab. This necessitated borrowing her gardener’s car the following morning so she could take Dan in to have his stitches removed.
Not until our last full day did we make our first visit to the beach, a private beach, part of some club Cordelia belonged to. Waiters came with cork-lined trays when you got thirsty and the glasses, half-filled with ice, were drippy and slick. The members looked well-dressed in nothing but swimwear; they glistened and smelled of cocoa butter. My mother wore khaki pants and shirt, sunglasses, and a canvas hat that appeared to be melting—a redundant costume in the shade of a wide green umbrella, but, like the headache and the absorbing German novel, it went with her sulk. She dreaded returning
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