I handed Charlie a short glass of scotch. He thanked me, but he was distracted. I had the uncomfortable notion that he didn’t trust Winnie even as much as he trusted Ariel, and Ariel wasn’t even the regular babysitter.
“Jane, what’s different about you?” Charlie asked.
“She got her hair cut, Charlie. I mean, how could you not notice?” Winnie asked.
“I did notice. Very nice, Jane.”
“Thank you, Charlie.” I felt self-conscious, a little like a prize poodle just after a grooming.
“I have to go upstairs and change,” Winnie said.
“I’ll be up in a few,” Charlie said.
“Did you find a place for Max?” I asked.
“We looked at a lot of houses, but we didn’t see anything he really liked.”
I picked up the tea things and started to put them away. Just as I put the last cup into the dishwasher, the door opened and the boys charged in with Ariel.
“I’m sorry we are so late, Mr. Maple,” Ariel said. “We went to play in the park and lost track of time. I’ll take the boys up and get them changed into warm things.”
Trey sneezed. I picked him up and wiped his nose with a tissue. “Got the sniffles?”
He sneezed again. His face was all flushed, but it was probably from playing outside. I kissed his forehead. He was a little warm, but that wasn’t how I knew he was sick. It was that he sat, docile, in my arms while Theo galloped up the stairs.
After I tucked Trey into bed, I found a thermometer in the bathroom and we played a game to see how long he could keep it under his tongue. Theo came in and told Trey to stop being such a baby, but after looking at him for a few minutes and finding him so pathetic, he went downstairs and asked Ariel to make some lemon tea. Theo carried it up carefully in an oversize mug.
Trey had a temperature of 102, which wasn’t anything to be really worried about. Kids get temperatures, but it would definitely hamper the evening’s activities. I was sure that Winnie wouldn’t want to leave him.
“We’ll have to stay home,” Charlie said to Winnie when she came downstairs dressed to go out.
“It’s only a slight fever,” she said.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said.
“It’s just that I’ve really been looking forward to this,” Winnie said.
“We were only invited last night,” Charlie said.
“Well, I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”
Winnie was wearing a rather matronly outfit for a disco. A sweater set, her usual, but in an effort to be hip she had squeezed into a straight black skirt that did nothing to conceal her little round belly.
“Ariel can stay. I already arranged it so Jane could come,” Winnie said.
“Ariel is the one who took Trey out for so long that he got sick,” Charlie said.
“Don’t be so dramatic, Charlie. Kids get colds. It happens. I don’t see why Jane should stay. Trey will probably sleep through the night. He won’t even know we’re gone.”
“I want to stay,” I said.
Staying with Trey was far from a burden; it was such a lucky break that if I were a different kind of person, I would have introduced the germ into the family myself.
“I’ll stay home,” Charlie said.
“You absolutely will not,” Winnie said. “Max is coming and God knows he doesn’t want to be there without you. Your sisters are charming, but even that has its limits.”
“He’ll be fine without me,” Charlie said.
“If you were being honest with yourself, you’d have to admit that your sisters may not have the stuff to entertain Max, but you just idolize those two and frankly I never saw what they did to deserve it.”
“Your point?” Charlie asked.
“Forget it.”
“I don’t want to forget it,” Charlie said. “I want to know what you think is wrong with my sisters.”
“There’s nothing wrong with them,” Winnie said.
“I think you’re jealous of them.”
“Jealous!” Winnie raised her voice. “What on earth of?”
“They have everything in front of them. They aren’t saddled with a husband and a family.”
“I don’t consider myself old and I’m sorry you do. But if I’m old, then you are, too, and if you think I consider you and the boys a burden, then you should look again. Yes, I’ve made some of my choices already, but I’m happy with them.”
As they put on their coats I heard Charlie say to Winnie, “I don’t think you’re old, honey. Besides, grace is far more important than age.”
That was very nice of him to say, since there wasn’t anything especially graceful about Winnie.
The next morning, after checking on Trey, who was much better, Winnie sat with me in the breakfast nook and told me all about the night before. Tweedledee and Tweedledumber, as she sometimes called the Wheaton girls, made a big hit with Max. She couldn’t tell which of them Max preferred, but it was probably Lindsay. After all, they had the writing thing in common. She said this as if Lindsay’s “writing” were on a par with Max’s.
“This guy named Buddy showed up. He was Heather’s high school boyfriend and he obviously hasn’t given up on her. Buddy is at Harvard and I think Heather likes him, but it’s hard to tell with somebody like Max around. Buddy’s not the best-looking boy in the world. He’s got one of those pug Irish noses like Kevin Bacon.”
Winnie said that Max danced with everyone, showing no favorites, but he did dance with Lindsay twice, and one of those dances was a slow one.
I stood up to get another cup of coffee.
“I’ll have one, too,” Winnie said.
Chapter 17
The Maples were having a tree-trimming party. I liked being part of the Maple family, but Max kept turning up, and every time he did, it threw off my equilibrium—what was left of it.
I left the house before the party, claiming that I had business with Evan Bentley regarding the literary magazine.
“What business could you possibly be doing tonight?” Winnie complained. “It’s Friday.”
“We just have to get some things nailed down before Christmas,” I said.
“I never realized, Jane, just how much work you do for this magazine. I’m actually very impressed.”
Winnie was making Christmas tree decorations with pushpins and Styrofoam and she was hurrying to finish the one she was making for Marion.
“It’s not a magazine,” I said. “It’s a literary journal.”
“What’s the difference?” Winnie asked.
“A literary journal is—I don’t know—it has a different purpose,” I said.
“And what is that?” Winnie asked.
“To promote literature.”
Charlie looked up from his paper and licked the corner of his lip.
“Well,” Charlie said, “you’ll be missed.”
“Yes, of course,” Winnie said, and returned to poking colored pins into a Styrofoam ball.
It was a pleasure to get into my own car, to set the radio to NPR and listen to
When I finally found a place to park in Harvard Square, I stepped out of the underground lot and into a pre- Christmas flurry. Christmas lights blinked in greens and reds in the trees around the square and car horns blared in
