eighteen-inch waist.
“Some men like a little meat on the bones, don’t they, Guy?” Teddy said. Unlike Charlie, Teddy was not a natural man’s man. Whenever he made a reference to anything remotely sexual, it made me feel queasy. Maybe it was because he was my father.
“Glenda told me that she volunteers at a home for battered women. It sounds very cloak-and-dagger. They can’t tell anyone where the house is in case the husbands find out,” Miranda said.
“You can’t fault a woman who does good works. Don’t you think so, Jane?” Guy asked.
“Of course,” I answered, but I was barely paying attention. I was looking at a wren flitting about trying to find some shelter from the wind and rain.
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Dolores said. “When my husband hit me, I just hit him back.” Her voice was so casual she might have been talking about what she had for breakfast. She obviously had no idea what effect her statement would have on this group. Everyone in the room stared at her in shocked silence. Dolores worried the edge of her blouse with a manicured nail.
“Howard Mudd?” I asked. I had a hard time imagining a gay makeup artist taking a whack at Dolores.
“No,” she said. “My first husband. It was a long time ago. Let’s just forget I said anything.”
I was sure we would all be happy to forget she’d said anything—if we could. Teddy spoke first.
“I’m sure if Michael Buffington were alive, he wouldn’t like Glenda to do that. People could imply things.”
“Like what things?” I asked.
“That she has a special interest, so to speak. So many people get involved in causes for personal reasons. Someone gets cancer and they become a cancer research advocate. A brother dies of AIDS and suddenly homosexuality is no longer a problem. In fact, it’s a cause célèbre. People are like that. They are basically self-interested,” Teddy said.
“Do you think that, Guy?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t want to disagree with your father, but I don’t think all people are self-interested.”
“What about you, Miranda?” I asked.
“I agree with Daddy.”
“And you, Dolores?”
“I don’t think much about it. All I was trying to say before is that women have resources. That’s all I was trying to say. Not all women are helpless.”
I was beginning to see that Dolores was one of the least helpless of them all. It might look like, as a family, we were in a downward spiral, but we still lived like rich people. She had seen something she wanted, a man or a lifestyle—I wasn’t sure which—and she was doing everything in her power to get it. And it looked like her powers were considerable.
“Whatever happened to your first husband, Dolores?” I asked.
My father shot me a look. I was treading on the thin ice of decorum. I felt a little like the probing Priscilla.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said. “He was a very unusual man—a boy, really. He wanted to be Hemingway and he drank a lot and read
Guy walked over to where I was sitting and perched on the arm of my chair. I felt stifled. I couldn’t make him out. For all his chatter, good looks, and general attempts to please, I still felt that there was something missing in him—something hollow at his core. He read the books everyone was reading, saw the exhibits that were reviewed well in the
“Let’s go out,” I said.
“In this?” my father asked. He barely looked up from the paper. “Not me. I’ll leave that to the young and foolish.”
“You’d have to include yourself, then,” Dolores said. “The young part, not the foolish part, I mean.” She blushed and it was a pretty blush.
“Nonetheless, dear, I’m not going,” my father said.
Guy, Miranda, Dolores, and I put on rain gear and headed out to a pub in Oak Bluffs. Guy insisted on driving in his small BMW sports car, which required me and Dolores to sit in the back with our chins resting on our knees.
The rain pelted down, the windows fogged, and Guy kept playing with the defogger. Finally he opened a window which sent a wedge of rain back onto Dolores.
“I’m soaked,” she said. “That’s just great. Just add that to what I said to your father and my day is complete.” She squeezed her wet hair with a fist.
“Teddy understood what you meant,” I said.
“I never want to look stupid,” Dolores said.
Miranda and Guy were in the front seat, and because of the wind, they couldn’t hear us. I felt sorry for Dolores. What she didn’t understand was that it didn’t matter whether she looked stupid or not. It was the fact that Teddy and Miranda felt Dolores was inferior that endeared her to them. Should she suddenly find the cure to a deadly disease—as unlikely as that appeared to be—they’d want nothing more to do with her.
The pub was crowded. We were not the only people on the island who were going stir-crazy. On a sunny afternoon, the place would have been deserted, but that day the pub felt like a party of wet survivors who had made it to a place where they thought they might have some fun. The jukebox was playing “Brown-Eyed Girl.”
Miranda, Dolores, and I slid into a booth while Guy, ever the gentleman, went to the bar to get us drinks. I had a view of the front window and I saw something that made me, for a moment, unable to catch my breath.
Miranda asked me if I was feeling well. She said that I looked green, which I’m sure was hardly an exaggeration. My mind was playing tricks. For just an instant, I thought I saw Max Wellman walking across the street under a golf umbrella. It couldn’t be Max. What would he be doing here? He was still on his book tour.
Before I had a chance to flog myself mentally for being such a complete ass—now that the fantasy of Jack Reilly was gone, I was subject to delusions—the door opened and Winnie and Charlie burst in.
“Surprise!” Winnie shouted from across the room as if she weren’t just surprising us but every other person in the pub. Winnie was bedraggled from the rain, but her face was smooth and pink, and she was smiling. Charlie wore a yellow rain slicker and had the air of a person who never let the weather stop him. They charged over to our table and squeezed into our booth, even though it was made for only four.
“Daddy said we’d find you here. We just missed you by a hair, didn’t we, Charlie? Nasty day. Couldn’t be worse. Almost upchucked on the ferry.”
Charlie put his hand on Winnie’s arm.
“She’s fine now, though,” he said. Charlie got up to get drinks. As soon as he left, Miranda turned to Winnie.
“Are you staying with us?” she asked. She tried to keep her voice light, but she sounded nasal and inhospitable. We had an extra guest room, even with Dolores staying, but it was a small one, under the eaves, with just a single bed. Miranda’s room was the largest in the house, a master suite, with a California king. This was the room to give the Maples if they were staying, and it would mean that Miranda would have to move into the small room.
“We took a couple of rooms at a B and B. Hard to get, but some people canceled and voilà! We came down for a little romance and we’re not likely to get it if we stay with you, now, are we? Besides, we brought Heather and that boyfriend of hers, Buddy,” Winnie said.
Charlie and Guy, who met up at the bar, came back with the drinks, distributed them, and crowded into the small booth.
Dolores had been sitting there, unintroduced, and Miranda introduced Guy first, then Dolores.
“I remember you, Guy,” Winnie said, ignoring Dolores almost completely. “We met you on the mountain.”
He nodded.
“How’s Lindsay?” I asked Winnie.
“You’ll never believe it. Not in a thousand years—not in a million,” Winnie said.
