The Love Season Part 9

"You're just saying that to annoy me."

"I am not. You have to face the facts, Daisy. She's not going to belong to us forever."

Marguerite had not responded. She'd sat at the dressing table, looking at her reflection in the mirror, lost in thought. Porter called her to bed twice, then gave up and turned off the light.

That conversation had disturbed her deeply, but why? Why shouldn't Candace and Daniel be happy? Why shouldn't they get married? Was Marguerite being overly protective? Was she jealous? Was Candace keeping Marguerite at arm's length, or was Marguerite pushing Candace away by not accepting Daniel? Because the fact of the matter was, Marguerite didn't like Daniel. She was afraid of him, and she couldn't stifle a growing sense of resentment.

In the fall, once Porter left, Candace came into the restaurant to eat with Marguerite, and Daniel would plant himself on one of the benches outside the Dreamland Theater across the street, thinking they wouldn't see him among the movie crowds. It was weird, wasn't it? Daniel was stalking Candace. But no, Candace said, he was just waiting there so he could walk her home. Why didn't she just call him, then, when she was finished dinner? Why did Daniel have to be a spy, a silent, unwelcome witness to the most intimate moments of Candace and Marguerite's friendship? Daniel had come into their lives to whisk Candace away. Soon enough, Marguerite thought, she would be gone.

Matters weren't helped by the fact that, in the spring, Porter announced he was taking a trip to j.a.pan. Four years he had promised Marguerite a spring trip, and four years he had backed out. Now he was off to j.a.pan. For work, he said. Research about how the Orient influenced the art of Claude Monet.

Marguerite asked him if he was going alone.

"Alone?" he said, and right then she knew the answer was no. There was a pause. "Actually, no. I'm going with colleagues."

"Colleagues?"

"One colleague. From the department. An expert on j.a.panese art."

"A woman?"

"Yes, actually," Porter said. "Professor Strickland. A real battle-ax."

A real battle-ax? Marguerite thought. Like Corsage Woman? Like Overbite Woman? She felt helpless with rage; she trembled with jealousy. This was the last straw; he was daring her to confront him. Would she be brave enough? Angry enough? No. She couldn't. She was seething but paralyzed. She confronted Candace instead, over a pot of Darjeeling tea and a plate of macaroons.

"Your brother is off to Kyoto with a woman from his department. Teahouses, he said, paG.o.das, bridges, gardens. It's like a mystery, he claims, trying to locate j.a.panese artists who would have been contemporaries of Claude Monet. It all sounds very scholarly, but I'm being an idiot, right? Traveling with one woman alone. He's telling me something without coming right out and telling me."

Candace quietly munched and sipped. She agreed to do some detective work, find out what she could about Professor Strickland. "I'm the first one to condemn my brother," Candace said. "But this could be for real. She could be eighty years old for all we know. I have a hard time believing he would go on vacation with anyone but you. All the way to j.a.pan?"

"It's not like him," Marguerite said.

"Not like him at all," Candace said. "His vacation is Nantucket. It's you. The rest of the year is work, work, work. This trip is work."

"Right," Marguerite said.

The second part of the conversation took place in the middle of town. Candace called Marguerite from the Chamber and said, "I found out who she is. I'm coming to you."

And Marguerite said, "No, I'm coming to you."

They met on the corner of Centre and India Streets, in front of a guesthouse that was closed for the winter. There was a crust of dirty snow on the curb; the wind was merciless.

"Thirty-five years old," Candace said. "Head coach of the tennis team. Blond. Unmarried."

"j.a.panese art?" Marguerite said.

"She's not a professor at all, Daisy," Candace said. "She's the tennis coach."

"So he lied," Marguerite said.

"He lied."

"He lied." To Marguerite's knowledge, Porter had never lied to her before. Withheld the truth, perhaps, but never lied.

"I don't know why you stay with him, Daisy," Candace said. "How many years has it been now? Six? Seven? Tell him you're done with him-that'll wake him up. Tell him to go straight to h.e.l.l."

Marguerite played this out in her mind. I'm sorry, Porter. It's over. This was what she should do. Otherwise, she was allowing herself to be stepped on, abused; she was asking for it. Tell him to go straight to h.e.l.l. Go to h.e.l.l, Porter. She pictured his spidery legs, his tapered fingers; she pictured him asleep in the hammock with an art journal spread open on his chest; she pictured him asleep on the bench, in the Musee du Jeu de Paume. She pictured him practicing his accordion.

"I can't," Marguerite said. "I don't have anybody else."

"You have me," Candace said.

"Yes..." Marguerite said tentatively. What she was thinking was, You belong to Daniel. This was now an ironclad fact. Candace and Daniel were a couple. Whenever Marguerite wanted to get together with Candace, Candace said she had to check. What she meant was that she had to check with Daniel. They had date nights, movies, a TV show they both adored that they couldn't miss, they had their own friends, other couples, dinner parties-a whole social life that did not include Marguerite. You have me, Candace said. It was a sweet lie, but a lie just the same. Candace and Porter were both lying to Marguerite, but she didn't dare call them on it. It was beyond her.

"Yes," she said. "I have you."

Porter returned from j.a.pan in very high spirits. He brought Marguerite a pink silk kimono embroidered with b.u.t.terflies and lotus flowers. It was the most gorgeous thing she had ever set eyes on, and yet when he gave it to her upon his arrival on Nantucket late in May she threw the box across the room; it was the closest she'd come to a tantrum, to addressing the real issue between them. She thought, It's going to take more than this to win me back. Porter retrieved the box, smoothed the folds of silk inside. His movements were calm, his face unsurprised, as though he'd been expecting this reaction. He kissed her and wrapped her in his arms. "Next year, Paris," he said. "Next year for sure."

Marguerite blew her nose and blotted her eyes in an attempt to pull herself together. She returned to the kitchen and eyed the pile of chopped herbs warily, like an enemy. She mixed up the dough, rolled it out, and pressed it into her nine-inch fluted tart pan. Marguerite covered the tart with foil, weighed it down with ceramic pie beads, and slid it into the oven. She hated to turn the oven on in the heat of the afternoon, but she had no choice. The monkey in her grandfather clock banged his cymbals together every fifteen minutes, time was slipping away, and the tenderloin had to roast, the bread had to bake and later, once Renata was here, the asparagus.

Marguerite polished her grand old oak table with five leaves that she'd bought at an estate sale in Cobleskill, New York. She left it fully extended for no good reason other than she liked the way it looked, although, as with the five bedrooms upstairs, she found it unsettling to rattle around in a house meant for ten. She brought out china service for herself and Renata, but she couldn't bring herself to set down the tarnished silver.

The tart sh.e.l.l came out; Marguerite cranked the heat on her old, reliable Wolfe stove (the salesman had said it would last forever, and he was correct) and slid in the tenderloin. She fixed herself a cup of tea and carried the mahogany chest that held her silver outside to her small patio.

It was a hot afternoon, but Marguerite's gla.s.s-topped table and wrought-iron chairs sat partially in the shade. She loved her garden, small though it was. Along with reading, the garden gave her constant pleasure-her rosebushes, the hydrangeas, her daylilies, each blooming for only one day, then withering. Marguerite snapped off the dead blossoms every morning, though she hadn't that morning, so she did it then, and when she finished, her hands were stained pink, red, orange. She cut a few dahlias to round out the bouquet of zinnias that she'd bought at the Herb Farm.

Finally, she sat down with her tea and her silver. She and Renata each would need a b.u.t.ter knife, a steak knife, a dinner fork, a salad fork, and a spoon for the pots de creme. Ten pieces of silver in all and yet, when Marguerite sat down, she remembered about a ladle for the bearnaise, tongs for the asparagus, a serving fork for the meat. She decided to polish it all: 120 pieces. It was soothing work-smearing the utensils with the bruise-colored polish, then wiping them clean with a flour-sack towel. The pieces shone like new dimes. Marguerite looked at her distorted reflection in the bowl of the big serving spoon; she dug the polish out of the crevices of the intricate designs on the handles. The white flour-sack towel became smudged with black, evidence that her efforts were paying off. How satisfying, how symbolic, wiping away the tarnish, the grime from the past. Marguerite cleaned her hands and sipped her tea.

It would be nice to have Ethan and his wife and his boys for dinner, she thought. It would be nice to have Dusty. Or Daniel, Renata, and the fiance, even the fiance's parents. It would be nice, in short, to call an end to her house arrest, to her pointlessly austere lifestyle; it would be nice to interact with real people, in person, rather than via a computer screen for an hour each day, rather than reading about made-up lives in stories and novels, rather than visiting with the people she had loved-the people who had both lifted her up and disappointed her-in her mind, her memory. She would never reach out, she knew, but on such a lovely summer afternoon in her garden with a cup of tea and half her silver yet to polish, there was no harm in imagining how nice it would be.

2:41 P.M.

As Renata scavenged through the sand for the components of her bathing suit, she decided that her real mistake wasn't what had happened five minutes ago in the sand, nor was it the events a week ago at Lespina.s.se. Her real mistake occurred last October when Renata allowed herself to fall in love with Cade Driscoll in the first d.a.m.n place. Looking back, Renata realized how vulnerable she'd been-six weeks into her freshman year, drinking warmish beer at the Delta Phi house-when she'd met Cade. He had been wearing a beautiful blue b.u.t.ton-down shirt with faint blue stripes and his monogram on the pocket; she had instantly turned away, mistaking him for an adult who might confiscate her beer. Renata was feeling unsure of herself; she and Action had been informed that this was a party "honoring" freshman girls, and yet many of the fraternity brothers wore T-shirts that said, FRESHMAN GIRLS: GET 'EM WHILE THEY'RE SKINNY! Cade separated himself from these peers by his sumptuous shirt; he approached Renata and Action and asked them what sounded like substantial questions: Which dorm? Which cla.s.ses? Which professors? He sipped his beer slowly, thoughtfully, as he listened to their answers. He seemed like an amba.s.sador, a gentleman-he took their plastic cups and refilled them, and when he handed them back he apologized for the quality of the beer.

Is this your party? Renata had asked.

He smiled. He wasn't attractive so much as successful looking. Clean, pleasant, well-heeled, athletic. Only in the most tangential way, he said. And then he checked his watch. Renata figured they were boring him to tears while Action (she later confessed) was thinking, What is a college student doing with a Brietling watch?

Let's get you out of here, Cade said to them both.

Where are we going to go? Renata asked. They had only arrived at the party ten minutes earlier and Renata was hesitant to leave, despite the pervasive aura that this was a dinner party and girls like Action and Renata were the first course. This, after all, was what she'd dreamed college would be like: a dark room with strobe lighting, Eminem at nearly unbearable decibels, the keg, the swarming boys.

Downtown, Cade said. There's a band called Green Eggs playing at the Savannah.

Renata had to beg Action to come along; she was wary of going anywhere with "Watch Boy." In the cab on the way downtown Cade told them he'd grown up in the city.

So did Action, Renata said.

Where? Cade said, leaning over Renata to look at Action.

Downtown, she said. Bleccker Street.

High school?

Stuyvesant.

Impressive.

Action snorted. I gather you went somewhere uptown? she said. Let me guess. Collegiate?

I went to boarding school, actually, he said. Choate.

Ah, Action said, as though she should have expected as much.

Renata, sensing the building tension, said, I like your shirt.

Thanks, Cade said. I had a bunch of shirts made when I was in London last semester.

Renata felt Action's hand press against the side of her thigh. Right, Renata thought. Boarding school, London, custom-made shirts. Renata knew Action was sneering, thinking, privileged, pompous, why are we wasting our time? But Renata couldn't help being impressed. And he seemed like a nice guy.

Cade paid for the cab ride (twenty-one dollars), he paid for Action and Renata to get into the club (twenty dollars), and he bought them cosmopolitans, which they sloshed all over the dance floor. The band was fantastic; Action and Renata started dancing right away. They screamed along to the music, tossing their hair, feeling their own s.e.xual power. Action got something going with the lead singer; he was leaning down into the crowd toward her, practically devouring his microphone. Renata loved the feeling of slipping out of control; they were both sweating and laughing. Renata spilled a bit of cosmopolitan down her front; she had to go to the bathroom. She turned and saw Cade standing out among the crowd, and she felt a wave of grat.i.tude. Action could say what she wanted, but to Renata, Cade was like a genie who had appeared from a bottle and granted them the three wishes of a good buzz, a great band, enormous fun. He smiled at her and crooked a finger. Come here. She went to him and he kissed her. Her stomach dropped away; it felt like a rushing chute down a roller coaster. Cade wanted to leave the bar, he said something about a poker game on the Bowery, he was meeting someone there, and he wanted Renata to come along. Despite the incredible kiss, Renata had no desire to leave the bar, and she knew she would never be able to peel Action away. She would stay with Action.

I'm going to stay, Renata said to Cade.

He had looked at her in a searching way; he was clearly expecting another answer.

Fine, he said. Can I bring you another drink before I go?

Sure, Renata said. She looked longingly at the dance floor. Action was still in the front row, going full tilt. Renata wanted to get back out there. Actually, never mind.

Cade shrugged, and ever the gentleman, he smiled. Okay, I'll see you around, I guess. He turned sideways and disappeared into the crowd.

Renata stood for a moment, looking after him. She felt guilty, though she didn't know why. Renata fought her way back to the dance floor, but her heart wasn't in it. It was as if Cade had taken her good mood with him-or maybe, she thought, she was only having fun because he was around.

Someone grabbed Renata's waist from behind. She turned. It was an older man, with gray hair in a buzz cut and high, prominent cheekbones. His tie hung loosely at his neck. When Renata turned, he smirked at her.

Dance?

No, she said, pulling away.

I'll buy you a drink, he said.

No, Renata said. Thanks. Somehow she managed to weave her way up front and grab ahold of Action.

I'm leaving with him, she said.

Who?

Cade.

Watch Boy? Action said. Shirt Boy?

Renata nodded.

Action crossed her eyes. Pathetic, she said.

Well...In the course of only a month, Action and Renata had become such good friends that Renata mistakenly a.s.sumed they were exactly alike. But no, they weren't. Action wanted a man like the lead singer-who had black hair to his shoulders, who wore a Mexican poncho and a hammered silver cuff bracelet. Renata wanted Cade with his tailored shirts. Action thought Cade was typical, stereotypical. Renata would never be able to explain her attraction and especially not here. She squeezed Action's arm. You'll be okay getting home?

I live here, remember?

Renata wended her way back through the frenzy, thinking it could all be for naught; Cade was probably already gone. She panicked at the thought and pushed, prodded, poked, until she was free and running for the door. Please, she thought. He was right there when she stepped outside-standing on the curb, eating a piece of pizza folded in half.

He didn't seem at all surprised to see her; it was as if he knew she'd follow him anywhere.

Want a bite? he said.

s.e.x with Miles was over before it began, but that was okay; that was how Renata liked it. She liked it that Miles got so excited he couldn't hold back. He was bigger than Cade, and now, as Renata moved about, she felt a dull ache between her legs. She wanted to find her suit and go for a swim, big waves or no. When Sallie was finished surfing, which Renata hoped was soon, she would make Miles take her back to Hulbert Avenue, where she would shower and nap before scurrying off to Marguerite's house. She could, with luck, avoid Cade until the morning, and by then, she hoped, things would make more sense than they made now.

"Here you go." Miles handed Renata her bathing suit.

"Thanks."

"Do you regret it?" he said.

"No," she said. "Do you?"

"No," he said. "G.o.d, no."

She looked at him and saw something in his eyes. Love, or what he mistakenly a.s.sumed was love. She smiled at her feet and felt triumphant. She could have him again right now, or tonight in the guest room.

"Hey!"

The voice was faint but insistent, floating up the bluff.

"Hey!"

Renata adjusted her bathing suit. Had someone seen them? She looked past Miles to the stairs. A head popped up, the overweight man from the webbed lawn chair. He was huffing and puffing as he climbed the stairs, waving his binoculars. He looked uncomfortable and agitated, like he was suffering from indigestion.

"Vo-tra-mee," he said.

"What?" Miles said.

"Vo-tra-mee," the man said, pointing at the water.

"He's German or something," Miles said. "French."

Renata looked down at the beach. A group was gathering by the waterline-the girls from the blanket, the people from the volleyball game. They were yelling and pointing offsh.o.r.e. Miles scrambled over the dunes and Renata followed, the towel draped over her burning shoulders. Miles raced down the stairs and along the beach back to their stuff. Renata was thinking, vaguely, Shark, somebody thought they saw a shark, though what were the chances? Still, she hurried along to see what was happening; she wondered what time it was and if anyone at Vitamin Sea had realized she was gone, if Suzanne was p.i.s.sed about lunch, if Cade would be able to tell when they made love that she'd been with someone else. She was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn't notice the two men in wet suits carrying a body out of the water. Or, rather, she noticed it but in a way that made it separate from herself, as though she were watching it happen on TV. The men laid the body in the sand and Miles, who had run far ahead, knelt by the body and started mouth-to-mouth. As Renata grew closer she felt her vision narrow; dread closed in. Noooo! she thought. Tell me no. She recognized the board shorts, the tattoo, the silver rings on the toes.

Renata stumbled to Miles's side, shoving people out of the way. A girl was screaming into a cell phone. "She's dead! She's dead!"