The Three Weissmanns of Westport (25 page)

"So fuck
you
, fuck
you
, fuck
you
." And Annie left the room, slamming the large shivering glass door behind her.

The next day was Christmas. Miranda had tried to speak to Annie, to tell her that yes, Annie was right, Miranda was a melodramatic monster who appropriated every emotion she could get her hands on, that she was selfish, that Annie was selfless and good and suffered in silence and could she ever forgive her? But Annie refused to listen.

They both did their best to conceal the estrangement from their mother. Betty, thankfully, seemed more dislocated than usual and noticed nothing. She waited for Roberts with the rest of them in the living room. He was going to take them all, including Amber and Crystal, to a secret place he knew, a cave in a canyon, shady and cool, looking out on cactus and brush, an easy walk from the road. There would be a picnic with cherry pie and apple pie and pumpkin pie. And there would be a turkey and a goose. It was Christmas, after all.

"And every good Jew knows what is required," Rosalyn said.

Annie, ashamed of her outburst the day before and so even angrier at Miranda, thought back to their childhood Christmas trees. There were little wooden Santas on skis, glass balls whirling with color, reindeer, teddy bears in red stocking caps. "Now remember, girls," Josie would say as they danced around the tree, hanging the ornaments from its fragrant branches. The
Nutcracker Suite
played on the stereo. "Remember. This holiday celebrates the birth of a man in whose name an entire religion has persecuted and murdered our people for thousands of years." He would look at them sternly. "You understand that, don't you?"

"Yes, Josie."

"Good! And knowing that, why should we let them have all the fun, right?" And he would break out into an enormous grin, and the sisters would dance like ballerinas, their arms stretched above them, spinning and spinning until they fell, dizzy and exhilarated, onto the floor.

"Where is Roberts?" Betty asked now. "I feel just like a kid. I want to get on the road!" In fact, she wanted to get on a plane and go home. The memories of so many happy Christmas mornings were unbearable in this strange, empty place with its sunshine and rocks. But she could not spoil Christmas for her daughters. She clapped her hands and smiled at them, remembering the children they had been and would always be to her.

Annie forced herself to smile back at her mother. Betty was still wearing black, today a black sweater with a lavender gray scarf, but lavender was a color the Victorians used for light mourning, right before they reverted back to their normal clothes. Could this be a sign? Was Betty coming out of her distracted depression? Perhaps this trip had at least been good for someone.

Annie sat down on the corner of the couch, brooding. She assiduously avoided eye contact with Miranda. She hated the bright sun, unsparing and ugly. She hated the mountains. Cousin Lou offered her a mimosa. She shook her head. She closed her eyes. She was waiting for Amber to arrive as if anticipating a blow.

Then, a rustling, a shift in the couch cushion. She sensed someone next to her, someone leaning against her, someone so familiar she might just as well have been a part of Annie.

"I miss Josie," Miranda said, her head now heavy on Annie's shoulder.

"'Why should they have all the fun,'" Annie said softly.

The heavy head nodded. The fight had come to an end.

Roberts never did appear. He called on his way to the airport. He had sudden, urgent business in Connecticut. He was sorry. The Christmas outing had to be canceled.

In the general commotion following this announcement, Mr. Shpuntov spilled a glass of water, pointed a crooked finger at Rosalyn, and said, "So, Mr. Plumber! You took your time getting here." He turned his finger to the wet carpet. "Leaky roof, torrential rains. What next?"

"We'll miss our Family Jewish Christmas picnic?" Cousin Lou was saying, dismayed.

"A plumber on Christmas?" Rosalyn said to her father. "Now, that would be a miracle!"

"Come on, mister," he replied brusquely, "get to work, get to work now."

"Oh, what's the big deal?" Miranda said. "It's only a picnic."

"Life is not a picnic." Betty spoke in a dull singsong, as if she were reciting the multiplication table. "Once again."

They spread the picnic food out on the dining room table, then assembled in the living room with their paper plates on their knees. Annie sat on an isolated chair to protect herself from any further intimacies with Amber, but Amber simply sat on the floor at her feet.

"I hope I didn't, you know, upset you," Amber said quietly. "You know, about my secret."

"Upset me?" Annie listened to her voice, relieved that it was level and neutral. "Why would you think that? After all, I'm not your mother. Or Frederick's mother, for that matter." She affected an astonished laugh, but when Amber did not confirm the absurdity of either of those scenarios, she sobered immediately.

"Still," Amber said, "I don't know. You seemed kind of pissed. No, not pissed. But like critical? Or cold? That was the vibe I got, Annie, to be honest. I mean, maybe you guys had a flirtationship or something. Of course, I know there was nothing
really
going on. But I just wanted to clear the air. Because I felt badly. Like, had I been too personal or whatever."

"You have no reason to worry, Amber."

Did Amber get the point? Oh yes, Annie thought she did. Just as Annie had gotten the point: whatever might have happened between you, which of course could not be much, because here I am carrying his baby, as they say on the soaps, whatever happened, it didn't really happen at all.

"God! Total relief!"

"It must be pretty tough, walking around with that kind of secret."

Amber gave a little laugh of agreement.

"Especially since it can't really stay a secret," Annie added, enjoying the touch of cruelty in the remark. "I'm sorry the family part is so awful," she said, to compensate. "His kids
are
pretty proprietary. But, you know, Amber, even if they weren't, it's always hard--a new member of an established family." Not to mention two new members, she thought. Poor Amber. Fireworks ahead. "Oh well, I guess you won't be the first stepmother in the world."

"Stepmother?" Amber looked confused. "Oh,
them
." A bitter laugh. "Right. He's so devoted to them."

She said the word "devoted" as if it were a disease Frederick had caught from his children.

"I mean, he's always having to go into New York to see them, to stay with them. God, he can't be away from them for more than a few days. I sure as hell don't spend that much time with my father. And I wouldn't want to, either. Couldn't pay me to. We fight like cats and dogs, me and him. Wait till he hears about this. That should be fun on a bun. But what the fuck."

"What the fuck," Annie repeated.

"Freddie is so scared Gwen will hijack his grandchildren once he tells her. Like he'll have time for grandchildren, with his own baby? I don't think so. But tell him that. Well, he'll just have to get used to the situation, I can understand that. God bless. He hasn't been in this position in a long time, right? That's what my trainer says."

"You told your trainer?"

"Well, not in so many words, but they feel things, they can just tell. And I had to let her know I was pregnant." She lowered her voice when she said "pregnant," the way people sometimes do when they say "gay" or "black" or "cancer."

"So I know it will take a while, and if I didn't know how he really felt, I guess I would be really insecure and defensive. But since I'm so sure, I can totally wait." She paused: assessing, Annie thought. Then, seemingly satisfied with Annie's studied neutrality, she continued: "And if I really thought he wanted me to, I would get an abortion, you know." She straightened her spine and let her chin jut out prettily. "I would do anything to make him happy."

"But he didn't want you to?"

"Oh my God, no. He asked what
I
wanted, isn't that
so
totally Mr. Frederick Barrow? And did I want him to get in touch with a doctor he knew, and of course he would pay and everything, but when I said that he had no obligation at all to even recognize his own child as his own, because after all we're all children of the planet in a way, you understand what I mean, I know you do, well, he wouldn't hear of that. He's an honorable human being. And of course, he was just looking out for me, because I'm so young and everything."

Poor Frederick had gotten himself caught in a web spun of his own thread, part manly sexual adventure, part manly honor. Annie could see that there was no way out. She tried to conjure up the anger of the day before. He was old enough to know better, he was irresponsible, there was a completely innocent life at stake, hadn't he thought about that, hadn't he ever heard of contraceptives, was he so out of control? But really all she could feel now was pity. He had made a mistake and he would pay for it for the rest of his life.

"There you are!" Mr. Shpuntov yelled out, spotting Rosalyn. "Highway robbery. I should have been a plumber, I tell you."

"You
were
a plumber," Rosalyn said drily. "For fifty years."

Miranda watched Cousin Lou lead Mr. Shpuntov into the dining room. She sat as far from everyone as she could. She ate her goose and her duck and her apple pie. She drank eggnog. She offered Annie the occasional sheepish smile, which Annie returned in kind. She participated in the lighting of the Hanukkah candles. Poor Hanukkah, she thought as she did every year, as if it were a bird with a bent wing she'd found on the sidewalk. It was the third night of the holiday. They had completely forgotten the first two.

Frederick's house, gray-shingled, late-Victorian, had been in his family for almost a hundred years. He and his sister, Felicity, had both grown up in the warren of oddly shaped bedrooms and parlors and pivoting stairways. When their parents died suddenly (Arthur Barrow in 1980, Mary the year after), the house was all they left behind. It seemed fitting--two sickly, cranky, frail old people, stranded in the wrong era, leaving behind a house as sickly, cranky, frail, and outdated as they had been, a wood-framed earthly shadow, a leaky memorial. On the day of their mother's funeral, Frederick and Felicity had gone back to the house to accept the condolences of the surprising number of people who attended the funeral. Felicity had prepared sandwiches the night before--small, ceremonial, and now quite dried out. She took the tray out, set it down on the mahogany dining table that had always reminded her of an outsized coffin, then returned to the kitchen. She found her mother's big "festivity" percolator, the one dragged out for Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter dinner, turned on the faucet, and tipped the percolator clumsily into the sink.

The ancient pipes hemmed and hawed, then sputtered to life. She heard a toilet flush, loud, surprised, exasperated. A family of squirrels had gotten into the attic and worked their way down the walls. With their tiny, verminous claws, they scratched out muffled, secret sounds. Felicity had never liked the house. She disliked the fog, the mournful foghorns, the sound of the ocean, the smell of the ocean--its filthy odor of rotting seaweed and rotting shellfish. She hated the smug insularity of the summer people, and she hated the mirrored smug insularity of the year-round people. It had not been until she made her college escape from Cape Cod to Manhattan that Felicity experienced what felt like fresh air. In New York, she felt as though she could truly breathe for the first time.

She filled the percolator and turned the water off. The pipes gave a strangled sigh. The house was constantly sighing. Structural self-pity.

She had tried to talk Frederick into selling the house even before their mother died. But he was stubborn in his flimsy, easygoing way. "I love this house," he said in response, as if that were a response.

Felicity lugged the percolator out to the dining room and plugged it in. A spark flew from the electrical outlet.

The house's revenge, she thought. Trying to kill me before I can kill it.

But later, she realized that this had been exactly the spark she needed. The spark of an idea. For there she had stood, looking at the frayed cord of the percolator in her hand, at the yellowed plate that surrounded the outlet, at the wood floor that creaked even when no one stepped across it, as if it were a ship struggling through the sea, and the idea, so simple, so obvious, hit her.

She took Frederick by the arm and guided him back into the kitchen.

"You love this house," she said.

Frederick produced one of his looks, the clear dark-eyed expression of a rogue trapped helplessly in his own sincerity, the look that drew so many women to him.

"I'm agreeing," she said. "Christ. I
said, You
love this house, okay?"

"Okay."

"And
I
don't
want
this house."

He sighed and said, "Felicity, it's the day of the funeral. Can we . . ."

"Buy me out," she said. "It's so simple. Buy me out."

Frederick gave her a fair price, or so she thought at the time. She'd immediately invested the money in the stock market and had done fairly well with it. Still, as time passed and she thought it over, the whole thing didn't seem quite fair. It was almost, well, not exactly shady, but . . . Over the years, the house had increased in value far more than her stocks had, and that value had then fallen far less than her stocks'. If Frederick sold it now, he'd make a fortune. And wasn't half that fortune really, by rights (maybe not by law, but by rights), hers?

"Well," she was often heard to say to Frederick, "
you
certainly got a bargain."

"Well," she said to Joseph as they settled into the guest bedroom that had once been her parents' bedroom, "
he
certainly got a bargain."

The whole family had gathered in the house for Christmas. Gwen, her husband, Ron, and the twins had adjoining rooms on the second floor. Evan was across the hall from them in the smaller bedroom next to Felicity and Joseph. Frederick's room was on the ground floor. He had long ago converted the east parlors, front and back, to his own use--the front parlor with the bow window was where he worked, the back parlor his bedroom. It was there that he stood at the window this Christmas morning watching the insipid winter dawn.

Felicity, lying in bed with a frown on her face, was also looking out the window.

"Joe," she said.

Joseph gave a round, trumpeting snore, followed by a series of liquid burbles.

"Joe," Felicity said again. She turned and pushed his shoulder gently, then more forcefully.

"Sorry," he murmured. The snores retreated for a moment, then came back in force.

Felicity got out of bed, as she had gotten into it, hating the house. The tiny chambers, the sea pounding in her ears--it was like being buried, impotent and rotting, forced to listen to that mocking, immortal sound. And now the snoring. Buried alive with the sea and a snorer. She put on a robe and slippers. Impossible to heat the house. And still it was worth a fortune! She creaked down the stairs.

Frederick heard her. Her tread was instantly identifiable--a quick, sharp step. He met her at the bottom of the stairs.

"Coffee?" he said.

"You're up awfully early." She raised an eyebrow at his rumpled corduroy pants and moth-eaten sweater. He really was absurdly affected.

"I'm not sure I ever went to bed."

"Bad conscience?"

To Felicity's surprise, her brother seemed to start.

"What?" he said sternly. "What do you mean?"

Felicity laughed. "I'm not sure, Frederick. What did I mean? I obviously meant something or you wouldn't look like a dog who's been in the garbage. Have you been in the garbage?"

Frederick considered confessing. Yes, he would say, I have been in the garbage. I have strewn garbage everywhere, and now I must live with it, great stinking mounds of my own garbage, chronic irreversible garbage that I richly deserve and would settle into like Job without complaint, except that it involves an innocent being, a poor wee soul about to be born into a loveless faux family, God forgive me.

"Coffee, yes or no?" he said.

They sat in the kitchen, steam from their mugs rising in the faint wash of white daylight.

"Joe seems like a nice guy," Frederick said. The bland remark expected of him. But Joe did seem like a nice guy. Annie had never told him any particulars about the ongoing divorce, nor did she have to--he had only to look at Betty the two times he'd met her to understand. He had seen a hundred such women, a thousand. They flocked to his readings, to the workshops and classes he sometimes taught. They were an identifiable class of citizens, America's lost souls, like the lost boys of Africa, but they were not boys, they were women, older women, still beautiful in their older way, still vibrant in their older way, with their beauty and vibrancy suddenly accosted by the one thing beauty and vibrancy cannot withstand--irrelevance. Yes, Joseph seemed like a nice guy. And he had done what even nice guys do. Frederick would have liked to feel outrage toward Joseph Weissmann. But he did not dare. His sympathies, he realized sadly, must lie with Joseph now, for they were compatriots, fellows in the fellowship of heels.

"He's a new man," Felicity said. "Thank God."

"You didn't like the old one?"

"Don't be stupid, Frederick."

"Well, you showed great foresight, seeing the new man in the old one."

Felicity gave him a short, searing smile. "We fell in love. He needed me."

"And there, providentially, you were."

Felicity blew her nose. "This house is freezing."

"I like his daughter. Annie. That was a nice gesture, Felicity, getting us together for that reading."

"Oh, that. I thought it might soften the blow. At least you're good for something." She patted his arm affectionately. He was quite a bit older than she was, but he was so unworldly. This frayed wool sweater business, for instance. She picked at a loose thread.

"And what's the other daughter's name?" he said.

"
Step
daughter. And even so, the man is absolutely devoted to them. As if they were, well, you know, his real daughters. Indulged them, spoiled them. But you just have to be firm as they get older. Strong. When it matters. I think he sees that now, poor, sweet, generous man. Of course, it's all very painful for me, in particular. The stepmother and all."

"And all," Frederick agreed absently.

The day after Christmas, Crystal and Amber were to fly back East. Their Palm Springs home-sitting was over, the house on the golf course reclaimed.

"Like two Gypsies, you girls," Rosalyn said with envy. "Or two birds, migrating here and there. Always on the wing."

Annie entertained the unworthy thought of an albatross. Didn't they stay aloft for a year at a time? Among other things.

They were returning to an earlier home-sitting location: the house on Cape Cod. "We feel so at home there," Amber said. She glanced at Annie. "It's such a beautiful old house."

"A little too old if you ask me," Crystal added with a snigger.

"But no one did ask you, did they, Crystal?"

Nor me, Annie thought as she waved goodbye to the two young women. The yellow golf cart trolled off among the verdant golf hills, its fringe giving a jaunty shake in the desert breeze.

"My new home," Amber whispered to Crystal as they drove their rental car up the driveway. "
Summer
home, I should say. No way I'm living here all year around."

Felicity was the first to hear the car.

"Who's that, I wonder." She drew aside the curtain.

"Oh," Frederick said as nonchalantly as he could, "some friends. Coming to stay for a few days. The girls who sometimes house-sit for me."

"Your house sitters?" Evan said. "At Christmas?"

"When
we're
all here?" Gwen said.

"Well," said Frederick, "I wanted you to meet them."

Evan and Gwen looked at each other.

"Are you trying to fix me up or something, Dad?" Evan said. "Because, really, I can find my own girls, and I mean, your loser house sitters?"

"No, Evan, I am not trying to fix you up, believe me."

"It's so nice to meet you," Amber said when Frederick introduced the sisters to his children. "Freddie talks about you all the time."

"Freddie?" said Evan.

"She means your father," Crystal explained confidentially.

Frederick said, "Never mind, never mind. Here's my sister, Felicity. And this is her friend Joe."

"Freddie?" Evan was saying in astonishment to his sister.

The sisters moved into the attic bedroom and, they pointed out, would make themselves at home, no one needed to bother about them, since the house was practically their home; after all, they had spent so much time home-sitting in it.