"And my sister almost drowned in a kayak and was rescued by a young actor," she continued. They proceeded to discuss kayaks and boats in general for a while, the conversation then veering inexplicably to a shared appreciation for the actor James Mason, whom they both occasionally confused with Dirk Bogarde.
"I was once thinking about that scene, that wonderful, ghastly scene in Death in Venice in which Gustav von Aschenbach's makeup begins to run," Frederick said. "Then, days later, I realized that the entire time I had been picturing the makeup running down James Mason's face."
From across the room came a shout: "Dad!"
It was Frederick's son-in-law. Annie felt a stab of pity for Frederick: his son-in-law called him "Dad."
I often think about Gustav von Aschenbach when I put on my own makeup, she thought, though she might have said it aloud, for Frederick stared at her.
"Dad! There you are," said Frederick's daughter, arriving beside them with her husband and little girls. "Oh, hello," Gwen added hastily to Annie. "You're the librarian, aren't you? Ann, is it? How nice to see you here of all places." Gwen was holding one daughter who chewed dreamily on a cracker.
"Of all places," Annie repeated.
"This is Ron, my son-in-law, and this small person," Frederick said, reaching for the child, "is Ophelia."
Annie shook Ophelia's sticky hand. "Pretty dress," she said.
"Hot," said Ophelia.
Betty was watching the little group with interest. She was happy that Frederick had come to see Annie. Had Annie invited him? It was not like Annie to go out of her way in quite such a public manner, to show her hand. She must really like the novelist with the sparkly eyes and mellifluous voice. If my children can be happy, I will be happy, Betty thought, squaring her shoulders, though what she felt was the same simmering anger and confusion as always.
"I heard about Joseph," a man next to her said.
She tried to recover herself and remember who he was, gazing with fascinated revulsion at his meaty lips while the general conversation of the people standing around her washed over them.
"Marty," Betty said, finally remembering the man with the liver-colored lips was Cousin Lou's accountant. "Hello."
"I'm so sorry about what happened," he said.
He was eating a piece of dark orange cheese. She noticed it left a narrow oily trail on his lip, like a snail.
"You need a good lawyer, Betty. A shark. I'll give you a name."
"Talk to Annie, Marty dear. I'm in mourning."
"Yeah. They say that's one of the stages, right?"
"I don't believe in stages," Betty said.
"It's not a religion, Mom," her younger daughter said, coming up beside Betty. And because Marty looked a little hurt and her voice had accidentally emerged with a far too haughty timbre, Betty forced herself to smile at Marty and his odious snail-slimed lip.
"Thank you," she said, taking his hand, administering a short shake and releasing it, as if she were in a receiving line. "Thank you for your kind words."
"Shark," he said, repeating the kind word as he went away.
"Dear God," Betty said.
"Who was that?" Miranda asked.
Roberts was a step or two behind her.
"Lou's accountant. He said I needed a shark divorce lawyer."
"A forensic accountant is more like it," Roberts said. "I'm sorry," he added when Betty did not reply. "None of my business." And he hurried off.
Forensic accountant. As a recently converted and loyal member of the daytime television audience, Betty had seen numerous reruns of numerous crime shows and wondered if a forensic accountant was a CSI for divorces. A divorce was surely a kind of death: a murder, in fact. It was the memories, so stubbornly happy and lifeless and useless, stinking with decay, that lay in a putrid heap like a rotting corpse. If only the memories were a corpse, Betty thought, and could be buried under six feet of clotted dirt. But they never really died, did they? They wandered through her thoughts and her heart like scabby zombies. A forensic accountant could never find the murderer if he couldn't even discover the dead body. It was better on television. "I like the one with the bugs," she said out loud.
"What?"
"I don't like the one with the sunglasses."
"What are you talking about, Mother?"
"Television."
"I have a migraine," Miranda said. She stared at Frederick Barrow's granddaughters and felt angry.
Betty put the back of her hand on her daughter's forehead. "Do you have a fever? Do you want to go home? Do you have that medicine? The kind you roll onto your forehead? Maybe you'll feel better if you lie down."
Miranda pulled away from her mother's hand.
"Who is that young woman leading Frederick away from Annie?" Betty asked. "Is that his little doxy?"
"That's his daughter, Mother."