Roberts hopped to his feet. "Would you like to dance, Betty?" And he swept her safely away into the tightly packed crowd of couples.
Kit had whispered to his astonished fiancee, given a bemused smile to his table of gawking friends, and then walked quickly after Miranda, his head lowered the way men walk when they're being arrested. When he reached her, he put his hand on her shoulder. She was crying without moving a muscle, as if she were not personally involved with the tears at all, standing quietly while they made their way of their own accord down her cheeks.
"Miranda, I'm sorry. I should have told you. I know I should have. It's just that things happened so fast. And what you and I had together . . . it was so much of the moment, wasn't it? But still, I know I should have, well, warned you. But it's been a total whirl." He gave a swift little boyish smile. "I'm going to be in her next movie. Did I tell you that?"
Miranda shook her head.
"You know what that means to me, you of all people. You understand me so well, Miranda. A feature film? After all these years?"
The tears had stopped. Miranda neither spoke nor moved.
"I'm sorry," he said again.
They were blocking the mountain of ice ornamented with its large silver oysters in their large iridescent shells. Several people approached, shifted their feet a bit, then gingerly reached around them to scoop oysters onto their plates.
"I love oysters," Miranda said.
"I know."
She shrugged.
"I'm so sorry, Miranda."
"I know."
Miranda's progress toward her own table was slow, violent, and almost magisterial, her stride measured and regal, her head held high as she pushed aside stray chairs that lay in her path with unthinking, clattering nobility. Annie saw the other diners turning their eyes away, trying not to stare. When she reached her own chair, Miranda kicked that aside, too. It tipped, fell listlessly on its back, and lay with its legs sticking up. Miranda, silent and ashen, was trembling.
Annie took her sister's hand, as much to prevent her from making a further scene as to comfort her.
"Darling, what's happened?" Betty said, returning with Roberts from the dance floor. "Are you all right?"
"Food poisoning," Annie said. The first thing that came to mind. What a Jew I am, she thought, seeing a tray of clams go by.
"Seafood in the desert," chirped Rosalyn. "It's unnatural. Just what my father was saying."
Her father wagged his finger at her. "It shouldn't stink of herring," he said.
Roberts and Annie took Miranda back to the house in Amber and Crystal's golf cart. Miranda got into bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Annie came back to the main house to find Roberts smoking a smelly cigar outside by the pool.
"Does this bother you?" he asked.
Annie shook her head, but he put it out anyway.
"Thank you," she said.
"Bad habit."
"I didn't mean the cigar." She stared up at the bright pulsing stars. Why had she allowed Miranda to talk them into coming to Palm Springs? Why had she allowed Miranda to talk them into going to Westport in the first place? Why did she ever listen to Miranda about anything at all? Her job as the reasonable older sister was to protect Miranda, not to indulge her.
"I'm a lousy sister," she said.
"I don't think this really has much to do with you," Roberts replied softly. "You can't do everything, Annie."
Then the others trooped out from the house through the sliding glass doors, noisy with wine and dancing.
"My housekeeper's nephew was killed by a coyote," Rosalyn was saying. "In Mexico, crossing the border."
"They attack people?" Crystal said. "Oh my God, Amber . . ."
"Not the animal coyote. Don't you watch CNN? God."
"How is my baby?" Betty asked Annie, looking around for Miranda. Her voice was a little thick.
She must have had quite a few glasses of wine. Just as well, Annie thought. "She's better. She went to bed, though."
"You won't believe who we saw," Rosalyn said. "At Seafood Night, too!"
"Zink!" cried Crystal. "We saw Zink! Kit Maybank, the actor! He's even better-looking in person. I can't believe you know him. Did you see who he was with? Ingrid Chopin? He's moving up in the world. I knew he wasn't gay. In real life, I mean."
"She's about ten years older than he is," Amber said.
"She is not. Jake Gyllenhaal just dropped out of the project she's doing. Maybe Kit Maybank will be her co-star."
"This is so Palm Springs," Rosalyn said happily. "I expect Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford to come through the door any minute."
"Well, there is someone coming," Lou said. "But it's Mr. Shpuntov. Not the Rat Pack exactly."
"Just the rat," Rosalyn muttered.
Roberts gave a short laugh. "Plenty of rats to go around out here."
"There are rats everywhere," Betty said, thinking of Joseph.
"So," Annie said. "And how is our friend Kit?"
"I wish Miranda had been there. He must have been so confused to see us all out of context. I told him Miranda went home with a headache--I didn't want to say food poisoning, it's so unappetizing, and there they all were looking so healthy and sporty and glamorous . . ."