"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.
"Stepdaughter. 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."