“But you love it,” Madison said, “all of it.”
Her mother sipped her martini. “You’re worried about your painting, aren’t you?”
Madison heard herself make a noise halfway between a scoff and a sob.
“I’m worried about all of it,” she said.
“Well,” Isabel said, “don’t worry. Your father wants to keep your painting, Madison. It’s the one thing he cared about keeping.”
Madison chose this moment to unfold her napkin, to square the tips of her fork and knife, to smooth her small segment of tablecloth. She looked over at the twins, who were both sitting slumped in their seats, their hands folded in their khaki-clad laps, and she felt a barbed pang at the realization that she’d completely ignored them, that she should have pressed her mother later, when they couldn’t hear. But it was too late. She turned back to her mother.
“He knows you’re doing this? He’s letting you?”
Isabel laughed. And then she fixed her eyes on something behind Madison and waved. Concetta had arrived.
She was bundling herself through the crowded dining room, the ma?tre d’ prancing and nervous in her wake. She reached the table and lugged herself around to the farthest seat, wheezing as if she was weighed down with shopping bags, when in fact she wore a demure blue skirt suit and had clearly been to her hairdresser.
Isabel made to stand and smacked the table with her knee, rattling the ice cubes in their water glasses.
“Sorry,” she said. “Concetta, we were thinking you might sit there by Madison.”
But Nonna had already heaved herself into a seat with a great sigh.
“I know,” she began, “girls, I know, I know. I hadda wait like you wouldn’t have believed on the G train.”
She reached both hands out into the air above the table, miming a big hug for Madison.
“Lovely,” she said, “you look gorgeous, kid. How are you?”
She still hadn’t quite spoken to Isabel, who had drained her martini in one fluid knock.
Maybe, Madison thought, this was why Isabel had brought her along. It didn’t bother her, she was happy to be used as a buffer. But she didn’t see why Isabel couldn’t have told her this right away, been transparent about it.
One thing her mother had learned, maybe from Gran Berkeley: how to turn everyone, everything, into a useful buffer.
“You know we would happily have arranged a ride, Concetta,” Isabel said, immediately shattering the pane between them.
“Well, that’s a slippery slope,” Concetta shot back. “I let you all have your way, and soon we’re at, you know, a limo to take me to the corner market every time I need groceries.” She turned back to Madison and squinted at her. “Does your mother ever let you eat, little one?”
She tossed her purse, a bottomless leather monstrosity, onto the empty seat beside her, of course then calling attention to the unused chair at the table.
“Believe me,” Madison told her grandmother with feigned gaiety. “I eat plenty.”
“I doubt it, in your mother’s house. You know they served beautiful rainbow arrangements of vegetables at that wedding instead of cake?”
She laughed loudly, a surprisingly ladylike trill that always seemed so unsettling emerging from Concetta, of all people.
“Well,” Isabel’s voice cut in coolly, “for all you know, Concetta, we did. You didn’t attend.”
Concetta’s eyes flashed. Too early, Madison thought, for this tactical clumsiness. From everyone. The wedding, and Concetta’s casual refusal to make the train trip to attend, was radioactive. It always had been.
They all looked at their menus for a few moments, and Isabel bantered with the waiter while Concetta frowned at the recitation of the specials.
Madison’s phone buzzed in her purse and she surreptitiously clicked it to life beneath the napkin in her lap. It was another text from Chip: U picked a movie yet?
Have fun with your family, he had told her on the phone yesterday. And if not, you can call me. I’m texting you as soon as we hang up. He’d called on the house line, but now he had her cell number. When they’d hung up she had waited, watching the insistent rain outside batter the surface of the pool. Someone had forgotten to cover it. And then her cell phone had danced in her purse, on the floor.
Chip was still, so far, the only person who had ever mentioned her father to her indirectly without being nosy. Without prodding, and yet not explicitly asking her what she thought was happening or how she felt. He had managed to do this when no one else had, not Lily, not Amanda.
Isabel sent the waiter away for a few minutes, and Concetta set down her menu. She crossed her arms, resting her elbows on the white tablecloth.
“So we’re here,” she said, “for you to explain what’s been going on. Where’s my son?”
“Madison, would you take the boys to wash up before the appetizers get here?” Isabel said.
“No,” Madison said. “They washed up when we got here.”
Her mother didn’t look at her, registering the refusal only with a blink. She turned back to Concetta.
“He did of course want to make it,” Isabel said. “He met us last night, for dinner, but then he had to get right back to work.”
Madison reached out to Luke and found his hands where they clutched each other in his lap. How could her mother know, for certain, that one of the twins wouldn’t speak up at this, tell the truth?
“Please,” Concetta said. “We all know he has no work.”
“Not true,” Isabel said, “but that’s not a topic for today, Concetta. We wanted to take you to a nice lunch. Madison hadn’t seen you in far too long.” She made furtive eye contact with the waiter, who hurried over with the prosecco she’d ordered.
“No thank you,” Concetta said, having been silent during the ordering process. “But, sir, I’d like a glass of red, if you please. And just—a few ice cubes. In a separate glass. You’re all keeping your reds so warm these days, it’s like you heat it.”
Madison’s phone spasmed against her leg. seriously damico, very not cool to stand me up, if u aren’t excited about our big date just say so, i can always return the red roses i got.
This is a joke, she reminded herself. There is no way Chip will be bringing you flowers. dont lie, she typed back furiously, trying not to look down at the phone, u bought those roses for wyatt and hell cry if you give them away.
“I’m glad we have this chance to talk,” Concetta said, clearly settling in for a speech. Madison’s phone buzzed again. touche, from Chip. how was turkey day?
“Well, I have concerns,” Concetta said. “I’ve been getting calls at the house. Even with the extra cars he set up for me, you know, they keep people from the door, but they’re still on my block. All the time.”
At this, finally, Isabel seemed spurred into reaction. She looked directly at Madison and, almost imperceptibly, shook her head.
“I’m sure if you let him know what’s wrong, Nonna, he can take care of it,” Madison blurted, not sure what her mother wanted.