“They have their little tchotchkes picked out.” Anne set her cigarette in an ashtray, a black ceramic cat’s head, its mouth yawning open, its painted eyes bright and shrewd. Smoke spiraled out of two holes in the ashtray cat’s nose, and I wondered who had claimed this memento.
All the girls wore their dark hair long, and it was often difficult to distinguish among them, especially after a few glasses of wine. Alice’s hair was heavier, a reddish mane that she often played with—her fingers lithe and slender and always moving. She had a sprinkling of freckles, and that afternoon wore a plaid wool skirt and tights, like a school uniform. Lucie was so tiny she seemed like a child, and whenever Joseph came into the room she rushed up and grabbed him and pulled him down with her onto the couch. Kitty was the rudest to me. She was tall and dark-eyed, her lipstick bright, and when I would catch her watching me she’d continue to stare for a beat before she looked away. There was another girl, Jeanette, who came in late, letting in the smell of snow. She caught sight of me and quickly pretended I was invisible.
The music on the stereo was Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring. Geoff played host, making rounds with the wine bottle, refilling glasses, so I didn’t know how many I’d had to drink. The more I drank, the less I monitored Del, who shouldn’t have been drinking at all. She was often nestled on the couch between two of the girls, or with Randy, who was surprisingly handsome, fair, and chiseled, and who wore a pair of cowboy boots he must have owned since high school—the toes misshapen, the heels worn down. Joseph wore, like William, a stretched-out sweater and corduroys with a hole in the knee. His hair was longish and stringy, and he became boisterous when he drank too much. The empties littered the floor around the chair where he sat, sometimes with Lucie on his lap. It was clear to me that William was older than everyone there, save Anne and Geoff, and I wondered about his connection to all of them.
“What are we doing here?” I wanted to say to Del, but she never caught my eye. She had found acceptance with the Milton girls—replacements for the sisters who’d snubbed the two of us all of our lives. Maybe we had both found a way to be happy. That the Milton girls ignored me didn’t hurt my feelings. I had William.
The focus of the evening, I gathered, was to give thanks to Mary Rae’s memory. The girls told more stories about her—these less complimentary than the ones I heard on All Hallows’ Eve—how she slashed an ex-boyfriend’s tires in high school, how after an abortion she decided never to have children and would only care for the children of others as her penance. She had been attending Tompkins Cortland Community College and wanted to one day run a child care center. It seemed unfair that Mary Rae, the object of so many stories, was unable to correct anyone or set the record straight.
I wanted to know who had gotten her pregnant, but Mary Rae, listening in from the ether, knew their talk had turned to gossip, and if I indulged them they’d find other cruel things to say about her. The whole discussion felt wrong.
“She misses us,” Kitty said. “Yesterday I found a rose petal in the snow in front of my house.”
“Where could that have come from?” Lucie said. She seemed the most practical—looking for reasonable explanations.
“A florist delivering roses to your neighbor for her first anniversary was careless,” I said.
“The spirit has spoken,” Del said in her medium’s voice.
Del had obviously been talking about the Spiritualists by the Sea and our childhood séances.
After the meal, the girls all stayed together in the living room smoking clove cigarettes, the smell competing with the roasted meat, the wood smoke. No one seemed queasy about smoking indoors. William spent time in the kitchen with the men. When I managed to slip away from the living room, I found them all leaning against the kitchen counter with cigars and glasses of brandy, having their own quiet conversation. I looked in at them and the talking ceased.
“Lost?” Geoff said.
The dirty dishes piled on the counter glistened with fat and butter, with the remains of the turkey bones. “Are you going to do the dishes?” I asked.
William said that Anne had a maid who would do them the next day. Randy shuffled his boots on the slate floor. “Are you looking for the bathroom?” William asked.
“Are you planning a bank robbery?” I said.
Joseph slapped the counter. “Hah!” he said. He kept the cigar in his teeth and used both hands to tuck his hair behind his ears.
William raised his eyebrows at me. He was the odd man out in this group. I got the impression that he was avoiding the living room and the Milton girls.
“I’ll show you the way,” he said, and he came toward me and slid his hand into mine. He led me to a narrow back staircase, which we climbed, single-file, our hands joined between us. Upstairs he stepped into a small room with a twin bed and a painted pine bureau. He closed the door behind us. I looked around for the bathroom, but it was clear that there wasn’t one.