Then Dick Gernhardt called again and again with one piece of bad news after another—first, the graffiti defiling the island; then the return of the Marshall girl, and her demand (who did she think she was?) that she sit on the factory board. Followed by the complaints filed by the EPA (those tree-hugging pansies, Bob was fond of calling them) on behalf of an anonymous complainant. Now the darkest news of all—Tangeman Aircraft swooping in with a major offer to acquire Grudder. Over the phone, Dick had called it a merger of equals and Veronica had smelled BS and guessed he’d jumped ship. So when he demanded she let him talk to the Colonel (as if she were holding her own husband hostage), she knew they would have to come home.
Soon, she’d have to come clean. First, there were arrangements to be made. She had her list. Her battle plan. If she was going to check off every task on that list, she had to buy some time—make her husband look, act, and speak like the leader he was expected to be. She’d have to work a miracle, she thought, remembering her father, long-dead Elder Phelps, who had believed in miracles the way the engineers at Grudder believed in physics.
“Mommy, that cardigan is so cute,” Ginny said.
“Yeah, Mommy,” Tony said as he tore a hunk of Italian bread in two, scattering flakes of crust. “I’ve never seen you wear color.”
Her son-in-law’s island accent had always irked her, the way he murdered the ends of words so color came out like col-aaaah.
“Vibrant!” Ginny’s hands took flight like two frightened birds. After marrying into Tony’s flamboyant family, her daughter had adopted the irritating habit of speaking in the Italian way with big, desperate gestures.
“What do you think, Maddie?” Ginny nodded at the girl.
“Um,” Maddie straightened her back, “I think you look lovely.”
Her granddaughter was lying, but Veronica admired the girl’s composure. Perhaps she hadn’t inherited her mother’s flaws.
“Sparkly,” little Dominic chimed in, although he was no longer a boy but somewhere between. Dark like his father, his lightly furred upper lip seemed unclean.
It was a wretched sweater with sequin appliqués—hearts and stars—the kind of thing a retired preschool teacher would wear to the shopping mall. They’d left in such haste, and it was the only sweater she’d managed to pack. A mistake she’d have to suffer until she could send her girl Rosalita, head housekeeper at White Eagle for two decades, to Bloomingdale’s with a list. There had only been enough time to renew prescriptions and rush through a meeting with their financial team. Old age, Veronica had learned, was a never-ending pile of paperwork; an interminable wait in a beige-draped office, the sound of a secretary’s false nails tapping on the keyboard throwing darts of panic. But she had kept her wits from cracking like cheap nail polish, and now they were home. She could prepare for the end.
She had lied to everyone in Florida. From their accountant to the girl who did her hair at the beauty parlor. Pretending the trip north was only that, a trip. To see their grandchildren. Escape the Southern heat. See you soon! Promising they’d return with the first wave of aged snowbirds in the fall. She was prepared to lie to everyone on Avalon Island if she must.
“That thing?” Bob stared hard at Ginny, pointing his fork in Veronica’s direction. “She hates that sweater. Complained about it all the way through North Carolina. Called it”—his voice lifted into a grating impersonation—“an abomination.”
Someone laughed. Traitor. Tony definitely. Ginny maybe. Always eager to please her father. If only her daughter had accepted him for the brute he was, perpetually disappointed to have no male heir. Veronica had tried, over the years, to explain to Ginny that people didn’t change, but it had seemed cruel to dash her daughter’s romantic illusions, and she had given up when Ginny, four months pregnant, insisted on marrying Tony.
Bob continued, “You know, she tells everybody she was a model.”
He laughed and a speck of zucchini skin landed on the tablecloth. “Miss Columbia County, 1939. Or…”—Bob paused and she knew he was daring himself to go on—“Miss Cow-Shit-Between-Her-Toes, 1939!”
Perspiration sprung under her ash-blond wig.
She had warned Bob before they climbed out of the Cadillac, Champ’s paws scratching at the car door as if the dog knew he was home. Behave, she’d commanded Bob, or else. He’d lose his television privileges. Heavens to Betsy, she promised, there’d be no watching the news coverage of the election, no shouting at the set every time Clinton’s ruddy face appeared—Bob’s new favorite pastime. And, she added, he’d lose the slice of Sara Lee pound cake he ate straight from the freezer with a dollop of Cool Whip. Once, he’d been the toast of the Pentagon, the fearless leader of 23,000 war-machine makers. Now he was swayed by a slice of cake and CNN.
“Your grandmother,” Bob said, looking at Maddie. “She’s a little cuckoo. If you ask me.” He winked.
Well, well, Veronica thought, someone’s feeling put together all of a sudden. His spurts of lucidity would pop up like that, the neurologist had predicted. But the doctor hadn’t explained how the resurfacing of her husband, the Colonel in all his contrariness, and his … what had the aide Greta called it?—aggression—would make Veronica feel the earth rupturing under her feet.
“Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?” Dom said with a big smile.
“Dominic,” Tony growled. “Basta.”
Veronica didn’t have to understand Italian to know what that meant. And enough was enough.
“Now, Bob.” She hoped he heard the warning. “I don’t think anyone did ask you.”
“Now, Bob,” he mimicked, narrowing his damp, ice-blue eyes. “You take a Stupid Pill this morning, Nicky?”
His pet name for her made her breath catch. He hadn’t called her that in years.
She felt Ginny and her family freeze, their eyes shift to the secondhand plates. They’d been expecting this, she knew, the usual abuse that accompanied Pencott family dinners like a lousy side dish. The beast had awakened.
“Shush now,” she said, making sure she smiled. “Mind your manners, dear. And remember what we talked about in the car.”
She would deal with him later. In the privacy of the big house.
A clear drop of snot hung from the tip of Bob’s nose. She considered handing him a napkin but chose not to. Her husband was no longer a man she felt beholden to. Gone was the hot-tempered leader who’d grown used to getting his way after three decades spent in command of Old Ironsides, the womb of the navy in wartime. Gone, poof, was the man who hit her—in her belly, her side, the small of her back, places where bruises would not be visible. Replaced by a confused old man who had become more like her child. A child, she had to remind herself when the urge to hurt him, to claim her revenge, even to hit him, tumbled over her like a wave breaking against shore.
“Enough about my silly old sweater,” she said, reaching for her cigarette case, then pulling away, tucking her hands in her lap. “I’m not accustomed to so much attention.”
Tony served scoops of pink-and-green swirled sherbet.
“Mommy,” Ginny began, and then raised her voice to shout across the table at her father, “and you too, Daddy. We have some very interesting news!”
Her daughter’s nostrils flared as she looked to Tony, who nodded, his eyes wide with anticipation.
“Leslie Day Marshall is back,” Ginny said.
“We know, dear,” Veronica said. “Dick Gernhardt called.”
Her daughter’s face fell, disappointed, and Veronica could see, suddenly, how Ginny had aged. The new sag in her jowls. The crow’s feet blooming around her eyes.