Leslie air-kissed one waifish woman after another—mwah, mwah, like a satirical skit on Saturday Night Live, he thought, wishing Leslie was by his side to get the joke. The women were draped in floor-length strappy silk dresses that seemed more like slips meant to be worn underneath a gown. Sheer silver and gold and soft pastels, they matched the desserts. Vanilla cream puffs, ladyfingers dunked in tiramisu, and mint-green petit fours. Even he was fooled by the look of enthused surprise on Leslie’s face. Oh my God, how long has it been? You look absolutely the same, darling—the same! The women had multisyllabic names like the heroines in his mother’s paperback romances. Jacqueline. Genevra. Names that sounded like a million dollars.
He wondered what that heavenly afternoon fuck in the garden had meant. What was its worth? He’d known, since he was a sixteen-year-old messing around with Tammy Roberts in the bathroom at Dalton, that sex was never just sex. And knowing Leslie, that dew-scented romp may have been a reward for his surrender, for moving to the island. Or had it been a threat? Leave this island, baby, and this beauty—the gardens, the castle, and even the queen—will be lost to you.
He decided he wouldn’t move from his spot next to the table spread with trays of brownies and blondies and éclairs oozing whipped cream. What if he lost Leslie in this room filled with women as indistinguishable as the stalks of lillies in his garden? He saw himself, at midnight, rushing from one woman to the next, peering into each face to find his wife’s.
Leslie spotted him and waved. He motioned toward the front door. She nodded enthusiastically, then held up a finger. He knew what that meant. Stuck for at least another hour. This would be the pattern of their lives now. Looking for Leslie. Waiting for Leslie. Praying for Leslie to end the schmoozing she seemed to crave since they’d moved there—and to what end, he still hadn’t figured out.
He was on his third éclair, his stomach objecting, when he spotted the old guy he’d seen earlier in the poodle-print shirt, now topped by a blazer as bright as the cherry-red roses Jules had cut back that morning. And the woman at the old man’s side—well, it was the elegant old lady he’d met on line. The lawn-jockey expert. Their ancient heads bowed together. They were arguing. Thin, wrinkled lips moving fast. He was sure they were talking about him. Whispering. Staring. The old man shook his head, and the lady snapped back, the tendons in her birdlike neck flexing. The old man reached forward, and Jules watched as the man pinched his companion’s arm. The woman flinched, looked around, and rearranged her white shawl. She saw Jules. He looked away. Busied himself with wiping the chocolaty mess from his fingers on a white cloth napkin.
Should he do something? Get Leslie. Or even better, leave. He had called Social Services back in the city once, to report their neighbors, whom he and Leslie had suspected of neglecting their elderly mother. But these people were strangers.
A spasm blocked his throat and he swallowed hard. Wasn’t this exactly what Leslie had chastised him for after his overreaction (her word) at the fair? She’d explained, in what he called her “Zen voice,” that he was allowing his fears to ruin his—and their children’s—chance of a happy life on the island. It was his choice, she’d said. As the mess of food and drink and heavy cream gurgled in his gut, he heard the advice of his long-dead father (anything but Zen) buzzing at his ear like one of those goddamn no-see-um bugs that had been eating him alive since they’d come to the island.
Better to be afraid than dead, son.
The old woman was making her way toward him, her face transformed into a mask of delight.
“You again!” he said. “And so soon. Unfortunately, I’m on my way out. Have to find my wife. We’ve got a new babysitter waiting at home. You know how it is.”
He bowed his head, hoping it made up for his abrupt departure, but the woman stepped right in his path. She smelled like cigarettes and perfume. White Linen. His mother had worn it. He would’ve guessed a rich lady might pick a fancier perfume. Not one anybody could buy off a drugstore shelf.
“Oh, she’s perfectly happy over at the dessert table. Catching up with old school friends and such. So darling to see our Leslie all grown up.”
“You know Leslie?” The surprise unsettled him. Our Leslie.
“Since she was a wee thing. We’re neighbors. Remember?” An emerald-bedecked finger pointed toward the front doors. “We Pencotts and Marshalls go way, way back.”
“Mrs. Pencott,” he began.
“Call me Veronica, yes?”
She had a habit of turning statements into questions, as if his opinion helped determine true and false.
“But of course,” he said. What did ten more minutes of charades matter?
Although he wouldn’t have been able to explain why, he knew she had more in common with him than with the island aristocracy. Her stiff pronunciation betrayed her—those exaggerated o’s and a’s that vibrated a note too long. It was as if she’d copied the speech patterns and gestures of classic movie stars. Grace Kelly. Vivien Leigh. He’d heard Leslie put on the same contrived accent when she made fun of the mandatory elocution lessons at the women’s college her father insisted she attend before she dropped out and paid her own way through Harvard.
“Do you”—he paused—“watch a lot of PBS specials?”
She laughed, throwing her head back so her silver fillings caught the lamplight.
“I’m not a fan of the television programs. I do read. Which is”—her voice dropped into a whisper—“more than I can say for most of the bored old ladies on this island. Unless you call romance novels and self-help books literature.”
She had a sense of humor, this odd old bird.
“The gossipy Gertrudes at the club,” she said, “tell me you are quite the expert when it comes to floral design.”
He was about to protest, play coy, remembering Orchid Lady at the fair, when the old woman waved a hand toward the lavish floral arrangements, “And what do you think of this, Julius? Is it all right if I call you that? I have no patience for nicknames.”
“Well,” he stuttered, “yes, of course. You can call me anything you like. And the flowers? They’re lovely?”
“Are you asking? Or telling?” She pursed her wrinkled lips. “Just teasing you. I understand how difficult it is for one to be honest about anything on this island. Personally, I’d have taken things down a notch. I was taught less is always more.” She pointed to the entryway, where a spiral staircase gleamed under a crystal chandelier. “However, when it comes to refreshments, one can never be too bold. A Champagne fountain is needed, over there, right in front of the entrance.”
She fluttered her fingers and stared hard at the front door. As if, he thought, she could will the bubbling pyramid of glasses to appear. “When guests enter, it is the first sight they see. A promise of all that awaits inside.”
“I like that,” he said. “A little risky. But what is a party without a decorative gamble?”
She lifted her painted eyebrows and Jules knew she was pleased with his approval.
“And those flowers.” She nodded at the overstuffed arrangements fighting for room among the desserts, then cringed dramatically, her droopy eyelids fluttering.
He had to laugh. She was an actor, this one. Quirky.
“I have to agree with you there, ma’am. I can not get behind the lily. In the garden, she is divine. But in a vase? No way. The poor flower was ruined by the mortuary business. Can’t look at a lily and not see dead bodies.”