I snorted at her and pulled away, but as I followed her down the stairs, her skirt a line of shining runnels all tumbling toward Ricky Luhrmann, my throat closed. Something in our lives was over now, forever, and the new place where we lived felt more dangerous. We were almost side by side when we got back to the party, but I doubt anyone actually saw me. Lilly looked as if a hundred lightbulbs had all been flipped on inside her. I scanned the room to find the brother and spotted him already heading for a door. I trotted along to place myself by his side and stuck my hand out. “I’m Neave. Awkward that we didn’t meet until now, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Nice to meet you.” He had a cool, firm, solid-citizen handshake.
“Also odd I didn’t know you existed until today.” He kept standing there, not bothered by the silence, not acting like it was his job to make friends. “So what have you heard about me, Max Luhrmann?”
“That you’re more intelligent than your sister. More awkward. Not social. Apparently as a child you used to hide in closets. You have a particular relationship with a childhood book called … I don’t know. Something about sea travel and sadism.… You’re interested in naval history?”
“Not much. If Ricky’s the source of any information about me, you might question it.”
“You don’t like Ricky?” he asked in the same kind of tone you’d use if you were asking how somebody felt about lamb chops.
“I don’t really know Ricky very well. But I hear that you don’t like him. Or he doesn’t like you. Or something like that.”
“A bold statement from a woman who didn’t know I existed until twenty minutes ago.”
“A ridiculous rebuttal from a man who tells little children that he hunts for something called a snark.”
“I do. A snark is a dense packet of water that moves through water of lesser density and often different temperature. Sonar can’t penetrate it, so it’s of interest to the navy.” I looked blank. He added, “Submarines hide behind them.”
“Oh.” I considered. “Mr. Luhrmann, you don’t seem much like your brother.”
“Miss Terhune, I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but if I were you I wouldn’t give it much thought because I don’t think we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other. I’m not very involved in my brother’s life. He’s usually unhappy with me, most recently because I told him not to marry your sister.”
My tone wasn’t half as offended as I actually was. “Your brother is lucky my sister even looked in his direction, much less agreed to marry him. She’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”
“That’s very likely. I wasn’t trying to protect my brother.” He smiled but just with the bottom of his face. “I don’t think your sister has any idea who my brother is.”
“That’s a traditional starting point for most marriages, isn’t it?”
He looked at me more carefully than he had a second earlier, then turned away from me. “I should go. I don’t want to upset the groom, who looks unhappy every time he checks and sees that I’m still here.” Max smiled past my shoulder and waved at Ricky, who did actually scowl. “See? I wanted to be here out of respect for the bride, who is lovely, by the way. As is her Annie. And it was a pleasure to meet you, Neave Terhune.”
*
An hour later I was helping Lilly jam the last of her going-away things into a suitcase. She’d had several more glasses of Champagne. We snapped it shut, sitting on it side by side. Jane and I had a schedule for Annie between us while Lilly was on the honeymoon. Lilly pulled the suitcase off the bed and clicked her way toward her new husband on new blue high heels. “You’re going to have a great time!”
We did. Days, Jane introduced Annie to the stuffed animals that had traveled with my little sister out of her own childhood and into adult life. Now they sat on a shelf in her closet, still lined up according to their complicated, long-held grudges and rosy-tinted new love affairs and new marriages.
Nights, I sang Annie all the words to “You’re a Sweet Little Headache,” and “Warm Kitty.” I had bought a phonograph and after dinner we danced in the almost empty warehouse space to record after record. Her favorite, which we played at least three times a night, was called “Make My Mistakes Again.” I’d bought it because it had a picture of a beautiful sailing ship on the record cover, and Annie sang it out full-throated and then growled at the end, her idea, she told me, of what a pirate sounded like.
I think of the times past when I had it all
I toyed with men’s wives and their daughters
And in my pursuit of this ill-gotten wealth,
I stabbed and I slashed and I slaughtered.
And for what? (HEY!)
The men that I’ve fought,
Are matched by the number of women I’ve bought.
And if I could go back and make my amends,
I’d make all those mistakes again.
And kill every last one of those bastards, my friend!
Before the happy couple got home we managed to have two picnics, one outside and one inside. Our last day we drove to Wingaersheek Beach and found five starfish. Then Lilly and Ricky returned home, which for now was a rented house in Nahant, and Jane and I packed Annie’s bag. “Don’t worry.” Lilly laughed at us. I don’t know if I looked as unhappy as I felt, but Jane certainly did. “She’ll be back for lots of sleepovers. This is her second home. Right, Annie?” Annie nodded, uncertain. After she and Lilly left me I stood in the warehouse kitchen and rolled out two dozen classic sugar cookies, singing the Pirate song, alone.
LILLY
Janey Marries
Janey met Todd Blumenthal a week after I got married and he proposed to her about ten minutes into their first date.
“It was ten weeks,” Boppit corrected me.
“You get what I mean, though. Fast. Janey said yes right off, completely sure of herself, completely sure of him. Mom finally got a daughter’s wedding that she could plan without the daughter interfering! She was so happy. I hadn’t let her put so much as a pinky finger on anything to do with my weddings. And Neave? Neave never even bothered to get married. That left Janey. When Mom started in with the lists and table settings, our little sister just smiled and said all her choices were wonderful. Janey had made the only choice that mattered to her, which was the groom.
“Mom stuffed our little sister into a blindingly white cupcake dress and perfectly awful shiny satin shoes. Jane smiled and smiled and let her do it. Mom chose daisies as the bride’s bouquet. Unbelievable. Limp little stalky weeds, and Jane told her they would be very pretty. The reception was booked into the VFW hall, whose regular caterer was asked to produce his usual rubber chicken surprise. Janey paid no attention to anything but Todd, and Todd was too busy plotting out a future full of children and Christmas trees to pay any attention to a wedding. Jane walked down the aisle looking like an explosion in a bakery, the dinner was inedible, and the whole mood was incandescent. It was a happy wedding.”
“You know,” Boppit said to me now, “they’re going to have two little girls of their own as well as taking Annie into the fold, and they’re going to rebuild an old schoolhouse into a home and raise the girls in it. They’re going to adopt a border collie named Jeffrey who will be their youngest daughter’s best friend until she’s eight years old and Linda Shouman moves into the neighborhood.”
“Then what?”
“Then Linda becomes her best friend.”