Carl chimed in, “I did say that. Shameless.”
Adam cleared his throat and I knew he was thinking, Well, aren’t you the stud?
“I know, very presumptuous of me. But she said, maybe. I took that as a good sign.”
“And making that baby brought us to the altar,” Eve said, taking a big gulp of wine.
What? I thought. They got married because Eve was pregnant?
Eventually, it came out that Carl was a pediatrician. Not only was he a pediatrician with a huge practice, but he taught at Duke and did research and was always out on speaking engagements. But he didn’t want to brag.
I looked at Adam and he pretended to gag. I didn’t blame him, but I was still impressed.
And somewhere along the line and that third bottle of wine it was revealed that Carl wanted more children and Eve did not. Her pregnancy had been difficult and she didn’t feel like she had the wherewithal to endure another one.
I thought about that for a while. What woman on this earth wouldn’t want to have babies with Carl? Then I thought, what woman wouldn’t want to at least try?
The evening finally came to an end around eleven.
“Max and Luke will be up by seven, raising hell,” Adam said.
“Well, if you’re up at seven,” Carl said, “why don’t we go play nine holes?”
“Actually, I brought my clubs,” Adam said. “But you have to know I’m not much at the game.”
“Oh, hell, don’t worry about that! We can play best ball? I don’t really care,” Carl said. “I just like to get some exercise before it gets to be too hot.”
“Okay. It’s a deal,” Adam said.
Later, when we were in bed and had just turned out the lights, Adam said, “So what did you think about tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on. You know you have an opinion.”
“They’re both too good looking. Being that good looking is a curse.”
Adam was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Please tell me why?”
“Because you’re never satisfied.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. And you know what else?”
“Tell me,” Adam said.
“It’s harder to know what’s true and what isn’t.”
“You mean like did you get the job because of your looks or your résumé?”
“Yes. Or does someone like you for your looks or because of what kind of person you are. And you want to know what else?”
“Sure.” Adam yawned and rolled over onto his side and threw his arm around me. “God, I love lying down next to you.”
“Me too, baby.” I smiled then, thinking Adam could be so sweet.
“So? What else?”
“I think he screws around on her.”
“Why would he do that?” Adam said, trying to sound blasé.
He knew I was always right about these things.
“I don’t know. But I’d bet the ranch on it. One other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“If you think I’m going to spend this vacation watching you drool over her like a puppy, we may as well go home tomorrow.”
Among the pillows, the sheets, and the comforter there was silence followed by more silence while I bunched them and twisted the covers, sending a clear signal of my annoyance. Adam was as still as a corpse, probably hoping I would think he had already drifted off to sleep.
The last thing he heard me say was, “I mean it, Adam.”
Morning came earlier than expected for Adam and later for me.
“Tell Mom I love her, okay?” Adam said on his way out the door.
“Where’re you going?” Max asked.
“To make a fool out of myself,” Adam said.
“I love you too!” I called out from upstairs.
“Have fun!” Luke said.
“See you later,” I said.
I came padding down the stairs in a tie-dyed caftan and bare feet.
“Morning, boys! Don’t sit too close to the television,” I said. “You’ll ruin your eyesight. Did you eat?”
“Yep,” Luke said. “Dad made us breakfast.”
“What are you watching?”
“Rugrats,” Max said.
“Ren & Stimpy is on next,” Luke said.
“Okay, well, what do you say to brushing your teeth and then let’s hit the pool?”
Max stood up. It looked like he wanted to go put on his bathing suit but he couldn’t tear himself away from the television. He was hopping from one foot to the other.
“Go use the bathroom, Max.”
“When a commercial comes on!”
“Now!” I said.
Max ran down the hall.
I looked at the kitchen counter in dismay. The knife that had spread peanut butter on the toasted waffles was stuck to the counter, the open box of waffles was thawed, and the cap for the container of milk was MIA. I sighed, counted the remaining waffles, and knew that my boys had eaten two apiece. I poured myself a mug of coffee and began putting everything away. I hated buying that kind of food for my children, but when we were on vacation I let a lot of rules go by the wayside. Otherwise it wouldn’t have seemed like a vacation.
It wasn’t too long before everyone was ready for another day in the sun.
“Rufus? You want to go sit in the sun?”
Rufus knew better. Sit in the sun? Rufus looked at me as though I had asked him to sit in the oven. He turned, directed his body to the tiled area in front of the refrigerator, lumbered over to it, walked in a circle, and curled up on the floor. He raised his eyes to me, big, watery, red-rimmed, chocolate bonbons that they were, and he sighed the most world-weary sigh that a dog or a man had ever emitted. My heart melted.
God, I love this dog, I thought.
I leaned down and scratched behind his ears.
“You rest, old man,” I said, “and I’ll see you around lunchtime.”
At last, I was able to get my sons organized with all their toys and gear and off we went to the pool. Eve was there reading a book while her daughter splashed around in the shallow end of the adult pool.
“Come sit with us!” Eve called out, waving me over.
“Thanks!” I said and dropped our towels and so forth on a lounge chair next to her. “You’d think we’re going on safari with all this stuff!”
“It’s the truth!” Eve said and called out to her daughter. “Daphne? Come say hello to Max and . . .”
“Luke,” I said.
“Max and Luke!”
Max and Luke were very busy putting on their goggles, and before Eve’s little girl had time to get out of the pool Max and Luke cannonballed into the deep end, sending up a huge plume of water. Fortunately, Eve and I were the only adults there.
“They’re river rats,” I said. “What can I tell you? They started swimming the day they were born.”
“They’re boys! What do we expect?” Eve said, not bothered by their antics in the least.
We watched as my boys swam underwater to the shallow end and pulled Eve’s little girl underwater. Screaming ensued and a morning of endless competition was born. Eve couldn’t stop laughing as she watched them get to know each other.
“They’re like puppies,” she said, “sort of sniffing around each other before they get into the games.”
I shook my head in agreement. “This is the best thing that could happen to them! A diversion.”
We watched them for a bit, then I said, “Where’s your au pair?”
“Oh, it’s her morning off,” Eve said.
“Say, how’s your mom feeling?”
“Cookie? Oh, she’ll be fine.”
“You call her Cookie? That’s so cute!” I said.
“Well, Daphne started it when she was just starting to talk. She would see her and ask for a cookie. Naturally, she gave her one. So she became Cookie. Anyway, she never sits in the sun. She’s trying to avoid aging.”
“How’s that wo
rking?” I smiled.
“Well, she looks great, but I think she’s getting a little batty.”
“What do you mean? Is she forgetful? I mean, that’s pretty normal.”
“No! That’s the whole problem. I wish she would be forgetful! She’s . . . well, sometimes she can be very inappropriate.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering what that could mean. “Well, we have to love our parents, warts and all, right?”
“Yes, I suppose so. Hey, Daphne! Give Max his noodle back!”
The pool was a bowl of Chinese soup and the kids were the wontons, floating, bouncing, and bobbing. Unfortunately, they began to play Marco Polo at the top of their lungs.
I looked at Eve and said, “I despise Marco Polo.”
Eve soon came to understand why. The Marco-ing and the Polo-ing was an incessant barrage of highly irritating noise pollution.
Eve went to the edge of the pool and said, “Kids? It’s time to play something else.”
Luke and Max looked to me as if to say, She’s not our mom!
“Don’t even start,” I said. “Noise pollution. Got it?”
Their faces were dramatically sorrowful, so much so that when Eve’s eyes met mine we had to put our hands over our mouths so the children wouldn’t see us laughing. At last we had found common ground. By the time Adam and Carl returned from golf, sweaty and laughing, we were all practically old friends.
Later, when Adam and I were alone, I asked about the golf game.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“He just had to play eighteen holes. I lost eighteen dollars and had to buy him a beer.”
“A dollar a hole?”
Adam nodded his head. “Pissed me off.” He was accustomed to winning. Well, not really, but for reasons obvious to me, he didn’t like losing to Carl.
“So it’s safe to assume you’ll be taking golf lessons starting tomorrow?”
“I’m meeting the pro late this afternoon on the putting green.”
“That’s so great! Why not take the boys?”
“Eliza, this is serious. I can’t have them driving me crazy when I’m trying to concentrate.”
“Oh, okay.” I looked into his eyes. “I never knew you to be so competitive.”
“Between us? This is war.”
chapter 4
eliza’s merry christmas
home on the stono, 1994
Luke and Max were out of school for their winter break. None of the schools called it Christmas Holidays anymore because not everyone celebrated Christmas. Everyone in America, or so it seemed, was suddenly twisting themselves inside out trying to be politically correct. Call the season what you like, but it was the end of another year and most people were feeling celebratory. And it had been a darned productive year for our little family.
I had a bumper crop of vegetables pickled in jars and in the freezer, and I was working on that cookbook I’d always wanted to write. Adam had the most profitable year in his business’s history and bought us matching red SUVs. The boys had started kindergarten that prior August and their first semester had been one of many challenges and small victories. They made lots of new friends and took up hand-bell ringing and Bitty Basketball, the sport redesigned for kids under four feet. Because they were like asparagus in a field of sprouts, my twins were the stars of the team. But they were not exactly the descendants of Mozart, so when they performed in what was billed as a winter concert, they didn’t distinguish themselves for the right reason. They somehow stayed a little behind the class, ringing with dramatic enthusiasm a few seconds after it was their turn to chime in, causing lots of tittering among the audience members. Of course, Adam and I nearly burst with pride watching them onstage. I blotted my eyes with a tissue, surprised at my tidal wave of emotion, while Adam held his movie camera over our heads, hoping to capture the boys on film. After the concert the little rascals were officially on vacation, free from the extraordinary stresses of elementary school until the first week of January. They were practically convulsing with excitement over what Santa might bring and on the best behavior of their young lives thus far.
The afternoon of December 16 found them on barstools in our kitchen at home under my watchful eyes. Dozens of cookies doused with liberal shakes of green and red sprinkles were cooling on wire racks strewn across the counters. They were the same type the boys had proudly given their teachers as a holiday gift, and this batch was destined for Mr. Proctor and for our few neighbors. But for the moment, Max and Luke were stringing popcorn for our enormous Christmas tree, which they had cut down with their father in the deep woods on our property. I was a little nervous about them handling needles, but so far there was no blood.
“You boys are doing a fine job, but be careful, okay?” I said.
“We handle fish hooks and they’re much worse,” Max said.
“Dad does that. Not you,” Luke said in a whisper.
Max knitted his eyebrows together, disappointed that his twin had exposed his exaggeration of the facts. Luke usually agreed with whatever he said. Had something changed?
“Tell Luke to quit eating all the popcorn! There won’t be enough for the tree!” Max said in revenge.
“But I like popcorn!” Luke said with a frown. “And besides, I’m—”
“Starving?” I laughed. “Oh, Luke.” I tousled his hair and said, “Precious child. I can always make more.”
Adam had taken the week off too. He was in the next room, all snug in his favorite recliner reading Field & Stream while the fireplace hissed and crackled from the flaming logs our caretaker had chopped for us. The enormous family room was where we congregated because it was the most comfortable. There was a game table, three deep sofas, and several club chairs. There was always a jigsaw puzzle in progress and stacks of magazines, as we subscribed to many. Hundreds of books lined the shelves, with framed photographs interspersed between inexpensive but nice replicas of antique Chinese blue and white ceramics. And of course, the biggest television in captivity stood opposite the fireplace. Adam loved his new television. The New York Philharmonic’s rendition of holiday favorites filled the air with music streaming from the discreetly placed speakers of our mini stereo system. The disposition of the Stanley household was just right.
I was humming along with the music and going through the mail, opening holiday cards and stacking catalogs to recycle.
“Oh! Adam? Look here. We got a card from Eve and Carl. It has one of those annual newsletters in it.”
“Really? Read it to me,” Adam said, trying to sound blasé.
He was fooling no one.
“It’s three pages long,” I said.
“Well then, just give me the highlights,” Adam said.
Who has three pages of news about themselves? I said to myself as I began to read. The largest section was a chronicle of all their daughter’s activities. She had started school too. Daphne was artistic and becoming quite the little ballerina and only wanted tutus from Santa. My eyes traveled to the what we did on summer vacation part of the letter. I was astonished to read Eve’s feelings about us.
. . . as unpredictable winds seem to blow throughout our lives like the breath of Mischief itself, we had the occasion to connect with an old, dear, and precious friend of mine and to become friends with his beautiful family. We have never enjoyed a family vacation as much as we did during the brief period we were their neighbors at Wild Dunes on the Isle of Palms.
I wondered if Carl felt the same way, because he had flirted with me relentlessly throughout our stay on the island. Naturally, I’d been flattered, but I quickly recognized I wasn’t getting special treatment, as he spouted the same nonsense to every waitress, checkout girl, and any other female we encountered. When I realized he considered himself to be an intergalactically ranked Don Juan, I began to think of his ridiculous flattery as actually very funny. Still, I wondered what part he had in choosing the wording of Eve’s holiday letter. He probably didn’t even know she’d written one.
/> “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit,” I said to the room in my best southern accent.
“Mom! You said ‘butt’!” Luke said.
Max began to singsong my words and Luke joined in. Butter my butt and call me a biscuit rang through the air like a doorbell that wouldn’t stop ringing until Adam called them down.
“That’s enough!” he said.
Given the proximity of Santa’s sleigh, they fell silent.
I went over to the counter, where the boys were nearly collapsing in stifled laughter.
“Okay,” I said, “here’s the deal. Singing a song about butts is truly funny, but Santa can hear you.”
Max and then Luke pulled their thumbs across their closed lips like zippers and broke out in giggles all over again.
In a matter of just a few days it was finally Christmas Eve, and by then our whole house smelled and looked like the season in all its glory. The air was laced with the rich smells of glazed ham, apple bread, and minced meat pie, and of bayberry, cranberry, and citrus from the fat candles that burned in oversized hurricanes all over the house. In the bay window of the breakfast area, aromatic clove-studded oranges filled a hand-hewed antique wooden bread maker’s bowl lined with tiny branches of pine and colorful holly. One afternoon I sat for hours with my boys pushing the spikes of tiny cloves through the tough skin of oranges in decorative swirls and geometric designs. When we were finished, I rewarded them with steaming hot chocolate and marshmallows before moving on to their next project, which was to set up the old train set with Adam. Crank the cat had draped herself over the back of the sofa, curious about the train and its whistles and whirrs but not so curious that she would get involved.
“She’s gonna pounce,” Max predicted.
“No, she ain’t,” Luke said.
“Don’t say ‘ain’t,’” I said.
Miles of strung popcorn garland were carefully draped around the Christmas tree in dramatic loops. Our monogrammed stockings were hung across the thick oak mantel, which was covered with a parade of red candles in shining brass candleholders tied with red and green plaid ribbon bows. The crèche set of Adam’s childhood was carefully positioned across the sideboard in our dining room on a bed of pine needles interspersed with tiny pinecones. More red candles that smelled of cranberries were placed in glass hurricanes with gleaming silver bottoms. There were wreaths on all the doors and tiny white lights nestled into all the foundation shrubs around the front of our house. At five o’clock in the afternoon the yard came to life, and at ten o’clock it fell into darkness. Adam had installed the timer for all the holiday lighting, and he was pretty proud of that.