She is wearing an apron and wipes her hands on it. She is taller than Claire and strikingly beautiful. Long red-gold ringlets still wet from the shower and pale blue eyes. No makeup. A patrician face.
“Maddy, this is a new friend of Clive’s.” He has forgotten her name.
“Claire,” she says, stepping forward. “Thank you for having me.”
Maddy takes her hand. A firm grip. Her nails are cut short and unpainted. Claire notices she is barefoot.
“Hello, Claire. I’m Madeleine. Glad you could come.”
She is dazzling. Claire is reminded of Botticelli’s Venus.
“She liked my book,” he says. “Must be nice to the paying customers.”
“Of course, darling,” she says. And then to Claire, “Would you like to help? As usual one of my husband’s cozy little get-togethers has turned into an orgy. We need to feed these people, or they could start breaking things.” She shakes her head theatrically and smiles at him.
“The world’s greatest wife,” he says with an ecstatic sigh.
“I’d be happy to,” says Claire.
“Great. We need someone to plate the deviled eggs. They’re in the fridge and the platters are in the pantry. And don’t worry if you drop anything, nothing’s that good.”
“You’re a wonderful field marshal,” says Harry, giving his wife a kiss on the cheek. “I need to get ice.”
“Check the wine too,” she calls out as he leaves. “We’ve already gone through two cases of white. And where’s that other case of vodka? I thought it was under the stairs.” She begins to plate the canapés from the oven onto a platter.
“Is there anything else I can do?” Claire brings out the deviled eggs.
“Yes. Phil,” she says to the man with the dish towel, “let Claire do that for a while. Take these out and put them on the sideboard.” She turns to Claire. “Is this your first time out here?”
Claire nods. “It’s very beautiful.”
“It’s much grander now than when I was a kid,” she says, slicing a brown loaf of bread, using the back of her wrist to push her hair away from her face. “Back then most of the land around here was farms. The place across the road was a dairy farm. We used to go help with the milking. Now it’s a subdivision for millionaires. Hand me that plate, would you?”
“You’ve always lived here?”
She nods. “We came in the summers. This was the staff cottage. My family owned the big house up the drive.”
“What happened?”
“What always happens. We—my brother, Johnny, and me—had to sell it to pay estate taxes, but we kept this place. I couldn’t bear to part with it entirely. Isn’t that right, Walter?”
This is where I come in. Every story has a narrator. Someone who writes it down after it’s all over. Why am I the narrator of this story? I am because it is the story of my life—and of the people I love most. I have tried to be as scrupulous as possible in my telling of it. I wasn’t a participant in everything that happened, but after I knew the ending, I had to fill in the missing pieces through glimpses that meant nothing to me at the time, memories that flash back with new significance, old legal pads, sentences jotted down in notebooks and on the backs of aging photographs. Even Harry himself, though he didn’t know it. I had no choice other than to try to make sense of it. But making sense of anything is never easy, particularly this story.
I walk over, plucking up one of the canapés and popping it into my mouth. Bacon and something. It is delicious. “Absolutely, darling. Whatever you say.”
“Oh, shut up. Don’t be an ass.” Then to Claire, “Walter is my lawyer. He knows all about it. Sorry, Walter Gervais, this is Claire. Claire, Walter. Walter is also my oldest friend.”
It’s true. We have known each other since we were children. I live next door.
“Hello, Claire,” I say. “I see Maddy’s already dragooned you into service here at the Winslow bar and grill. I refuse to lift a finger unless it’s to join the other four wrapped around a glass tinkling with ice.”
I fancy myself to be both witty and slightly indolent. I am not really either, though. It’s a persona, one I use to protect myself. In fact, I am quite boring and lonely.
“I don’t mind. I don’t really know too many people here, so it’s nice for me to help,” Claire says.
“You’re lucky,” I say. “I know far too many of the people here. That probably explains why I’m hiding out in the kitchen.”
“Walter’s a big snob. I don’t think he’s made a new friend since he was in prep school,” Maddy says.
“You know, I think you’re right. I already knew all the people worth knowing by then anyway.”
“Claire came with Clive.”
“Right, see? There you go. Just met him. Don’t like him.”
“You don’t know me,” says Claire.
“You’re right. I don’t. Should I?”
Here’s the thing about Claire: she is actually quite beautiful, but there is something else about her that makes her stand out. In this world, beauty is as common as a credit card. I will try to put my finger on it.
“That’s up to you. But we didn’t go to prep school together so it looks like I don’t have much of a shot.” She smiles.
I smile back. I like her. I can’t help myself. I tell Maddy to stop working. Maddy is always working. She is a fiend for activity.
“All right.” She puts down the knife. “That’s all the food we have in the house anyway. Just about the only thing left is the bluefish in the freezer.”
“And those are only any good if you pickle them in gin. Just like me.”
Why do I always play the bloody fool around her? It can’t be that I am showing off. No, it is Claire I am showing off for now.
“Walter, stop standing around sounding like a moron and go get Claire and me something to drink.” Maddy turns to Claire while I’m still in earshot. “You wouldn’t know it, but he’s actually a hell of a good lawyer.”
I could have left this out but I didn’t. It appeases my ego. My education was very expensive, and I am a good lawyer. I make a lot of money at it too. I don’t really like it, though. Other people’s problems at least keep me from thinking too much about my own.
I come back carrying a wine bottle. “Let’s go outside and get away from this crowd,” I say to Claire. “You come too, Maddy.”
The three of us go out the kitchen door. We stand on the damp grass. Claire has removed her shoes now too. Madeleine lights a cigarette. She is trying to quit. The party is roaring on the other side of the house. It is darker here. A large tree with a swing looms in shadow in front of us. The moon and millions of stars fill the night sky. In the distance we can see the lights of a much bigger house.
“Your parents’ house?” asks Claire.
Madeleine nods. “And to the left is Walter’s. We grew up next door to each other. But he still owns his.” It’s too dark to see my house through the thin brake of trees.
“The law may not be as glamorous as writing books, but it is more consistently remunerative,” I say.
“Don’t believe it,” says Madeleine. “Walter’s rich as sin. Even if he wasn’t a lawyer.”
My great-grandfather was a founder of Texaco. Unlike many