The damp fragrance of corn silk and the dusty, acidic smell of tomatoes overpowered the perfume of the Duffs’ flowers, which shuddered and bobbed between Livia’s knees. Leaving her in the car, Winn popped into the seafood store, and once he was back in the car, he found he wasn’t sure where he wanted to go. After hesitating long enough at a stop sign to draw the indignant horn of the driver behind him, he turned left.
“Aren’t we going to the Enderby?” Livia asked. She had not spoken since they parted ways with the Fenns in the market.
“First we’re going to take a look at this house of Fenn’s,” he said, choosing to ignore her petulant tone.
“Seriously? What if someone’s there?”
“Is it a crime to visit our friends’ house?”
“I can’t believe Teddy joined the army.” She said “army” as though it were the name of another woman.
“Well,” said Winn, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Jack is the same way, always having to showboat. That family has a holier-than-thou streak a mile wide. Just between you and me, I’ve never cared for it. He uses that girl like a shield.”
“Meg?” Livia said. “I think they’d probably prefer she was normal.”
“We all make sacrifices,” Winn went on, “but they expect everyone to praise theirs all the time. This army thing seems excessive. Why not the navy? Why not the air force? Coast guard? No, the Fenns have to make a show out of humility. Teddy should have gone to West Point if he wanted to go this route.”
“I don’t think this was the plan from the beginning. Not that I know anything, apparently.”
“I don’t see why he has to be a grunt like his father.”
“Wasn’t Jack drafted?”
“Yes, but he handled it in a very odd way. He could have deferred. Men like Greyson have it figured out. Greyson gives up the little things, little luxuries. He doesn’t overdo it. He’ll be good for Daphne that way.”
“I don’t think being selectively cheap is the same thing as enlisting.”
“So you’re on the Fenns’ side now?”
“I wish you hadn’t mentioned Teddy.”
“I was being polite. Better to hear the news from Jack, anyway. Now you won’t be caught off guard.”
“You can’t go around asking about Teddy like he’s just another person, Dad.”
“He is just another person, Livia. He should be, anyway.”
“Well, he’s not!”
“Ah,” Winn said, “here we are.”
In his opinion, the finest houses on the island were marked by dented mailboxes and rutted driveways. Only a chimney or maybe a widow’s walk should be visible from the road. Jack Fenn’s house, however, was a blatant, dazzling Oz set against the blue horizon of Waskeke Sound. Privet plants wrapped in burlap stood in wooden boxes at regular intervals along the road like blindfolded prisoners, holes already dug and waiting for them in the rich-looking soil. After a few years, they would merge into a hedge and provide a semblance of privacy, but the driveway was needlessly wide, a blinding avenue of broken quahog shells that unspooled in a graceful S curve up to the house, where one offshoot led to a garage and the other to the front door, making a loop around a flagpole. To one side of the house, confined by an infant hedge of its own and a cage of dark green chain-link, a mountain of red clay waited to be spread and rolled into a tennis court. Yet another nascent hedge encircled an empty, freshly poured swimming pool and the wooden bones of a pool house.
Winn turned in between two glossy black post lanterns, crunching on the shells. The flagpole at the top of the driveway was the nautical style, a yardarm across a mast, and stood in an oval of dirt. No flags were flying, but the cords were ready, their clips dinging against the metal pole, waiting to hoist the colors when the Fenns were in residence. The windows still bore the manufacturer’s decals. Part of the ground floor had been covered with new, lemony shingles, stark against the tar paper. Two years might pass before they faded to the desirable gray, and until then the house would be a bright imposition on the subtle landscape. The beginnings of a yard—paving stones, sacks of cement, a heap of mulch—loitered in the broad expanse of dirt that would one day be a lawn. Tarpaulins covered bales of shingles on one side of the driveway. The roof was a steep landscape of peaks, dormers, and gables, all sheathed in new cedar shake that shone in the sun. Brick chimneys crowned with terra-cotta pots pointed at the sky. Above the whole mess presided the bright copper sails of the three-masted clipper ship Fenn had chosen for his weather vane. Winn’s weather vane was a man alone in a rowboat.
“Anyway,” Livia said, “Greyson’s sacrifices are completely superficial. They’re not any kind of real loss. They’re just symbolic of loss. You know, like giving up chocolate for Lent or rending garments or something. At least what Teddy’s doing is genuinely hard.”
“Would you look at the size of this place,” said Winn. “I’m surprised. Jack comes from a fine old family. This is … it’s showy.”
Construction debris was strewn around: rolls of wire, crumpled wrappers, twine, tape, pipes, buckets crusted with cements and sealants. Two beige portable toilets stood a discreet distance away. “The house is poorly designed,” he said, pointing up through the windshield. “It must be a swamp up on that roof after a big rain. You see? I can pick out at least two spots where water will pool. They’ll have leaks. They probably already do. Shake is tricky. If you don’t cover the nail holes properly, you get leaks.”
“Fine,” said Livia. “The Fenns have made a mockery of roofs. They join the army just to bug you, and they design their houses to really get under your skin.”
“You disagree?”
“I don’t want Jack Fenn to drive up and find us sitting here staring at his house.”
“It’s a ridiculous house. I’m telling you. Look at that roof. Millions of dollars just to have leaks.”
“Dad, people like living by the ocean. Why shouldn’t they have a nice house if they want?”
“So you think people should have everything they want even if what they want is an ostentatious eyesore?”
“I don’t think it’s an eyesore.”
“This house is an eyesore.”
“I don’t know—to each his own. We could have built a house like this if we wanted to, right? It’s just not our style.”
Leaning forward with his chest pressed to the steering wheel, craning to see the roof, Winn was gratified by Livia’s use of “our,” that she was including herself in his aesthetic of quality, longevity, and simplicity. Since their childhood he had told his daughters he was going to give away all his money before he died, and they should make or marry their own if money was what they wanted. Better that than letting them feel the same disappointment he had after his parents died, when he discovered his inheritance was little more than untenable expectations. He had done well enough, but he was thankful for the way a certain degree of gentle dilapidation could be made to suggest old wealth. Shabbiness of necessity was easily disguised as modesty and thrift. Not that having a simple, hard-won summer-house instead of this castle by the sea would qualify him as shabby by most standards.
“Right?” Livia persisted. “We just do things differently. You aren’t a fancy house kind of guy.”
“What do they need such a big house for?” he said. “Is Teddy going to have a thousand children?”
Livia drew the Duffs’ flowers up onto her lap. “That’s