One of the pastels has had too much of the sherry. Her face is red, and she is starting to cry. She is talking about Eva and how she helped her son. She’s talking about dancing school and how hopelessly clumsy he was as a boy, and somewhere in her rambling monologue I realize that her son has “passed on,” that he died in the Gulf War. “Friendly fire,” she says, smiling strangely, “as if there is any such thing.” And then she turns to me. “You can’t let her gardens die,” she says urgently, grabbing my arm. “Promise me you won’t let them die.”
I nod because I don’t know what else to do, and because the two are somehow tied together in her mind, Eva’s gardens and her dead son, but I can’t quite figure out how they are connected, so I just nod stupidly and promise.
The whole group is quiet. One of the Red Hats takes the crying woman’s hand, and then Ruth, the only one who is still wearing her hat, takes it off and presents it to the crying woman, holding it out, offering it like an old-fashioned elixir guaranteed to cure any ill. I don’t know if it is the hat itself or the childlike innocence of the gesture, but it works. The crying matron doesn’t put the hat on her head but runs her hands over it, as if it were some beloved cat who had just jumped up on her lap to be petted. It seems to calm her. After a minute she manages to smile through her tears.
“You can put it on,” the Red Hat says.
And before the crying woman has a chance to refuse, Ruth takes the big floppy pastel hat off the woman’s head and replaces it with the oversize red one. And then, like the Circle (the women on the island), the group surrounds their new friend.
When the Red Hats leave, they go in a group, the same way they arrived. The women wave as they go, their voices chorused together in condolence and compliments, fading like music, then splitting into single notes as they move to their separate cars. I don’t notice until later the lone hat propped against the mantel. I don’t see it until the grieving woman has already driven away, but by then it is too late, so I leave it there.
Someone has switched on the radio, looking for NPR, but the radio is old and the signal is weak, and WBUR has been hijacked by some stronger station, one that favors show tunes. This one’s playing South Pacific, Ezio Pinza singing “Some Enchanted Evening.”
By the time Rafferty stops in, most of the people are gone. He walks over to Jay-Jay, the only person here he really knows. I watch Jay-Jay trying to straighten up as Rafferty approaches. By then both Jay-Jay and Beezer are getting pretty drunk, because while everyone else has been drinking one form of sherry or tea, Beezer and Jay-Jay have appropriated the Armagnac for themselves and are carrying the bottle around refilling their snifters. I’ve never seen Beezer drunk, and it has never even occurred to me that he might drink, but Anya seems comfortable with it. She’s walking again as if she were attached to his hip, carrying her drained glass of sweet sherry upside down like a little dinner bell she’s about to ring to summon her guests to the table.
Jay-Jay pours himself another drink.
“Where are the tea ladies?” Rafferty asks.
“You’ve just missed them,” I say, and he looks relieved.
“Have the Calvinists gone back to their cages?” Jay-Jay wants to know.
“Trailers,” Rafferty corrects him, “and yes, they have, for now.”
I detect a trace of a New York accent.
“Your mother’s not here?” Rafferty asks me, eyes scanning the room. Considering he’s a cop, it takes him a while to notice things.
“No.”
He seems surprised. Obviously he doesn’t know May very well. “You’re not staying in this house all alone, are you?”
I don’t answer that kind of question, even from a cop.
“Anya and I are staying with Towner,” Beezer says, jumping in to rescue me.
“Oh, of course,” Rafferty says, suddenly realizing how it sounded. “Sorry.”
“Were you asking as an officer of the law or merely a concerned citizen?” I say, trying to make light of it.
“More like an attempt at small talk,” he says.
“Then you need a drink.” Beezer goes for a glass, offering the Armagnac.
Rafferty holds up a hand, declines.
“AA,” Jay-Jay mouths in exaggerated pantomime to Beezer, but we all catch it, including Rafferty, who rolls his eyes.
“Tea?” I offer.
“God no,” he says, horrified, and we both laugh.
Beezer figures I’ve got it covered and turns back to Anya and Jay-Jay.
Rafferty is looking for something to say to me. His eyes scan the room. Finally he settles on the obvious. “I’m sorry about your grandmother,” he says. “She was a nice lady.”
“She was my great-aunt, actually,” I say, and I can tell he doesn’t know what to say to that, “but thank you.”
We stand there awkwardly, neither knowing what to say next.
“How did you two know each other?” I finally ask.
“I used to come here for lunch,” he said.
I think of the lunch fare on Eva’s menu: finger sandwiches, cucumber and dill on dainty white crustless bread, date-nut bread with cream cheese. It seems unlikely.
“I’m a big fan of the fancy sandwich,” he explains.
It’s the last thing I’d expect him to say, and it makes me smile.
I seem to remember Eva mentioning that she was good friends with a cop. For some reason I had pictured her friend as much older.
Rafferty is trying to figure out what I’m thinking. He looks at me strangely.
I’m searching my Eva training for something to say when I notice that he still has nothing to drink. “How about a soda?” I offer. “I think I saw some in the pantry. I don’t know how old it is, though.”
“Any vintage after 1972 is okay with me.”
I go to the kitchen and get some ice, coming back with both glass and soda. Jay-Jay has started pulling boxes of old photographs out of the bottom drawer of the buffet. He and Beezer have them spread out on every available surface, and there’s no place to pour. I hand the glass to Rafferty and unscrew the cap of the soda. It snaps when the seal breaks, so I know it’s still good—too good, actually. When I start to pour, it fizzes up and over the side of the glass. I don’t know if it’s because it is so hot in the pantry or because I’ve put too much ice in the glass, but before I reach the halfway point, it’s fizzing up and over the rim of the glass and is about to land on the Aubusson when Rafferty sticks a finger in the glass to stop it.
We stand there stupidly, Rafferty with his index finger in the glass up to the second knuckle, me looking around frantically for something to put under it. “It’s okay,” he says. “It stopped.”
“Sorry,” I say to him. Then, looking at his finger, I comment, “Nice trick.”
“I used to be a beer drinker,” he says, “in my last life.”
Beezer and Anya take a pile of the old photos to the window seat, begin shuffling through them. Jay-Jay, who’s invasive by nature, walks around the room, opening up cabinets and picking out objects he remembers from childhood. He spent a lot of time in this room when he was younger. He and Beezer played board games and poker