I cast a significant glance at my watch. “I’m on my way down, actually. Can I help you with anything? Zipper?”
She turns back.
“No, thanks. I can manage. There’s not much to zip, anyway.” Another low and throaty laugh, and then a sniff, incredulous. “Tiny! Have you been smoking?”
As she might say swinging.
I consider lying. “Just one,” I say, flicking a disdainful hand.
“Good Lord. I never thought I’d see the day. Poor thing. I guess this family of yours would drive anyone to debauchery. Don’t worry.” She zips her lips. “I won’t say a word to Mums. Is Major Gorgeous here yet?”
“Nobody’s here yet. We still have a few minutes.”
“You sound awfully cold, Tiny. Maybe you should sit out on the beach for a few minutes and warm up your blood. It works wonders, believe me.”
I gaze at my sister’s playful eyes, tilted alluringly at the corners. Her curving red mouth. The old Pepper, now that it’s just the two of us, alone in her room. Her claws, my skin. We do so much better when there are others around. Someone else’s family to distract us, someone else’s irreversible birth order: flawless first, naughty second, locked in timeless conflict.
At my silence, Pepper pulls the ends of her robe more closely together. “So. I saw your husband and the major out there on the water, sailing a boat. Did you get your après-midi after all? It must have been a quick one. Not that those aren’t sometimes the best.”
“Actually, I had another miscarriage eight days ago,” I say. “I don’t know if Mums told you. So, no. No après-midi for a few more weeks yet, unfortunately. Quick or not.”
Pepper’s arms uncross at last. Her tip-tilted eyes—the dark blue Schuyler eyes she shares with Vivian, except that hers are a shade or two lighter—go round with sympathy. “Oh, Tiny! Of course I didn’t know. I’m so sorry. What a bitch I am.”
I turn to the door. “It’s all right. Really.”
“My big fat mouth …”
“You have a lovely mouth, Pepper. I’m going downstairs now to make sure everything’s ready. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Tiny—”
I close the door carefully behind me.
Downstairs, everything is perfect, exactly as I left it three quarters of an hour ago. The vases are full of hyacinths—my first order, as lady of the compound, was nothing short of rebellion: I changed the house flower from lily to hyacinth, never mind the financial ruin when hyacinths were out of season—and the side tables are lined with coasters. All the windows and French doors have been thrown open, heedless of bugs, because the heat’s been building all day, hot layered on hot, and the Big House has no air-conditioning. Mrs. Crane and the two maids are busy in the kitchen, filling trays with Ritz crackers and crab dip. If this were a party for outside guests, I’d have hired a man from town, put him in a tuxedo, and had him pour drinks from the bar. But this is only family, and Frank and his father can do it themselves.
Frank’s father. He rises from his favorite chair in the library, immaculate in a white dinner jacket and black tie, his graying hair polished into silver. “Good evening, Tiny. You look marvelous, as always.”
I lean in for his kiss. “So do you, Mr. Hardcastle. Enjoying your last moment of peace?”
He holds up his cigar, his glass of Scotch. “Guilty as charged. Anybody here yet?”
“I think we’ll be running late. I stuck my head out the window at five thirty, and nobody was stirring from the beach.”
“It’s a hot day.”
“Yes, it is. At least it gives us a few moments to relax before everyone arrives.”
“Indeed. Can I get you a drink?” He moves to the cabinet.
“Yes, please. Vodka martini. Dry, olive.”
He moves competently about the bottles and shakers, mixing my martini. You might be wondering why Frank’s mother isn’t the lady of the house instead of me, organizing its dinner parties, decreeing the house flower, and you might suspect she’s passed away, though of course you’re too tactful to ask. Well, you’re wrong. In fact, the Hardcastles divorced when Frank was five or six, I can’t remember exactly, but it was a terrible scandal and crushed Mr. Hardcastle’s own political ambitions in a stroke. You can’t run for Senate if you’re divorced, after all, or at least you couldn’t back in the forties. The torch was quietly tossed across the generation to my husband. Oh, and the ex–Mrs. Hardcastle? I’ve never been told why they divorced, and her name isn’t spoken around the exquisite hyacinth air of the Big House. I’ve never even met her. She lives in New York. Frank visits her sometimes, in her exile, when he’s there on business.
There is a distant ring of the doorbell. The first guests. I glance up at the antique ormolu clock above the mantel. Five fifty-nine.
“Thank you.” I accept the martini from my father-in-law and turn to leave. “If you’ll excuse me. It looks like somebody in this family has a basic respect for punctuality, after all.”
I nearly reach the foyer before it occurs to me to wonder why a Hardcastle would bother to ring the doorbell of the Big House, and by that time it’s too late.
Caspian Harrison stands before me in his dress uniform, handing his hat to Mrs. Crane. He looks up at my entrance, my shocked halt, and all I can see is the scar above his left eyebrow, wrapping around the curve of his temple, which was somehow hidden on the television screen by the angle or the bright sunshine of the White House Rose Garden.
A few drops of vodka spill over the rim of the glass and onto my index finger.
“Major Harrison.” I lick away the spilled vodka and smile my best hostess smile. “Welcome home.”
When Cap arrived at the coffee shop the next morning, nine thirty sharp, the place was jammed. Em rushed by with an armful of greasy plates.
“What gives?” he called after her.
“Who knows? There’s one booth left in the corner, if you move fast.”
He looked around and found it, the booth in the corner, and moved fast across the sweaty bacon-and-toast air to sling himself and his camera bag along one cushion. Em scooted over and set a cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice on the table, almost without stopping. He drank the coffee first, hot and crisp. You had to hand it to Boylan’s. Best coffee in Back Bay, if you liked the kind of coffee you could stand your spoon in.
He leaned against the cushion and watched the hustle-bustle. A lot of regulars this morning, a few new faces. Em and Patty cross and recross the linoleum in patterns of chaotic efficiency, hair wisping, stockings sturdy. Outside, the pavement still gleamed with the rain that had poured down last night, shattering the heat wave in a biblical deluge, flooding through the gutters and into the bay. Maybe that was why Boylan’s booths were so full this morning. That charge of energy when the cool air bursts at last through your open window and interrupts your lethargy. Blows apart your accustomed pattern.
“What’ll it be, Cap? The usual?” Em stood at the edge of the table, holding a coffeepot and a plate of steaming pancakes. They had an uncomplicated relationship, he and Em; no menus required.
“Well, now …”
“If you love me, Cap, make it snappy.”