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Of the seven living Hardcastle children, six are here today with their spouses, and fully thirteen of Frank’s cousins have joined them in the pretty shingle and clapboard houses that make up the property. A compound, the magazines like to call it, as if it’s an armed camp, and the Hardcastles a diplomatic entity of their own. I know all their names. It’s part of my job. You’re the lady of the house now, Granny Hardcastle said, when we joined them on the Cape for the first time as a married couple. It was August, a week after we’d returned from our honeymoon, and boiling hot. Granny had moved out of the master suite while we were gone. You’re the lady of the house now, she told me, over drinks upon our arrival, and I thought I detected a note of triumph in her voice.
At the time, I’d also thought I must be mistaken.
You’re in charge, she went on. Do things exactly as you like. I won’t stick my nose in, I promise, unless you need a little help from time to time.
I spot Frank, tucking up the boat in the shelter of the breakwater, a couple of hundred yards down the shore. At least I assume it’s Frank; the boat is certainly his, the biggest one, the tallest mast. At one point he meant to train seriously for the America’s Cup. I don’t know what became of that one. Too much career in the way, I suppose, too much serious business to get on with. There are two of them, Frank and someone else, tying the Sweet Christina up to her buoy. No use calling for him, at this distance.
I draw in a last smoke, crush out the cigarette on the windowsill, and check my watch. Five thirty-five, and no one’s getting ready for drinks. Everyone’s out enjoying the beach, the sun, the sand. Below me, Pepper reclines on a beach chair, bikini glowing, head scarf fluttering, every inch of her slathered in oil. Pepper has olive skin, so she can do things like that; she can bare her shapely coconut-oiled limbs to the sun and come out golden. She’s not hiding her cigarette, either: it’s out there in plain sight of men, women, and children. Along with a thermos of whatever.
Everybody’s having a sun-swept good time.
Well, good for them. That’s what the Cape is for, isn’t it? That’s why the Hardcastles bought this place, back in the early twenties, when beach houses were becoming all the rage. Why they keep it. Why they gather together here, year after year, eating the same lobster rolls and baking under the same sweaty sun.
Just before I duck back into the bedroom, a primal human instinct turns my head to the left, and I catch sight of a face staring up from the sand.
For an instant, my heart crashes. Giddy. Terrified. Caught.
But it’s only Tom. Constance’s husband, Tom, a doctoral student in folk studies—whatever that was—at Tufts and now at leisure for the whole lazy length of the summer, with nothing to do but collect his trust fund check, tweak his thesis, and get Constance pregnant again. He sits in the dunes near the house, smoking and disgruntled, and that disgruntled face just so happens to be observing me as if I’m the very folk whereof he studies. He’s probably seen my unfastened dress. He’s probably seen the cigarette. He’ll probably tattle on me to Constance.
Little weasel.
I smile and wave. He salutes me with his cigarette.
I withdraw and pretzel myself before the mirror to wiggle up the zipper on my own. (A snug bodice, miniature sleeves just off the shoulder: really, where was a husband when you needed him? Oh, of course: tying up his yacht.) I swipe on my lipstick, blot, and swipe again. My hair isn’t quite right; I suppose I need a cut. So hard to remember these things, out here on the Cape. It’s too late for curlers. I wind the ends around my fingers, hold, release. Repeat. Fluff. The room lies silent around me. Even Percy has dozed quietly off.
As I finger my way around my head, the face in the mirror seems to be frowning in me. The way my mother—passing me by one evening on her way to someone’s party—warned me never to do, because my skin might freeze that way.
Wrinkles. The bitter enemy of a woman’s happiness.
Frank bursts through the door, smiling and wind whipped, at ten minutes to six, a moment too late to fasten my diamond and aquamarine necklace for me.
“Had a nice sail?” I say icily.
“The best. Cap joined me. Just like old times, when we were kids. Went all the way around the point and back. Record time, I’ll bet. Goddamn, that man can sail.” The highest possible praise. He blows straight past me to the bathroom.
“Even with one leg?” I call out.
“It worked for Bluebeard, didn’t it?” He laughs at his own joke.
I screw on the last earring and give the hair a last pat. “I’m needed downstairs. Can you manage by yourself?”
Frank walks out of the bathroom to rummage in his wardrobe. “Fine, fine.” His head pokes around the corner of the door. “Need help with your zipper or anything?”
My shoes sit next to the door, aquamarine satin to match my dress and jewelry, two-inch heels. I slip my feet into one and the other. The added height goes straight to my head.
“No,” I say. “I don’t need any help.”
On my way downstairs, I stop to check on Pepper.
“Come in,” she says in reply to my knock, and I push open the door to find her belting her robe over her body. I have the impression, based on nothing but instinct, that she’s been standing naked in front of the mirror in the corner. It’s something Pepper would do, admiring her figure, which (like that of our youngest sister Vivian) belongs to a different species of figures from mine: tall, curved like a violin, colored by the same honey varnish. It’s the kind of figure that inspires men to maddened adoration, especially when she drapes those violin curves as she usually does, in short tangerine dresses and heeled slippers.
All at once, I feel flat and pale and straight-hipped in my aquamarine satin, too small, insignificant. A prissed-up girl, instead of a woman: a rigid frigid little lady. What’s happened to me? My God.
“Aren’t you dressed yet?” I ask.
“I’ve just come in from the beach. So hard to leave. I haven’t lain out on a beach in ages.”
“All work and no play?”
“Oh, you know me.” She laughs. “It’s killing me, this crazy Washington life. It’s so lovely to be idle again. I know you’re used to it, but …” She turns away in the middle of an eloquent shrug and looks out the window.
“Not that idle.”
“A lady of leisure, just like Mums. I can’t tell you how jealous I am.” She stretches her arms above her head, right there before the window, not jealous at all. Nor in any hurry to dress herself for the party, apparently.
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.”
Caspian, 1964 (#ulink_a3adf114-6c88-5374-99d8-8f69aa8e7d72)
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.”
“Bacon, four eggs over easy, lots of toast.”
“Hungry?” She was already dashing off.
“You could—” Em was gone. “—say that.” Across the crowd, someone dropped a cup loudly into its saucer, making him jolt. He converted the movement into a stretch—nothing to see here, folks, no soldier making an idiot of himself—and plucked the paperback from his camera bag, but before he could settle himself on the page the goddamned bells jangled again, clawing on his nerves like a black cat, and he jerked toward the door.
His chest expanded and deflated.
Well, well. Jane Doe. Of all the girls.
She took off her sunglasses to reveal an expression of utter, utter dismay. (With another girl he might simply have said total dismay.) Her shiny dark hair bobbed about her ears as she looked one way and the other, searching for a booth around which to enact her invisible force field. She wore a berry-red dress, sleeveless, a white cardigan pulled around her shoulders. Her face glowed with recent exercise, making him think instantly of sex (vigorous, sweaty morning sex on white sheets, while the early sunlight poured through the window, and a long hot shower afterward that might just end up in more sex, if luck were a lady, and if the lady could still walk).
Em passed by. Miss Doe tapped her on the elbow and asked her a question; Em replied with a helpless shrug and moved on.
Miss Doe’s elegant eyebrows converged to a cranky point. She had expected better than this. To her left, a sandy-haired boy about four years old started up a tantrum, a real grand mal, no holds barred, a thrashing, howling fit-to-be-tied fit over a glass of spilled milk. In the same instant, the door opened behind her, and a large man barged through, smack between Miss Doe’s white cardiganed shoulder blades. She staggered forward, clutching her pocketbook, while the man maneuvered around her and called for Em in a loud Boston twang.
At which point, Cap raised his hand into the crowded air.
Not a wave. Not a beckoning of the fingers. Just a single hand, lifted up above the sea of heads, the way he might signal noiselessly to another soldier in the jungle. I’m here, buddy. At your back. Never fear.
Miss Doe wasn’t a soldier. She saw his hand and ducked her head swiftly, pretending she hadn’t noticed. But an instant later, her eyes returned to his corner. He lowered the hand and shrugged, pretending he didn’t care.
But his heart was bouncing off his rib cage, and it wasn’t just the crash of the coffee cup and the jingle of bells. Miss Doe was slender and gently curved, almost boyish, not his preferred figure at all, and still he couldn’t remove his mind from the belly of that berry-red dress, the tiny pleats at her tiny waist, the rise of her breasts below the straight edge of her collar. The pink curve of her lips, slightly parted. The suggestive flush of her cheeks. Flushed with what? Did she spend the night with her fiancé? Did she shed her immaculate clothes for him, her immaculate hair and lipstick? Did she let down her force field and allow him inside?
What was she like, inside her force field?
She lifted an uncertain eyebrow. He held up his hands before his chest, palms out, and sent her his best crooked smile, the one that never failed. No threat here. Just helping a girl out, the goodness of his heart.
Miss Doe hoisted her pocketbook up her shoulder, the same gesture as before, and walked poker-faced toward his booth. He liked the way she moved, sinuous and gymnastic in her matching berry-red kitten heels, not the usual mincing gait you saw around town. Girls with no stride at all, no swing, no natural grace.
You could always see the real girl in her walk, couldn’t you? The one thing she couldn’t make over.
She arrived at the booth, smelling of Chanel.
“Caspian,” he said, without standing up.
She slid in across from him, holding her dress beneath her. She settled her pocketbook on the seat, well away from his grasp, and folded her hands on the edge of the table. Her engagement ring glittered just so in the yellow light from the hanging lamp. Mother of God. Three carats at least. Almost as big as his grandmother’s rock.
“Tiny,” she said.
“Tiny?” he said. “Is that a nickname?”
She fixed him a steely one. “Yes, it is.”
She studied the menu carefully, considered each item, and raised her head at last to order her usual coffee and an apricot Danish. Em hid a smile and scooted obediently off, tucking her pencil between her ear and her graying brown hair. She scooted right on past the boy with the tantrum and his harried mother, who cajoled and scolded in alternating beats.
“Please go ahead,” Tiny said, gesturing to Cap’s plate. “Don’t let it go cold on my account.”
“I won’t.” He picked up his fork with one hand and his paperback with the other, and commenced—against every instinct, ground in him since childhood—to shovel and read, having rolled the cover carefully around the back so she couldn’t see the title.
