The Three Weissmanns of Westport

12

In the following weeks, it was as if the spirit of the three women had faded with the leaves. It rained day after day, and with the bad weather, the cottage began to feel as small and damp and rundown as it was. Miranda forced herself to make useless phone calls and write useless letters to people in the world of publishing who would have preferred to forget she ever existed. Annie slid into an ennui of routine, terrified that the order of this methodical, meaningless existence would turn out to be her future as far as the eye could see. Betty tried to cheer them up by claiming they were all suffering from cabin fever, a term redolent of the pioneering West, yet even she had to admit the days were long and tempers were short in the Weissmann household. She ordered an infomercial triangular sponge on a stick called the "Point 'n Paint" and began to slather her bedroom walls a modish but vaguely funereal gray.

It was at this time, when the weather was dismal and the sky dingy and mean, that Cousin Lou and Rosalyn made their yearly migration to Palm Springs, bringing a peevish Mr. Shpuntov along with them. Betty and her daughters stood in the light rain beneath their umbrellas as the Cousin Lous, as everyone called that family, followed a large number of suitcases into the Escalade and decamped for the dry, sunny heat of California, where Lou and Rosalyn had a house on a golf course.

"The desert beckons," Rosalyn said from the car as her cousins stood in the driveway beneath their umbrellas. She threw the three women a magnanimous kiss. "We must follow the sun!"

"That's French for 'So long, suckers!'" cried Cousin Lou.

Mr. Shpuntov, his voice harsh and unnaturally high, said, "What's going on? What's going on here?" He was in the front seat beside the ancient driver, a retired police officer, who would bring the car back and lock it up in the garage. The retired police officer's hand trembled as he adjusted the rearview mirror. Annie wondered if it wouldn't be safer to let Mr. Shpuntov drive.

"You'll have to visit," Lou was saying.

"Of course, our house there is much smaller," Rosalyn quickly added.

"Always room for family," Lou said, and the car backed down the long driveway.

The Cousin Lous planned to be gone until April. To her surprise, Annie found that she missed them. The dinners at their house had often been tedious, it was true. And after a long day at work and a bumpy commute home, making small talk was the last thing she wanted to do. She looked forward to getting into her pajamas and watching American Idol or Project Runway or the show about the family with dwarfism. Annie had never been a social person, and over the years she had gotten used to filling up the blanks of her evenings. But surprisingly quickly she had also gotten used to Lou and Rosalyn's dinners. Now her cousins were gone, and the nights in the cottage were long and disagreeable. She stayed in town to have dinner with friends once a week or so, but she didn't like to leave Betty and Miranda too much. Her mother and her sister both seemed so fragile, so bare, stripped of everything that had given them joy, like two gray brittle branches rattled by the wintry beach winds.

In New York, Joseph walked from his apartment to the office in the morning, from the office to the apartment in the evening, every day just as he had always done, except now, Felicity walked beside him. She was such a vigorous woman, breathing in the cold air with such determination, exhaling like a thoroughbred about to thunder down the track. Just standing next to her on the elevator thrilled Joseph. His routine was no longer routine. The elevator man who had gathered him up from his apartment for decades now gathered him up with this sturdy little blonde by his side. Good morning, Mr. Weissmann, the elevator man said, as he always had. But it was all different now. All new. Good morning, Miss Barrow, the elevator man added.

Felicity had formally moved into the Central Park West apartment a few weeks before Betty's call. On her first proprietary tour, she saw that the sofa from the study and the chairs and coffee table from the living room were gone and said, "I hope all that furniture won't be a burden for poor Betty, out there in her cozy little hideout." She walked through the rooms noting empty spaces and lighter patches on the walls that told of former household treasures now relocated to Connecticut. "So much stuff," she said. "Material things... people get so attached..." She wandered into the kitchen, opening and closing drawers. "Still, I don't think taking the silver was a good idea. There's absolutely no security in those little beach places."

They had come straight from the office, and it was six o'clock. She pulled out the bottle of Scotch and thought, I am giving Joseph his drink in our apartment. She filled a glass with ice. "Lucky Betty, living in a resort," she said as she handed Joseph his drink. She rubbed his tense, tired shoulders. "A permanent vacation. Not like us wage slaves!" Then she laughed and settled in next to Joseph on the living room sofa, which Betty had, remarkably, left behind. That beach cottage must be the size of Versailles, she thought, judging from how few things remained in the apartment.

"Here we are," Joseph said. He put his arm around her. Here we are, he thought uncomfortably. Here we are.

"Home at last," said Felicity. She turned her round blue eyes to his.

Unblinking, Joseph thought. He kissed her head. She was a tough little nut. "Here we are," he said again, more cheerfully.

"She started out being pretty reasonable," he told Felicity the night Betty called. Why had Felicity answered the phone? he wondered. It made everything so much more complicated.

They sat at the dining room table eating Chinese takeout with plastic forks. Felicity, still a little shook up after hearing Betty's voice, eyed the bare wood floor (hadn't there been a gorgeous Oriental here?) with grim neutrality.

"Of course, now that she's found out about us, all bets are off," he said.

"Betty ought to be happy that you're happy," Felicity said. "After all, you're happy that she's settled in such a snug little cottage with her loving daughters by her side. She owes you that much, after all these years. It's true she's become difficult, but she can't be completely unfeeling."

Joseph poured himself another drink and breathed in the perfume of the Scotch, so familiar, yet so full of promise. He remembered the glass Betty had thrown at him, the golden liquid pooled on the floor, the heady alcohol vapors floating up through the angry silence. Betty could indeed be difficult. He patted Felicity's hand.

"We'll get some new silver," he said.

"Oh no, that sort of thing is not important to me at all. Though why she needed the silver and the Dansk stainless, I have no idea."

"Wedding present from her parents, I think."

Felicity, on consideration of this information and where it might lead the surprisingly nostalgic Joseph, consoled herself with the knowledge that although she could not erase the fact of his wedding to Betty and the existence of those in-laws, the in-laws were by now dead and, regarding the nature of their gift, Joseph was, at least, not sure.

"Here," she said, and she shoveled more sesame noodles on his plate. "You finish these up, darling."

Betty, meanwhile, spoke to the divorce attorney frequently — daily, really — and though she told Miranda and Annie very little of what transpired, her phone conversations were so long and so loud, conducted in Betty's fluty voice of determination, that they were able to piece together a few things. Because Betty would not agree to Josie's terms, Josie would not go ahead with the divorce, leaving Betty in a kind of limbo, legally and financially. She, therefore, had to sue for divorce herself on the grounds of abandonment. This she seemed, surprisingly, to relish. She quit her painting, sparing two of her bedroom walls the sad gray color. Daytime soap operas and talk shows still blared from the TV, but Betty no longer sat on the couch to watch. She established herself formally at her desk each morning and pored over the most recent papers her lawyer had FedExed. She provided herself with a large collection of exquisitely designed folders and file boxes. She referred lovingly to her Case with nearly Dickensian reverence. Because of the Case, she explained, she could no longer do the cooking or the marketing, she was much too busy. In fact, she seemed to have little time left even for eating, living on saltines smeared with almond butter.

"I feel like I'm buried alive," Miranda said one morning.

"Better than being buried dead," said Betty, looking up from her papers. She smiled encouragingly, hoping to cheer Miranda up. Miranda occasionally executed a round of unanswered phone calls, she read the odd manuscript that some memoirist in the boondocks who had not heard of her disgrace still sent in. But she was fading, detaching, disappearing in front of their eyes. All for that young actor? Betty wondered, then answered her own question. No, not for him. For a dream, a dream most women her age had already dreamed and either lived or forgotten. Why had it taken Miranda so long? she wondered.

Then she noticed that both her daughters were staring at her.

"What?"

"Buried alive better than being buried dead?" Annie said. "Hardly, Mother."

"Oh, wait until you're my age."

"God, I hope we're not still in this dump when I'm that old," Miranda said.

"Amen."

Betty looked stricken.

"Not that you're old," Miranda quickly added.

Betty was old and she knew it. That was not the issue. She put both hands down on her pile of legal documents. "Are you so unhappy here, girls?" she said. Her voice was earnest now. "I feel terrible. I thought the change would be so good for you. I'm so sorry, my darlings. I know you came out here for me, and I'm so grateful, but look what it's come to. Oh dear. I've completely disrupted your lives, and for what? I'm afraid I've been very selfish. But I honestly thought..."

"No, Mom, it's great, it's fine," Annie interrupted. "It's so beautiful here, it's almost like a vacation for us." She made a face at Miranda — Come on, agree, make Mommy feel better, hurry up...

But Miranda was sulking, staring at the floor. "Well, I'm glad someone is enjoying themselves," she said. She rose from the table, gave Annie a sour look, grabbed her coat from the closet, and headed toward the door.

Annie examined her hands. They were clasped tightly. She wanted to use them to murder her sister.

"I'll go with you," she called. Her voice took on a tone she recognized from child-rearing days: rage altered by the alchemy of necessity into enthusiasm. Perhaps outside in the air she would somehow be able to speak to Miranda, really talk to her. "A walk!" she said, in consequence. "What fun!"

"A picnic," Betty muttered darkly. "Everything a picnic." And she turned back to her documents.

They walked to the end of the little street, and there before them stretched Compo Beach. The sand was brown and coarse, the sky blowing layers of dark clouds above the rough gray water. There were a dozen or so people out, couples mostly, with their dogs.

"Miranda, talk to me."

"I'm going crazy here, that's all. Crazy, crazy, crazy."

Three grown women, three independent, bossy women in a tiny ill-equipped house? Three unhappy women... Annie was about to expound on this, to say how natural it was to go stark, raving mad, how temporary this situation was, please God, when the sun suddenly appeared through a crack in the slate sky.

"My God," Annie said, stunned by the beauty.

"My God!" Miranda echoed her. But she was not gazing at the illuminated gash in the clouds. She was staring at an approaching figure outlined by the sudden glare. The figure was waving.

"Oh, Annie," she cried. "It's him! It's Kit! He's back."

"No, I don't think..." But Miranda was already running toward the man.

"Miss!" he called, his voice muted by the wind and the slap of the waves. "You dropped your scarf!"

Miranda stopped, all the energy drained from her form: it wasn't Kit, after all.

Then, abruptly, she squealed with joy. "Nicky!" she cried. "It's Nicky!"

But Annie, recognition of that unexpected voice coming upon her headlong, was already running to throw her arms around her younger son.

"If it was anyone else," Miranda was saying, "but it's not, it's you, oh little Nicky, you're gigantic..." And she was hugging him, too, all three of them jammed together as the wind whipped the sand around them.

Annie was so happy she felt ill. Her son had been away for more than six months, and now he had come home to surprise her for Thanksgiving.

"Of course, there's the, um, plane fare," he said later when they were sitting on the couch together. "I kind of put it on the credit card..."

"Don't you worry," Annie said. He could have put all of South Africa on her credit card at that moment and she would have paid the bill somehow. How? she thought for an instant, but such a fleeting instant, for then she rested her head against his shoulder and forgot credit card bills and money and everything but the familiar smell of his skin.

"I'm sorry you had to bounce from the apartment, Grandma."

"Bounce," Betty said. "I like that. I bounced." She smiled.

Nick looked around him at the little living room. "It's very..." He paused. "It's very cozy here, that's for sure."

The mood of the cottage had changed completely with Nick's arrival. The Costco fire cast a yellow glow on the small room. The tea Betty had poured was fragrant and hot. Nick's voice was young and loud as he laughed and told his traveler's tales and made them laugh with him.

"You knew he was coming," Annie said suddenly to her mother. "You did, didn't you?"

"She did," Nick said. "She planned the whole thing."

"How could you keep it a secret, Mom?"

"I have many secrets," Betty said. And Annie realized that she did, that her mother to whom she condescended, at whom she rolled her eyes, her mother whom she adored and admired even as she felt the superiority of a younger generation toward her, this woman whom she thought she knew so well had secrets, had an inner life Annie knew nothing about.

Within its corny hearth, the gas fire from Costco flickered; the teacups clattered musically on their saucers. Outside, a crow cawed from somewhere in the silver sky. Miranda observed her nephew, the large male movements, the deep voice, his cough, loud and rough. He stretched his legs out, and she had to climb over them to get past him.

"I remember you when you were a little boy," she said, so softly he almost didn't hear her. She stroked his hair thoughtfully. "Just a little, little boy." There were tears in her eyes.

"What's up with Aunt Miranda?" Nick asked Annie later. "She seems a little emotionable."

Annie laughed at the word, then said, "She's missed you, that's all," and Nick, in the blissful narcissism of youth, nodded his understanding.

Thanksgiving was a frenetic and happy event in the little household. Charlie came in from Chicago, and Annie was so flooded with feeling that she recognized for the first time the drought she had been living through. It was difficult for her to resist pulling her sons onto her lap. They were affectionate boys, always had been, but they were now so old, she reminded herself. She waited, as if they were yearlings in the forest, for them to come to her.

Betty went all-out for their Thanksgiving dinner. "I haven't cooked turkey in so long, it seems," she kept saying. "I wonder why."

"You wonder why it seems that way, or you wonder why you haven't cooked one in so long?" Annie asked.

"Oh, Annie," said Betty and Miranda.

"Oh, Mom," said the boys.

"I don't know how you did it with this stove," Annie said to redeem herself.

"I got the recipes from Martha. On her show. I liked some of the recipes from Lydia better, and that girl with the awful voice had a few that seemed interesting. But I wanted to be loyal."

"To Martha?"

"She's been through so much. And she used to live in Westport."

"So did the star of Behind the Green Door. Maybe we should rent it on DVD."

"One of my favorites, dear," Betty said.

The others stared.

"Katharine Hepburn," Betty continued. "'The calla lilies... Such a strange flowuh'... She grew up in Westport?"

No one corrected her. She was so happy cooking her dinner, serving it on her good plates, clearing the table with the boys.

"Now for our traditional Thanksgiving family walk," she announced after Annie and Miranda had done the dishes, and though they had never in anyone's memory ever taken a walk on Thanksgiving before, they got their coats and scarves and gloves and followed her out to the beach.

Charlie and Annie walked hand in hand, a little behind the others.

"Grandpa Josie called me," he blurted out, darting a questioning look at her.

Annie said only, "Did he?" in as neutral a tone as she could muster, but she was furious. How dare Josie go behind her back?

"He just wanted to stay in touch. You know, with the divorce. He said he didn't want to lose us, me and Nick. I didn't mention it in front of Grandma. Because, well, obviously I didn't. He called Nick, too. Is that okay, Mom? I mean, it seemed to be really important to him. He said how much he missed us and... everyone. He sent me a check for my birthday, too, which I actually thought was really nice."

Annie looked out at the dark water and the north shore of Long Island, a darker strip just visible below the gray horizon. The air was cold and clean. No! she wanted to cry out. It was not really nice for Josie to call you and make you feel sorry for him and give you money and buy more sympathy when Betty has no money at all. Your sympathies and loyalty lie elsewhere, Charlie, she wanted to say, shaking him by the shoulders.

"I used the money for my ticket home. To see you and Grandma," he added.

"That seems only fair," she said at last. Protect your child, Annie. Protect him from vanity and greed, from reality — the reality of his grandfather. Nevertheless, she blurted out, "He's a bastard."

"I know," Charlie said softly. "I know, Mom."

"I'm glad he feels responsible to someone," Annie said. "Do I sound bitter? I am. But it's hard to be bitter about someone you love. So you don't have to be bitter. That will be my job."

"Mixed message, Mom."

"You bet."

"What about you?" he asked after a while. "Are you doing okay? Living here and everything?"

He had stopped and taken both her hands, and now gazed at her earnestly. She thought how handsome he was, how kind his expression was, how lucky she was. "Well," she said, in a rush of gratitude — someone to confide in! — "it's pretty hard sometimes..." But even as she spoke she noticed that though Charlie had asked because he was concerned, he expected her, as his mother, to make that concern go away, the way she had soothed him after a nightmare. "But we're doing great," she quickly said.

He looked relieved.

"We haven't all been together since Miranda and I were children." Then she remembered that in those days there had been another person present. Perhaps she could expunge Josie from her memories the way her grandmother had scratched out all the dates scrawled by a younger incarnation of herself on the corners of her snapshots. "And I really do like the commute. Gives me a moment of repose."

His face cleared of any worry now, Charlie began to give her an animated description of his latest run-in with one of his professors, a tyrant, a bully, an incompetent, and an hysteric. Annie listened to the soft breeze of his complaints and felt refreshed. Her children were home. They slept for five nights on AeroBeds in the living room. She could hear them whispering to each other at night, laughing their deep laughs. Their beard hairs clogged up the sink downstairs. They had more lotions and creams for their skin than she had. They left the foil packaging of their contact lenses, each one with a tiny pool of liquid in it, on the side of the sink. Their clean clothes lay twisted on the floor with their dirty clothes. Annie wanted to lie down among their stuff and roll like a dog in carrion.

And then, one morning, with a short but ruthless storm of searching and washing and folding and tripping over cavernous bags, they were gone.

That night as the three women sat in the flickering light of the fake fire, Miranda said, "Nobody here but us chickens," and threw her head back dramatically.

Annie made a halfhearted chicken noise.

"Let's sing," Betty said. "That will cheer us up."

Annie laughed. "You haven't tried that one in a while, Mom."