SEVEN

I am going to say this straight out: I don’t think it’s proper to be digging around in matters that don’t concern you and that you can’t understand because you are, forgive my bluntness, Yankees. I don’t know what the university was thinking, inviting you all to come pry in our business, and I have written them a letter saying just that. The past is past. Leave it be.

Your name: none of your business.

I have a story you might want to hear about the summer of 1973, when my second cousin Anita Bryant came to visit. It has got nothing to do with Miss Zula but it’s a good story anyway.

Your name: Howard Stillwater. I own Stillwater Used Cars, and can be found there six days a week from seven in the morning ’til six at night. When you get ready to replace that pitiful excuse for a vehicle you drove down here, come and see me, I’ll do you up right.

It made perfect sense, John Grant told himself, that his brother would take it upon himself to force this reunion. Suddenly the wound on his upper thigh, mostly healed, began to itch. He pulled the towel from around his neck and laid it over his lap while he watched Rob cross Lee Street with Angie beside him, and he tried to think what he could possibly say to her, given the mood she was in.

It was not something he could forget in five years or fifty, the way Angie Mangiamele’s face gave away her temper. The only comfort, and it was a small one, was that she wasn’t wearing the old Nirvana T-shirt she had had on this morning when he saw her by the river. She had changed into a different, equally familiar shirt, two sizes too big, an old Hawaiian print with a tear in the pocket. The T-shirt, he imagined, she had left hanging on the post of her bed.

John closed his eyes and leaned forward, forearms propped on his knees, hands hanging.

“A little early for a nap, isn’t it?”

“Rob, I think I hear your wife calling you.”

When he opened his eyes she was there, five feet away. Her hair had grown out again, a coiling mass that reached halfway down her back, dark brown with hints of red in the light. There were some new things—a scar at the corner of her mouth, another piercing in her right ear—but mostly she was still Angie, unforgettable. She was looking at Rob, who had a hand on her shoulder.

“I know when I’m not wanted. We’ll be waiting on the back porch.”

She gave him a tight nod and a tighter smile, and then he was gone, but not before he threw John a particular look, the one that said he had doubts about his big brother’s ability to handle the situation.

There was a moment’s silence filled in by the sound of a lawnmower’s ineffective sputter and, more insistent, birdsong. John was thinking that Rob was right, he had no chance in the world of handling this situation, when Angie spoke.

“Is that a mockingbird?” She was looking up into the oak tree.

John shifted a little. “A thrush, I think.”

“A thrush. I’ve been meaning to go to the library to find a tape on birdsong. So I know what I’m hearing. And a book on flowers.” She was looking at the garden, no doubt because she didn’t want to look at him. The shadows moved over her face and neck and touched her shirt and the strong hands and the faded jeans. He was glad she stood so far away, and frustrated by it, too, which was ridiculous, which was insupportable.

He said, “Did you stop by just to say hello?”

And saw that he had made the first mistake, as he knew he must, and he always did, with this woman. The color climbed in her face.

“Am I intruding?”

“No,” he said, quietly. “No, you’re not. I’m glad to see you.”

She produced a small, dry laugh. “I just wanted to ask you a couple questions.”

John studied his hands where they gripped his knees, white knuckled. He stood up. “Best we go inside, then.”

She took a step backward. “Afraid I’m going to embarrass you?”

He sat down again. “Can we call a truce before we get started?”

“I didn’t know we were at war.”

John forced himself to take a few deep breaths. “Of course not. Go ahead with your questions.”

She said, “Does Miss Zula know that you and I used to date?”

He had expected something very different, and at first could hardly make sense of the question.

“Date?”

“Date, yes. You do remember.”

“Of course I remember. I’m just not sure I’d use that word. I don’t know how she would know. I never mentioned it to her. Why?”

Angie’s mouth pursed itself. “And Caroline Rose? Have you mentioned it to her?”

John held on to her gaze, though it cost him a great deal. “I haven’t raised the subject yet.”

“Why not?”

John heard the screen door open behind him. Angie’s face told him that it wasn’t Rob standing there.

“Let me introduce you to my sister-in-law,” John said. “I may have been slow to bring Caroline up to date, but there’s no keeping secrets from Kai.”

 

The house was just exactly what Angie expected. Solid old furniture, simple, elegant, comfortable. Not a pile of paper in sight, or a book out of place. A few small watercolors, an antique map in a gilded frame, a sampler: Jane Ogilvie 1825. No photos, not of his parents or grandparents or anyone else. Nor would she find them anywhere else in the house.

When she took him home to Hoboken the first time, John had spent a lot of time going over what Tommy Apples liked to call the family shrine, a whole wall full of photographs, some more than a hundred years old. John had been sincerely interested in Angie’s family, but could not be bothered with the artifacts of his own.

This comfortable, well-used, strictly kept house was much like an expensive hotel room. It was one of the things that she had only begun to understand about John, this way he went about constructing a world for himself free of conflict and unpleasant memories, and it was immediately familiar.

On the other hand, Rob’s wife took her by surprise. Kai Watanabe looked like a teenage boy’s geisha fantasy, but presented herself like the theoretical mathematician she was. Small and slender with a long veil of shining black hair, she came at Angie so directly and with so much undisguised curiosity that only two choices presented themselves: to be affronted or charmed. The fact that Kai’s smile was as honest and unassuming as her gaze made the choice easier.

On the screened rear porch, Angie stood at the old oak table that had been set for a late breakfast and tried to sound regretful.

“I’ve eaten, but thank you.”

“Sit,” said John, and pointed at a chair.

“How rude,” said Rob.

“Me?” said John and Angie together.

“Both of you,” said Rob. “Have coffee at least, Angie. Kai will think you don’t like her.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Kai, holding out a coffee cup. “He is teasing. You will like me and I will like you and now that’s settled.”

Her English was excellent, save for a distinct and unusual rhythm. To Angie’s ear it sounded as though Kai had learned British English that was now giving way to her husband’s slow Georgia drawl.

She sat down, and then John sat down across from her with his back to the wall.

 

The immediate problem, as far as John was concerned, was not the fact that Angie Mangiamele was sitting at his breakfast table with a barely disguised scowl on her face. As odd as it was to have her here, and as disturbing as this discussion promised to be, there was a bigger issue, and that was the fact that Caroline and all of her sisters would be here in an hour for one of their planning meetings. What he didn’t want, what he couldn’t afford, was to add the subject of Angie to flower arrangements and discussions about color schemes.

“Isn’t this cozy,” said Rob, looking around the table with true and undisguised pleasure. He put a sticky bun the size of a wagon wheel on his plate. “How is your filming coming along, Angie?”

Angie sat very straight with both hands wrapped around her coffee cup. She was pale, and there were shadows under her deep-set eyes. John counted the tines on his fork.

“We aren’t actually shooting yet,” Angie said. “There’s a lot of prep work to do. As far as Miss Zula is concerned, there are a few mysteries to solve.”

“Mysteries?” Kai’s small, neat head turned, and the veil of her hair swung with it.

“Yes. The biggest mystery is why Miss Zula seems set on throwing Caroline Rose and me together. Any idea why that might be, John?”

Kai put her hands flat on the table to either side of her plate. “I like her,” she said to Rob. “She asks good questions. Do you play poker, Angie?”

“Don’t answer that, Angie. My wife is a card-counting shark.”

“I could teach you to throw craps,” Angie said to Kai, and in spite of the seriousness of the situation and his growing uneasiness, John had to smile at the idea of these two women at a craps table.

She said, “And about questions, the thing is, I keep asking them until I get answers. John?”

A small V-shape crease had appeared between Angie’s brows. It was true that she wouldn’t stop asking; her persistence was one of the things that made her good at her work.

“Maybe you should ask Miss Zula directly,” John said. “I can’t read the woman’s mind.”

“I can,” said Rob.

John sent his brother an irritated look, but Rob was unconcerned.

“Well, then,” said Angie. “Enlighten me.”

“It’s simple. Miss Zula’s main joy in life is throwing people who interest her together, just to see what happens. A year down the line there’ll be a new short story in The New Yorker or Harper’s, unless you and Caroline disappoint her by getting along.”

“I like Caroline just fine,” said Angie. “You’re saying that while we’re filming Miss Zula, she’ll be taking notes on us?”

Rob said, “That’s not it, exactly. She does get most of her stories from watching people, but she’s not likely to make it obvious enough to identify you.”

“Unless you’re Button Ogilvie,” said Kai.

“Zula hasn’t buttoned anybody for years,” said John. “You’d really have to be on her bad side to get that kind of attention.”

“I’ll bite,” said Angie. “Who is Button Ogilvie, and what did she do of such great significance that she’s been transformed into a verb by Zula Bragg?”

“It’s an old family feud,” said Rob. “Button Ogilvie is big on revisionist history, and Miss Zula finally struck back by writing Button into a novel—”

“Miss Callie,” said Angie, and a look of understanding came over her face, her eyes bright as she put things together and then filed them away for further reference. “Miss Callie is Button Ogilvie? Oh, it must have been fun, when Sweet-Bitter came out. Who else has been buttoned? I’m interested.”

“Nobody still living,” said John. “These days you won’t really recognize any of her characters as real people.”

Kai gave a high, hooting laugh. “I recognized John,” she said. “She called him Harvey Carson and he ran a family shoe factory in Mississippi.”

Very calmly John said, “Harvey Carson was not based on me.”

Angie sat up straighter, looking disturbingly pleased with the turn in the conversation, and with Kai. “Dollar Short, right? Came out two years ago? Of course you’re Harvey Carson,” she said to John. “First son of the local gentry sets up the ideal life for himself and discovers perfection is overrated. Or maybe you haven’t got to that last part yet?” She took a swallow of coffee and looked at him over the rim of the cup.

John met her gaze and felt the shock of it before he looked away again, this time at Kai. “I am not Harvey Carson. Harvey Carson falls in love with his sister’s husband. Are you saying I’m gay and don’t know it?”

Kai lifted a shoulder. “Angie would be a better person to ask, I think.”

“No,” Angie said calmly. “He’s not gay. But he might be in love with his brother’s wife.”

John felt himself flushing. “Hell no. Sorry, Kai, but no.”

Kai smiled. “I am not offended. Are you offended, Rob? Your brother isn’t in love with me.”

Rob winked at Angie. “I always had better taste. And anyway, that’s the story where the sister is too weak to stand up for her husband when he needs her most. Obviously not me and Kai. So you’re free and clear, John, you can’t be Harvey.”

“Great. Now can we change the subject?” John asked.

Kai said, “I have a question,” and the knot in John’s gut pulled tighter. But then there was no harm in Kai and a great deal of kindness, and he liked her for her own sake as much as for Rob’s.

He said, “You always do, darlin’. What is it?”

“I would like to know why your relationship with Angie failed.”

He heard himself draw in a sharp breath. Angie blinked in surprise.

“And here I was just thinking what a good sister-in-law you’ve been to me. Sorry, but I can’t answer that question.”

Kai’s gaze shifted to Angie and he added: “And neither can Angeline.”

“I can’t?” said Angie.

“You choose not to.”

“I do?”

“Here we go,” said Rob, reaching for more coffee.

Angie put down her cup and crossed her arms so that her hands rested on her shoulders, and she gave him a long, considering look. “I’d like to hear what you have to say about this, Harvey.”

“Oh, good,” said Kai cheerfully. “I also.”

“Me, too,” said Rob.

“You see?” said Kai. “We all want to hear.”

“Rob was correcting your English,” said John. “‘Me too’ instead of ‘I also.’ He was giving you the more colloquial usage.”

“No I wasn’t,” Rob said. “I do want to hear.”

John took a breath, looked from Kai’s intense expression to Rob’s amused one, weighed the possibility of further evasion, and gave in. “Our relationship ended because Angie felt our goals and priorities were too different.”

“Now see,” Angie said, “I’d say it had more to do with the fact that I dyed my hair blue to go meet your grandfather Grant.”

John studied the crumbs on his plate before he let himself look up. “The color of your hair was—is—irrelevant. That was just your way of forcing a confrontation.”

To Kai, Angie said, “I just didn’t fit in. His grandfather Grant hated me.”

“But I didn’t.” John said it clearly and saw Angie jerk, ever so slightly. Which gave him more satisfaction than he deserved, or could explain to himself.

Rob said, “In all fairness, Angie, the old man hated just about everybody, our mother included.”

“How is Lucy?” Angie asked John. She had met John’s mother only once, but it had been memorable.

“Fine. She’s fine.” He shot Rob a sharp look, but Kai missed the significance of that. She said, “She is remarried. Again.”

“Really?” Angie said. “How many times is that?”

“Four,” said John.

“Five, counting our father,” added Rob. “If you want to know my theory—”

“Please don’t,” said John.

“—it all started as a way to irritate Grandfather Grant after Daddy flew his plane into the sea, but then Lucy got into the serial marriage habit and she hasn’t been able to break it.”

“I think your grandfather would not have liked Lucy no matter what,” said Kai thoughtfully. To Angie she said, “He took Rob out of his will when we got married.”

“And then he died,” said Rob. “That’ll teach him.”

“I didn’t know about your grandfather,” Angie said. Her mouth worked as if she were tasting something unpleasant. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Don’t be,” Rob said. “We aren’t. Or I’m not. I can’t speak for John—who got the building on Morningside and the house on Long Island, by the way.”

“I sold the Long Island house,” John said.

Angie was looking at John, but for the moment he couldn’t meet her eye. He was too busy fighting back a swell of irritation with Rob and himself, too, for this irresistible urge to provide Angie with information that she clearly did not want.

Her attention was fixed on him, her eyes so dark and so brilliant that it looked, just for that moment, as if she were about to cry. Which was his imagination, because he had never known a woman less inclined to tears, unless it was Kai. Or his own mother.

Very slowly she said, “Jay, you still won’t admit you were angry about my hair.”

“Jay?” Kai looked between them. “I have never heard you called this before.”

“And you never will,” John said. “Angie’s always renaming people—” He paused before the rest of the thought forced its way into words: Angie renamed only the people she cared about. He cleared his throat. “She calls her father Apples and her mother Peaches. She calls her close friends winkie when she’s feeling good about them and mope when she’s not. How is your mother, Angie?”

“Fine,” Angie said, and Kai said, “Winkie?”

To Angie, John said, “I admit your timing was bad, Angie. But that’s all I’ll admit.”

“Harvey, give it up. You were angry and, oddly enough, you’re still angry.”

“This is all ancient history. And if I have any say in the matter, if I’ve got to have a nickname, I’d like to stick with Jay.”

Kai said, “John does not like to show anger, it is true. In this, he and Caroline are well matched.”

It was rare that Kai pushed him so hard that John was in danger of losing his composure, but now it took everything in him to control his tone. He said, “I don’t want to talk about Caroline.”

Angie’s gaze hadn’t left his face. “But that’s where all this started. I wanted to know if Caroline has been told about our ancient history. Which she hasn’t.”

“She doesn’t know?” Rob sat up straight.

Kai, oblivious as she could be at times, smiled. “Do you think she will be angry at you? Is that why you haven’t told her?”

John said, “Now I’m a obsessive closeted homosexual afraid of anger, confrontation, and women.”

“Named Harvey,” said Kai cheerfully.

The doorbell rang, but John couldn’t bring himself to look away from Angie, who had come back into his life to wreak havoc, and was making excellent progress. He let Rob leave the table to answer the doorbell while he held Angie’s gaze, because it would have been cowardly to look away, and because there was something in her voice he didn’t understand, quite, or even want to understand.

Angie pressed the fingers of both hands to her mouth and then drew them down to her chin. “I think we’ve established that you’re not gay.”

“As you have cause to know,” he said, quietly.

She said, just as quietly, “But the rest of it fits. As I have cause to know.”

Kai said, “So those are the reasons your relationship failed?”

“No,” said Angie, her voice wavering. She managed a smile. “Those aren’t the reasons. Excuse me, would you, Kai? It’s been good to meet you, but we seem to be going in circles here, and I have work to do.”

Angie was so intent on making it to the front door before John caught up with her—she heard him push his chair back when she was halfway through the kitchen—that she turned into the hall without looking and bumped into Rob, who stepped sideways and collided, full force, with Patty-Cake Walker, whose arms were full of huge wallpaper sample books that cascaded across the floor, flapping like a flock of mute and uncoordinated geese.

Then John ran into Angie, and she lost her tenuous balance and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her by the elbow. She heard herself gasp, and she heard him draw in breath, and then she was free again—absolutely free again, unattached, alone—and standing, breathing heavily, between Patty-Cake Walker and John Grant. Rob was on the floor, gathering the wallpaper books into a pile.

Angie knew her face was red with embarrassment, but John looked far worse, like a teenager who had just been caught on the couch with a fast girl. Patty-Cake was looking back and forth between them with a sharp, uneasy smile that said she was seeing things she didn’t like.

“Hello, Mrs. Walker,” Angie said. “And good-bye. I was just on my way out.”

Patty-Cake smoothed her hair. “Am I early, John? I’m supposed to be meeting the Rose girls here. Don’t let me chase you off, Angie, I’m sure Caroline would be so pleased to see you again.”

“You’re not early,” John said, opening the door for Angie. “They’re late, as usual. Thanks for coming by, Angie.” He managed a grim smile, which was more than Angie could do. She nodded at Rob, and slipped out the door.