The cleaning lady for the house he was caretaking, Irene Scarpilo, gave her notice. Irene’s daughter was pregnant with twins; Irene was moving to Plymouth to be closer to her.
“I need a new cleaning lady,” Clen said to Dabney.
“Consider it done,” Dabney said.
Clen squeezed her. They were sitting side by side on the first point of Coatue. They had driven out in the economist’s beat-up Wagoneer. They were eating lobster rolls that Dabney had prepared. The sandwiches were delicious and the day was sparkling, but they were both in a somber mood. The economist was returning that evening.
“What are you doing for the Fourth?” Dabney asked.
“I have a party,” Clen said.
“Really?” Dabney said. She sounded surprised—and for good reason. Clen hadn’t been anywhere or seen anyone but Dabney since he’d been back.
Elizabeth Jennings had invited Clen to her annual bash on the Cliff. Elizabeth and her husband, Mingus, had been in Vietnam with Clen for a half-dozen years or so before Mingus died. Mingus had been the Washington Post bureau chief, and Elizabeth had been the consummate ex-pat wife. She had gone along for every adventure, and had thrown parties for homesick Americans at their flat in the French Quarter of Hanoi. Clen had shared Thanksgiving with the Jenningses for a number of years. Somehow, Elizabeth had always gotten her hands on a turkey. Now, Elizabeth was back in the States, living in Georgetown, and on Nantucket in the summer.
“Whose party?” Dabney asked.
Clen thought she sounded jealous.
“Elizabeth Jennings? She lives on the Cliff?”
“Oh my God,” Dabney said.
“You’re going.”
“We’re going. Elizabeth is a board member of the Chamber, and we’ve gone to her party for the past three years. Box is coming home from Washington especially for it.”
How Clen loathed the use of the pronoun we when it pertained to Dabney and the economist.
“How do you know Elizabeth?” Dabney asked.
“I knew her husband overseas.” Clen paused, thinking it was probably best to tread lightly. “Mingus and I worked together in Saigon first, and then Hanoi. He was my partner in crime.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Dabney said.
“Did you ever know Mingus?” Clen asked.
“No. I’ve only known Elizabeth a few years, since she bought the house. She set out to meet everyone who was anyone on Nantucket. She’s a bit of a social climber, I think.”
“Oh,” Clen said. He had always been fond of Elizabeth. Clen and Mi Linh and Elizabeth and Mingus had vacationed together in Hoi An, among the three-hundred-year-old Chinese buildings carved from teak, with a thousand colored paper lanterns strung across the cobblestoned streets. They used to take café au lait on the terrace at the Cargo Club, and sometimes leisurely boat rides down the river in the evenings. Hoi An was a magical place. Elizabeth would photograph the Vietnamese children and then give out pencils and candy and bubble gum. Keeping the Vietnamese dentists in business, Mingus used to say. It was hard for Clen to reconcile the woman he had known in Vietnam to the woman who now hosted parties at her summer house on Cliff Road. It was like she had an Eastern and a Western persona. He supposed the same was true of him.
“If you and the economist are going,” Clen said, “then I should probably stay home.”
“Don’t be silly,” Dabney said.
“I’m not being silly,” Clen said. “We can’t all go.”
Dabney did not refute this.
But when the afternoon of the Fourth rolled around, Clen decided he would go to the party after all. He had gotten used to seeing Dabney every day, but he hadn’t seen her the day before and he wouldn’t see her the day after, or the day after that. Maybe Sunday, she’d said, if she could get away.
He was going to Elizabeth Jennings’s house because he missed Dabney and wanted to put his eyes on her.
He wore his blue seersucker suit, which he’d had custom-tailored in Hanoi in the months after he’d won the Pulitzer. One sleeve of the jacket hung limp as an air sock on a still day. Clen didn’t like parties because some drunk was always sure to ask about his arm.
Khmer Rouge, he would say. Machete.
The drunk’s eyes would pop. Really?
Yeah. Boring story.
The party started in the front yard, where everyone lined up to be photographed on the front porch by Elizabeth. She no longer used the old Leica she’d had in Vietnam; now, it was something fancy and digital.
The last thing in the world he wanted was to have his picture taken. He looked to the left and the right, wondering if he could skirt Elizabeth and her camera and enter the house from the side door. He wanted to get to the bar. Elizabeth, being a Washington hostess and the wife of a prominent journalist, would have good scotch.
Clen looked up in time to see Dabney and the economist smile for Elizabeth’s camera. Clen felt a wave of some nasty emotional cocktail—jealousy, anger, sorrow, longing. There they were together, a couple. Dabney was wearing a red silk halter dress that wasn’t like anything he’d ever seen her in. She had on red high heels. The dress and shoes were pretty and stylish, but she didn’t look like Dabney. She was, however, wearing pearls, and a navy headband with white stars, and she was carrying her Bermuda bag. The economist looked old—the white hair, the glasses, the double-breasted navy blazer as though he were the commodore of the Yacht Club (Was he the commodore? Clen wondered), the look of smug superiority because he had just spent the last week behind closed doors with the president and the Treasury secretary.
You’re going to tell him, right? Clen had asked.
Yes, she had said. Once he gets back. Once he gets back and settled in. I’m going to tell him. I have to tell him.
After the photo was taken, the economist held the door open for Dabney, and she disappeared inside.
Clen thought to go home, but he couldn’t leave her.