The Romantics (7 page)

“What is that?” Weesie yelped.

“It’s just perfume,” Tripler sniffed.

Weesie glared her reproach at the mirror.

“She sounded awfully proud about that ghost on the roof,” said Annie.

“Maybe she had a soft spot for her great-great-great-grandmother,” said Tripler.

Laughter erupted, amplified by the tight quarters.

Weesie looked up from her lips to meet Laura’s gaze in the mirror. “Oh,” she chirped. “There you are.”

“I’m screwed for my toast,” Laura declared.

“Shut up,” said Weesie. “You always say that, and then you give the best toast of the night.”

“I wrote mine out,” Tripler bragged, pointing to a stack of index cards on the sink counter. Wielding an eyeliner pencil, she pried one eye open to reveal the pink interior of an eyelid.

Weesie held Laura’s gaze then shot Tripler a murderous look.

“Your signature rhyming ode?” asked Laura.

Tripler nodded, one eye still pried open. “Guaranteed to bring down the house.”

Laura and Weesie opted for silence. It was the fastest way to shut Tripler up or, at the very least, to change the subject.

“Did Lila put you in that dead girl’s room?” Tripler demanded.

“That’s nice,” said Laura.

“Lila would only pull that shit with you,” Tripler quipped. She had a knack for weaving character assassination into the most offhand comment.

“I love old houses,” Laura insisted.

“Why?” Tripler asked. Satisfied with her eyes, she unraveled her towel to release a mass of stringy wet hair.

Annie shed both towels and strutted proudly across the room as though to assert the intimacy they all shared.

“I don’t know,” Laura said. “It’s kind of fun to picture the girls who grew up here …”

“But who would want to?” Tripler asked.

“It makes me want to write a novel,” said Laura.

“Better not write about me,” said Tripler.

Laura stared at Tripler, checking the urge to say something snide.

“Well, the fascination is mutual,” said Weesie, reviving the previous conversation. “Remember sophomore year when you got that tattoo, and Lila went out and got the same one …”

Laura offered Weesie a grateful smile. “It was only henna,” she said.

Annie paused to interject, one foot out the door. “Not to get too technical, but didn’t Lila steal Tom from you, too?”

Running water punctuated her question. The girls remained silent, plucking hairs, puckering lips.

Finally, Weesie spoke up, sparing everyone the discomfort. “Shit,” she said. “It’s ten to four. Who has the hair dryer?”

Tripler pressed the power button in response, assaulting the room with its deafening noise and precluding conversation entirely.

Laura was ready before the others and walked down to the porch to wait. The air was fresh, and the light was remarkably different from the light in New York. Calming slightly, she took the opportunity to survey the house. What was it about this house that Augusta wanted to destroy? Had she once yearned to tear down the
porch at Northern Gardens too? Was that how Augusta felt when she looked at her? Now, looking across the field, she studied the profile of the elegant white house. A truckload of white chairs had been stacked by a vine-covered trellis, ready to be arranged for tomorrow’s fete. The enormous white tent rustled in the breeze, as though taking a deep breath.

Suddenly, Laura was struck by the immediacy—the reality of Tom and Lila’s wedding. In twenty-four hours, Tom and Lila would stand underneath that trellis. Chairs would line the lawn in neat rows. Guests would fill the chairs. Laura would stand in her horrible tin dress, beaming at Lila’s side. Picturing this, Laura felt and fought the impulse to run screaming onto the lawn, to find Tom, shake him, beg him not to go through with it. Strangely, this operatic act seemed entirely sensible at the moment. It would be worth any mortification to prevent him from making this mistake. But just as quickly, she kicked herself for humoring an absurd notion. How many movies had she seen that exploited this very setup? How many soap operas had culminated in just this story arc? And more important, what made her think she wanted him for herself? She did not admire the man Tom had become. He had traded integrity for status. What was desirable about a man like that?

As she stood on the porch, a beautiful day grew even more picturesque. The full, buoyant clouds of the afternoon stretched into gauzy ribbons and hovered above the house like contrails left by a plane. A school of pristine sailboats cut across the shimmering cove. Grass turned from green to gold as the sun sifted through the clouds, lengthening the shadows of trees and the house. Across the lawn, people were starting to gather. A small contingent formed on the Hayeses’ porch and filtered onto the lawn for the rehearsal. One
person broke from the group and took an exuberant lead. It was Lila, swinging her arms up and down like a child on Christmas day.

T
he girls walked over to Northern Gardens together, arms linked, four abreast, like soldiers marching to battle. The boys followed close behind, jostling each other and occasionally bursting into a chorus of shouted insults. For everyone, distance from home and routine and the smell of fresh-cut grass played a trick on their moods, convincing them that they had retreated to a different time. Gradually, the girls loosened their grasp on one another and fell into a new formation. Tripler enlisted Weesie to listen to a practice run of her toast. Annie and Oscar walked in silence, appreciating the ocean breeze. Pete and Jake broke into an impromptu race, as though to remind the group of their athletic prowess at Yale. Laura lagged behind, forcing a merry smile that only an idiot could mistake for real cheer.

The Hayes and McDevon families were fully assembled when the group arrived. They had formed a semicircle with Augusta at its center like members of an ancient religious cult worshipping a deity. On one side of the circle, members of the Hayes contingent stood in official cocktail stance. They chatted amiably, arms propped on hips, heads tilted inquisitively. On the other side, the McDevons reunited, greeted new arrivals to the clan, but they looked slightly confused, like school children awaiting instructions. Their side of the circle had bottlenecked into an inelegant clump, causing the semicircle to resemble a snake with a curling tail. The pileup looked strangely inappropriate on the otherwise immaculate lawn. Annoyed, Augusta dispatched her younger daughter to impose order.

Lila stood apart from the circle, watching her guests arrive. She
greeted the group with a high-pitched shriek that was answered with an echo. She was quickly surrounded by the wedding party and congratulated on her current ensemble. Somehow, they managed to double the excitement they had expressed only an hour earlier before subsiding into a more appropriate volume to coo about their rooms and the fit of Lila’s dress. She looked perfectly radiant in a fitted navy blue silk frock. The dark blue silk offset her eyes even while allowing them to upstage it. Her golden hair provided the perfect contrast to the rich color. The dress seemed to have been designed to showcase her enviable figure, announcing her virtues in rapid succession: long legs, ample bust, beautiful face.

Laura surveyed the lawn for a moment before she spotted Tom. He was obscured by Lila’s maternal grandparents, who had effectively barricaded him as though to prevent a sudden escape. When she finally caught a glimpse of his face, he looked strange, unlike himself. He stood unnaturally erect and smiled in a forced, plastic way, like a kidnapped child feigning normalcy on a ransom tape. He wore a cream-colored linen suit of a cut and color designed expressly for garden parties, the kind of suit Tom would surely have called “poncy” had he seen it on another man. He nodded and blinked more than usual, as you do when you’re faking an emotion. It was immediately clear to Laura that he was miserable and scared, and the realization made her feel equal amounts of delight and despair. The paradox of emotion caused a combustive reaction in her heart that resulted in nausea.

Tom noticed Laura just as this sensation threatened to bring her to the grass. Laura stared back without smiling, forgetting propriety. Mercifully, Tripler grabbed her elbow just then, demanding that she vet the closing joke for her toast, allowing Laura enough time to slow her pulse before Augusta corralled the crowd.

“Ladies, gentlemen. I hate to interrupt, but cocktails beckon us tonight. Lila, Tom.” She gestured to both and waited for them to grasp her outstretched arms.

Her muscular smile, Laura noted, was actually quite impressive. It was, in fact, a feat of stage acting. She had gauged the size and distance of her audience and made the necessary adjustments. Up close, the clenched veins in her neck betrayed anxiety. From twenty feet away, her whole effect was quite subdued.

“Now, let’s get this over with, shall we?” she said. “So we can toast this fabulous pair.”

A hearty cheer erupted from the lawn. Augusta encouraged it with polite applause, then silenced it with a definitive clap.

Lila, who was herself a veteran performer, smiled demurely at the crowd. This was her cue to play up the romance.

Tom performed his scheduled kiss, but a moment too late, with obvious haste, like an actor who has forgotten a line.

“If you’ll forgive me,” Augusta went on, “we’re going to begin. If you listen.” She gazed pointedly at the younger members of the crowd. “This won’t take long at all.” She dispensed a merciless scolding look, then, just as quickly, transformed her face into an expression of rapturous delight. “Let me introduce the Reverend Hipp. He is our dear family friend and the beloved pastor of the First Presbyterian Church on Garden Street in Cambridge. He will be performing the ceremony tomorrow.”

“And drinking heavily tonight!”

Augusta turned sharply on the group. Who would say something so crass and inappropriate?

The delighted grin on the face of one of Tom’s many younger cousins gave away the culprit. Augusta glared at the offender and his mother, conveying her disapproval.

“So!” she said, startling the crowd with a staccato high pitch. A natural public speaker, she understood the power of explosive utterances. “This handsome, youthful group over here. They are the wedding party.” She scanned the group, offering each a cursory nod. “Tripler, Louisa, Anne. Oscar, Peter, Jake. These are the dear friends who will participate in the wedding. They are honored guests.” She paused and smiled coyly. “But not until Lila says ‘I do.’ Until then, this wedding is work.”

The wedding party assented with a good-natured round of hoots and whistles. Augusta silenced them with a sharp look. She had not meant this in jest.

“Minnow, my youngest, is also a bridesmaid,” she went on.

Minnow smiled and curtsied for the crowd. Even at fourteen, she was already more of a ham than her older sister.

“And Laura and Chip,” Augusta said conclusively. “Laura is Lila’s maid of honor and Chip is Tom’s best man. They will be the last to walk down the aisle before the bride and groom.”

Laura bristled instinctively at Augusta’s description. She was not Lila’s anything, except perhaps her greatest critic. Still, she mustered the expected smile for the waiting eyes, trying to find the most livable balance between submission and self-respect.

Without warning, Chip snuck up from behind and grabbed her by the waist. The surprise and bad taste of the gesture nearly caused her to lose her balance.

“I knew it,” he roared. “Laura Rosen. I still make you weak in the knees.”

“Chip, get off me,” Laura snapped, then embarrassed by her harsh tone, she quickly added. “You nearly took me down.”

Chip Hayes was a strange boy that Laura loathed as much as she loved. Over the years, she had spent more time with him than she
would have liked, sharing with Lila the responsibility of older, wiser sister. Like Lila’s, Chip’s looks, demeanor, and credentials were irreproachable. But he lacked his sister’s lightness and magnetism. He had inherited, Laura could only guess, more of his father’s than his mother’s traits. Even more than most boys, he was plagued with an off-putting strain of restlessness. His checkered history in school and love attested to this fact.

From the age of thirteen to eighteen, he had attended no less than five prep schools, relocating whenever a new learning disability was diagnosed or new transgression discovered. Each school had been more specialized than the one before and, in turn, more ill suited; first, a traditional coed day school in Cambridge; second, after a series of suspensions, an ascetic boarding school in Connecticut; third, after the expulsion, three months at home at a smaller, alternative day school; fourth, after the second expulsion, an all-boys institution that bordered on military school, with a heralded department for challenged learners; and fifth, after he escaped from this school on the Vespa of a very attractive drama teacher (with that drama teacher), Chip completed his high-school degree at a ski school in Vermont, the only licensed institution that would accept his dossier of transcripts.

Incredibly, Chip had turned around this ten-year fiasco when he began to channel his restlessness into artistic pursuits. A compelling portfolio of mixed media collages, stellar performance on the ski team, and a small donation from his father earned the attention of the admissions director of Trinity College, landing Chip, for the first two years of college, only forty miles away from his sister. The short commute from Hartford to New Haven allowed Lila to keep the promise that she made to her parents, that she would keep an eye on her younger brother, and permitted Chip to benefit from the
dating options of the Ivy League. Throughout, Laura tolerated Chip’s frequent stays on their common room futon. He was always game to procrastinate, and his constant professions of lust and adoration were amusing, if not flattering.

“All right,” said Augusta. “I’d like us to do one walk-through of tomorrow’s procession. Members of the wedding party, I need you to break into your assigned pairs.” She waved her arms with the wide, ambiguous movements of an airport traffic controller. “Everyone, line up behind Uncle Jack’s tree. That’s where you’ll begin.”