Each one kissed her, gave her his present, then plopped at the kitchen table.
She poured the champagne, put out sandwiches, whatever she had. They sat down as they did when they would follow behind Ray Jr., like so many railroad cars hitched to his engine.
After she cried a bit and wiped her eyes, they sat, remembering, laughing, eating.
Ronnie wistfully glanced around the country kitchen.“Where does the time go? Wasn’t it Francois Villain who wrote, ‘Where o where are the snows of yesteryear?’ It was the 1400s when he wrote that.”
“The snows of yesteryear are right here,” Clay, not being poetic, replied.
“Are you going to give us a lecture about evaporation and condensation and how there might be a molecule that once belonged to George Washington in that glass of champagne?” Ronnie rolled his eyes.
“Molecule belonged to Fran?ois Villain.” X winked. “From France.”
“Clever, these insurance agents are clever. Hey, I remember when you weredying,and I meandying,in Algebra I. Rayray bailed you out.”
X turned beet red.“No need to bore Sister with that story, Clay.”
“Ah-ha!” Clay put his sandwich on his plate, thumb-print on the bread. “X sat in front, Rayray behind. Passed him the answers to the tests.”
Sister feigned shock.“X!”
“Makes you wonder about having him as your insurance agent, doesn’t it?” Ronnie giggled.
“If it has a dollar sign in front of it, X is Einstein,” Clay said, a hint of sharpness in his voice.
“If it has a dollar sign in front of it, Dee does the work. Give me credit, I married a woman smarter than myself.”
“Not hard to do.” Ronnie laughed.
“I could be really ugly right now.” X dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
“I’ll be ugly for you, Ronnie, since we know you aren’t going to marry for love, why don’t you woo some rich old widow? Think of the good you could then do for the hunt club?” Clay nodded in Sister’s direction.
“Yeah, Ronnie, you could always lash it to a pencil.” X laughed, then realized he was sitting with Sister. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me, I’ve said worse; you just never heard it. And you all used to say the grossest things when you were kids.” She put her hand on her stomach. “Makes that showJackass,look tame.”
“You’ve watched that?” X was amazed.
“I’m trying to keep current with popular culture.”
“Hardly culture.” Ronnie sighed.
“A phase, grossness. Girls do it, too,” Clay said. “But since girls don’t make movies, for the most part, or shall I say movies are made for teenage boys, we don’t see it. Bet you were gross, too, Sister.”
Sister replied,“You forget how much older I am than you all. It was strict when I grew up. I could have matriculated to West Point and felt right at home, course they didn’t take girls then, but I thought about things gross and otherwise. Didn’t show it.”
“Ever wonder where Ray would have gone to school?” X asked.
“Sure.” She drank some champagne. “Princeton or Stanford. But you know, he was leaning toward the fine arts, driving his father crazy. I don’t know, maybe he would have gone somewhere else. What do you all think?”
“Bowdoin,” Clay said. “He would have loved Maine.”
“Colorado State,” Ronnie pitched in. “I think he would have gone west, but wound up in veterinary medicine or something like that. And he was a good athlete. He would have played football. Bet you.”
X shook his head.“Princeton. He would have followed his father to Princeton. And he would have played football there, baseball, too. Maybe lacrosse. Do they have lacrosse at Princeton?”
“Even if they do, if you want to play lacrosse, you go to Virginia, Maryland, or Johns Hopkins.” Clay spoke with certainty.
“Johns Hopkins is a good school,” Sister said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have minded that, and it’s closer than Princeton or Stanford.” She paused. “What a joy to have you all here.”
“We never forget you.” Ronnie smiled.
They always remembered Ray Jr.’s birthday in one fashion or another. They remembered his death day, too, each calling Sister to tell her he was thinking of her. Tedi and Betty always called or dropped by as well.
The boys, for Sister thought of them as“the boys,” grew louder, more raucous. They argued about the NBA, dismissed the Super Bowl, which had just been played. They looked forward to baseball season. They talked horses, fixtures, other people in the hunt field.
“Think Crawford will cough up enough for you to hire someone else, really?” Clay asked.
“Um … if we make this a club effort, I think he’ll contribute more than his share,” Sister replied judiciously. “But if anyone pressures him, he’ll get angry and I won’t blame him. He’s hit up all the time.”
“True.” Clay sipped the coffee that Sister had made to accompany the champagne and sandwiches. “You make the best coffee. Wish I could teach Izzy how you do it.”
“Patience and good beans.” She laughed.
“You know that brass coffee maker Crawford has in his tack room? That thing cost over five thousand dollars. Imported from Italy.” Ronnie relayed this with amazement.
“Does his coffee taste any better than Sister’s?” X’s eyebrows, some gray in them now, rose.
“No,” Ronnie answered firmly. “No one makes coffee as good as Sister.”
“Ronnie, back to the subject of your marriage.” Sister surprised them all by this. “You don’t even have to marry some rich old broad to make me happy. I want to see you happy, and I know, if you’ll relax and let us love you, you’ll find the right man.”
A silence followed.
X chuckled.“As long as it’s not me.”
“For Crissakes, X, you’re so fat, even if I loved you and wanted you, I couldn’t find it, you know?”
They roared, even X.
“Ronnie needs someone. We all need someone.” Clay dabbed his mouth with the napkin. “But I don’t think we have any other gay men in the club. Or at least, that we know about.”
“We don’t,” Ronnie answered grimly.
“Well, Ron, you can’t have someone in your life who isn’t a foxhunter.” Sister was firm. “We’ll keep our eyes open at other hunts.”
“Guys, I can do this on my own.”
“You’ve done a piss-poor job of it so far.” X snorted. “I can count on the fingers of one hand the affairs I know you’ve had. Not counting one-night stands.”
“Do we have to get into this?”
“I’m fascinated.” Sister’s eyes sparkled.
“Yeah, we do. If Rayray were alive, he’d be right here with us, pushing you on.” Clay drained his champagne glass.
With four of them on a bottle, there was little left, even though Sister drank lightly. She got up, pulled a bottle out of the fridge, and handed it to X, who opened it. She always kept a bottle of champagne, a bottle of white wine, and a six-pack of beer in the fridge for guests.
“Okay, okay,” Ronnie ’fessed up. “My walks on the wild side were furtive and unsatisfying. It’s a different day now. You all know who and what I am. I gave up hiding and lying. Maybe I will find a good man.”
“A good man who rides hard,” X corrected him.
“A hard man who rides good,” Sister mischievously added.
They laughed.
After the boys killed the second bottle, they readied to leave. Wives waited. It was Friday night, and both X and Clay faced social obligations. Ronnie had a church vestry meeting, and then he’d join X and Dee at a small dinner the Vajays planned.
As they gathered their coats, Sister nonchalantly said to all,“Fellas, I’m no spring chicken, so I’ve been doing research about human growth hormone. What do you think about my asking Dalton Hill to bring me some from Canada? I can’t get it here. I want to try it.”
“I wouldn’t mind either,” Ronnie chimed in, “but you look great. You don’t have to take anything.”