Corinne was sitting up straight, her eyes fixed on the television, so she was already alert. Good. She’d need it.
My mother was dressed in a discreet plaid skirt and a red blouse, with some gorgeous red pumps on. John was wearing a dress shirt and a tweed jacket but no tie. He looked very bluff and hearty, which was not John at all, but it made a good first impression.
The introductions went well, though Mother raised her eyebrows at me for having my company in the den instead of in the formal living room. Tough, Mom. We’d migrated naturally.
“Bryan called you at our house today,” Mother said to me directly during a lull in the chitchat. “He seemed to assume you’d be at our house. I told him you’d been cooking your own Thanksgiving dinners for a while now.”
Okay. Mother wanted Robin to know other men found me attractive, she wanted me to know she didn’t mind me not having Thanksgiving with them, and she wanted Corinne to know that she respected my independence.
Mission accomplished, Mom.
“I’ll call him back tomorrow. Today’s a holiday,” I said instantly, stating that my relationship with Bryan Pascoe was Business with a capital B. But in the next instant, I found myself wondering if he’d discovered something about the Wynns.
The visit went well, on the whole. John was not too talkative, seeming abstracted most of the time, but I was sure Corinne would understand. John had wonderful manners and was always able to think of something pleasant to say, so I knew he would improve on Corinne’s acquaintance. Robin had an excellent rapport with my mother; the thought crossed my mind that he was better with her than my late husband, Martin, had ever been. Martin and Mother had always been so conscious they were close to the same age-in fact, if Martin had married Mother instead of me, it wouldn’t have raised many eyebrows at all.
I tried not to compare other men to Martin, but sometimes ideas popped into my head whether I wanted them to or not.
I opened my mouth to interrogate my mother about Poppy’s parents-if she remembered any specific scandal about Marvin Wynn-but I realized just in time that there was no way she’d discuss that in front of Corinne Crusoe.
“Where’s the boy?” Mother asked as Corinne and Robin were telling John a long golfing story about Robin’s late father.
“He’s gone over to Josh’s house,” I explained. “You know, the Finstermeyers. Josh and his twin sister, Joss, took Phillip around the other day, to the movies and so on.”
“Well, that’s nice,” Mother said unconvincingly. “What do you think of the boy? How long is he going to stay?”
“Dad and Betty Jo want him to come back after Thanksgiving,” I said, suddenly aware that I hadn’t talked to them in two days-or had it been longer? Surely they ought to have made some travel plans for Phillip by now. But how on earth would they get airline reservations this late? Weren’t the airports full on the weekend after Thanksgiving? “Maybe he can stay longer,” I added hastily, so Mother would never think I was tired of Phillip. I didn’t exactly want to get rid of him. I loved my brother, though I realized I didn’t know him that well. My problem was the extent of my responsibility. If Phillip were to stay for a while, I would have to be a little stricter; I couldn’t be an indulgent big sister if he was going to be with me for weeks.
Right after my mother and John gathered their coats and left (after drinking two cups of coffee apiece, instead of wine, and each having a piece of pumpkin pie), Phillip called and asked if he could spend the night at Josh’s.
What I wanted to say was, Yes, if you can keep your hands off Joss! Don’t even think about laying a finger on her in her own house! What I actually said was, “Why don’t you let me talk to Josh’s mom, Phillip? Staying would probably be okay.”
Beth Finstermeyer put my mind at ease by letting me know casually that her daughter was off spending the night with her best friend, so the boys could have the run of the house. And she laughed after she said that, so I knew the boys would no more “have the run of the house” than I would swallow a goldfish.
After I hung up, I could tell that Corinne was ready to go back to Robin’s apartment and put her feet up. I urged them to take some pie with them, told them my brother was going to be away for the night but that he had surely enjoyed meeting Corinne, and fetched their jackets from the guest bedroom.
Robin’s eyes had lighted up when he’d heard Phillip was going to be gone, and he dropped a chaste kiss on my cheek when he was saying good-bye, even as he was whispering, “See you later.”
When the door closed behind them and I was finally alone, the relief was enormous. It was five o’clock, and no one wanted anything of me. The dusk was closing in outside, and I wandered around my house, pulling curtains to and picking up the odd crumpled napkin or used glass. I got out the carpet sweeper and ran it over the area rug, then swept the tiled floor that ran down the hall and into the kitchen and den.
There, that was it. All I was going to do today.
Thanksgiving was over.
I had a turkey sandwich while I watched reruns from a million years ago of a show I’d been too young to catch the first time around. I read a little, having a hard time truly engaging my mind in the convolutions of the book, a complicated psychological mystery. In another hour, I was yawning.
A discreet knock at the front door came just in time. It was followed by the sound of a key turning. I’d originally given Robin a key in case he wanted to work in my office while I was gone. A lot of his reference books were on the shelves that lined the office walls, because his apartment just didn’t have room for all his books.
“Are you sleepy?” Robin asked, kneeling by my chair.
“I could probably be roused.”
“Your brother really at the Fin-whatevers for the night?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh… goody.”
It was one of those encounters where each person seemed to want something different. I was looking for a slow, sweet session, undemanding but satisfying. Robin was feeling more fiery and acrobatic. It took a while to get in sync, but when we did, the climax was the most intense I’d ever experienced. I lay in the dark of my bedroom with Robin’s long arms wrapped around me, and I felt content and safe and loved. Though I’d been drowsy before, when I felt Robin relax into sleep, my eyes were open to the darkness.
I thought about Robin and how I felt about him. I thought about how Bryan Pascoe’s interest in me didn’t spark any feeling in me at all, except mild discomfort. I thought of how amazing it was that I was alive and well, able to experience lying here in the arms of a tall, thin man named Robin Crusoe, whose wild red hair was even now tangling with mine on the pillow. I had this, this wonderful moment, while Poppy, a woman vibrating with life, had had it all taken away.
What had happened to Poppy along her way? What had made her so two-faced? The loving, besotted mother, the well-dressed matron and dutiful wife had also been a promiscuous and sly female. The intelligent college graduate had deliberately wed a man she knew would not be faithful to her-probably in the sure expectation that she would not be faithful to him, either. Or had John David and Poppy married in the belief they’d cleave only to each other? They must have known, even then, that faithfulness was an ideal rather than a reality, given their natures.
Maybe blind optimism could carry you further than you ever meant to go.
I turned to look at Robin’s sleeping face. I lay on my side, propped up on one elbow. The night-light in the bathroom provided a faint glow, just enough to see the disheveled head and beaky nose. When I tried to imagine his head lying on someone else’s pillow, it hurt deep inside me. And then I felt the surge of anger, the backlash of that pain, just at his imagined infidelity.