Garrett studied him. He heard the clink of glasses in the beach bag and realized that Marcus and Winnie had been drinking. The Malibu, probably. How easy it would be to bust this kid, Garrett thought. He shook his head. “Mom has a letter for you. From Constance.”
Not even the faintest glimmer of interest crossed Marcus’s face. “Okay, man, thanks.” He headed for the outdoor shower and Garrett watched him step in and close the door. Then he heard the water. Garrett returned to the kitchen where his mother was drinking straight from the big bottle of purple Gatorade.
“Marcus is in the shower,” Garrett said.
Beth paused in her drinking. “Did you tell him about the letter?”
“Of course. I guess it can wait after all.”
“Hmmpf,” Beth said. Garrett noticed her staring at the envelope, and he moved closer to inspect it. A regular number ten business envelope addressed in blue ink. The return address said, “247 Harris Road, Bedford Hills, New York,” as if this were a domestic street address and not the address of the largest women’s correctional facility in the state. The penmanship was neat, pretty even, and European, like the handwriting of Garrett’s French teacher, Mr. Alevain. Of course, Constance Tyler was no dummy. She’d gone to Princeton, and that was how Garrett’s father got involved in all this in the first place.
Although the envelope was unremarkable in every way, it had power, and Garrett found himself wondering what the letter might say. On the one hand, there was so much to explain, but on the other, how could mere language convey the range of emotions Constance Tyler might be experiencing when she knew she would never be free again? She would never lie on a beach, ride a bike, dip her foot in the ocean. Garrett picked up the envelope and held it to the window trying to make out a word or two, and naturally, as soon as he gave in to this temptation, Marcus stepped into the kitchen, one beach towel wrapped around his waist, one wrapped around his head like a turban. Except for these two towels, Marcus was naked-dark and muscular and imposing, like some two-hundred-year-old tree.
He nodded. “That my letter?”
Beth spoke up. She, too, had an impulse to scrutinize the letter, though it was none of hers or Garrett’s business. “It’s from Constance.”
Marcus snatched the letter from Garrett’s fingers. “All right, then,” he said, and he disappeared upstairs.
At five o’clock, Garrett was slumped in the only comfortable chair in the house, reading. The chair was a bona fide La-Z-Boy recliner upholstered with worn fawn-colored velour; Garrett’s grandfather had brought it home one summer from the dump, and although all the women complained that it was an eyesore and smelled like mildew, they kept it around because it was so comfortable. Garrett was reading Franny and Zooey, the first book on his required summer reading list. He’d reached the part where Zooey was soaking in the bathtub reading a letter wishing that his mother would leave him alone. Garrett paused for a minute, identifying with Zooey’s frustration with Bessie Glass, except Garrett was frustrated by too little attention from his mother, or the wrong kind of attention. Something about his mother was really bugging him, although Garrett couldn’t put it into words. If Garrett were the one taking a two-hour bath, for example, Beth would knock on the door and explain that since Garrett was the man of the house now, it was his responsibility to offer the same hot bath to Marcus. Garrett honestly couldn’t believe that Marcus was here this summer. After all, if it weren’t for Marcus’s mother, Arch would still be alive. Garrett mentioned this glaring fact at one of their family therapy sessions, but Dr. Schau told him that was a small person’s point of view. Constance Tyler didn’t kill Arch, she said; he died by accident. It was nobody’s fault.
Garrett rested the open book on his chest and closed his eyes. It was embarrassing that he’d even found time to start his required reading. He needed to get a life.
Suddenly, he heard his mother. “This is going to be a low-key affair.” She said this as if trying to convince someone-herself, he supposed, or anyone else who might be listening. The ghost of his father, maybe. Garrett opened his eyes to see Beth come down the stairs wearing jeans, a pale pink T-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. Her hair was still wet, and as she grew closer to him he caught the scent of her lotion. “I am not going to a lot of trouble.”
“Okay,” Garrett mumbled. “Whatever you say.”
“Oh, Garrett,” she said. She stopped at the hall mirror and inspected her face closely, much the way Garrett himself did when he was worried about acne. “Will you please just participate here? Will you play along?”
He dog-eared the page of his book and climbed out of the recliner. “Sure,” he said. “What can I do?”
Beth turned to him with narrowed eyes, suspicious of his sudden willingness. “Well,” she said. “You can help me in the kitchen.”
It was on the tip of Garrett’s tongue to ask Where’s Winnie? Where’s Marcus? Why can’t they help? But he kept quiet and followed his mother.
Garrett had helped with his parents’ dinner parties for years, and he knew from looking at the raw ingredients that tonight was a big deal disguised to look like no big deal. His mother pulled a bag of jumbo shrimp out of the fridge-all peeled and deveined and steamed to a lurid pink. At least fifty dollars worth of shrimp, which his mother shook out of the bag onto a hand painted platter that one of Garrett’s cousins had made on a rainy day. She took a bottle of cocktail sauce out of the fridge, then grinned at Garrett sheepishly and said, “I think I’ll doctor this a little.” She proceeded to mix in mayonnaise, horseradish, lemon juice, and a generous splash from the vodka bottle she kept in the freezer. “We have chives, I think,” she said. “For a garnish.”
“What do you want me to do?” Garrett asked. “You need help, right? When did you go to the fish store?”
“This morning before you got up,” she admitted. “Why don’t you set the table.”
“Okay,” he said. “How many of us are there again?”
Beth paused. “Eight, right? Isn’t that right? Set the table for eight people. The dining room table.”
“Do we have eight of everything?” he asked.
“If not, make do,” Beth said. “This is no big deal. The world won’t end if someone is short a steak knife.”
“Obviously not,” Garrett said. He checked a few drawers and found five disintegrating straw place mats and three green plastic place mats that were meant to resemble large cabbage roses. He laid these out on the dining room table, pleased by how awful they looked. As he headed back to the kitchen to find napkins, he bumped into Beth. She eyed the table over his shoulder.
“No, Garrett, sorry,” she said. “Those are hideous. I brought the place mats from home, the blue ones, and the napkins. They’re in one of the plastic bags in the pantry.”
“But you said-”
“Thanks, sweetie.” She collected the place mats quickly, like a poker player who didn’t want anyone to see her losing hand. “These are going right into the trash.”
For the next hour, Garrett watched Beth break all her promises. The blue linen place mats and matching floral napkins went on the table along with the “good,” meaning unchipped, china, three balloon wineglasses for the adults, and a bouquet of daisies and bachelor buttons that Beth had somehow found time to purchase at Bartlett Farm. Beth asked him to wash the silverware before he put it on the table, even though it was already clean. As Garrett stood at the sink, he catalogued all the effort that went into the dinner. The thick steaks seasoned with salt and pepper, the baking potatoes scrubbed and nestled in foil, the asparagus trimmed and drizzled with the special olive oil from Zabar’s. The butter brought to room temperature, the sour cream garnished with chives, and while his mother was at it, a little crumbled bacon.