So "I'll fetch us another glass of wine," he said when they'd claimed two vacant places at one of the several long tables set up under the tent. And added in a mutter, "Wish they had some red to go with this beef."
"Shh. Mostly club soda in mine, please." Then "Hi," she greeted the younger couple now seating themselves in the folding chairs across from theirs: "Dick and Sue Felton, from down the road."
"Judy and Joe Barnes," the man of them replied as they scanned one another's nametags: "Blue Crab Bight." He extended his hand first to seated Susan and then to Dick, who briefly clasped it before saying "Going for a refill; back in a minute."
Speaking for him, "Can he bring you-all anything?" Sue offered. "While he's at it?"
They were okay, thanks. He ought to have thought of that himself, Dick supposed, although he'd've needed a tray or something to carry four glasses. Anyhow, screw it. Screw it, screw it, screw it.
Some while later, after they'd fed themselves while exchanging get-acquainted pleasantries with the Barneses — Sue and Judy about the various neighborhoods of Heron Bay Estates, Dick and Joe about the effects of global warming on the Atlantic hurricane season and the ballooning national deficit's impact on the stock market (Joe worked in the Stratford office of a Baltimore investment-counseling firm)—"Aren't you the life of the party," Susan half teased, half chided her husband, who on both of those weighty questions had opposed Joe Barnes's guardedly optimistic view with his own much darker one. The two couples were now on their feet again, as were most of the other guests, and circulating from tent to pool deck and lanai.
"Really sorry about that, hon." As in fact he was, and promised her and himself to try to be more "up." For in truth he had enjoyed meeting and talking with the Barneses, and had had a good postdinner conversation with young Joe out by the pool while Susan and Judy visited the WC—"on the jolly subject of that Common Disaster provision in our wills."
"You didn't."
"Sure did — because he happened to mention that his clients often review their estate statements with him so he can help coordinate their investment strategies with their estate lawyer's advice, to reduce inheritance taxes and such."
"O joy."
"So naturally I asked him whether he'd heard of that 'each survives the other' business, and he not only knew right off what I was talking about but explained it simply and clearly, which Betsy Furman" — their estate lawyer—"never managed to do." What it came down to, he explained in turn to not-awfully-interested Susan, was that should they die "simultaneously," their jointly owned assets would be divided fifty-fifty, one half passing by the terms of his will, as if he had outlived her, and the other half by hers, as if she'd outlived him. "So you make us up another computer spreadsheet along those lines, and we can estimate each beneficiary's take."
"O very joy." But she would do that, she agreed, ASAP — and she appreciated his finally clarifying that little mystery. Nor had she herself, she would have him know, been talking only girlie stuff: When Pat Hardison had happened to speak of "her house" and "Tom's boat," upon Sue's questioning their hostess had explained that like most people she knew, the Hardisons titled their assets separately, for "death tax" reasons: Their Annapolis place was in Tom's name, this Stratford one in hers; same with the boat and the RV, the Lexus and the Cadillac Escalade, their various bank accounts and securities holdings. So much more practical, taxwise: Why give your hard-earned assets to the government instead of to your children? Weren't Sue and her husband set up that way?
"I had to tell her I wasn't sure, that that was your department. But my impression is that everything we own is in both our names, right? Are we being stupid?"
Any estate lawyer would likely think so, Dick acknowledged. Betsy Furman had certainly encouraged bypass trusts, and had inserted that "each survives the other" business into their wills as the next best thing after he'd told her that they were uncomfortable with any arrangement other than joint ownership, which was how they'd done things since Day One of their marriage. He was no canny CPA or estate lawyer or investment geek, one of those types who tell you it's foolish to pay of your mortgage instead of claiming the interest payments as a tax deduction. Probably they knew what they were talking about, but it was over his head and not his and Susan's style. "If the kids and grandkids and the rest get less of the loot that way than they'd get otherwise, they're still getting plenty. Who gives a shit?" What he really cared about, he reminded her, was not their death, much less it's payoff to their heirs, but their Last Age and their dying. It required the pair of them in good health to maintain their Heron Bay house and grounds and the modest Baltimore condo that they'd bought as a city retreat when they'd retired, sold their dear old townhouse, and made Stratford their principal address. The day either of them joined the ranks of the more than temporarily incapacitated would be the end of life as they knew and enjoyed it; neither of them was cut out for long-term caregiving or caregetting. A Common Disaster, preferably out of the blue while they were still functioning, was the best imaginable scenario for The End: Let them "each survive the other" technically, but neither survive the other in fact — even if that meant making the necessary arrangements themselves.
"My big bundle of joy," Susan said, sighing, and hugged him to put a stop to this lately-so-familiar disquisition.
"Sorry sorry sorry, doll. Let's go refill."
"Hey, look at the lovebirds!" Sam Bailey hollered, too loudly, across the deck from the lanai bar. The old fellow was pretty obviously overindulging. A few people paused in their conversation to glance his way, a few others to smile at the Feltons or raise eyebrows at the old fellow's rowdiness. By way of covering it, perhaps, Tom Hardison, who happened to be standing not far from Sam, gave him a comradely pat on the shoulder and then strode behind the bar, fetched out a beribboned brass bugle, of all things, that he'd evidently stashed there, blew a single loud blast like an amplified, extended fart, and called "Game and prize time, everybody!" The "Great Room" pianist underscored the announcement with a fortissimo fanfare. When all hands were silent and listening, perky Pat Hardison, holding a brown beer bottle as if it were a portable microphone, repeated her husband's earlier "Friends, Romans, countrymen," politically correcting that last term to countryfolk, "lend me your ears!"
"You want to borrow our rears?" Sam Bailey asked loudly.
"We've got those covered, Sam," the host smoothly replied; he too now sported a beer-bottle mike in one hand, while with the other placing the bugle bell-down on his interrupter's head, to the guests' approving chuckles. "Or maybe I should say uncovered, since tonight's Special Olympics consist of Thong-Undie Quoits for the ladies, out on the pool deck, and for the gents, Bobbing for Grapes wherever you see them, as you very soon will. I'll be refereeing the quoits" — he held up a handful of bikini briefs for all to see—"and Pat'll oversee the grapes, which every lady is invited to grab a bunch of and invite the bobber of her choice to bob for."