Their mother didn’t seem particularly interested. She had the little poodle, Alouette, on her lap and was feeding it bits of shrimp from her seafood cocktail.
The sight infuriated Cordelia. “I don’t see why you can bring that dog to the table and we’re not allowed to bring Snowball, who loves shrimp. Shrimp is his very favorite thing.”
“What were you saying about your dress, Cordelia?”
“It’s too tight. I can’t breathe. I’m going to faint.”
“Don’t be tiresome.”
“I mean it. I’m going, here I go— One, two—”
“Well, hurry up and get it over with so the rest of us can eat. The food will be cold.”
“You don’t care.”
“Of course I do,” Iris said. “I’m hungry.”
Frustrated, Cordelia turned her wrath on her uncle. “It’s all your fault. We had to dress like this just for you.”
Van Eyck looked surprised. “Like what?”
“This.”
“Up.” Juliet said. “We had to dress up like this just for you.”
“Really? Whose bizarre idea was that?”
“Hers.” Both girls answered simultaneously, scowling at Miranda across the table.
“She said well-bred young ladies always dress up for company,” Cordelia explained. “And I said Uncle Charles isn’t company, he’s only a relative. And Juliet said you wouldn’t notice anyway because you’d be three sheets to the wind.”
“You said that about me, Juliet?”
“I may have,” Juliet said. “But she’s a pig to bring it up.”
“Unfortunately, my dear nieces, I am not three sheets to the wind. I am not even one sheet or two, let alone three. But I’m certainly working on it... Cooper, let’s have some of that special stuff you’ve been hoarding. I understand that when a military man retires he commandeers all the booze he can lay his hands on. Why not share it with us common folk who paid for it in the first place?”
Cooper Young had learned many years ago at Annapolis to eat quietly and quickly whatever was placed in front of him and retained this habit throughout his life. As a consequence, eating was not enjoyable but it was also not unbearable. He could listen without heartburn while Iris and the girls bickered during the salad course, and his brother-in-law, over the beef and asparagus, delivered a lecture on the sinful extravagances of the Pentagon. Cooper did not answer, did not argue. Now and again he glanced at Miranda, who was equally silent, and he noticed how skillfully she pretended to eat while only rearranging the food on her plate and raising an empty fork to her mouth.
Cherries jubilee.
Cordelia was allowed to flame the cherries as a reward for not fainting, and everyone was quiet while they burned. Then it was time for Miranda to provide the evening’s entertainment, a report on the girls’ progress since the last family dinner.
“This week,” Miranda said, “we have been concentrating on attitudes that affect behavior, for example, self-fulfillment as opposed to selfish fulfillment. We made a list of questions to ask ourselves at the end of each day. We gave them a special name, didn’t we, Juliet?”
“Yes, but—”
“What was it?”
“Questions for a summer night. But—”
“Can you recite them?”
“I can,” Cordelia said, still basking in the warmth and glory of the cherries jubilee. “Questions for a summer night. Here they are:
“Have I earned something today?
“Have I learned something today?
“Have I helped someone?
“Have I felt glad to be alive?”
“How poetic,” Iris said. “And what are the answers for a summer night?”
Juliet and her dress complained in unison. “I didn’t know we were expected to have the answers, too. Memorizing the questions is hard enough. Anyway, it isn’t even summer yet. By the time it comes, maybe I can think of some answers.”
“Don’t be an ass, there aren’t any,” Cordelia said crisply. “It’s only a game.”
“It can’t be. A game is where somebody wins and somebody loses. I should know, I’m the one who always loses.”
“No, you don’t. You only remember the times you lose because you’re such a rotten sport. I often let you win to avoid the sight of you bawling and blabbering.”
Juliet appealed to Miranda, wistfully, “Is it only a game?”
“No indeed,” Miranda said. “I believe they’re very important questions.”
“But how can I earn anything? I don’t work.”
“You could earn someone’s respect and admiration. Any job well done is worthy of respect. Can you think of a job you did today?”
“I washed the cat, Snowball. He had fleas.”
“You see? That’s something you earned today, Snowball’s gratitude.”
“No. He hates being washed and he still has fleas. I got seven more bites on the belly.”
“I’ve got at least twenty-five,” Cordelia said.
“Not on the belly.”
“I haven’t searched there yet. Most of mine are on the wrists and ankles. They itch furiously but I don’t dare scratch because Mrs. Young is looking.”
Iris was listening as well as looking. “If you girls have fleas, I don’t want you coming anywhere near my dog.”
“We never do. He comes near us.”
“Then run away from him.”
“He can run faster than we can. And also, he cheats by taking shortcuts under tables and things.”
“I suggest,” Miranda said, “that we consider the second question. Have you learned something today?”
Cordelia related what she’d learned, that the Pentagon was spending billions of dollars each year on uniforms and pensions while the average citizen was being taxed into oblivion. Van Eyck, with his second sheet to the wind and going for three, applauded vigorously and said by God, at least there was one sensible person in the family besides himself.
Juliet couldn’t think of anything she’d learned for the first time, though she had learned for the fourteenth or fifteenth time that cats didn’t like to be bathed and neither did fleas but it wasn’t fatal to either.
In spite of her makeup Miranda was beginning to look pale. “Perhaps we should go on to the third question. Have you helped someone today?”
“They have helped me decide to go to bed,” Iris said and slid the little dog off her lap and onto the floor. “Miranda, I’d like to speak to you privately up in my room... Cooper, show Charles to his car and don’t give him any more to drink... Goodnight, Charles. It was good of you to come. Take care of your liver.”
She was tired. Her thin yellowing face sagged with fatigue and she had to use the table and her cane to hoist herself to her feet. It was a heavy antique cane she’d brought from Africa, where it had once been part of a tribal chiefs ceremonial uniform. Iris continued to think of it like that, as an adjunct to her costume, and she refused even to try the lightweight aluminum crutches prescribed by her doctor. Crutches were for cripples. Her cane was a piece of history and a symbol of command, not dependence.
The procession moved up the staircase, slow and solemn as a funeral march, Iris leaning on the banister and her cane, taking one step at a time. Miranda walked behind her, then the two girls, and finally the little dog, Alouette. The shrimp and cherries had given Alouette the hiccups and their rhythmic sound accompanied the procession like the beat of a ghostly drum.
The Admiral escorted his brother-in-law to the front door.
“Iris is damned rude,” Van Eyck said, straightening his tie and brushing off his coat as if he’d been physically ejected. “She’s the one who should be taking lessons in the social amenities, though it’s about fifty years too late.”
“I’m sorry you feel insulted.”