I don’t know. Why would I know? Did he just wake up one morning and decide, Oh, none of this is really working for me? I’d like a one-way ticket to Iraq, please.”
“They’ll give him a round-trip ticket,” Dominique said. She, too, came to hug Livia, and this time Livia seemed grateful, wrapping her arms around Dominique’s strong back and hiding her face in the young woman’s shoulder. Biddy noticed a strand of corn silk on the tiles and bent to pick it up.
“He might have to come back as cargo,” Livia said, muffled. “Why can’t he just finish college?”
“Livia,” said Biddy, “I don’t want you to think this has anything to do with you.” She reached in from the outskirts of the embrace to squeeze her daughter’s shoulder.
“That’s what Daddy said.” Livia released Dominique. “But how could it not have anything to do with me?”
Because, Biddy wanted to say, Teddy didn’t fall apart after this breakup the way you did. Because Teddy’s life no longer includes you. But she could see that Livia was taking Teddy’s decision as some kind of sign, an indication that he was becoming unpredictable and erratic, possibly on the brink of a collapse that could only drive him back to her, regretful and awakened. His flight to the army was the last dying flutter of independence, his last binge of freedom before he saw the light. The army would never love him the way Livia did. “I don’t want you to hope it has something to do with you,” Biddy said.
Livia began breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth and staring off into space. The therapist she saw at school, Dr. Z, had taught her that trick: if you feel like you’re about to lose your temper, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth and count to five or ten, depending on the direness of the situation. Winn hated that Livia saw a shrink. He said she should learn to grin and bear it.
“Anyway,” Livia said after five seconds, “after we saw Jack, Daddy decided we should go check on their new house.”
“The Fenns’ house?” said Biddy. “Why?”
“I think he wanted to sit there and glower at it and think about the Pequod. Not about how Teddy knocked me up and dumped me, no, no. About how unfair it is—what a great injustice it is—that there’s a club out there he can’t join.”
“Maybe it’s easier for him to think about the Pequod,” Dominique said.
Biddy looked at her, annoyed. The casual analysis seemed to violate Winn’s privacy. And Dominique couldn’t possibly understand what his clubs meant to him, what it was like to live inside their particular social world. Hadn’t she just been saying she didn’t belong anywhere?
Dominique was standing at the counter with a bottle of white wine she had helped herself to from the fridge, presumably to pour a nerve-settling glass for Livia. The natural melancholy of her face lent an air of pensive deliberation to even her simplest actions, and she contemplated the bottle as though it were a bouquet of condolence flowers in need of arranging. Thoughtfully, slowly, frowning, she twisted in a corkscrew and then glanced up, catching Biddy’s eye and, surely, some trace of her enmity.
“You know what I mean,” Dominique said levelly. “We all have our safe thing to run back to when we get overwhelmed.”
Biddy remembered that only minutes before she had been grateful enough for Dominique’s presence to have cried. Apologetically, she said, “He likes to keep track of new houses on the island.”
“Honestly, I think the house is great,” said Livia. “They have an amazing location. The house is big, but so what? It’s Fenn Castle.”
“The Fennitentiary,” Dominique said, handing a glass of wine to Livia. “Biddy, may I pour you a glass?”
“No, thanks.”
“Fennsylvania,” said Livia.
Biddy tried to think of a pun but couldn’t come up with anything. Had Dominique ever even met any of the Fenns? Most likely not, though certainly she had heard plenty about them—both Daphne and Livia kept up e-mail correspondences with her, and over the past few days the house had effloresced with girl talk. “Is Teddy on-island?” she asked Livia.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Probably.”
“Well, you won’t run into him.”
“What if he calls me?”
“Do you think he will?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. You’d think he’d want to tell me about the whole army thing.”
Biddy sat back down at the table.
Livia stepped closer and studied the mess of cards and charts. “Shouldn’t Daphne be doing this?”
“Seating isn’t really Daphne’s strong suit,” Biddy said. “She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. She doesn’t see where conflict might arise.”
“On the other hand,” Dominique said, “I assume the worst.”
“You’re very good,” Biddy said. She reached across Livia to pat Dominique’s hand.
“Do you know all these people?” Livia asked Dominique.
“Not all of them,” Dominique said. “Biddy’s been explaining the web.”
“The web?”
“All the connections between everyone. It is impressively tangled, I will say.”
“Do you think Daphne’s strong suit might be shucking corn?” Livia asked.
“I’ll help you,” Dominique said. “Wine and corn shucking is an underrated combination.” She turned to Biddy. “We’ve pretty much got the seating stuff figured out, right?”
“Sure,” Biddy said, so practiced at concealing her disappointments that she had no doubt she sounded serene, even cheerful, as they abandoned her. “I’m fine here. You girls go on. Have fun.”
Through the French doors, she watched them settle into Adirondack chairs, glasses of wine on a table between them, and take up ears of corn. They ripped the green husks and pale clumps of silk free of the cobs, and dropped the naked yellow ears in one paper bag and the husks in another. Livia was talking, talking, talking, and Dominique was listening as she expertly shucked the corn, her eyebrows curved in tildes of concentration.
Biddy could no longer bear to watch Livia talk about Teddy, her eyes shining with wounded zealotry. Looking away from the girls, she made a few final desultory attempts at seating gambits that would ensure everyone’s happiness at the reception, and then she sat staring into the kitchen, wondering what to do. She could think of no more confirmation calls to make, no more gift bags to fill, no flowers to wrangle, no people to greet until the Duffs showed up for dinner. Usually e-mail was banned from the Waskeke house, necessitating a family trip to the library in town every couple of days, but this time Livia had insisted on having a cable hookup put into Winn’s office. Biddy wandered in that direction although she didn’t really want to know what new obligations were waiting in her in-box, and she only had to open Livia’s laptop and see the photo on the desktop—Teddy was not in the picture, but it was one Livia had taken on a trip with him to Scotland—to
