Beatriz Williams - Tiny Little Thing - Secrets, scandal and forbidden love

To the Hardcastles, Pepper is a rare dish, never before seen at the table. This is my younger sister Pepper, I say, by way of introduction, presenting her with garnish.

Why do they call you Pepper? the men usually ask.

She usually winks. Because I’m that bad.

As a rule, the women don’t see the satirical curve of her lip when she says this, and they harden up instantly into those frozen polite expressions you get when a wind-and-surf clan of females like the Hardcastles—no makeup, horsey leather faces—encounters the cultivated variety.

I watch Kitty’s mother, Constance, tighten her mouth at Pepper, and I realize in that instant that I have more in common with my sisters than I realize, and that I’ve really never liked Constance at all. Constance, who threw an aggressive baseball into my unsuspecting stomach that first summer, soon after I knew for certain I was pregnant, and who apologized too profusely afterward. I should have known better, she said, shaking her head, and what could I do but accept her apology and tell her it was nothing? The first miscarriage began soon after, but of course I couldn’t blame Constance for that. It was an accident, after all.

I should have kept my eyes on the ball.

The Hardcastle men, on the other hand. Well, well. They interpret Pepper exactly the way they want to, don’t they? Men always do. Pepper’s happy with this arrangement. She’s never had much use for women. Even when we were kids, her friends were mostly boys. Our sister Vivian’s the only glittering double X wiggling her shapely fins in the sea of Y chromosomes surrounding Pepper, and maybe that’s only because they’re sisters, united in their disdain for me, the uptight and obedient Tiny, no fun at all.

“Honestly, Constance—it’s Constance, isn’t it? There’s so many of you, and you all look alike!”

Constance’s mouth screws into an anus.

I have to bite my lip to hold back a hysterical giggle, because Pepper’s exactly right. They do look alike, the Hardcastles. There’s just this look, a distinctive shape of the eyes, the wild thickness of the hair, the relation of nose to mouth to cheekbones. (Caspian, perhaps, is the only exception—in him, the Harrison genes seem to have triumphed.) On the men of the family, the Look is dashing and gloriously photogenic, redolent of football games and windswept sailboats, apple pie and loving your mother. On the women, the proportion is wrong somehow. Coarse, a bit goggle-eyed. Handsome is the best you can say of any of them.

Or is that ungenerous of me?

Pepper doesn’t care whether she’s ungenerous or not. She doesn’t care that Constance’s poor mouth is about to grow a hemorrhoid.

What would that be like, not to give a damn what the other women think?

I observe Pepper, whose head is tossed back in laughter, exposing the peachy column of her throat to the dying afternoon light. (We’re all out on the terrace now; the house is really too hot.) Pepper, in the very throes of not giving a damn.

It would be fucking wonderful, wouldn’t it?

Yes. It would be wonderful. For a short hour or two, a long time ago, it was wonderful. It was freedom.

I swallow the last of my drink and head into the kitchen to give the orders for dinner.

Dinner, I’ll have you know, is a smashing success, right up until the point when the fight breaks out.

Emboldened by two expert martinis—I usually drink only one—and smothered by the persistent stuffiness indoors, I order the dining room table to be brought out through the French doors onto the terrace, overlooking the ocean. The last-minute change rattles Mrs. Crane, but with a few soothing words and the assistance of the doughty Hardcastle men in dragging around the furniture, the table and chairs are soon set, every fork and wineglass in place, candles lit, bowls of priceless purple-blue hyacinths arranged at even intervals down the center of the tablecloth.

“It’s brilliant!” says Pepper. She floats to her seat. The breeze is picking up, rustling her hair.

“Oh, I’m sure the bugs are delighted.” Granny Hardcastle drops into the chair at Frank’s left and casts me a look.

I turn to Mrs. Crane. “See if Fred can dig out the tiki torches from the pool house, please.” Fred’s the groundskeeper. “I think they’re on the right-hand side, near the spare umbrellas.”

Mrs. Crane is always happy to score a point against Granny. “Right away, Mrs. Hardcastle. Shall I tell the girls to start serving?”

“Yes, please. Thank you, Mrs. Crane.”

The maids start serving, and Frank pours the wine. I take my seat at the opposite end, and Cap, waiting for this signal with the other men, lowers himself into the chair at Frank’s right with only the slightest stiffness. Pepper has somehow negotiated the seat to Caspian’s right, directly across from Frank’s father, and before long the torches are lit, the bugs have scattered, the empty wine bottles are piling up at the corner of the terrace, and Pepper and Caspian have struck up the kind of rapport of which dinner party legends are made.

Well, why shouldn’t they? They’re both unattached. Both attractive and red-blooded. Bachelor and fashionable Single Girl.

“How long is your sister planning to stay?” asks Constance, from two seats down on my left.

I plunge my spoon into the vichyssoise. “Why, I don’t know. Wouldn’t it be lovely if she stayed all summer?”

Constance turns a little pale.

“Sadly, however, she works as an assistant to a certain senator in Washington, and I’m afraid he can’t do without her for long.” I lean forward, as if in conspiracy. “Though I suppose that possibly qualifies as aiding and comforting the enemy, doesn’t it?”

From the other side of the house comes the sound of raucous laughter. The younger Hardcastles are eating dinner by the pool, under the supervision of a pair of gossiping nannies, and the teenagers have quite possibly found the stash of beers and liquors in the pool house bar. I motion to Mrs. Crane. “Could you ask Fred to keep watch over the young ones at the pool? Perhaps lock up the pool house?”

She nods and disappears.

Through the soup course and the appetizer, the scene is one of convivial amity, ripe with wholesome feeling, perfumed with hyacinth, lubricated by a crisp white wine and the warm undercurrents of a family welcoming home its prodigal son. The breeze surges in from the Atlantic, soft with humidity. The tomato aspic is a perfect balance of sweetness and acidity, the shrimp firm and white pink. To my right, Frank’s handsome younger brother Louis keeps up a stream of earthy conversation. To my left, Pepper’s laughter rises to the pale evening sky. Nearby, Constance’s diamonds glitter atop her leathery collarbone, having caught the light from a nearby torch.

I look at her and think, pagina.

The shrimp and aspic are cleared away. The bottles of red wine are placed, already open, on the table. I signal to Louis at my right, and Louis signals to Frank’s cousin Monty, across the table, and together they pour out the wine, one by one, filling every glass.

When they’re done, Frank rises to his feet, clinks his glass with his fork, and smiles at me down the long reach of the Hardcastle table.

“Ladies. Gentleman. In-laws.” He grins at Pepper. “Outlaws.”

“Hear, hear,” says Louis.

“First of all, I’d like to thank my lovely wife, Tiny, for arranging this wonderful dinner here tonight, this dinner that brings us all together, decently clothed for once. Tiny?” He picks up his glass and gestures in my direction.

I pick up my glass and gesture back.

“Hear, hear,” says Pepper. “To the miraculous Tiny!”