Cathleen Schine - The Three Weissmanns of Westport

Annie went to the bathroom and held up her traveling magnifying mirror and gave a few desultory plucks where needed, then went back to the bedroom, where Miranda was in bed intently studying something on her laptop. The room was cool, and outside, the world ended in abrupt black night. Annie moved closer, but Miranda moved her cursor across the screen and the windows swept themselves away, leaving behind nothing but an expanse of digital blue.

So, Annie thought, Kit Maybank? Maybe Henry would appear in the morning and moo like a cow and quack like a duck to the amazement of his elders. Miranda and Kit could walk and talk and admire the sunset, bound by the little boy between them, swinging from their hands. Or not. Miranda had confided nothing to Annie. For all Annie knew, she had met a new suitor online and was going to meet him at midnight in Joshua Tree National Park. Probably turn out to be a serial murderer. Oh God… Annie looked over at her sister, safe in the next bed, to reassure herself. I wonder, she thought, if Miranda ever worries about me.

The next day, while Mr. Shpuntov napped in his room, his uneven snores broadcast through the house by a baby monitor, Betty sat on a comfortable mid-century chair trying to read a mystery called Return to Sender she'd found in her room. It was bright mid-morning, but the wall of windows was protected by an overhang of the swooping roof and the living room had a welcome dimness, a soft contrast to the harsh daylight on the other side. The book was frustratingly dull. Most mysteries are, she thought. The mystery of her marriage, for example. She could turn the years over and over again in her mind and they still added up to happiness that had been shredded suddenly and inexplicably into ugly scraps of pain. She sighed, more loudly than she would have liked, for Roberts, who had just come in, looked concerned and sat beside her.

"You're worried," he said.

"No. Not really. That would involve hope."

"Oh dear."

"I just don't understand. Maybe the end of a marriage is like God, and we are not meant to understand."

Roberts nodded in apparent agreement. "My wife died ten years ago. I don't understand that either. I miss her every day. Do you miss your husband?"

"Yes. Every minute. It's easier when I pretend he's dead. I'm sorry-that must sound so callous to you. But if he's alive, if he's alive and behaving like this… well… And he always prided himself on being such a decent man…"

Roberts said, "Sometimes people need some guidance, don't you think? Even decent people, and especially people who think they're decent."

Betty liked the tone of his voice. Not hysterical and fuming like her daughters, not cautious and pessimistic like her lawyers, not numb and beaten down like her own inner voice. Even talking to Cousin Lou, who advised her on some of the real estate aspects of her Case, was trying-his hearty reassurance, so touching, so enraging. Roberts's voice was quiet and determined, as if it were on its way somewhere, someplace it needed to be. He asked her a few questions about her lawyers, about the disposition of the Case. Betty had never discussed her Case with someone who understood the law before, except her lawyers, of course, but they seemed to find the law a constantly surprising series of impediments, as if they were crossing rocky desert terrain for the first time and had forgotten their shoes.

"What fun this has been!" she said. "Odd how a little kvetching can cleanse the soul."

"Well, let's just see what happens," Roberts said with a smile. "Let's just see what happens with the late great Joseph Weissmann."

She smiled back at him. "Let's just see," she agreed.

Cousin Lou came into the room then, his voice booming, "All hands on deck! All hands on deck!" And only when all the inhabitants, including his bewildered father-in-law, had gathered around him did he continue. "Tonight I celebrate fifty years of wedded bliss."

Rosalyn clapped her hands like a girl.

"I am pleased to include all of you, my family, in this great celebration of love."

Annie glanced at her mother and then at Miranda to see how well disposed they were to such a celebration. Betty looked resigned, Miranda tense.

"So, I invite all of you to join us-"

"And Amber and Crystal, of course," Rosalyn interjected.

"And Amber and Crystal, of course," he said, bowing to his wife. "I invite you to join us at the country club's Seafood Night."

"Seafood in the desert!" Rosalyn said. "We've got it all."

"Do we wear costumes?" Annie asked with a worried face, for she was remembering Western Night at the boys' day camps when they wore bandannas and boots with their shorts and T-shirts.

"You eat heaps of seafood piled on silver platters," said Cousin Lou.

"It's all endangered and full of mercury," Miranda said.

Miranda had been agitated and rather sour since she woke up. The eagerness of the past few days had bloomed into something else altogether, like algae. She was so volatile. It was hard to keep up. Betty put her finger to her mouth to shoosh her.

Annie frowned at her sister. Now as usual she would have to work that much harder in the civility department. "Seafood!" she said. "Who doesn't love seafood?"

Roberts looked from Miranda to Annie and back again. "There you go."

Annie thought, Poor, poor Roberts, not for the first time that day, either.

Betty said, "Yum yum," and went back to her book.

That afternoon, when Rosalyn returned from another golf cart "booze cruise" chaperoned by Amber and Crystal, several glasses of wine the merrier, she collapsed onto the sofa and confided to Betty that she had harbored some doubts about Crystal and Amber at first, thinking they were not exceptional enough for her. After all, what had they done in their lives? They moved from house to house like Gypsies, first looking after a house on the East Coast, then the West Coast… It was hardly a recommendation for an extraordinary acquaintance. But then she had gotten to know them, and they were extraordinary, indeed. Just the nicest girls you could imagine, full of fun… They had taught her a delightful game involving Ping-Pong balls and plastic cups of beer… "Amber is a massage therapist, you know. She's not licensed yet, still studying. But, Betty, she has a gift. I mean, it's amazing. My sciatica? Gone! It's almost as good as having a doctor in the family."

The extraordinary girls, meanwhile, after dropping off Rosalyn, had turned the golf cart in the direction of the guesthouse and pulled it up to the edge of the patio there.

"Hello!" they cried. "Hello in there!"

Miranda and Annie both came to the sliding glass door and stepped out. Annie, having just come out of the shower, was wrapped in a towel.

"We wanted to give you a real Palm Springs welcome!" the older one, Crystal, said. "Of course, we're not really from here. Only old people are really from here, and even they are from other places, it's a very unique spot, but since we're officially here and staying in such a super house, the pool is totally unique, a waterfall…"

"Two," her sister Amber said.

"That's what I said. A waterfall, too."

"There are two waterfalls, Crystal." She turned to Annie. "I've trained myself to be very observant, sensitive to my surroundings. I really have to be."

Annie pulled her towel closer around her. Please be sensitive to my dripping hair, she thought hopelessly, and let me go inside.

"She's a healer," Crystal said

Miranda, who had not said a word, now gave a slight, rather dismissive wave and disappeared inside. Again Annie was left to hold down the obligatory chitchat fort. She wondered what would happen if she, too, decided to have no patience.

"That's excessive, Crystal," Amber said, laughing. "I'm just a regular old student of massage therapy."