Cathleen Schine - The Three Weissmanns of Westport

Smile awkwardly.

And stand up and shake your hand.

And say, "Miranda! What are you doing in Palm Springs?"

In a cold, cautious voice.

"Kit!" She heard herself laugh nervously. Kit released her hand. She noticed the hand, free, pale, floating in the air like a bird. It flew to her face. "It's so good to see you," she said. "Where's Henry? I hope I get a chance to see him, too." She was speaking too fast. She took a breath.

"Henry?" Kit said, as if they were talking about some acquaintance.

Again she laughed nervously.

"Henry's with his mother."

"Oh."

"So that's that," Kit said.

"Oh," Miranda said again. Little Henry. Little Henry had a mother.

"Henry?" asked the woman sitting in the chair next to him. She turned her beautiful face to Miranda for a second. Not quite as young as the others at the table, she thought. Why was she so familiar? College? An editor? Then Miranda thought, She is an actress. A famous actress.

Kit bent his head toward the woman and smiled as if to say, Nothing, nothing.

Miranda glanced around for an empty chair she could pull up. She saw Kit's fingers curl around the back of his own chair protectively. She caught his eye, about to be amused, to make a joke about stealing his chair, but his expression told her this was not a funny moment. His face was rigid with effort. Effort at what? He took a breath, slanted his head away from her; his eyes flickered shut, open, shut, back toward her. Something was very wrong. Something was very important. She had a premonition.

Kit took the hand of the famous actress and drew her to a standing position.

"Miranda Weissmann, I'd like you to meet Ingrid Chopin…"

Miranda smiled and held out her hand and felt the woman's cool fingers as Kit finished his sentence, "… my fiancee."

The woman smiled back at her, a gorgeous, ravishing, impersonal smile, then gracefully withdrew her hand. Miranda's hand was suspended in the air. Kit was saying, "Well, it really was lovely to see you." Later, she noted the past tense, the dismissal. Now, as if she were operating in slower motion than the rest of the room, she noted only that she had already opened her mouth, about to speak, the words all assembled, ready to go: God, I'm so happy for you, all your success… and now this wonderful news…

But those words, like people loitering in a line, were pushed aside by other words, nasty pushy little words that could not wait their turn.

"You little fuck," she said.

It must have been quite loud, for heads turned.

She was aware of her own stillness, standing as if posed, as if thinking, her hand now again lightly resting on her cheek. She began to pivot slowly away, then pivoted slowly back again. I forgot something, she thought. There's something I forgot. She moved the hand that had been resting on her cheek, lifted it high in the air, then brought it across Kit's face with a loud whack. That was better. That was much better. As she walked deliberately away, her face shone above the room as white as the cold moon.

"Oh Jesus," Annie said when she heard Miranda shout at Kit. "Oh Jesus," she said when she saw Miranda give him a crack across the face.

"What, dear?" her mother asked, turning from an animated conversation with Lou. "Is something the matter?"

"No, no," Annie said, standing to block her mother's view.

Roberts, who had clearly seen the contretemps, looked up from his chair at Annie standing above him, a pained expression on his face.

The band broke into a rousing rendition of "That's Amore."

"Oh, I love this song," Betty said. "Where's Miranda?" she added, looking around.

Miranda was standing very still beside a glistening cliff of oysters, weeping.

Roberts hopped to his feet. "Would you like to dance, Betty?" And he swept her safely away into the tightly packed crowd of couples.

Kit had whispered to his astonished fiancee, given a bemused smile to his table of gawking friends, and then walked quickly after Miranda, his head lowered the way men walk when they're being arrested. When he reached her, he put his hand on her shoulder. She was crying without moving a muscle, as if she were not personally involved with the tears at all, standing quietly while they made their way of their own accord down her cheeks.

"Miranda, I'm sorry. I should have told you. I know I should have. It's just that things happened so fast. And what you and I had together… it was so much of the moment, wasn't it? But still, I know I should have, well, warned you. But it's been a total whirl." He gave a swift little boyish smile. "I'm going to be in her next movie. Did I tell you that?"

Miranda shook her head.

"You know what that means to me, you of all people. You understand me so well, Miranda. A feature film? After all these years?"

The tears had stopped. Miranda neither spoke nor moved.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

They were blocking the mountain of ice ornamented with its large silver oysters in their large iridescent shells. Several people approached, shifted their feet a bit, then gingerly reached around them to scoop oysters onto their plates.

"I love oysters," Miranda said.

"I know."

She shrugged.

"I'm so sorry, Miranda."

"I know."

Miranda's progress toward her own table was slow, violent, and almost magisterial, her stride measured and regal, her head held high as she pushed aside stray chairs that lay in her path with unthinking, clattering nobility. Annie saw the other diners turning their eyes away, trying not to stare. When she reached her own chair, Miranda kicked that aside, too. It tipped, fell listlessly on its back, and lay with its legs sticking up. Miranda, silent and ashen, was trembling.

Annie took her sister's hand, as much to prevent her from making a further scene as to comfort her.

"Darling, what's happened?" Betty said, returning with Roberts from the dance floor. "Are you all right?"

"Food poisoning," Annie said. The first thing that came to mind. What a Jew I am, she thought, seeing a tray of clams go by.

"Seafood in the desert," chirped Rosalyn. "It's unnatural. Just what my father was saying."

Her father wagged his finger at her. "It shouldn't stink of herring," he said.

Roberts and Annie took Miranda back to the house in Amber and Crystal's golf cart. Miranda got into bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Annie came back to the main house to find Roberts smoking a smelly cigar outside by the pool.

"Does this bother you?" he asked.

Annie shook her head, but he put it out anyway.

"Thank you," she said.

"Bad habit."

"I didn't mean the cigar." She stared up at the bright pulsing stars. Why had she allowed Miranda to talk them into coming to Palm Springs? Why had she allowed Miranda to talk them into going to Westport in the first place? Why did she ever listen to Miranda about anything at all? Her job as the reasonable older sister was to protect Miranda, not to indulge her.

"I'm a lousy sister," she said.

"I don't think this really has much to do with you," Roberts replied softly. "You can't do everything, Annie."

Then the others trooped out from the house through the sliding glass doors, noisy with wine and dancing.

"My housekeeper's nephew was killed by a coyote," Rosalyn was saying. "In Mexico, crossing the border."

"They attack people?" Crystal said. "Oh my God, Amber…"

"Not the animal coyote. Don't you watch CNN? God."

"How is my baby?" Betty asked Annie, looking around for Miranda. Her voice was a little thick.

She must have had quite a few glasses of wine. Just as well, Annie thought. "She's better. She went to bed, though."

"You won't believe who we saw," Rosalyn said. "At Seafood Night, too!"

"Zink!" cried Crystal. "We saw Zink! Kit Maybank, the actor! He's even better-looking in person. I can't believe you know him. Did you see who he was with? Ingrid Chopin? He's moving up in the world. I knew he wasn't gay. In real life, I mean."