Cathleen Schine - The Three Weissmanns of Westport

His head back, Frederick closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on something other than the fuss. He had to write a book review and tried to compose his opening sentence, but the novel he was reviewing, a stark and painful allegory set in Las Vegas, was, finally, boring. Everything, he'd discovered, was boring as you hurtled toward the abyss. Fear, hopelessness-it turned out they were unequivocally dull. He decided to take up smoking again as soon as possible.

Amber and Crystal had spent the day shopping, starting on Fifth Avenue, ending up at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. They were meeting Frederick for drinks at Gabriel's, on the other side of Sixtieth Street. They perched on their bar stools, their shopping bags clustered around their feet. They ordered Cosmopolitans and waited.

"I feel very artistic," Crystal said.

"Don't you mean sophisticated? There's nothing artistic about shopping, or even cocktails, to be honest."

"Pardonnez-moi." Crystal contemplated her pink drink. "Hey, should you even be drinking? Doesn't it cut off their placenta or oxygen or something?"

"It's my placenta," Amber said. But then she saw Frederick pushing open the door and slid the drink away from her.

"Hey, Daddy-o," she said, standing and embracing him.

"You really have to stop calling me that, Amber."

"Silly," she said, kissing him.

He smiled. "Ready, girls? Once more into the breach?"

They gave him a quizzical look.

"Henry the Fifth, dear friends." He was insufferable, he knew. And rather enjoying it. And entitled, too, to a little self-indulgence. Think what was ahead. My God, think what was ahead. He took out one of his brand-new Marlboros.

"No smoking, sir," said the bartender.

Ah yes. No smoking in restaurants. How could he have forgotten? But then, he hadn't smoked in thirty years, so perhaps he could be forgiven. He slid the pack back in his pocket. "Well," he said. "All ready for another stab at my children?"

Stab, Amber thought. Yes, she was ready for that all right.

They arrived just at eight. Gwen and Ron lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a brownstone on Bank Street. Frederick was a little out of breath from the stairs when Gwen answered the door. The cigarettes he'd smoked on the street had not helped.

"Oh!" she said. "Look who the cat dragged in. Amber and Crystal. I'm afraid I wasn't expecting you."

"'Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone,'" Frederick said. "Henry the Sixth." He bowed. I'm on a roll, he thought. If only Shakespeare had written Henry the Seventh.

Gwen stepped back, viewing him with a puzzled frown. "Are you drunk?" She could think of no other reason that her father, so polite, so gentlemanly, would show up on her doorstep for dinner with two uninvited guests and then stand there and insult them. "You look pale. And you smell like cigarettes."

He was about to take out the red pack and proudly show her the depths to which he had sunk when Amber said, "It's the steps. He needs to do some aerobic exercise. I tell him to go to the gym, but you know how he is."

Gwen did know how he was. But she did not like it that Amber seemed to know, too.

As they set two extra places, Evan said, "Hey there, Freddie." He shook his head and laughed, then turned to Crystal. "So, how's the home-sitting industry?"

"You sit on homes?" one of the twins asked.

"I am a student."

The girl looked disappointed.

"Life coaching, right?" Evan said. "Do you have, like, a whistle? Gatorade?"

"I'd say you could use some coaching yourself, sir. In manners."

"I could use a lot of things." He held an imaginary joint to his lips and inhaled.

Crystal laughed.

"Evan!" Gwen said. "Jesus. There are children here."

"I'll say," Crystal said.

Evan pursed his lips in a pout. "I was just kidding around."

When shall I tell them? Frederick wondered.

"Amber, why don't you sit here, next to Ophelia?" Gwen pointed to a small stool wedged beneath a corner of the table.

"What a quaint little stool. Shaker?" She had been reading up on antiques.

Gwen nodded reluctant agreement with the intruder.

Should I tell them before they eat? Frederick wondered. That will ruin their appetites. After they eat? Then they will feel ill.

"What fun!" Amber had settled herself on the stool. "Don't I look like a little milkmaid, Ophelia?"

"Juliet," the child said petulantly, and gave Amber a kick.

Suddenly it was Frederick who felt ill. The bravado that had started in the bar deserted him. He looked at Gwennie. She had grown up to be a snob, it was true. But she was only protecting what she thought was important. She had been officious even as a child. He had always found it touching, her need to make hierarchical order out of a chaotic world. And Evan, so sarcastic and obnoxious these days. Perhaps he would outgrow it. Whether he did or not, Frederick knew he would always adore him. He watched his son torturing Crystal, playing with her like a cruel cat. Good luck to you, Evan, he thought. Those mouse sisters are cleverer than you think.

"I'm sorry Joe couldn't be here," Ron said.

"The economy." Felicity spoke as if the economy were a traffic jam. "Just terrible. I just barely made it here myself. But then I'm just a VP, and of course my part of the business is going so much more smoothly than the rest."

"I'm glad you're here," said Frederick, "all of you. Because I have something of an announcement to make."

"That's funny," Gwen said. "Because so do I!"

All eyes turned to her.

"I'm pregnant!"

Frederick and Amber exchanged a look as everyone congratulated Gwen and Ron.

"Now, what was your announcement, Dad?" asked Ron.

"Nothing," said Dad. "Nothing that can't wait."

At the apartment on Central Park West, Amber was sharing a room with Crystal, not Frederick. She had been shocked the other night when Frederick almost announced her pregnancy and relieved when Gwen's news made it impossible.

"They have to get to know me better," she explained to Frederick. "But when they do, you'll see. They'll love me. In spite of themselves."

And so, to Frederick's surprise, it came to pass.

"Gwen, would you mind if I took the girls to the Met today? There's a toddler tour of the European paintings…" "Oh, Felicity, you have managed to make this apartment both grand and yet so personal. You really used a decorator? It feels so organic to your personality. You must be a fabulous manager…" "Gwen, did you hear Juliet singing the Dora the Explorer song? Have you considered voice lessons?"

Amber was blatant, brilliant. Frederick watched with amazement as the flattery did its work on his prickly daughter and pricklier sister. If Amber had been rubbing her hands together and muttering how 'umble she was, she could not have been more obsequious. "I'm sorry- what? You made this dinner and you worked all day?" she said to Felicity. "If that handsome boss of yours were ever foolish enough to let you go"-and here she simpered at Joseph, who smiled foolishly back-"God, you could so get a job as a chef. I mean, who am I to even say that, just your grateful, useless houseguest, but I can't help it-you should try out for Top Chef. You're totally what they're looking for, totally telegenic."

And on and on it went, this sycophantic barrage. Amber went to Dumbo and found trendy baby blankets and bibs for Gwen. She appeared at Joseph's office with a basket of designer cookies and gave them to Felicity, then helped her pass them out to the employees, all the while giving the impression that it had been Felicity's idea.

"I went all the way to Red Hook for them," she told Crystal that night in a whisper. They lay side by side in twin beds.

"Why? There's bakeries all over this neighborhood."