Scott Spencer - A Ship Made of Paper

Just then, Daniel hears Ruby’s voice rising high above the wall-towall murmur ofthe party.At first, the sound alarms him, but then he hears it for what it is:a long trill ofjoy, and he knows there is only one person who can make Ruby quite that happy.Nelson’s here.

Daniel hurries to the entrance hall.Ruby holds Nelson’s hand and jumps up and down, trying to incite him to her level offrenzied joy, but Nelson is having none ofit.He is glancing over his shoulder at his par-ents, who are taking their coats offand looking around, trying to figure out where to put them.

“Ruby, Ruby, calm down,”Daniel says, making his presence known.

He would like to think he is smiling casually, though he can’t be sure.

“You were right!”Ruby says.“They’re here!”She pushes her doll onto Daniel.“Hold this,”she says, and then turns to Nelson.“You want chips?”

“Hey, you two,”Daniel says to Iris and Hampton.In his desire to sound chipper, his voice comes out far too strongly.“Coats are in there, in the conservatory.”A rush ofdizziness.It seems he has forgotten how to distribute his weight when standing.He tries to look only at Hampton but is unable to keep his gaze offIris.She is wearing a black sweater and jeans;she has a little Band-Aid on her right thumb and he resists the im-pulse to ask her how she hurt herself, and further resists the more ab-surd but equally powerful impulse to take her hand and kiss it.Iris has Hampton’s coat and she carries it offwith her own, leaving the two men alone for a moment.A wild stab ofdisappointment goes through Daniel—ifIris had given the coats to Hampton, she and Daniel could have had ten seconds ofprivacy.

“Nelson, come back here,”Hampton commands.Nelson stops as if on the end ofa leash and turns around to look at his father.Hampton crooks his finger and Nelson dutifully walks back to his side.Like Daniel—just like Daniel, in fact—he wears khaki trousers and a blue blazer, though his are more expensively tailored.The ceiling fixtures cast a brilliant light on his hairless dome.

“Where are we?”Hampton asks Nelson.

”Sorry,”Nelson says.

”Question repeated.Where are we?”

Iris emerges from the coatroom.She is pushing up the sleeves ofher sweater.Her face is expressionless.

“In a house,”Nelson says.

”Correct.So? Can we please have inside behavior?Which means no running, no loud voices.All right?”

How would it play ifI slugged him? Daniel wonders.

Nelson nods yes, and backs out ofthe entrance hall without taking his eyes offHampton, as ifto never turn his back on the king.

Then Daniel and Hampton, and Iris between them, walk into the ballroom, without looking at each other and without saying a word.Fer-guson is standing on an old harp-backed chair in front ofthe fireplace, with his hands cupped over his mouth.“Attention, everybody,”he calls out.His voice is authoritative, but with something good-natured in it, too, something that recognizes the absurdity ofshouting at a roomful of people inWindsor County on a warm Sunday afternoon in November.

”We’re going to take you all on a grand tour ofthis house, this wonder-ful house, which I speak ofnot with the pride ofownership but the hu-mility ofstewardship.”There is a smattering ofapplause;someone even says hear hear .

“What’s this about?”Hampton asks.

”We’re here to support the house,”Iris says.“So they want to show it to us.Why is that a problem?”

Hampton shakes his head.He is clearly here against his wishes.He sees Nelson and gestures for him to come, which the boy does, immedi-ately, with Ruby following.

Ferguson jumps offthe chair and tosses wine from his plastic cup into the fireplace, igniting a sudden whoosh offlame.“Everybody line up along the west wall, and we’ll exit the ballroom through the double doors, and go straight to the portrait gallery.”

The guests are good-natured and compliant, and a line immediately forms.“I’m going to find Kate,”Daniel announces, forcing himself away from Iris and Hampton.

He cranes his neck, trying to find her in the crowd.

”Ruby can come with us,”Iris says.

The suggestion seems intimate and kind.Daniel cannot even look at her for fear ofgiving everything away.There is still no sign ofKate, and Daniel is the last out ofthe ballroom as the tour begins.Then he sees her, coming out ofa bathroom near the main stairway.She seems startled to see all the guests in a line, making their way up the stairs.The tip ofher nose is red;it looks as ifshe might have been crying.

“Tour,”Daniel says.

“Let’s get out ofhere.”She looks at the doll in Daniel’s hand, furrows her brow.

“We just got here.Come on.They’ll show us around.You’ve never really seen this place.”

They can hear Ferguson’s voice from the landing ofthe second floor.

“On the way to the portrait gallery, you’ll notice quite a few first-rate paintings in the hallway.And you’ll also notice a few blank spots, where paintings have been taken down and brought to Sotheby’s.”

“Did you know she was going to be here?”

“Who?”

“Please, don’t insult me.”

He hadn’t meant to, it was just the first word out ofhis mouth.“No,”

he says.“How could I?”

“Don’t answer my question with a question.I’d actually rather be lied to than subjected to that.It’s how my father spoke to me, that demean-ing, patriarchal bullshit.”

“I didn’t know she was going to be here.”He feels he could make things a little easier ifhe could only touch Kate right now, just put a hand on her shoulder, but he is somehow unable to manage the gesture.It is as ifthat hand, the hand that could bring comfort to Kate, has been am-putated, he has cut it offlikeVan Gogh’s ear.

Kate exhales as ifshe has been holding her breath for a long while.

“We should have brought two cars,”she says.

The tour passes directly over them, thunderously, shaking the ceiling.

Marie says in her high, ringing voice,“The rooms to your left will not be public space, but over here, to the right…”

“They’re being given a tour by a blind woman,”Kate says.

They are interrupted by the sound offootsteps coming down the stairs.It’s Susan Richmond, moving in a daze, holding on to the banister for support.She stops midway and peers down at Daniel and Kate, and then shakes her head and continues her descent, holding her chin up now, to affect a certain grandeur.“Intolerable,”she says, and then when she has reached the bottom ofthe stairs she walks up to Daniel and Kate, as ifthey were exactly the people she had hoped to find.“That little weasel is leading a tour ofmy house.IfI stayed up there for one more second I was going to go insane.”She steps in front ofthe mirror hang-ing in the entrance hall, the glass wavy, the backing showing through, framed in plain wood and shaped like a large slice ofbread.She peers at her reflection, frowns.“Hmm.Maybe I’ve already gone insane.”And then, turning toward Kate, she says,“I never told you how much I en-joyed Peaches and Cream. I just roared, that poor, ugly girl, and all the troubles she had.I gave it to Ferguson to read, but he never reads any-thing.Oh well, at least he doesn’t pretend to, he’ll actually come right out and say he hates reading.Either he disagrees with the author, in which case it annoys him, or he agrees, in which case it’s a waste of time.”

“I don’t see how he could agree or disagree with my book,”says Kate.

“It’s a novel, it would be like disagreeing with someone’s dream.”

“Yes, I see what you mean.That’s marvelous.”She turns to Daniel.

“We’re going to have to pull the plug on this, Daniel,”she says.“I don’t care what Fergie and his little friend say.This is intolerable.Ifwe’re hav-ing money problems we’ll just have to find another way to solve them, even ifit means that we go into the village every day and work at the hardware store.Anything would be better than this.”