Anna Pitoniak - Necessary People

“And get another lecture from Anne and Thomas about how I failed to take care of my little sister?” He laughed bitterly. “No, thank you. They still think it’s my fault that she disappeared at Christmas two years ago.”

“How was that your fault?” I said, surprised Oliver was bringing this up. Like anything unpleasant, that episode had become taboo in the Bradley family. Maybe it was the setting. When she ran away that Christmas, Stella had come here, to the house in Maine. She was right under her family’s nose the entire time. It was too easy to fool them. Later she told me that she returned to the city mostly because she’d gotten so bored.

Oliver frowned. “Who knows? Stella can do no wrong.” His tone was acidic, and his stare contained real contempt. “That’s the way it’s always been.”

Anne was waiting as we pulled up to the dock. She wore a bright Lilly Pulitzer sheath and held her hand over her eyes, shading them from the sun. “You’ll never guess who I ran into,” she said, as Stella knotted the rope around the cleat. Stella was surprisingly dexterous with the anchors and ropes and engine. In another life she could have been a mechanical engineer. Or maybe this was just how you turned out when you grew up around fancy boats.

“Who?” Oliver said.

“Ginny. Ginny Grass! I bumped into her at the market. Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

“Not really,” Stella said. “She lives down the road.”

“Well, she’s coming for dinner tomorrow night. Won’t that be nice?” Anne said. “Violet. You must know Ginny, too, of course?”

“Of course,” I said. When Ginny passed through the newsroom, the most she’d give me was a bland smile. I was too many rungs down the totem pole to matter.

“I’m starving,” Stella said.

“Cocktails in fifteen minutes,” Anne said, starting back up the lawn to the house. “Hurry, please. Your grandmother doesn’t like wet bathing suits.”

There was a corner of the porch that Grandmother Bradley liked in the evening: on the western side of the house, looking over the inlet that separated the peninsula from Maine proper, the sky and the water flamed with a blood orange sunset. There were Adirondack chairs, a wooden table with fixings for cocktails, and a silver bowl filled with nuts. The bowl, Mrs. Bradley had explained, was a family heirloom. It dated back to the nineteenth century. When Mrs. Bradley refilled the bowl, she did so with a Costco-sized, generic-branded plastic container of mixed nuts. I’m not sure whether anyone else found this as funny as I did.

That night, Mr. Bradley was mixing a pitcher of martinis, and Mrs. Bradley was supervising. She took a sip. “Too much vermouth,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“ There you are,” Mrs. Bradley said sharply to Anne, when she breezed in. “Anne, I wish you had consulted me before inviting Ginny Grass to dinner.”

“What do you mean?” Anne’s smile faded. “I thought you loved Ginny.”

“Tomorrow is Louisa’s night off. We won’t have any help.”

“Oh.” Anne went pale. This was serious. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I can take care of it. I’ll pick something up from the market. Pasta salad and corn on the cob. Ginny won’t mind.”

Mrs. Bradley emitted a mirthless laugh. “It’s a good thing Ginny’s mother is no longer with us,” she said. “She’s probably spinning in her grave. The Bradley family serving her daughter corn on the cob. My goodness.”

Anne looked miffed. “Well, times have changed.”

“Hmmph,” Mrs. Bradley said. Then she looked at me, and her expression changed. “Actually, I have a better idea.”

So this was how I spent my last day of vacation: cooking dinner for eight people. I went to the market that morning, Anne’s credit card in my pocket. “Spare no expense,” Anne had said, winking like she’d just given me a wonderful gift. She loved Mrs. Bradley’s idea. It was the perfect chance to show me off. Planning menus, cooking gourmet meals—look at how far Violet Trapp had come! I was tempted to throw the game. To remind them that they couldn’t count on me to be their performing monkey.

But I hadn’t gotten this far in life by being a spiteful jerk, so I settled on an heirloom tomato tart for an appetizer, followed by sirloin steak, zucchini gratin, roasted potatoes, and blueberry pie for dessert. At the wine store in town, I asked the clerk to recommend a pairing. When he asked about a price point, I repeated, “Spare no expense.” He steered me toward a thirty-five-dollar bottle of sauvignon blanc. I bought a case of it, threw in a few bottles of Bollinger champagne, and took pleasure in handing him Anne’s platinum credit card.

When I returned from town, Stella and Oliver were playing on the tennis court, which was right near the driveway. I hefted a paper bag into my arms from the trunk and squinted into the bright sunlight. “A little help?” I called.

“It’s match point,” Stella called back. “I’m about to finish him off.”

“Please? The ice cream is melting.”

She ignored me, bouncing the tennis ball with one hand, touching it to the racket and rocking back on her heels. She raised the racket above her head, and smashed it down in a powerful stroke. It was a perfect serve, the ball landing just shy of the service line, but Oliver returned it with a drop shot. Stella sprinted toward the net, but she was too late.

“Ha!” Oliver said. “Deuce.”

“God damn it,” Stella said.

“You’re both useless,” I shouted.

The steady thwack of their game continued as I carried groceries into the house. The Bradley family avoided the kitchen all day. By the time everything was done—the tomato tart and blueberry pie baked and cooling, the steak ready for the grill, the gratin and potatoes ready for the oven—it was nearly 6 p.m. Promptly at 6:30, I heard the crunch of tires over gravel. I was wearing my best dress, had put on makeup and jewelry. Tonight could be an opportunity to impress Ginny. To be charming and interesting, to lodge myself in her awareness as more than just another employee.

“How do I look?” I said to Oliver, who was mixing a drink on the porch.

He smiled. “Lovely.”

As I was about to say hello to Ginny, Stella swept onto the porch and cut me off, wearing the same ratty sundress she’d worn all day, her unwashed hair in a bun. This is the harshest advantage of the truly beautiful: the less effort they put in, the more they distance themselves from the rest of us. Stella managed to monopolize Ginny for the entire cocktail hour. The Stella charm offensive was at work.

Later, Anne clapped her hands. “What do you say, Violet? Are we ready for dinner?”

Everyone turned to look at me, including Ginny. She nodded, gave me her bland it’s-you-again smile. Grandmother Bradley took my elbow and tugged me away from the group. “We ought to serve the food in the kitchen,” she said. “I can’t stand buffet-style. Too messy. Then I suppose I’ll help you carry the plates out.” She said this last as if it was an enormous favor, not a basic courtesy.

But when his grandmother approached the table with two plates of tomato tart in hand, Oliver sprang to his feet. “Oh, Nana, you shouldn’t be doing all that,” he said.

“Violet can handle it, can’t she?” Stella said. “Here, Nana, sit next to me.”

I carried the rest of the plates out by myself, and twenty minutes later I cleared them, and then brought out dinner by myself, too. The group was too absorbed in conversation to notice my to-and-fro. As I returned to the table, I saw Stella turn to Ginny, who was seated next to her. She touched a finger to Ginny’s wrist. “What’s this bracelet?” Stella said.