Elin Hilderbrand - The Love Season

Now , she thought. Now!

She heard a sound. Mr. Rogers was at the side door, mewing. He wanted to come with her, maybe.

“Good-bye,” Renata whispered.

And she ran.

7:33 P.M.

Four glasses of champagne and nothing to eat-no wonder the room seemed off-kilter-and yet Marguerite couldn’t bring herself to move. She poured another glass of champagne, already dreading the headache she would have in the morning. She should go get the mussels from the fridge, the aioli. She should tear off a hunk of bread; it might act like a sponge. The problem with having no sense of taste was that food held zero appeal and eating fine, beautiful food was an exercise in frustration. Marguerite would know, intellectually, that the mussels tasted like the ocean and that the aioli was heady with garlic and Dijon, and yet in her mouth it would be mush. She didn’t dwell on the loss of this sense much anymore-after fourteen years it was a fact of life-though she often wondered what it felt like to be blind, or deaf. Was it as disheartening to imagine a painting by Brueghel or Vermeer, or a sunset on a winter’s night, or your own child’s face, but be trapped in darkness, even with your eyes wide open? Was it as ungratifying to remember the exultant tones of the “Hallelujah Chorus” on Christmas Eve, or a guitar riff of Eric Clapton, or the sound of your lover’s voice, but be wrapped in baffling silence?

The grandfather clock went through its half-hour spiel. Seven thirty: the very moment this whole tumultuous day had been about. Can I feel sorry for myself now? Marguerite wondered.

There was a knock at the door. Surely not. But yes, Marguerite heard it: three short, insistent raps. She looked in the direction of the front hall but was too petrified to move. She sat perfectly still, like a frightened rabbit, well aware that if someone looked through the proper window at the proper angle, she would be fully visible.

Another knock, four raps, more insistent. Marguerite didn’t fear someone trying to hurt her as much as someone trying to help her. She rose slowly, got her bearings with the room, eyed a path from her seat at the dining-room table to the front door. She cursed herself for not getting dressed; she was still wearing the kimono. She thought about all the brilliant minds who had written about drinking-Hemingway a master among them with his wine bags made from the skin of animals and the simple repetition “He was really very drunk.” And yet no one had ever captured the essence of four glasses of champagne on an empty stomach. The way the blood buzzed, the way the eyes simultaneously widened and narrowed, but most of all the way one’s perception of the world changed. Everything seemed strange, funny, outrageous; the situation at hand became blurred, softened-and yet so clear! Someone was knocking on the door and Marguerite, drunk, or nearly so, rose to answer it.

There had been many, many nights of serious drinking at the restaurant. The cocktails, the champagne, the wine, the port, the cordials-it was astounding, really, how much the customers drank, how much Marguerite herself had consumed on a nightly basis. Lots of times she had stumbled home, leaning on Porter, singing to the empty streets. Lots of times her judgment had been compromised-she had said things that were indiscreet, unwise, and possibly even cruel; she had done things she regretted (the episode in the pantry with Damian Vix came to mind), and yet she kept on drinking. She loved it to this day; she thought it was one of God’s marvelous gifts to the world-the sense of possibility alcohol inspired. As her hand turned the doorknob, she conceded that she had been lucky; alcohol had never gotten the best of her the way it had, say, Walter Arcain. She had never tipped back whiskey at ten in the morning and then hit an unsuspecting jogger from behind while driving erratically over the speed limit on icy roads. The mere thought sobered Marguerite so that when she swung open the door, heedless of who it might be-hell, it could be the mailman with his irregular hours-she was frowning.

“Aunt Daisy?”

Marguerite heard the words before she focused on the face. She came after all , Marguerite thought, and then checked to see if it was true. Renata Knox, her godchild, stood before her-red in the face, panting, sweating, with a plummy bruise to the left of her chin. Her white-blond hair was in a ponytail, she wore a white shirt and a pink skirt, and slicing through her small breasts was the strap of an unwieldy duffel bag. It looked like she had run in her sandals all the way from Hulbert Avenue; it looked like she was trying to escape the Devil himself-and yet she was utterly beautiful to Marguerite. She was Candace.

“Darling!” Marguerite said.

“Can I come in?” Renata asked. “I’m kind of on the lam.”

“Yes,” Marguerite said. “Yes, of course.” She ushered Renata into her hallway, still not quite believing it. Was this really happening? She came anyway? Marguerite shut the door, and when Renata kept a steady, worried gaze on the door, Marguerite locked it.

“Thank you,” Renata said.

“Thank you ,” Marguerite said.

Marguerite pulled the second champagne flute from the freezer and filled it to the top. Meanwhile, Renata dropped her heavy bag.

“Is it all right if I stay the night?” she asked.

“Of course!” Marguerite said. She was so happy for herself, and for whichever of the upstairs bedrooms that would finally be used, that it took her a moment to realize something must have gone terribly wrong at the house on Hulbert Avenue. Marguerite handed the champagne to Renata, who accepted it gratefully. “Go right ahead and drink. You look like you need it. We’ll have a proper cheers in a minute.” Marguerite had planned to serve the hors d’oeuvres in the sitting room, but it suddenly seemed too stuffy; the grandfather clock would watch over them like an armed guard. So, the kitchen table. Marguerite fetched the polka-dotted cocktail napkins, the toothpicks, the mussels, the aioli. She decided to stay in her kimono. She didn’t want to leave Renata for even a minute; she might disappear as quickly and unexpectedly as she had come.

“Sit, please, sit!”

Renata collapsed in a kitchen chair. Her face was still a bright alarm. Sunburn. She impaled a mussel on a toothpick and zigzagged it heavily through the aioli.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Marguerite said, settling in a chair herself. This was supposed to be an evening when Marguerite did the talking, and she had worried about how she would negotiate the requisite small-talk-to-start. Now there was no need.

Renata didn’t seem keen on explaining right away. She was too busy feasting. She brought the mussels successfully to her mouth a third of the time-otherwise, dollops of aioli landed on the table, which she didn’t notice, or on the front of her white shirt, which she did. She swabbed those drops with her cocktail napkin, leaving behind pale smudges.

“Sorry,” Renata said. “I’m starving.”

“Eat!” Marguerite said. “Eat!”

“These are delicious,” Renata said. “They’re divine.”

She finished her glass of champagne, burped quietly under her breath, and tried to relax. She was safe, for the time being, though her whereabouts wouldn’t be a secret for long. Someone would come sniffing around shortly, but Renata wasn’t leaving. They couldn’t make her.

“Darling?” Marguerite said.

Renata had seen pictures of Aunt Daisy in her parents’ wedding album. In these pictures, she wore a purple dress; her hair was in an enormous braided bun that sat on top of her head like a hat. There were different pictures of Marguerite in the back of the album, pictures taken during the reception. In one photograph, Marguerite’s hair was down-it was long and wavy, kinked from the braiding-she had changed into a black turtleneck and black pants; she was holding a cigarette in one hand, a glass of red wine in the other. Renata’s parents were also in the photograph, her uncle Porter, her uncle Chase, and one of the restaurant’s waitresses. It looked like a photograph from a Parisian café-everyone was half-smiling and sexy and smoky. Marguerite, though she wasn’t pretty like Renata’s mother, appeared very glamorous in these pictures, and that was the image Renata had clung to. Her godmother, a famous chef with sophisticated sensibilities, her mother’s best friend.