Last to Know: A Novel(33)
Rose was so lost in her own thoughts, she hadn’t known he was there. “It’s nothing, hon. Just someone calling to let me know about … about something.”
Her son looked so troubled, she went and put her arms round him in a hug. Suddenly it didn’t seem fair to be a part of this, it wasn’t fair to her family. She would forget about it, tell no one, get on with her own life. Bea Havnel would be gone in a week, then surely things would get back to normal.
Anyhow, she had guests coming for dinner, and it was getting late.
22
It was already 6 P.M. when Rose finally made it out onto the terrace and began to set up her table. She’d had to dash to the supermarket in town to pick up “the necessary” for her dinner. Wanting to make it quick and easy she decided on melon with prosciutto to start, then good old-fashioned beef stroganoff, which no one ever made anymore and which was so dead-easy, served with buttered fettucini and a wonderful green salad full of all the best the local small-holder could provide, with, of course, her own homemade balsamic dressing and slivers of good Parmesan cheese. Then raspberries and strawberries with fresh thick cream for those who wanted, and orange sorbet for those who didn’t, with the wafer-thin almond tuile biscuits Madison would make.
She had not been able to ask Wally about the wines, since he was still out “fishing,” so she raided his cellar and the hell with him, brought up three bottles of the good French with pictures of grand chateaux and the year stamped on them. Might as well drink the friggin’ good stuff while she could, she thought, then wondered exactly why she had thought that. Was it that she thought Wally was going to leave her? What was up with Wally anyway? Why was he so on edge, so nervy? And why oh why had she lost him? Because somehow, she knew she had.
But. Right now. Life had to go on. Dinner parties had to go on. Looking after lost souls like Bea Havnel had to go on. Bringing up four kids had to go on. And maybe everything would work out.
She glanced across the lake to the Havnel house. The scene of a murder. She could see yellow police tape cordoning it off from would-be sightseers, and men in dark blue jackets with POLICE in big letters on them still bending over lumps of blackened beams and charred remains. Not exactly a perfect view for her guests.
Sighing, Rose turned to look at her own house. Her beloved lake house, the best place in the world: a square, simple white house with dormer windows above and a row of French doors below; a chimney of course—didn’t all fairy-tale houses have chimneys? And this house was her fairy tale. There was the flagstone terrace with its white painted fence with the little lights slung between the posts; and the wooden jetty where a yellow dinghy bobbed, and the rickety boathouse that looked ready to be torn down and replaced. And of course their own small sandy cove, with the silver birches crowding in the back, and always the lake … sometimes blue as the sky, sometimes silently silver, and sometimes when the winds and the storms came, inky and tossing with whitecaps, foaming onto their little shore in sudden anger, leaving behind a trail of greenish weed that later they would rake clear.
How many times, she wondered, had she dived off that jetty? Did Wally remember the first time? Her in the white one-piece bathing suit that fit her like a second skin, breasts spilling out the top? Did he remember diving in after her, sliding down the bathing suit straps, holding her against his chest until their heartbeats sounded as one?
Rose pulled herself back from those memories. She had work to do. Shaking out the linen cloth she smoothed it over the battered redwood table that had been on the terrace forever and that could and often did seat twenty at a pinch. And there had been a lot of “pinches” over the years. Tonight, though, they would be fourteen. No, fifteen now, with Bea. She had almost forgotten the girl. Where was she anyhow?
As if in answer to her unspoken question, Bea came out from the kitchen bearing a heavy three-pronged silver candelabra. “Look,” Bea said, placing it at one end of the table. “I cleaned it for you. It was so badly tarnished, from this damp lake air I suppose.”
Rose, who liked her silver tarnished almost black because it looked more “casual” that way, forced a smile and said enthusiastically, “Well, my love, that’s so good of you. I can’t believe how … how nice it looks now.”
“Oh, I did both. I’ll go fetch the other.” Beaming, Bea disappeared back into the kitchen.
Rose thought at least she looked happy. In fact that was the first time she had seen her really smile, not just that upward tilt of eyes and the shy hint of a curve to her lips. The girl had smiled. Harry Jordan might be right, perhaps she had done the right thing after all. If only Wally would agree, but Wally had not put in an appearance since Bea got here. And their guests were expected at seven.
The twins arrived bearing piles of the plain white plates Rose always used at the lake. Rose went and got the cutlery and set Bea to work tying knives, forks, and spoons together with strips of green raffia and placing them on top of the green linen napkins. Frazer and Madison were sticking stubby green candles into the silver holders and scattering green glass votives. Bea disappeared inside for a few minutes then came out holding a tray.
“I made these for the table,” she said, putting the tray down carefully. On it were eight short green water glasses, in each of which she had placed a small fern from the garden, and a single white rose. They looked beautiful, Rose thought, astonished. And perfect for her table. She had bought those roses at the market herself, intending to quickly shove them in a vase and put it in the center. Now Madison and Frazer were exclaiming with delight at their beauty. “How clever of you, Bea, they’re just lovely,” they were saying, as Bea set a flower glass between each place.