Last to Know: A Novel(35)
Rose’s heart was pounding … he had come back … he was here … he was coming to the party … fetching champagne … everything was all right after all. She wanted to run to him, to kiss him, to have him hold her and tell her everything was all right between them, that he still loved her … but all she could say was, “I already took out some wine. It looks pretty good. You might want to open it, my love, let it breathe … I suppose.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Wally came and stood next to her, he dropped a kiss on her hair. “I’ll do that, then a quick shower and we’ll be ready for the onslaught.” He was smiling as he turned to leave. And then Bea walked in. And Wally’s smile froze.
She was wearing a pink cotton dress with a scoop neck and a short flared skirt with a thin gold belt fastened around her waist. Her blond hair was pinned up at the sides with gold barrettes, accentuating the slope of her cheekbones. She wore mascara and pale lip gloss and small gold earrings in the shape of a leaf and gold strappy flat sandals.
“Well,” Rose said, looking up from her chopping duties, at her husband and her eldest son. “I must say you clean up good. You look lovely, Bea.”
Bea hung her head, sneaking a glance at Roman though. “Thanks to the twins,” she said. “They put me together. I wouldn’t have known how, myself.”
“Why ever not?” Wally snapped. “How old are you? Twenty-one, I heard. The twins are only sixteen.”
There was a sudden awkward silence. Rose turned horrified from her chopping board. “I think Bea meant she had no clothes with her, she lost everything in the fire, the girls had to lend her an outfit.” Always the mediator, she smiled at her husband. “Of course you haven’t met Bea yet. Well now, Bea, this is Wally, my husband.”
Bea’s head was down. “I know who you are,” she said in a small voice. “You’re very famous.”
“Hmm.” Wally’s reply was noncommittal. He did not welcome the girl into his home. He simply turned to Rose and told her he would put the champagne on ice. Ignoring Bea, Roman followed him.
“I could use a glass now,” Rose said, checking the ingredients for her stroganoff: the beef fillet was already cut into strips, onions already chopped, mushrooms, sliced. If she sautéed the onions now, it would take her only ten minutes to finish off the dish, which meant quickly browning the beef strips in butter, then adding the mushrooms and the onions, stir until heated through with a little beef broth, add sour cream and stir again. Et voila. Served with buttered fettucini, also straight out of the pan, it would be heaven, she knew.
“I can help you do that.”
Bea was at her side. She took the spatula from Rose’s hand. “All I have to do is stir the onions right, so they don’t dry up.”
Rose watched her approvingly for a few seconds, and said she must have done some cooking before.
“Not much,” Bea told her. “I liked to cook, but Mom … well, she didn’t enjoy good food. We pretty much lived on cold cuts and canned soup.”
No wonder the girl was so thin. Rose spotted Wally, back on the terrace, already opening wine. She went over to him and said, “I missed you today.”
He lifted his head from the wheelbarrow full of ice, now crammed with chilling bottles. “Caught a couple of little ’uns, threw ’em back in,” he said, not directly replying to her unspoken question as to where he had been all day.
He opened a bottle of champagne, precisely, as with everything Wally did, twisting the bottle so the cork slipped out with a mere wisp of smoke. He poured Rose a glass and she nodded her thanks and walked away. Things were so wrong between them she did not know what to say, or what to do.
Now, she had to think about Bea. Earlier that afternoon, she had telephoned each of her guests to tell them that they had taken in the daughter of the woman who had died in the fire across the lake. “We’re giving her shelter,” she’d said, “just until things get sorted.” When she’d put down the phone she’d wondered what she meant. How could things get “sorted” for Bea? They were talking murder now.
“Mom?” Diz was at her side and she gave him a smile and put an arm round his shoulders.
“Mom, if I knew something—a secret, let’s say—but it was something I didn’t think I should tell because it might upset people, what do you think I should do?”
“Do?” Rose asked. “Why, Diz, my boy, I think you are better off keeping your secrets to yourself. We don’t want to go around upsetting our friends, now, do we?”
Diz, still unsure, was silent. Then “Maybe,” he said guardedly.
Rose went to greet her neighbors, who arrived all at once, along with the girls she was hoping to set Roman up with, but they hung back shyly until the twins pulled them out onto the terrace with tall glasses of something they called virgin margaritas. Then Bea came out from the kitchen, politely offering round the bowl of almonds and the pigs-in-blankets that she had rescued from the oven because Rose had completely forgotten about them.
Rose saw Roman go quickly over to help Bea. She stood back, looking at her “party,” the same one with the same people she gave every year, only this time it was different. The atmosphere was different. Evening Lake had changed. The women, as always, Rose thought with a sigh, had gathered in a small group at one end of the terrace, sipping their champagne served by Wally, who was busy filling up glasses and offering no small talk, while the men grouped together at the other end.