Didi had gone to Paris to study painting. Actually, she had gone to have an affair with her Theosophy instructor. That hadn’t had a happy ending, though Didi had met Jerome at Les Deux Magots. No snail-like dawdling; by her own admission, she had struck with the speed of a snake.
“I didn’t understand what you meant then, when you said ‘If I’d been around,’ ” Brenda said.
“I was just saying if. If things had been otherwise. Other than what they were. If.”
“But I think you implied that you knew Didi when she gave birth. Didn’t he?” Brenda said.
“Brenda, you were a child when all this happened. You need not be jealous,” Jerome said.
“I know I should let this drop, Jerome, but it seemed sort of strange to suggest you might have been there,” Brenda said. “Am I being too literal-minded again?”
“Yes,” Nelson said.
“Well, no, I mean, sometimes I feel like something is being said between the lines and because I’m a newcomer I don’t quite get it.”
“I’ve lived with you for six years, Brenda,” Jerome said. He said it with finality, as if she would do well to drop the subject, if she wanted to live with him another six seconds.
Brenda said nothing. Dale gestured to the soup tureen, beside the sundial. Also on the table was a silver bowl of freshly snipped chives and a little Chinese dish, enameled inside, that Dale had found for a quarter at a tag sale. People in the area did not value anything they were selling that was smaller than a beachball. The Chinese dish was an antique. Inside, there was a pyramid of unsweetened whipped cream.
“Fabulous. Fabulous soup,” Jerome said. “So when are you going to let me bankroll your restaurant?”
He’d wanted Dale to open a restaurant in New York for years. Jerome had all the money in the world, inherited when his parents died and left him half the state of Rhode Island. Since Jerome was a part-time stockbroker, he’d managed to invest it wisely. Back in the days before Dale showed her photographs at a gallery on Newbury Street, in Boston, it had been more difficult to dismiss Jerome’s ideas.
“So how’s the photography coming?” he said, when she didn’t answer. Brenda was still eating her soup, not looking up.
“I’ve got some interesting stuff I’ve been working on,” Dale said. “The woman down the road . . .” She gestured into the dark. Only a tiny blinking light from the bridge to Portsmouth could be seen, far in the distance. “There’s one woman who lives there year-round—heating with a woodstove—and I’ve taken photographs. . . . Well, it always sounds so stupid, talking about what you’re photographing. It’s like paraphrasing a book,” she said, hoping to elicit Nelson’s sympathy.
“Just the general idea,” Jerome said.
“Well, she does astrological charts for people, and they’re really quite beautiful. And she has amazing hands, like Georgia O’Keeffe’s. I’ve photographed her hands as she makes marks on the parchment paper. Hands say so much about a person, because you can’t change your hands.”
The longer she talked, the more stupid she felt.
“Have you had your chart done?” Jerome said. The stiffness of disapproval registered in his voice.
“No,” Dale said.
“I had my chart done once,” Brenda said. “I have it somewhere. It was apparently very unusual, because all my moons were in one house.”
Jerome looked at her. “Didi believed in astrology,” he said. “She thought we were mismatched because she was a Libra and I was a Scorpio. This apparently gave her license to have an affair with a policeman.”
“I’m not Didi,” Brenda said flatly. She had evidently decided not to let Jerome relegate her to silence. Dale was proud of her for that.
“Will you carve the roast?” Dale said to Nelson. “I’ll get the vegetables out of the oven.”
She felt a little bad about leaving Brenda alone at the table with Jerome, but Nelson was much better at carving than she was. She stood and began collecting soup bowls.
“Does that woman with the earmuffs still see you?” Dale said to Brenda as she picked up her bowl. Very offhanded. As if the conversation had been going fine. It would give Brenda the excuse to rise and follow her into the kitchen, if she wanted to. But Brenda didn’t do that. She said, “Yeah. I’ve gotten to like her a little better, but her worrying about losing body heat through her ears—you’ve got to wonder.”
“All the world is exercising,” Jerome said. “Brenda has more requests for her services than she can keep up with. The gym stays open until ten at night now on Thursdays. Do you two exercise?”
“There’s an Exercycle in the downstairs bedroom. Sometimes I do it while I’m watching CNN,” Nelson said.
Jerome gave his little half nod again. “And you?” he said to Dale. “Still doing the fifty situps? You’re looking wonderful, I must say.”
“She can’t,” Nelson said, answering for her. “The Ménière’s thing. It screws up her inner ear if she does that sort of repetitive activity.”
“Oh, I forgot,” Brenda said. “How are you feeling, Dale?”
