The Children(76)

Shyly they rose. Swept sand from each other’s skin and dressed in slow motion. They held hands and crossed the beach on trembling legs, sure everyone who looked saw sex scribbled over them in iridescent fingerpaint.

As they trod the boardwalk in a chemical haze, Guin’s phone buzzed against her hip and made her laugh. Even the touch of her clothes was giddy. It was a call from an unfamiliar 212.

All at once the dread Nick pushed away came flooding back. She answered the call and found she couldn’t speak. Her throat was smoky. The carnival lights flashed and shimmied like flames.

A voice said, “Hello? Hello? Is this Guinevere Sharpe?”

The voice had no bedside manner. It said Elizabeth Cooper and stroke and Weill Cornell. Then the volume dropped out. Silence took her.

From inside of it she watched Nick’s mouth move. Saw him take her phone and speak into it, putting a hand up to pull his own hair, all of it in pantomime. He led Guin to a cab, and at some point during their ride back to Manhattan Bitsy died in a hospital bed.



* * *




Guinevere woke from a seven-year dream.

Seven years she’d had with Bitsy, marinating in safety like veal in milk. Like a fool who’d fallen asleep on a fairy hill, she emerged from it stunned and blinking. She should have known better. Orphan, storybook girl. Endings were bred into her.

Bitsy had been a rich bitch. A cold fish, a cool customer, a mother who bought teen Edith’s clothing in one size only: the size Bitsy required her to be.

Also, she was a murderous mah-jongg player. A fearsome producer with a greedy appetite for risk. A collector of ridiculous people, whom she boiled down into such ruthless thumbnail portraits Guin wondered why she never wrote a play herself.

It was difficult to stay aloof from someone who had such good stories. A person who was—following the death (Cessna, gin) of her husband three years after Guin moved in—her only roommate. Their sleeplessness ran so perfectly in tune they founded an insomniacs’ book club, devoted to discussing celebrity biographies at one in the morning. It was hard to make Bitsy laugh, but when she did, really did, it was a bawdy shocker. At once you could see the alluring coed she’d been back in 1969, the night her future husband sent a tray of martinis to a nightclub table full of Vassar’s most eligible girls.

There was a dull shock in learning she’d inherited everything. While the Ninth City money would be split between her and Ennis, Bitsy was no diplomat. There were meetings with lawyers and funeral directors and moneymen—always men—through which she sleepwalked with open eyes. Her grandparents’ wealth encrusted her like carbuncles. Her loneliness moved with her like a haunted room.

She gave up her place at Vassar. She shook off sweet, earnest Nick and the rest of her friends like a colt shaking off riders. Her consciousness circled the world in smooth arcs, looking for a tug, some place that might have a hold on her. Landing every time on Ennis.

Ennis. The dream of him was a flame in the dark. It kept her moving when she felt she could die of being so utterly alone. She would find him. Drag him back to her. He’d come back, wouldn’t he? They were each other’s only family now.

She chiseled a little hole in the hull of her wealth, letting enough cash come through to fund her search. But her brother was always one step, one destination, ahead of her.

Until the day she looked across a Zurich café and saw his name on an art show flyer.





Forty-One

Two days until Mother




Hank arrived at five past six. He leaned in coldly to kiss her, then recoiled. “You’re drunk again?”

Her mouth was open. She’d been about to apologize. Instead, she said, “I barely ever drink.”

True, if not presently relevant. Shaking his head, he moved past without touching her. Guin stood at the door, watching him shed his shoes, place his phone on the island, open her fridge and pull out a can and crack it as he walked to the couch. A little dance of comfort and familiarity she suddenly, sharply resented.

“So,” he said warily. “How are you?”

She’d planned to say sorry as many times as it took. But his mouth had flattened into the prim line that meant he disapproved of her, and it made her blood rise. She wanted to sharpen her nails on the shitty little comment he’d made when he was barely in the door.

“Is it a problem if I have a drink, Hank? Are you keeping track?”

Steadily he looked at her, considering the bait. Then he lifted his can and chose peace. “Drink ’em if you got ’em.”

She pointed to the brown bags of Thai cooling on the counter. “There’s food.”

Neither of them spoke as she unpacked it and brought plates to the couch. It wasn’t until they were sitting side by side that Hank said, “So why’d you stand me up?”

“I fell asleep. I’m sorry.”

“You sound sorry.”

“Hank. I’m sorry, I am. I just can’t perform it right now.”

“Perform it?”

Guin set her plate on the coffee table. “I have to tell you something.” She’d had all day to prepare for this conversation, and somehow she hadn’t planned past this. “I did something stupid. You remember how my brother’s been having some legal issues?”

His expression was incredulous. “Do you think I live on the moon, Guin? I saw the social media thing. Everyone’s seen it. My parents have seen it. I’ve got my dad calling me, my mom yelling in the background, telling him what to say. They don’t even look at the internet unless it’s Facebook. My brothers are texting me, my . . . obviously Chrissie’s all up in it.”