CHAPTER 9 Agnes, Gulf of Maine, August 2000
AGNES HEADED OVER TO MEADOWLEA, as instructed, with her jacket and hat secreted in a bag, also as instructed. A welcoming committee greeted her in the driveway.
“Hi, Aunt Nessie!” A chorus. “Are you ready?”
Three golden sylphs, Maeve, Maddie, and Margot, the M girls, Theo Wister’s daughters, along with their dark-haired cousin Caroline, who belonged to James. They smelled of suntan lotion and orange juice, and they all spoke at once, over and around each other, laughing and gesturing, swinging their pretty hair—except for Maeve, who’d chopped hers short. Polly gave the M girls the run of Meadowlea, ignoring Dick’s pleas for a quiet house. “He doesn’t mean it,” Polly said, and Agnes believed that. Even a stickler for control like Dick couldn’t resist this glorious youth.
“We’ve hidden all our gear in the car. Nanny doesn’t know a thing. Here, hand over your bag, quick!”
Agnes did as told. They stashed it away just as Polly appeared. “What are you doing here?” Polly’s eyes widened and she splayed her hand over the top of her chest. A bit much, Agnes thought, which made her wonder if Polly was onto the plan.
“I don’t know,” Agnes said, dyspeptic on purpose. She had a reputation to live up to, and her orneriness amused the girls. “I was taking a walk to think and these reprobates waved me over. We’re being kidnapped, apparently.”
“Now, Nanny,” Margot said. “You are to do as we say all day.”
Caroline, who had a job at JPMorgan, said, “And don’t even think of pulling out your wallet. This is all on us.”
“I certainly take no issue with that,” Agnes said. “It’s a rare treat for me to be paid for.”
The girls glanced at each other. There’d been no understanding that they’d treat Agnes, too. She gave them a wink, and they visibly exhaled.
“Am I properly dressed?” Polly’s hands got cold very easily.
“No, no, no gloves,” Maddie said. “You’re fine as you are.”
Margot gave Agnes a return wink. Rarely did Agnes think she might be missing something without children, but these girls, now that they were older, made a good argument in favor of reproducing.
They piled into Theo’s monster of a van, with Agnes and Polly given the whole middle seat. Maddie got into the driver’s seat, with Margot beside her, and Maeve and Caroline in the way back. They whipped past Leeward Cottage.
Polly turned to Agnes. “I’m so glad you’re coming.”
“They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Can you believe it, Nanny?” Maeve said. “Nabbing Agnes—it’s like we have Halley’s Comet with us on a day trip.”
“Or a seventeen-year locust,” Polly said.
“That’s more like it,” Agnes said. “I identify with the bugs of the world. They are the survivors.”
The girls went into gales at this and discussed what bugs they each were. They all agreed that Maddie should be a daddy longlegs; she had been stopped on the street in New York and asked if she were a model. They went on through ladybug, firefly, and cicada, but Agnes only half paid attention, having been carried back to a time when she entertained Nan Reed with comparing everyone on the Point to a bird. So long ago, nearly forty years now, yet she recalled all of it.
“I guess we’re going to miniature golf,” Polly said.
“We really should blindfold you.”
“Don’t guess—you’ll ruin it.”
“You’re going to be so happy. This might be the best day of your life.”
“All right. Everything’s out of my hands,” Polly said.
“That’s the spirit!”
“Are you writing a new Nan book, Aunt Agnes?” Maeve asked. She was the middle girl, labeled as the good student, though they all did well.
“I’m trying out a few ideas. Please don’t make suggestions. I hate suggestions.”
“One of my friends wrote a paper about her.” Maddie.
“I want to be as adventurous as she is.” Margot.
“Maybe you should branch out and have her try being a financial analyst or something like that.” Caroline.
Chatter and jokes, finishing each other’s sentences, leaping subjects with a graceful coordination.
“Okay, here’s a question,” Caroline said. “A lot of times when I go to a dinner party I feel like the men talk over me.”
“That’s not a question.…”
“I hear an implicit question about what to do,” Agnes said.
“Men?” Polly exclaimed. “Why are you around men?”
“Young men,” Caroline said. “My age.”
“That’s all right then,” Polly said.
“They talk over you because they want to hear themselves talk.” Maddie glanced at her cousin in the rearview mirror.
“Here’s what you need to know,” Agnes said. “Men have a bad habit of forming opinions based on no facts and thinking about what they want to say next rather than listening. And they interrupt! As soon as they have the gist, they want to have their say before someone else does. Sound familiar?”
“Exactly!” Caroline sighed, and the whole car sighed with her.
“Just become a lesbian like me,” Maeve said. “It’s better this way.”
Agnes glanced over at Polly to see if this fazed her. At the least she expected Polly to stick up for Dick, who was the king of blowhards. But Polly just smiled, along for the ride.
“Short of becoming a lesbian, what should I do?” Caroline asked.
“You can make them listen to you, which will require some trick of force or seduction or need—nothing within the realm of normal conversation. Or you can just think about more important things while they are talking and save your breath for women, who know how to converse.” Agnes felt for them, she really did, and was so glad she’d left all that behind while she was still young.
“Take that with a grain, girls,” Polly said. “Remember the source. Many of my favorite people are men, and I love listening to them.”
“To be fair,” Agnes said, “everyone is interested in what he or she has to say. But women are taught better how to listen.”
The conversation went on, but Agnes succumbed to the wildflowers along the roads, the white dottings of Queen Anne’s lace, the houses, the trees, pedestrian thoughts, pleasant. The tentacles that held her to her pen and her desk loosened. The girls were right. It was good for her to have a day away.
Polly read her mind, as always.
“We do need this.” She squeezed Agnes’s hand.
“We do,” Margot said, as if the remark had been general. “Poor Robert.”
“Margot!” Maddie scolded.
“Sorry.”
So that was what this was. An effort to cheer the old ladies up. How thoughtful these girls were, and how right.
Maddie parked in a spot on Front Street in Bar Harbor, Caroline disappeared into the building on the pier, and the rest of them got in a line leading to a gangplank. “What is this?” Polly asked. She was still pretending, for the girls’ sake, though signs announcing “Whale Watch” were everywhere.