“I hope we’ll be seeing you in Maine this summer,” Julia said.
“You go to Maine?”
“James invited us. Your place sounds amazing. We are going to look at the houses.”
“Houses?”
“Aren’t there houses coming up for sale?”
“On Fellowship Point?” Her voice rose. A gust of wind rushed between them.
“I’m sorry, maybe I misunderstood.” Julia took a couple of steps backward, peeling strands of hair from her lips.
“What did James say?”
“I can’t remember, actually. My husband’s family has a house in Stone Harbor, we usually go there. I’m sure we’ll end up doing that.”
“I’ll check with James.” Polly was vexed.
“As I say, we’re not sure yet. Thank you, Mrs. Wister? Bye!”
A question mark again. Was nothing certain these days?
After Julia pulled away, Polly sat in her car and took a few deep breaths. She pictured James as he’d looked the day before, when she’d had lunch with him in the city. He hadn’t mentioned anything then about inviting friends to the Point this summer, but now his demeanor made more sense, and was more disturbing. He’d been a tense baby, as firsts often were, and he was still tense. Too serious. As she thought this, she could hear Agnes saying it was impossible to be too serious, because at a certain point, seriousness converted to a parody of itself, and had to be designated self-importance. Yes, James was self-important, and temperamental. He might also be up to something, and she had no one to talk to about it.
He’d wanted to meet at the Union League, but Polly had never felt comfortable there—Agnes kept her abreast of its exclusionary membership policies, and though they’d improved, she still held a grudge about a Jewish friend whom Lachlan had proposed who’d gotten blackballed. James said he didn’t have time to argue and made a reservation at a restaurant near the doctor Polly was going to see that afternoon. James was seated when she arrived, looking spiffy in his blue suit and Liberty print tie, and she was proud to be seen with him. They didn’t speak intimately—frankly, she wasn’t sure they knew how—but it was pleasant to be in the pretty spot, eat the delicious food, and hear about her grandchildren’s latest interests. Caroline and Jasper were young adults now, with lives of their own. She checked herself from remarking how quickly time passed, but she certainly felt it.
“How long do you think you’ll stay on the Point this summer?” she asked over coffee, no dessert.
“Three weeks, maybe four. It depends how quickly certain agreements move forward, whether or not I’m needed.”
He worked at an investment firm, and had been busy since the recent downturn. She’d asked him if he’d lost money, and he’d said, “That’s not how it works.”
Truth be told, he wasn’t all that pleasant to be with.
“I’m so looking forward to it,” she said. “You’ll stay at Archie’s?” Meaning Archie Lee, Agnes’s cousin and shareholder of WesterLee Cottage.
“I assume so. I owe him a call anyway.”
“It’s nice for you to have privacy.” Out with it, she commanded herself. She was slightly afraid of James. “You know,” she said, “Agnes and I are hoping to leave at least some of the Point to a land trust. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this to you before.”
The waiter appeared. “May I bring you anything else?”
James scowled and waved him away and Polly quickly smiled politely to make up for it.
“No, you have not mentioned that to me.” He shot his cuff and looked at his watch. “You could have brought it up earlier.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted you to know we’re discussing it, we have been for a long time. As you stand to be the next shareholder from the Hancock family, I thought you should know. I welcome your opinion.”
He dipped his head and frowned. She diverted her gaze and passively watched the reflections of the brisk waiters and waitresses in the front windows.
“My opinion. Hmm. Let’s see. You’re telling me the Point might be given to a land trust before it is my turn to make decisions. What’s my opinion about that?”
He dropped his napkin, unfolded, onto his plate. He put the heels of his palms on the rim of the table and pushed backward, then sprang up, a movement that dispersed a cloud of his aftershave.
“I have to get back to the office,” he said.
He turned and walked away, stopping at the front and pulling out a credit card. She didn’t dare go after him.
She dreaded telling Agnes that James objected to the idea of dissolving the Fellowship, especially as she was recovering from such a big surgery. Polly’s inclination was to allow him to rattle his sword and wait him out until he got interested in something else, which was how she’d always handled him. But this was different. This was a matter of money, about which James was undistractable. Polly was suddenly in the middle—on Agnes’s side, but James was her child.
She didn’t want to think about it.
The roads between the club and hers were, in May, pink and yellow, and scented with lilac growing deeper in people’s yards. Children played on lawns and dogs jumped for balls. Dick had never allowed the boys to have a dog, in spite of begging, reasoned arguments, and tears. Was James exerting power now because he’d felt deprived of it then?
Hold on… Was that a man in her driveway? She blinked. He moved forward. She squinted through the windshield. Good Lord, it was Dick. Waving his arms! What was he doing? Had something happened? Three sons and five grandchildren gave her a lot to worry about. Her stomach clenched, and she prepared for a rush to somewhere. Dick loped toward her, still waving away. But… he was smiling. Smiling!
“I see you!” she called and waved, but he kept on coming as if she might breeze through their U-shaped driveway and right back onto the road again. She half thought silly old man and half thought how pleased she was that he’d been waiting for her. That never happened. He was in the dictionary, as the saying went, as the definition of an absentminded professor. So what had lured him out of his study, to look for her?
He kept walking straight at the car, so she stopped short of where she usually parked, and he circled his hand for her to open her window. It was already open, though, and she hadn’t had a car with a window crank in decades. He didn’t drive, on the theory that old people shouldn’t be on the road, the one exception being the old person he needed to chauffeur him around.
Dick loomed at her and pulled at her handle. “Come on, come on!”
“Just a sec.” She undid her belt and gathered her things, excited now herself. His strong emotions stirred her. They lived on a quiet dead end in Haverford, where small sounds registered. She heard her sole scrape on the asphalt, and her stockings switch against each other as she clambered out.
He closed her door and pulled at her sleeve. “Come on, I’ve been waiting for hours! I have something to tell you!”
She laughed. This was marvelous!
He took hold of her hand, and rather than going to the front door, he pulled her toward the side of the house. His strength gladdened her, but she had trouble keeping up in the clothes she’d put on to play bridge. She asked him to wait and slipped out of her shoes. After a second or two the cold of the Pennsylvania earth gave her a massive shiver. This small cataclysm separated her from him, just for an instant, long enough for her to take a step back, to hesitate, to seek to delay pleasure. This was her lifelong habit. She was apt to put new presents away for years before taking them from the box.