Warm Wuinter's Garden (8 page)

Partly, it was his feet. Partly, it was Gaby
leaving him. Partly, it was the moribund Massachusetts’ economy.
Partly, it was seeing or hearing of customers and former employees
sickening and dying from AIDS. Partly it was never having enough
time with his sons. Partly it was the loneliness. Partly it was the
isolation of Provincetown from the rest of the world, an isolation
which had made it a magnet for gay men for decades, but not for
much else.

Working seventy hour weeks in a resort town
filled with gay men and women, on the very tip of a narrow spit of
land extending miles from the edge of a continent, was not a recipe
likely to remove his loneliness, an overwhelming loneliness.

“Honey, the count’s in. Another Black Monday.
Who’s going to the bank? You, or the ever-faithful moi?”

“I’ll do it. You can take off.”

“Don’t tempt me, Petey Sweetie. Do you think
we’ll have a waitron left by the weekend? Thank God, I guess, that
we’ve been so slow. Tom and that horrendous Marcie are down the
road. That busboy, the one with Jean Tierney’s eyes, the dog, I’ll
bet my virginity he won’t be back. I saw him hand in hand with his
latest summer fling and it looked like love was going to win out
over a fifteen percent split of the tips. My God, what will we do
if we get good weather this weekend?”

“I guess we’ll muddle through. It happens
every year. We’ve always lost staff right before Labor Day. The
kids want a little time to play before the semester starts.”

“How stoic. You hide in the kitchen under
that enchanting toque while I’m left out here, lying like Nixon,
that all will be well with their cioppino. One night, I know some
right wing Catholic homophobic dad, some Mafia or Massachusetts
merchant prince, is going to flip. A bad clam, a forgotten veal
marsala, a late dessert, and Raoul, he who loves all men a little
and too many too well, is going to be eviscerated by one of those
appallingly ugly steak knives that you insisted on buying. Who will
mourn le pauvre Raoul’s passing? Maman, of course. You, peut-etre.
Jean Tierney, non. So sad. Cut down in the prime of my somewhat
extended youth. Ooo-laa.”

“We’ll get through it. We always do. I’m
thinking about offering a bonus for everyone who stays through
Monday. But, if I do and the weather is bad, that could cost
us.”

“You’re going to be here?”

“Yes.”

“What about Rhode Island? What about
tradition? What about family? What about taking the boys to
grandmere and pere?”

“Actually, I was hoping you might do
that.”

“Mon Dieu, petit, are you crazy? Why?”

“I asked Gaby. She can’t.”

“Bitch.”

“Bob, don’t do that. If I want the boys at my
family’s reunion, it’s my responsibility.”

“Yes, but…”

Before Raoul could finish his thought, Peter
cut him off. He didn’t want to hear someone else say the things he
had to fight himself not to say. His theory, which he had practiced
since Gaby had left, was that if he were quiet and polite and
charitable long enough, the thoughts that often careened around his
head like balls in a Bingo cage and the hungering feelings that
ever wormed through his belly, would finally leave.

“She’s busy.”

“Lover, we’re all busy.”

“I know. She said she could pick them up on
Monday. Do you think you could take them down?”

“What might some statesman, Cabot Lodge,
Foster Dulles, have said? I can and I will. But, aren’t you worried
to have your two blessed nubbins in a car alone with a dancing
Nancy?”

“Bob, don’t.”

“See. This is it. Another example. You poor
hets want the world to change toward you, but you won’t change. You
bring it upon yourselves. You ask for it. You hets are always being
accused of being irresponsible. This is why. Putting those
delicious boys in a car with a pouf. How will I ever keep my hands
on the wheel?

“What’s the itinerary?”

“Could you leave by nine?”

“I could. But at what price? No, no. It’s
fine. It’s only my frail and fading beauty that will suffer. Just a
soupcon of sacrifice for my master.”

“Thanks.”

“So lavish in his praise. No wonder I can’t
say “non.” How can I resist? Anything for Sweet-eyes.”

Peter stood clutching tight the blue canvas
deposit bag while staring at the rose-walled emptiness of the
dining room. He hadn’t wanted to ask Raoul for the favor. He should
go himself, but if he did, he was sure that his family would talk
about Iraq and the stream of soldiers moving to save Kuwait. That
parade of men and materiel was dislodging something in him that had
been carefully stowed away a long time before.

He was tired. He should go home. But, his
house hadn’t been home for almost three years. There was nothing to
be found under the covers except sheets that had been on the bed
too long. He was very tired. So tired that a fine tremor pulsed
through his hands and flashes of light, like soundless small arms
fire, flared at the edge of his vision. But, even more, he was
tired of muddling through, of slogging through a day, of pushing
through time’s syrup, just to get to more of the same. Another
week, another month, and soon, another winter.

Peter wondered why he worked so hard to keep
something that he wasn’t even certain that he wanted. And how he
had lost something that he craved.

“Mother, Mother, has Dad been feeling okay?
He looks so terrible.”

Bett took her time looking up from the bowl
of pistachios she was shelling since she knew that her eyes were
going to meet the fierce, focused, probing light of Dilly’s stare.
Her oldest daughter had always had such a great intensity. While
the other three children had Neil’s blue eyes, Dilly had the small
brown eyes of Bett herself, but with a difference. Rather than
Bett’s easy warmth, Dilly’s eyes often were fixed with a dark
stare. Dilly did not ask questions; she interrogated. Even as a
small child the intensity of Dilly’s stare was such that neither
Bett nor Neil could conjure up a child’s answer to such questions
as those concerning the existence of Santa, the source of babies,
and the tendency of dogs to lick certain parts of themselves. If a
four year old Dilly asked why Buster was sniffing Daisy’s hiney,
she wanted, and invariably received, a forthright answer. Yet, even
though given an honest answer, Dilly would continue to stare as if
she thought that some additional information had been denied
her.

As her head came up high enough to meet
Dilly’s eyes, Bett gave an imperceptible nod to her daughter’s
persistence. Dilly added an extra measure to everything she did. If
a soup recipe called for a cup of barley, she added a cup and a
half. When others smiled, she snorted. When others patted, Dilly
bear-hugged. In the aftermath of a fifth young man eluding Dilly’s
clasp, Bett had told her daughter that she didn’t fall in love, she
took hostages. With that advice, Dilly had changed her ways just
long enough to marry Bill.

Bett steeled herself for the hot white light
of Dilly’s attention.

“Does he?” she said. “I hadn’t noticed. He
hasn’t said anything.”

“Does he ever?”

“Now, Dilly.”

“Mother, Mother, he’s sixty-six. He should
retire. You don’t need the money. He should slow down. He looks all
wan underneath that tan, which, by the way, is sure to kill him.
Does he have any idea how fast a skin melanoma can erupt?

Held rapt, cobra and victim, by her
daughter’s relentless stare, Bett tried to arrange her thoughts
while her unguided fingers fumbled with the sharp-edged shells of
the nuts.

“Dilly, your father likes what he’s doing. If
he were to retire he’d be around here all the time. Could there be
a worse fate? Think of how tired he’d be if he were under my sway
all day.”

“Mother, Mother.”

Dilly’s tone held the same exasperation that
she used on her children when they were slow in exiting a fantasy
to come to dinner or to go to bed.

“He’s getting old. He is old. He should take
it easy. He needs to take better care of his health.”

Should. Should. Dilly was so liberal with her
shoulds. There were times when Bett wondered how Dilly could be her
daughter. Should was not a bad word. She herself had always used it
a lot. The difference was that she had directed most of her shoulds
to herself while Dilly aimed hers toward all of those around her.
She and Neil had been motivated to teach their children by example
rather than by command. In Dilly’s case, the lessons had been
missed. Dilly always knew what was right for everyone but herself.
Dilly’s bossy energy poorly concealed a being so lost and so
confused that its sadness wrenched Bett’s heart.

Parenting was such a random process. There
seemed to be no rhyme nor reason as to what stuck and what did
not.

“We shouldn’t be making ice cream. Do you
know how bad these pistachios are for us? We’re making frozen
death. Sugar, cream, egg yolk and salted nuts. We should all write
our goodbyes.”

“We’ve always made ice cream on summer
holidays.”

“Mother, Mother, it’s collective suicide.
It’s the Koster family version of Jonestown Kool-Aid. Some
cardiologist will find us all strewn around the yard in pools of
congealed cream. Infarcted.”

Neil came around the corner of the house and
climbed the steps to the porch. The too small tee shirt he was
wearing, one Lise had given him that supported African famine
relief, had ridden up slightly on his small belly. There was a
sliver of tan skin between his shirt and his madras shorts. His
deck shoes were worn without the rawhide shoestrings. Neil stopped
behind Dilly’s chair and stared down at the bowls in her lap. One
bowl held whole nuts, one was nearly filled with empty shells, and
the third had a few shelled pistachios in the bottom. He reached
over Dilly’s shoulder to take a handful of nuts. She made a quick
slap at his hand.

“Am I missing a lecture?”

“Dilly doesn’t think that we should be making
ice cream.”

“We always make ice cream.”

“She’s worried about your health.”

“So am I. That’s why I insist upon getting my
dairy products. Ice cream. And exercise. Tracking those kids down
to turn the crank. Did anyone get more ice?”

Dilly tried to turn her stare onto her
father, but as she twisted around in her ancient Adirondack chair
he moved sideways out of range.

“Yes, I did,” Bett said as she dropped a
shell with no crack onto the white wicker table beside her. The
tradition was that Neil got to crack the culls with his teeth
later.

“My always thoughtful wife.”

“Not according to your daughter.”

Neil patted Dilly’s round shoulders that
reminded him so much of Bett’s.

“It’s nice to have help.”

In the elongated note of a foghorn Dilly
said, “Daaaaad.”

“Deellliiiaaaa.”

Dilly shrugged off her father’s mockery as
well as his hands from her shoulders as a horse would a fly.

“When do the rest of the troops arrive?”

“Pete said that he’d have the boys here
early. They’re bringing a tent. The boys want to camp. Where do you
want it?”

“Let the young soldiers decide.”

“Pete said Indians. They had a lot of
Indian-craft at the camp Gaby sent them to.”

“Really? I wonder what kind? Narragansett?
Wampanoag? Pequot? Niantick?”

“Daaadd. They’re probably generic. Beads and
bows. Arrows. Hatchets and horses.”

Bett tried to catch Dilly’s eyes to stop her
before she caused her father to begin.

“And violence. Killing, scalping, pumpkin
thieving? Savagery?” asked Neil.

“Mother, Mother, you know Gaby lets those
boys get away with anything. And Peter, too. It’s a classic
divorce. The kids work both sides of the street. The parents buy
love with too many toys and way too much freedom. By the way, has
he been seeing anyone?”

“He hasn’t said anything.”

“Of course Secret Pete wouldn’t say anything.
You have to ask. Wait ‘til he gets here. I’ll find out.”

Bett studied the shells in her lap. Finally
she said, “I don’t think Pete’s making the drive himself.”

“What do you mean?”

“The boys are getting a ride.”

“Gaby’s coming?”

Bett hesitated.

“No. Bob.”

“Who’s Bob? Bob who?”

“The maitre d’.”

“That Bob? Raoul Bob? The fairy godfather?
Jesus, Mother, what’s the matter with him? Giving those boys to
that…”

Bett’s hard look stopped Dilly from finishing
her sentence.

“Do you know he could lose his parental
rights? This family. This family. Why can’t he bring them
himself?”

“He said it’s been busy.”

“Well, that’s a switch, isn’t it? I thought
things had been tough. Isn’t that right, Dad?”

Neil nodded quickly in the hope that they
could get past this part of the weekend. His nod changed to a
shaking of his head as he went inside.

After acknowledging her father’s nod as her
rightful due, Dilly continued, “I don’t understand why it takes so
many hours a week just to go broke.”

“I don’t think it’s just that.”

“What? What else?”

“I’m not sure, but I think the trouble in
Kuwait is bothering him.”

“What? Is his PTSD, isn’t that it, or PSTD,
whatever, flaring up again? How long is he going to let this go on?
It’s twenty years. My God, the war’s been over fifteen. How long?
I’m not even sure I think it’s real. He should get out of
Provincetown. That’s probably what’s doing it. Everyone there has
some kind of initialed problem or disease.”

Dilly held onto her fingers as a child
counting as she spelled out her list of acronyms.

“P.T.S.D. A.I.D.S. H.I.V. A.R.C.”

Bett said in a quiet voice, “SIDS. PMS. We
all have our initials, honey. I don’t think being angry helps. Your
brother went someplace very far away. Farther than any of us can
possibly imagine. It could take him a very long time to get
back.”