White Elephant Read online

  Did Terrance ever get homesick for their old room with the bunk beds? For the wallpaper with the nautical theme and the fishnet their mother had pinned up between the bunks? Ted never asked, and Terrance never said. Jillian slept in that room now. It was painted lavender with white trim. “Who’s been sleeping in my bed?” Terrance liked to say when he saw Jillian. Jillian, who had adored Uncle Terry when she was little, now just smiled, tolerant. Ted and Allison slept in his parents’ bed, which still made him feel a little funny.

  He decided to go the long way, to stay out of the scrutinizing gaze of his wife and daughter for that much longer, and wound up in front of the new people’s house. The fellow was mowing the lawn—an odd thing to do on moving day, but an encouraging one. The man’s handshake was so firm it hurt. Ted couldn’t hear his name over the roar of the mower; it wasn’t till the fellow turned the mower off that he got it: Grant Davenport-Gardner.

  “I use a manual mower. Beats buying gas all the time,” Ted said.

  “I suppose a lot of people have lawn services,” Grant said.

  Ted nodded. “Especially the people with the new houses, who don’t have much lawn to cut.”

  Grant laughed. Did that mean he was on Ted’s side on the big-house issue? Ted tested him. “Some of these houses are unbelievable. Like hotels.”

  “You said it.”

  They stood there for a while, nodding at each other. Ted offered Grant a wave instead of his hand when he left. There. That was something to tell Allison and Jillian about.

  Nick Cox owed them a new tree, Ted thought as he continued his route to the post office. Not just a seedling, but a full-size tree. He should have just offered it outright—any decent person would have—but he hadn’t. Ted had imagined confronting him many times: “Look here, Cox. You owe me a new tree.” What would Cox say? “Don’t you have anything more important to think about, Miller?” He could just hear him.

  Ted wanted his neighborhood to be at rest again. He wanted someone to pound the gavel and tell Nick Cox, “That’s enough now.” He wanted a father figure to break up the fight.

  So far no such person had appeared. Instead, there had been committees and committees in charge of those committees, all created to try to figure out what to do about the changing face of Willard Park. Meanwhile the older houses fell like dominoes.

  Back at the house, he set the stamps on the kitchen table, at Allison’s place, where she would be sure to see them. Then he went back out to the yard. To think.

  5

  OCTOBER 14

  Allison and Ted’s long-debated decision to have their dinner party on the back porch on this Indian-summer night would have been the right one if the Coxes hadn’t decided to throw a party as well. The Coxes were having a luau for goodness’ sake, complete with tiki torches and leis, a shindig so over the top it was a parody of itself.

  “Cultural appropriation,” Jillian said, disapproving.

  The Conways were at the Coxes’, and the Fensterheims, the mayor, and a wealth of other town residents, along with a whole crew of people Allison had never seen before. Nina wore a dress that was either black or a deep blue—it was hard to tell in the dark. It was sexy, with its fitted skirt and open back, sexier than Kaye’s grass skirt and bikini top. It was so warm out she didn’t even look cold. Nick wore a Hawaiian shirt. Allison caught glimpses of him twirling Kaye to the Beach Boys. She forced herself to pay attention to her own guests. She, Ted, Suzanne, and Grant sat around the table, the remains of their apple pie on their plates.

  Ted frowned at the goings-on next door as though they were a personal affront. He put so much energy into hating Nick. Maybe all of his energy. Nothing had changed in the sex department. It made her feel lonely. She nudged him, to remind him to be social.

  “You’re a lawyer, I hear?” Ted said, not taking his eyes off the Coxes’ party.

  “Hm?” Grant’s attention seemed to be with the kids on the Coxes’ couch, watching a movie on the enormous screen. His body jerked every time something exploded.

  Suzanne watched Adam appear and disappear in the floodlight as Jillian pushed him on the swing—the centerpiece of Allison and Ted’s yard. It hung from the forty-foot-high branch of a tulip poplar tree, and when you sat on it, you felt as though you were flying.

  Suzanne’s expression was complicated. Yearning, perhaps. She’d barely eaten any chili and had hardly touched the wine. It was a pinot noir that Allison and Ted liked, but they were no connoisseurs. Maybe they should have splurged on something better. Or offered white. The ice cream slouched on Suzanne’s untouched apple pie. Allison kept an ear out for the kettle, on for tea.

  “She usually disappears into her room when little kids come over,” Allison said, nodding toward Jillian.

  “What?” Suzanne said.

  The music was loud. It made Allison think of driving in convertibles on open highways, of sun and sand—things that had nothing to do with her own youth, in upstate New York. She raised her voice. “The kids seem to be hitting it off.”

  “Adam wanted to bring his atlas, but I said no. He’s always surprised when no one wants to sit around and memorize foreign countries with him.”

  “He reads?”

  “Since he was four.”

  “Bright kid.”

  “Four is pretty typical,” Suzanne said.

  Was it? Jillian had learned to read at six. Had kids changed that much since Jillian was little, or was it the moms? It was stressful being a mother these days, increasingly so. Mothers who chose to stay at home were so well educated—and so ashamed about not earning a paycheck—that they put every ounce of their abundant energy into mothering, determined to get results.

  She would take Suzanne under her wing, Allison decided. They already ran into each other all the time—at the post office, at the supermarket, on the green. She’d asked them to dinner one afternoon last week, when Adam was climbing on the town train and Suzanne was sitting on a bench looking despondent.

  Allison would ask her if she wanted to go to yoga at the town hall next week. Maybe they would stop by Lucy’s afterward for coffee. And of course Suzanne and Grant would come to the Halloween festival at the end of the month.

  There was something serendipitous about Suzanne’s arriving so soon after Valeria’s departure, as if she’d been selected especially for Allison, to fill the empty space in her friendships. Allison imagined a different kind of a relationship with Suzanne, one more mentor/mentee; Suzanne would see her as a role model. Allison imagined a phone call in the not-too-distant future. “Will you watch Adam for a while? I just need a little ‘me’ time,” to which she would answer, “Sure, hon. Let me just finish up some work on the book here, and I’ll be right over.” Suzanne would envy her her intellectual life, as well as the free time that came with having an older child. “Your time will come,” Allison would assure her.

  “. . . near the river and all the restaurants—you can’t beat it,” Grant said, nodding at Ted until Ted nodded along with him, agreeing that Rosslyn sounded like the ideal place to work. She imagined Grant in court, nodding at a jury until its members nodded back, agreeing that his client could not have committed the murder.

  Grant was grasping the back of his neck with interwoven fingers, making his elbows jut out in a diamond shape behind his head. It was impossible to avoid looking at the defined muscles in his arms. The shirt he was wearing—a snug polo style with short sleeves—only added to the effect. Was it some sort of alpha-male posturing? Ted was softer, his arms more like Allison’s, his face round, in contrast to Grant’s strong jaw. He and Suzanne were so tall and angular, she and Ted so much smaller and rounder; it was as if they were different species. She thought of the early species of humans, some tiny, some big. Or dogs. Dogs were like that too.

  “We were very sorry to hear about your loss,” Suzanne said to Ted.

  “My loss . . . ?” Ted said.

  “Your mother,” Suzanne said.

  “We heard she died,”
Grant said.

  “She . . . did.”

  “Well, we’re very sorry. Was it expected?”

  “Not entirely.” Ted looked to Allison for help.

  Allison heard the kettle, so she went inside, leaving the odd conversation on the porch to puzzle itself out. What was that about? Bringing up a death that had happened so many years ago?

  Allison thought of all of the changes that had happened in those years: Jillian’s birth and her advancement to preteen status, her and Ted’s descents into middle age. Allison’s favorite aunt had died during that time—young, only sixty-one—and her father had had his heart attack, which led to her parents’ move to assisted living. Time was rolling on and gathering speed.

  Allison was setting the teapot and cups on a tray when Adam shuffled into the kitchen.

  “My head hurts,” he told Allison, his voice world weary.

  “I know just the thing.” She got a silk scarf from the front closet and wrapped it around his forehead, a technique she’d learned at yoga, and gave him an oatmeal cookie. He thanked her with a big smile. If only she could still satisfy her own needs so easily. She put a few of the cookies on a plate. Maybe she could tempt Suzanne with those.

  “On what show?” Ted was saying. He said it loud, over the music, but the music ended in the middle of his words, leaving him shouting into the night. For a moment Allison experienced the evening she’d intended to have, with cardigans and candles, the sound of Ella Fitzgerald instead of Elvis Presley.

  “Law and Order,” Grant said.

  “We never watched it.”

  “Law and Order?”

  “We don’t watch much TV.”

  “We love TV,” Grant said.

  “You love TV,” Suzanne said.

  “I love TV. She’s right. She’s more sophisticated than me. There’s no use arguing it.”

  Suzanne’s nod was small, nearly imperceptible.

  Jillian—listening, always listening—called from the swing, “Tell them we need a smart TV.”

  “You don’t have a smart TV?” Grant said.

  “We don’t want a smart TV,” Allison said.

  “You don’t want a smart TV,” Jillian said. “Dad and I do. Right, Dad?”

  “Not me,” Ted said, hands up in surrender.

  “You could stream those shows from the old days. The ones you always talk about,” Jillian said.

  “Leave It to Beaver,” Ted said, sheepish. “I Love Lucy.”

  “Dude,” Grant said, nodding his approval.

  Jillian pushed Adam on the swing, back and forth, back and forth, the motion mesmerizing Allison, who’d had two glasses of wine. Big ones. They made wineglasses so big these days. Like cups of coffee. Like cars. Like houses. The Coxes were playing the Eagles now. How was it that she couldn’t remember if she’d fed the dog that morning, but she could remember every word to “Hotel California”? She poured milk in her tea until it was the exact shade she liked, not too milky, not too tea-y.

  She ought to dye her hair for Annie Get Your Gun, she thought, noticing that Suzanne had no gray hair at all. Well, she didn’t either in her thirties. Not that she had so many now, but no one would mistake her for a young girl. Annie Oakley was supposed to be, what—seventeen? It was absurd casting a woman in her forties in the role. They’d postponed rehearsals for the duration, till they found a Frank. Maybe the show would never go up. All the better for her dignity, she supposed.

  Elvis was singing “Love Me Tender.” Couples held one another. She looked around for Nick, but couldn’t find him in the dark. He must be playing host somewhere. Filling glasses. Piling plates with pineapple and poi. She felt bad for wondering. She grabbed Ted’s hand and kissed his knuckles. He squeezed her hand in return.

  She felt bad, too, for turning Terrance away this evening. He’d stopped by earlier, as he often did, looking for company. She and Ted had discussed letting him stay for dinner, but in the end they agreed it would change the dynamic. “Come back tomorrow night, okay, Terrance?” she’d said, as kindly as she could, but she still felt mean. Little had she known that in marrying Ted, she’d be marrying his brother as well.

  “Squirts for Squirts,” Suzanne said when Allison tuned back into the conversation.

  “What’s that?” Allison said.

  “Suzanne’s new business,” Grant said. “She’s an entrepreneur.”

  “Nonviolent water toys: spitting tigers and spouting whales. You know. Not every mother wants her kid shooting an AK-47, even if it’s just filled with water. I’m hoping to have a plastic animal in every kid’s hand in this country by summer,” Suzanne said.

  Allison made a plosive sound, which she hoped sounded like the laugh of a mother who could appreciate not wanting kids to have weapons, even toy ones. She held fast to her fragile ego as Suzanne told the story of her entrepreneurial life, starting with Pop!, a flavored popcorn business that she’d nearly sold for a tremendous profit, but then the cupcake craze came along, and sales dried up. She’d invested what money was left into Sweet Dreams, a line of custom-made beds so famous and ubiquitous that Jillian had one—the Harriet the Spy bed, which had hidden drawers that opened with a secret code, and came with extra spy notebooks and a recipe for tomato sandwiches.

  Grant rattled off a list of the beds—the Wright Brothers’ plane bed that came with flying goggles and a flight notebook, the princess canopy bed with its jeweled-crown headboard and matching tiara, the pink teapot-shaped Alice in Wonderland bed, the queen-size cruise ship bed with lifeboats for the kids, the crib that looked like a Victorian birdcage. “We were headed toward early retirement till Nighty Night Beds came along and teamed up with Target. The legal fees just about ate us up.”

  Allison felt her face burn. The idea that Suzanne would look up to her! She hadn’t actually said aloud, “Your time will come,” had she? She sat back and waited for the inevitable question, And what do you do, Allison?

  “Suzanne likes setting up businesses, getting them running, and setting them free,” Grant said. “Once she learns to set them free a little sooner, we’ll be golden.”

  There was a whomp under the table. Grant’s eyes bulged as he leaned over and grabbed his shin.

  Allison waited for Suzanne to apologize—who kicked their husband?—but she started talking about marketing without missing a beat. Allison smiled. She was right. Grant deserved it.

  Sinatra was singing “My Way” in the Coxes’ backyard. Kaye’s face was nestled against Nick’s chest as they danced, his hand on her ass in its grass skirt. Allison stood. “How about an after-dinner drink. Does anyone want an after-dinner drink?” She never had an after-dinner drink. Did they even own any after-dinner drinks?

  Grant started singing along. His voice was smooth and rich, unexpected.

  Suzanne shook her head at Grant, eyes wide, a silent but plaintive plea to stop.

  “No singing at the table,” Ted joked. Only Allison could tell it wasn’t a joke.

  “Wow,” Allison said, sitting again. “You don’t happen to act, too, do you?”

  Grant rattled off the theatrical roles he’d played as if he’d been waiting for the chance to roll out his résumé: Sid in The Pajama Game, Sky in Guys and Dolls, Curly in Oklahoma! He got a dreamy look in his eye. “Chicks and ducks,” he sang. He winked and held out his arm, gesturing to an imaginary surrey with a fringe on top.

  Suzanne laid a restraining hand on his arm.

  “You’re really good,” Allison said. “He’s really good. You sound the part. And God knows you look like a Frank. Doesn’t he, Ted? Isn’t he a ringer for Frank?”

  “Sure,” Ted said, turning his spoon over in his hand. “I guess.”

  “I’m going to call Rainier and get him an audition,” Allison said. “You’ll do it, won’t you, Grant? Try out to be Frank in the town production of Annie Get Your Gun?”

  “He’s the lead, isn’t he?” Grant said.

  “He and yours truly.” Allison swung an imaginary lasso.


  “You can’t call him now, Al. It’s late,” Ted said.

  “Are you kidding? I’d call him at three in the morning with this news.” And she went inside to find her phone, Grant following close behind, practicing his scales.

  IT OCCURRED TO SUZANNE THAT GRANT MIGHT BE HIGH. SHE DIDN’T have any concrete evidence—belting out show tunes at dinner wasn’t exactly aberrant behavior for Grant, but there was something vague about him. He was paying more attention to the party next door than to the party he’d been invited to.

  Then again, Ted seemed more interested in the other party too. His expression swung from easy smiles at the guests dancing on the grass, to frowns of annoyance and back again. He used his thick eyebrows to great effect, raising them and lowering them, like a mime. The Millers’ casual clothes—untucked shirt and Birkenstocks for him, a woven blue shawl over a T-shirt and harem pants for her—made Suzanne feel fussy in her pressed slacks and blouse.

  Until tonight she hadn’t pieced together that Allison, the familiar-looking woman with the curly hair she kept running into, was the woman they’d seen comforting the biker in the yellow helmet near the tree stumps the day they were house hunting. It all made sense now.

  “Can you believe they’d do this tonight? We haven’t had people over for three months, and they have to have a party tonight,” Ted said. The two of them were alone now, the thespians off making phone calls.

  “What can you do?” Suzanne said. She sipped her tea, wishing she could down her wine instead. It lingered, jewel-like in its stemmed glass. She hated what a saint you had to be when you were pregnant. When you were maybe pregnant. Maybe, probably. All of life’s sins taken away at once. She’d eaten a few bites of vegetarian chili just so she wouldn’t seem rude, but the smell alone gave her heartburn. What she really wanted was spinach. She didn’t ordinarily care for spinach, but these days she wanted it all the time, raw or steamed, puréed or sautéed. She would take a pregnancy test soon. This week, maybe, although she preferred not having confirmation. It was better to think she might still be in control of her body. To be in control of her life.