Cyndi slanted her eyes at Arden. “Would you like to make the sandwiches?”
Arden waved her hands. “No, thanks. Sorry. As you were.” Nora carried in the bottles from the living room. Jenny
followed with the ice bucket. The five women gathered at the kitchen table, watching Cyndi work with efficient, agile movements. Soon the seductive aroma of bacon filled the room. She found the cutting board and the large Bartlett’s tomatoes and deftly sliced them.
“You cook like a pro,” Justine noted.
“I cook for boys,” Cyndi explained, adding, “although I suppose now they’re old enough I should say I cook for men.”
Jenny poured herself a glass of water and drank it down. “It must be strange having so many males about. It’s funny how our dad always seemed to be surrounded by females.”
Cyndi paused, a head of romaine in her hand, and contemplated the question. “That’s right, the rest of you don’t have sons or brothers.” She washed the lettuce leaves, dried them gently with paper towels, and laid them on the bread. “Boys are slobs. I think it’s kind of a missing-gene thing. They don’t mean to be, they just are. They don’t even think of doing their own laundry until they’re down to the raggedest, holeiest pair of boxers. They love me and I know it, but they have no compunction about letting me do all the laundry, all the grocery shopping, all the cooking and cleaning.” Turning, she looked at the others. “You know, I think there’s an analogy here for the way men are in relationships.”
“They let the woman do all the work,” Nora supplied.
“Right,” four others chimed in.
“Rory wasn’t that way,” Justine protested.
“Oh, come on,” Nora snorted. “When did Rory Randall ever do a load of laundry?”
“Okay,” Justine agreed. “But he did do a lot of the work in our relationship. He was always thoughtful. He remembered my birthday, our anniversary, he gave me great presents, he complimented
me all the time. And when he came to sensual pleasures, he didn’t just dive right in, he—”
“Stop.” Meg waved her hands. “No talking about our father and sex.”
Justine blushed. “I just mean that Rory was sensitive.”
Nora clarified, “Rory was a salesman. He was a natural-born charmer. He was a prince among men, and that meant he never soiled his handsome hands with menial labor.”
Cyndi drained the fat from the bacon and laid the meat on bread slathered with mayo. Arden jumped up to help her put the sandwiches on plates and bring them to the table. For a few moments, conversation stalled while everyone ate.
“To change the subject for just a sec,” Nora said, wiping a bit of tomato seed from the side of her mouth, “I want the listing for this house.”
Cyndi tilted her head sideways. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I want to handle the sale of this house. I’m a real estate agent, after all. I know how to show a house and how to read the contracts.”
“So you want the commission,” Justine said flatly.
“I do,” Nora replied evenly. “I’m good at what I do. I can get the best price for this house. So the three girls will get the most money.”
Cyndi shrugged. “I don’t have any problem with that.”
“Fine,” Justine conceded. “It’s okay with me, then, too. But, really, it’s the girls who should be consulted.”
Nora looked around the table. “Jenny? Any thoughts?”
Jenny made a little movement with her shoulders. “Only that I wish we didn’t have to sell it. I have so many wonderful memories here.”
Nora didn’t allow a detour into the past. “It’s a large house for
just one person. It made sense for Jenny to live here when Rory and Justine came down for the summer and holidays. But Rory left it to all three daughters. Arden and Meg won’t be living here full time. I think they’d rather have the money than a place to visit.”
“Absolutely,” Arden said.
“Me, too,” Meg added.
“We can’t forget that Marcia person,” Jenny reminded them. “She says Dad promised he’d leave her a house.”
Meg added, “And that Dad loved her. That she has letters from him attesting to that.
Attesting
is the wrong word in this case, though. I guess I mean—”
Arden cut her off. “Enough with the diction lesson, English major. The point is, I believe Dad told her he loved her and told her he’d leave her a house, but he didn’t actually leave her a house.”
“I wouldn’t worry about her,” Nora said. “If she’d had a binding legal document, she would have shown it to us today. We’ll speak with a lawyer tomorrow, but I know something about the difference between legal wills and earnest promises. Any real estate agent knows.”
“But if Dad promised her …,” Meg began, unsure of exactly what she meant.
“Do you want to give her something?” Nora asked.
“No!” Jenny cried. Then she looked confused. “But maybe we should?”
Justine said, “Why? You don’t owe her anything.
I
certainly don’t owe her anything.”
“I think it’s up to the girls,” Nora decided.
Jenny, Arden, and Meg spent a few moments calculating their thoughts.
Meg spoke first. “If Dad really loved her, I think he would have given her something if he’d known he was going to die.”
“He’d had a heart attack,” Justine argued. “He was lying in the hospital, he asked his lawyer to come in, he made sure his will was in order.”
“When you were home showering, Mom,” Jenny interjected, “Dad added the stipulation about Meg, Arden, me, and the house. Why didn’t he make a provision for Marcia then?”
“I don’t think he truly believed he was going to die,” Justine responded. “None of us did. It was a serious heart attack, sure, but he was recovering. He was sitting up in the hospital bed, talking, laughing, joking. His color was good. He was only
sixty
.” She was tearing up as she spoke. “How could he have mentioned Marcia, anyway? You were always with him in the room, or I was. He never had a moment alone with Frank Boyd.”
“So,” Nora summed up, “we really can’t be sure what Rory would have done for Marcia, legally, if he’d known he was going to die.”
Very quietly, Arden said, “But we do know, because of the letters he sent her, that he loved her.”
The others stared, confused.
“I read them,” she confessed.
“What?” Meg asked. “When?”
“Just a few moments ago. I took them with me into the bathroom. I scanned them. I know his handwriting. Dad was wild for her. He—”
Jenny held out her hands. “Stop! I don’t want the details!”
“Why wasn’t I enough for him?” Justine wailed. “For God’s sake, he wasn’t a young man anymore! Couldn’t he slow down?” Justine’s cry sent a wave of laughter around the room. “It’s not funny!” Justine protested.
Nora kept on track, even though she was grinning. “Anything about a house?” she asked her daughter.
“Nothing. It was all romantic stuff,” Arden told her.
“Oh, ick.” Jenny covered her face with her hands.
Coolly, Nora recalled, “Marcia worked in Rory’s real estate office, right?”
“For fifteen years,” Arden said.
“Okay, then. Give me the letters, Arden. I’ll talk to the lawyer, and I’ll handle Marcia. I’ll work with her on the sale of the house, and she can take the seller’s commission. That won’t buy her a house, but it should give her a nice bunch of cash. I think Rory would like that.”
“I think he would, too,” Cyndi added.
“Fine,” Justine acquiesced.
“Jenny, I’ll help you find a house of your own on the island, and I won’t charge you a commission when you buy it.”
Justine raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “Sounds like a good deal, Jenny.”
Jenny nodded. “Okay.”
Meg and Arden nodded their agreement.
“Good. Now,” Nora continued, crossing her arms on the table, “I think you three should get the house ready to be shown.”
“What?” Jenny almost shrieked. “Not yet! We’re still living in it. The summer isn’t over.”
“It’s August. People with money are here. They’ll be ripe to purchase a place on pleasure island. Plus, consider this, Jenny. Meg has to leave in September. She’s got to get back to work. She’s got a freshman English program to run. Arden will leave early in September, too, for Houston. Do you want to do all the work of getting the house ready to show by yourself?”
Jenny shrugged. “How much work can there be? The house is in great shape.”
Justine said quietly, “All of Rory’s Nantucket clothing is still in our bedroom closet here. I suppose I should box it up for The Seconds Shop.”
“Brilliant,” Nora said. “That’s exactly the kind of thinking we need right now. Justine, you should box up your stuff, too, and ship it to your house in Belmont. Also, any of your artwork or vases, whatever is personally important to you. Go through the bathrooms, toss all the old prescriptions, Rory’s shaving stuff, sunblock, and so on. First rule is to get rid of clutter.”
“It’s so sad,” Jenny said. “What you call clutter is my life.”
Nora smiled at Jenny. “Honey, you’re young. You’ve been living free off your father for too long. It’s time to move on.”
Jenny glanced at her mother, slightly hoping for some objection.
Justine smiled, too, gently. “Nora’s right.”
Nora continued, “We’ve all got to move on, really. The six of us. Here we are, the Rory Randall fan club—”
“—with the exception of Marcia Kirkpatrick,” Arden reminded her.
Meg quipped, “The We Love Rory Randall Even Though He Was a Sneaky Shit Club. Very exclusive.”
“No entrance fee,” Arden joked.
“Because we’ve already paid it,” Cyndi said.
Startled by Cyndi’s addition to the conversation, everyone laughed, and the atmosphere lightened.
Jenny softly observed, “Dad not only married beautiful women, he married nice women.”
Justine began to cry, quietly, averting her head from the others.
“Mom.” Jenny reached out to touch her mother’s arm.
Justine whimpered, “I don’t know how to go on without him.”
Nora said, not unkindly, “You can do it, Justine. Just like Cyndi and I did.”
“Just like Marcia is doing.” Arden drove the point home.
“Oh God,” Justine wailed. “I think I’ve had too much to drink. I feel awful.”
Jenny rose, fetched a glass of cool water, and handed it to her mother. “It’s late. We should all go to bed.”
“Have we covered everything?” Meg asked.
“Not yet.” Nora held up her hand. “Where’s Justine’s necklace?”
“I put it in a safe-deposit box.” Arden went to the rack by the back door and lifted a small key off the hook. She placed it on the table in front of Justine. “Here’s the key. You can retrieve it whenever you want it.”
Justine shuddered. “I don’t want it. It’s tainted.”
“Really,” Arden said flatly.
Justine wiped her eyes. “It’s my fault, I know. I’ve admitted it. I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t done it. But we all have to move on, right? So why don’t you three girls sell it and split the proceeds. Rory gave it to me, so in a way, it’s from Rory.”
“Kind of perverse, isn’t it?” Arden wondered aloud. “I mean, to give me the jewelry you used to get rid of me?”
“Arden,” her mother said, touching her arm lightly. “Get over it already. Sell it and buy something nice for yourself.”
“Yes,” Cyndi agreed. “Good idea, Nora.”
“Fine,” Arden said.
Nora stood up. “I’m going to bed. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to Marcia Kirkpatrick. The rest of you have work to do. You’ve got to get this house ready to sell.”
The mothers pushed back their chairs and left the room, yawning, talking in low voices about how exhausted they were. Arden, Meg, and Jenny removed the dishes and glasses from the table, stacked the dishwasher, wiped the counters, prepared the coffeemaker for the morning.
“Your mother did really well,” Meg told Jenny. Jenny glanced at Arden.
Arden nodded. “She did, Jenny. It’s hard to apologize.”
Jenny let out a long sigh of relief. “God, it’s like she’s
my
child. I don’t want her to embarrass herself.”
“Come on. Let’s go to bed,” Arden said. “Tomorrow we’ll all have fresh chances to embarrass ourselves.”
Jenny headed out of the kitchen, down the hall, and up the stairs, turning off the lights as she went. Meg went into the den to sleep, too tired to open the fold-out bed, and collapsed on the sofa in her clothes.
Arden undressed in the living room with the lights off. Enough moonlight came through the windows for her to find her nightgown, which she’d brought down earlier in preparation for this moment. She slid it over her head, loving the sensation of silk against her skin. She settled onto one of the living room sofas, trying different pillows until she found one just the right softness for her head. She lay for a long time thinking about how she enjoyed sleeping in different places, like a cat she’d once had who sampled different places to nap: in Arden’s lingerie drawer, under the sofa, in the laundry basket. She thought about Houston, how first she would sleep in a hotel, then perhaps in a rented apartment with a brand-new bed and mattress, and then, who knew, perhaps in bed with Palmer White. She closed her eyes and fell asleep.
Randall Real Estate was located in a small brick building on Easy Street, facing the harbor. The door was a handsome sea blue, the window trim white, and, of course, full of photos of houses for sale.
Nora had phoned ahead to make an appointment with Marcia at eleven o’clock, and exactly at that time, Nora strode up the brick walk and opened the door. Wanting to look businesslike but not forbidding, she wore her ecru skirt with a sleeveless white cotton shirt and all her gold jewelry.
It took her a moment to comprehend what she saw when she stepped inside the office. An expensive wooden desk held pride of place in the center of the room, but it was surrounded by cardboard boxes.
Marcia Kirkpatrick was working at the computer behind the desk. Today she wore a bright floral Lilly Pulitzer dress and a pink headband in her tumbling blond hair. When Nora entered, Marcia
stood up. The two women eyed each other for a moment, then smiled nervously.
“Nora.”
“Marcia.” Nora looked around the office. “You’re moving?”
Marcia nodded. “We only rent this space. Rory didn’t want to buy it—he didn’t much like the owner, but it’s such a great location.” She gestured to a comfortable chair. “Please. Sit. Would you like some coffee?”