The Dearly Departed (33 page)

T
hey walked, carried their own bags, replaced their own divots. Fletcher had intended to work his way up to the subject, perhaps after Sunny had sunk a dramatic putt or posted a few birdies, but he was too distracted and only mildly envious watching her. Her swing was all at once beautiful, classic, easy. Too bad, he thought: In the right hands, the right family, the right clothes, she could be the star of a Titleist commercial.

Finally, as they walked up the fairway on five, side by side, bags bobbing and clubs clanking, he brought it up: a lab on the Internet—great ad by the way: a pregnant Mona Lisa above a headline reading,
WHO'S THE FATHER?
A kit, a mailer, a swab, no doctor . . . results in three weeks. Still better, the coroner had all the DNA samples they'd ever need from Miles—blood, tissues, the works. Factor in the father, according to the lab guy at the toll-free number, and you get 100 percent certainty. His treat. How about it?

“Okay,” said Sunny.

He stopped for a few seconds, then caught up with her.

“Just like that? No argument? No stalling?”

“It's all you've talked about since the minute we met.”

He repeated, “It's painless. No doctors. A do-it-yourself kit. And we'll know in three weeks.”

“I said okay, Fletch.”

“What happened to ‘I don't know where I'll be in three weeks. How long can I impose on the good people of King George for charity housing and free refills at The Dot?' “

“You're putting words in my mouth. Besides, where would I go?”

Fletcher was tending the flagstick. He lifted it as she made the long putt, swiftly and into the center of the cup. “Nice one,” he said.

“What about you?” Sunny asked. “How long do you expect to stay?”

“I'm in no hurry. Why would I rush off and start paying rent somewhere?”

“Where did you live before?”

“Oh that,” said Fletcher. “Let's just say I lost it with my job.”

“Like me,” said Sunny. “Only something tells me you weren't a dorm parent.”

“I had a condo—get this—which Grandjean père had bought solely for his dog.”

“No!”

“I'm not kidding. He had this old geezer of a dog, some hulking French breed, and Mrs. Grandjean couldn't stand the smell of him even when he was fresh from his bubble bath. So Rex and his wholesale bales of dog chow lodged in the family's pied-à-terre near the main plant, where various Grandjeans and dog walkers visited him daily.”

“That was your roommate? A dog?”

“Who understood only French.”

“Still, a free apartment, and one without horrible fifteen-year-old boarders to police and tutor.”

“That's what I thought at first—free. But within a week I discovered that a half a dozen people had keys, and no one felt the need to ring the doorbell before entering. It's why I get down on my knees every night—well, figuratively—and thank my father for the renovated roof over my head and the solitude.”

“Solitude?” she repeated. “What about Emily Ann?”

Fletcher sped up, but she stayed with him. “You know that she likes you,” said Sunny. “We've established that. But I would have thought by now familiarity would have bred a little contempt.”

“Don't get cute,” said Fletcher. “It's me playing host. Me sleeping in a bed and her on a futon, a floor above. Me convincing her that if my hand brushed against her breast in mid-air, it was turbulence.”

“Poor Em,” said Sunny. “You should take the futon and give her the bed.”

One hole later, a second away from making her putt, Fletcher asked, “Do I editorialize on the subject of your personal life?”

“Constantly.”

“Let me see your stroke,” he said.

She backed off and demonstrated.

“A little wristy,” said Fletcher. “Did anyone ever tell you that?”

Sunny smiled without looking up.

“Ever try something a little more from the shoulders?”

Her putt traced an impossible arc toward the cup, hit the lip, circled 180 degrees, and dropped in. “Me and Arnie,” she said. “Too much wrist. But I'll keep it in mind.”

“I thought you couldn't play. I thought you'd lost the magic in Maryland.”

“This is different,” she said. “This doesn't count. I try not to analyze what I'm doing. I need to let it happen, without me. No brain. Just the club and the nerve endings.” She fished her ball out of the cup. “Watch me on the next hole. The mere fact that we discussed it will ensure that I slice it into kingdom come.”

He did watch her closely on seven. Her backswing, when her hands were neck-high, could be frozen and photographed, he thought. Or cast in bronze. She smashed the ball. It flew forever and landed on the fairway, midway between two long, shallow bunkers.

“Not bad,” said Fletcher. He looked up from his own practice swing to find Sunny studying him. “What?” he asked.

“Do that again.”

“Why?”

“I was thinking that you could keep your lower body a little quieter.”

“Don't be fresh,” said Fletcher. He addressed the ball, then took his most ferocious and unlovely swing. The ball hit a huge sycamore and ricocheted back onto the short grass. Sunny laughed.

“We're good, aren't we?” said Fletcher. “I think our grandma would be happy to see us out here, reunited at last, killing the ball, making par.”

Sunny said, “Par, par, birdie, bogey, par, par, likely birdie.”

“Not my point. My point was the genetics of things, not the play-by-play.”

“Your Victorian grandmother? She'd be horrified by my very existence, low handicap or not.”

“It was probably all her own damn fault—off playing the circuit and leaving Miles at home to find affection in the arms of other women.” He grinned broadly. “We'll know soon, won't we?”

“The test, you mean?”

“It's in my glove compartment. It comes with a mailer.”

“It's here? You already ordered it?”

“They overnighted it.”

“And this is what you want? To know for sure?”

Fletcher asked, “Are you serious? We've taken this brother-and-sister thing as far as we can on the anecdotal evidence, so let's get validated. That's who I am: A sister isn't some feel-good palsy-walsy thing I can adopt without documentation.”

Sunny took an angry practice swing with her pitching wedge. And another. “Fine. I wouldn't want that, either—a brother without proper papers.”

“I mean, we'd still be friends. And I'd still want to play golf with you.”

“Thanks.”

“I think I'm a good influence, don't you? Judging by the first seven holes, you're in that zone you talked about—all nerve endings and no analysis.”

“I wouldn't go that far.”

“We could be a team. Seriously. Do they have a member-guest tournament?”

“Not interested,” said Sunny.

“It would have to be coed, of course.”

Sunny pointed at his ball. “Hit. People are waiting. You're talking too much.”

He chipped nicely onto the green, then studied his scorecard. “Coming up: shortest hole on the course—a hundred forty-four yards.”

“I aced it once,” Sunny said. “But I was playing alone. No witnesses. I jumped up and down and made a lot of noise, but it was too early in the morning for anyone to hear. I've mentioned that before, haven't I? That I used to sneak on at sunup or sundown, before or after the members?”

Fletcher shook his head. “You really depress me,” he said.

“Why?”

“Your Little Orphan Annie past. And now it's the real deal: zero parents. No job. No car. All I can say is it's a good thing I came from a broken home, too, or I'd feel even worse.”

“I didn't tell you any of that so you'd feel sorry for me. I was bragging about sneaking on. I thought it made me sound brave and adventurous. I've had a perfectly good life. We had a roof over our head, food on the table, clothes on our back. And an eighteen-hole golf course for a backyard.”

“I still don't like it,” said Fletcher.

“What?”

“This loner thing. You think that's the way things are supposed to be—with you on the outside, your nose pressed against the glass.”

“That's not true—”

“From what you've told me, it's always been true: the town, the golf team, the country club, the faculty of that school you left, your mother's social circles. Your mother's—shall we say—dance card?”

Sunny dropped her golf bag with a jangle of clubs and strode over to him. “I thought we settled this. I thought you understood that your father was committed to my mother, that he was not in the wrong place at the wrong time in a stroke of horrible one-night-stand bad luck. They were getting married. Why are you still talking about my mother's dance card?”

“For no reason at all. Just forget it. I'm sorry. I must've meant . . . nothing.”

“Did Dr. Ouimet come crying to you about how he was in love with my mother?”

“No. Absolutely not. I've never talked to any Dr. Ouimet.”

“You're lying. You heard something, and I want to know what.”

“Shh. There's a ball in play. Please move back so I don't brain you.” He shimmied into position, then looked back over his shoulder to see if she was out of range.

“Did you overhear something at The Dot?” she persisted.

“C'mon. What are you getting so riled up about? Emily Ann met some dame and they started talking and your mother's name cameup. It was chitchat—mindless chitchat between two ladies of leisure.”

“I don't care what you call it. And if people are insulting your late father's late fiancée, you should be riled up, too.”

Fletcher looked back at the tee, at four retirees watching and waiting. “We're holding up play. Do you want to finish or pick up?”

“I want to pick up,” she said.

They sat on the first bench they came to, next to a footbridge that spanned the brook. “Even if it's pure rumor,” said Sunny, “even if it's untrue, I want to know who's spreading lies about my mother.”

After a long pause, Fletcher said, “Fran? Is there a Fran?”

“Fran Pope.”

“She's befriended Emily Ann. They're cooking up something with the local theater group.”

“Go on.”

“She was telling her about plays they've staged, and one thing led to another.”

“Such as?”

“Your mother starring in one where she took her clothes off.”

“So?”

“Well—and don't take this the wrong way—the word
chemistry
came up. Which led to a discussion of the group's social dynamic, which apparently led to a little reminiscing about who your mother went out with.”

“ ‘Went out with'? Is that a euphemism?”

“Sort of.”

“For what?”

“ ‘Fooled around with'?”

“Kissed? Slept with? What?”

“According to Emily Ann, all of the above. Apparently, in a town this size, when a woman is naked onstage, even if she's under a sheet, it's seen as very . . . out there. Liberated. Hence her popularity.”

Sunny asked, “Was it
Same Time Next Year
?”

“I don't know. Does it matter?”

“That was ages ago. Right after I left home.”

“So?”

“So if that's what made her popular, she's been popular for a long time.”

“Popular's good,” said Fletcher.

“Was Mrs. Pope implying that my mother was promiscuous?”

“I only got it secondhand. I don't know exactly what she said or what words she used. Besides, who knows what the Pope's criterion is for fast and loose? It could be dancing too close at the thespians' Christmas party.”

“She must have been implying plenty or you wouldn't be working so hard to spare my feelings.”

“I'm trying to spare your feelings because your fears are groundless. Emily Ann doesn't know another soul in town. Even if she wanted to spread a rumor, she couldn't. Besides, she'll be gone soon.”

“You don't know when she's leaving! And if Mrs. Pope blabbed to Emily Ann, a perfect stranger, you can bet everyone else in town has gotten an earful.”

“I'm sure that's not true.”

“Yes it is! I can see it in your face. Everyone in King George, with the possible exception of me and Dr. Ouimet, knows. Even the tourists are getting briefed.”

“Emily Ann only knew because she's been recruited for the play, and she only told me because my father was a casualty. Which I use in the forensic rather than figurative sense.”

“Well, she's an idiot! Didn't she think it would kill you to know that your father was the unlucky loser in my mother's boyfriend roulette, delivering take-out the night her furnace kicked on?”