The Dearly Departed (36 page)

“You're convinced this tells the story?”

“I know the story! I knew the minute I saw you at the cemetery. Suddenly my father's mysterious black hole of a life made sense. Why he'd drop everything and run to New Hampshire, waxing ecstatic about his idyllic sanctuary on his breathtaking lake, when in fact it was a pit and when in fact he was coming up to see his daughter.”

“But he wasn't,” said Sunny. “He had nothing to do with me. You seem to have forgotten I didn't know him.”

“This isn't wishful thinking on my part. This isn't me saving five hundred bucks for the DNA-by-mail test. These are, no question, payments to Margaret Batten from Miles Finn for the support of his child. Besides, if he wasn't coming up here to live his double life and play father, then what—no offense—would be the draw?”

“A very nice, very sympathetic, adoring woman,” said Sunny. “And I don't mean the popular and allegedly promiscuous Margaret. I mean the Margaret of old, the one I knew.”

“That goes without saying,” said Fletcher. “No Finn has to travel six hours for sex.”

Sunny, after a few moments, said, “Okay then. Let's call it official. You're my brother and I'm your sister.”

“That's it? In that tone of voice?
Thanks, Fletcher. If I need an organ donor, I'll try you first
?”

“It's not as if we didn't already suspect,” said Sunny.

“Now I'm
really
depressed. I thought this was going to be huge. I thought you were going to throw your arms around my neck and sob into my collar.”

Sunny touched his arm. “I did like the canceled check on the azalea bush. That was a nice touch.”

“You can thank Emily Ann for that.”

“Where
is
Emily Ann?”

Fletcher checked his watch. “Ten
A.M.
Either exercising or purging. Or both.”

“No, c'mon. You wouldn't be having lobster dinners lakeside if you couldn't stand her as much as you say you do.”

“I'm counting the days until the play ends, and then it's good-bye: Good-bye, Em. Good-bye, house guest. Good-bye, Celine Dion. Good-bye, dainty hand washables drying on my towel bar. Good-bye, makeup bag on my sink. Good-bye, contact lens paraphernalia. Good-bye, Tampax.”

“Where is she going?”

“Home. You will not be surprised to hear that Daddy stumbled upon an opening in Big John's legal division.”

“I bet you'll miss her.”

“I will
not
miss her.”

“Trust me. Everyone thinks solitude is so great until they get it.”

“The reason I won't miss her,” said Fletcher, “is because I'm going back, too.”

“To New Jersey?”

“To my new job.” He held up his hand. “Don't ask. It's too embarrassing. I won't be able to face myself in the mirror every morning.”

Sunny laughed. “Then it has to be either working for the opponent—what's his name, the incumbent . . . ?”

“Tommy d'Apuzzo. Wrong. Not that I didn't send him a résumé . . .”

“Or for Big John, Incorporated, Emily Ann Grandjean, vice president.”

“Bingo.”

“In what capacity?”

“Paying down my debt. I may or may not have told you that I was compensated up front for my campaign work.”

“And what's the job?”

“Don't tell anyone this, either: an executive training program. A month in this department, a month in that, learning the business from the ground up.” He mouthed the words
assembly line
and shuddered. “After a year, they decide if they like you.”

Sunny smiled. “It's not out of the question. Try to ingratiate yourself with the rest of the Grandjeans. If my experience means anything, they'll come around.”

He nudged her with his elbow. “Was that the tiniest, subatomic quiver in your voice? Like, you'll miss me? Like, this wasn't the worst news you ever heard?”

“Which?”

“The siblinghood!”

Sunny said, “Maybe. I'm probably still digesting it.”

“Because you're stunned! You finally got what you've always wanted, a birth half-brother. Then, in the same breath, he drops the bomb that he's abandoning you.” He put his arm around her shoulders for a squeeze. “I'll be up. Often. I mean, I have a car, I have a country house at my disposal. Presumably, I'll get weekends off after the factory whistle blows.”

“Seriously? You're going to travel five or six hours for a night away?”

“I'll get the occasional Monday holiday. And summer vacation.”

“How many weeks?”

“Two to start. Pathetic, isn't it? He wouldn't budge on it.”

“What about the rest of the year?”

“In what respect?”

“The house,” she said. “Our father's house. I mean, would he want history repeating itself? Would he want me defrosting your refrigerator and dropping off a casserole in anticipation of your quarterly visits? Or would he want his only daughter to enjoy more gracious living than his two hundred dollars a month provided?”

Fletcher asked, “What's wrong with this place?”

Sunny reached behind them and peeled a splinter of paint from the clapboard. “Would
you
want to live here?”

“On the golf course? Absolutely.”

“That served its purpose. The thrill is long gone.”

“What about when I need the house and possibly some privacy?”

“You'll call ahead. I'll find a warm bed elsewhere for a few days.”

Fletcher said, “Don't think this very idea didn't cross my mind when I was buying the azalea and the woman said, ‘It needs at least partial shade,' and I wondered, Where is she going to plant this against that little shitbox baking in the sun?”

“That was sweet,” said Sunny.

He closed his eyes. “Give me a minute to weigh the pros and cons.”

“Pipes freeze up here. Desperadoes squat in vacant cottages. If I were you, I'd want a caretaker.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Who pays the utilities?”

“I do.”

“What about upkeep?”

“For instance?”

“If the walls needs refreshing? Or if the ceilings peel?”

“That's too easy,” said Sunny. “You've forgotten Joey's sideline.”

“Am I being stupid here? Are you going to change the locks and get a restraining order?”

“Nope. Just the opposite. I'm going to make it a shrine to you. I'll keep an overnight bag packed for a quick getaway. As you come in the front door, I'll slip out the back.”

Fletcher grumbled, “I suppose it wouldn't kill me to sleep on the futon for a weekend.”

“Then we have a deal?”

“Deal,” said Fletcher.

“Can I tell people?”

“Do you mean your boyfriend?”

“I mean, can I officially notify the town fathers that they can rent the Abel Cotton House to the next indigent family?”

“As long as they don't evict you before I leave town.”

“Which is when again?”

“In ten days. After the play.”

“You're staying just for that?”

“Have to,” he mumbled.

“What are they doing?”

“
Inherit the Wind.
Emily Ann is Scopes's girlfriend.”

“We'll get tickets,” said Sunny. “You can sit with us.”

“Can't,” said Fletcher.

“Why not?”

His cheeks colored slightly. “Because William Jennings Bryan can't sit in the audience.”

“No! You didn't.”

“Don't laugh. I'm good. I have presence. I auditioned for both leading roles and got my choice.”

“You picked Bryan over Clarence Darrow?”

“Bryan won,” he said.

From upstairs, the shower stopped with a clang of pipes. “Sunny?” Joey called.

Fletcher said, “I think the sheriff needs a towel.” He jabbed the burlap-covered roots of the azalea bush. “Should I leave the peace offering here or take it back to its future home?”

“That depends. Will you plant it or just leave it propped against the house?”

“Prop it,” he said. “And probably kill it.”

“Leave it,” said Sunny. “I'll do it when I get there. Which is—remind me—what date?”

“We leave on the seventeenth.”

“A month in King George,” said Sunny. “That sounds about right.”

“Yes and no,” said Fletcher. He backed away. “This isn't good-bye, in case you were thinking of making a scene. I'll see you plenty before I leave.”

“I know.”

“We'll get out there and play a couple of rounds before then.”

“Absolutely,” said Sunny.

He nudged the plant again. “They said you could exchange it if you wanted something else. It was between this, a rhododendron, and a mountain laurel.”

“No, this is perfect,” said Sunny. “The blue of the check against the pink of the blossoms. You did a good job.”

He walked down the three steps to the path. “I left something at the cemetery, too. Nothing fancy. White. Some kind of bulbs. In a pot.”

He turned away quickly so he wouldn't have to see how little she expected, how amazed she looked. “Gotta run,” he said.

At the end of the driveway, he stopped the car and lowered his window. “Tulips,” he yelled.

Sunny cupped her hand behind one ear, took a few steps closer.

“The flowers,” he said. “They were tulips. As in, from Holland.”

“Foodland?” she called back.

He shook his head:
Forget it; no matter.

Sunny shrugged. They both smiled. She waved, and he waved back.

How lucky I am that James E. Mulligan, a childhood friend, grew up to be deputy chief of police in Nashua, New Hampshire, and an ever-obliging source of things procedural and constabular. Special thanks to Lee Boudreaux, divine editor, for her enthusiasm and attention to all of my words—written, spoken, unspoken; Luke Ryan for his willingness to talk about his golf demons; Bonnie Covey, the first person to suggest I put a club into a character's hand; and the golf resource under my own roof, Bob Austin.

I cherish my association with the good people of Random House and Vintage and the boffo team of Ginger Barber and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.

I'd still be turning sentences around if it weren't for Mameve Medwed and Stacy Schiff, who drop everything (no small matter) to read my chapters as I write them and egg me on sternly, drolly, lovingly. Thank you both.

E
LINOR
L
IPMAN
, who grew up across the street from a nine-hole golf course, is the author of the novels
The Ladies' Man, The Inn at Lake Devine, Isabel's Bed, The Way Men Act,
and
Then She Found Me
and a collection of stories,
Into Love and Out Again.
She has taught writing at Simmons, Hampshire, and Smith colleges, and lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and son.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents either are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2001 by Elinor Lipman

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

R
ANDOM
H
OUSE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lipman, Elinor.

The dearly departed / Elinor Lipman

p.   cm.

1. Women golfers—Fiction. 2. Mothers—Death—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.4. Funeral rites and ceremonies—Fiction. 5. New Hampshire—Fiction. I. Title.PS3562.I577 D43    2001    813'.54—dc21    00-067368

 

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