Tiny Little Thing (19 page)

A
tall figure rises out of the armchair when I head into the library to mix myself a recuperative drink before dinner. I’m embarrassed to say he catches me off my guard, even and perhaps because I’ve been toying with the image of him all day.

Before Caspian can speak, Pepper pipes up from between another pair of armrests. “Tiny! There you are. Look who’s come for dinner.”

“Surprise,” says Granny Hardcastle.

I put my smile in place and pivot to face them. Caspian holds out a grave and formal hand. “Good evening, Mrs. Hardcastle. Hope I’m not intruding.”

Granny smiles over her drink. “I asked him over.”

I place my palm against Caspian’s palm and allow him to kiss my cheek. He smells like shaving soap, the genuine article, sandalwood and all that kind of old-fashioned thing, and his kiss is firm and no-nonsense. “Of course you’re not intruding, Caspian. And it’s Tiny. I thought I made that clear.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can I pour you a drink?”

Pepper says cheerfully, “Oh, I’ve already taken care of that. In loco sisteris, as the Latins say. Which reminds me: Where have you been?”

“Frank called.” I head for the drinks tray, because firstly I need a drink and mostly I need something ordinary for my hands to do, something easy and automatic, to shake out the vibration in my fingers. Caspian’s wearing a navy-blue jacket and a necktie, and while the effect isn’t as imposing as his dress uniform, he still makes my ribs creak. The tie’s green, the same mossy shade as his eyes, and quite narrow, beginning with a strangulated knot and ending in a point just above his belt.

“What did Frank want?” asks Granny.

“Oh, the usual. Say hello, ask how the ocean’s behaving itself. How I’m behaving myself.” I pour a few drops of vermouth over the ice cubes in the shaker, swish delicately, and strain it back out.

“That’s good of him. They must be terribly busy.”

Pour vodka over ice. Shake. Strain vodka into martini glass.

“Well, that’s the thing about these darling Hardcastle men. They like to keep an eye on you.” Add olive. Turn, lift glass, smile. “Cheers all.”

Dinner is intimate, dangerously so. Caspian to the right of me, Pepper to the left of me. Granny Hardcastle ahead of me, in Frank’s usual spot, bending her gaze over us and maintaining an unnerving silence, a pastel-flowered sphinx, as cold poached halibut replaces iced gazpacho—the weather is hot as blazes—and the conversation rides bravely on.

“Weren’t Constance and Tom supposed to have dinner here tonight?” I ask.

“The baby has a cough,” says Granny Hardcastle. “Caspian, my dear, may I trouble you for the salt?”

Caspian passes the salt in silence. (His not to make reply, apparently.) Pepper starts up an anecdote about some party in Washington, lousy with drunken interns and the senators who love them. She wheels to a halt in the middle of a double entendre and throws up a speculative eyebrow in Granny’s direction.

“Yes, dear?” Granny drops an ice cube in her wine. “Don’t stop there. Did the poor girl ever get around to enjoying her cocktail wiener?”

“Eventually,” says Pepper.

Granny smiles benevolently. “I’m not surprised. I don’t suppose your employer was attending this particular party? The distinguished senator from New York, I mean.”

“Yes, he was.”

“Oh, how lovely. Did you get to enjoy a wiener with him?”

Pepper, embarking on a runner bean, loses herself in a fit of coughing. Caspian discovers a flaw in his wineglass.

“After all,” Granny continues, “no one likes to leave a party unsatisfied.”

My sister sets her fork carefully on the edge of her plate and turns her head in Granny’s direction. Her face, I notice, has gone a little pink. “You would know, I understand.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Pepper folds her napkin. Her fingers are beautiful and trembling, which is so unlike her (the trembling, not the beauty) that I find myself riveted by her knuckles. She says, in a voice jam-packed with feeling: “Did you also know my great-aunt Julie has a very long memory, Mrs. Hardcastle? And we’re very close.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“Well. Then you know she doesn’t mince words. And I think my aunt would agree with me when I observe . . . I observe that the senator is a great man, a very great man, and your vulgar comments”—her voice breaks—“your
vulgar
comments only show you’re the same tasteless, social-climbing,
mean
little bitch you were back then.”

She bolts from the table and out of the room. A few shocked seconds later, the front door crashes shut.

I dab my mouth with my napkin and rise from the chair. “Excuse me.”

•   •   •

T
he shed is so dark, I wish I’d brought the cigarette lighter from my pocketbook. “Pepper?” I ask, though I can hear her breathing plainly.

“In the car.”

The orange end of a cigarette flares in the middle of the gloom. I take a ginger step or two in its direction and grope for the hood. “I hope I don’t trip over a piston or something.”

“Be my guest. The whole damned shed can go up in flames, for all I care.”

“Gosh, Pepper. Say what you really feel.” I find the edge of the door with my fingers.

“
Gosh.
What person over the age of twelve says
gosh,
Tiny?”

“I do. Move over.”

The leather creaks softly. I ease myself into the driver’s seat and reach for Pepper’s cigarette. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be smoking these anymore.”

“Oh, you and the Surgeon General. Anyway, maybe I’m getting an abortion.”

I allow myself a shallow drag and crush the rest out on the floorboards. “
Are
you getting an abortion?”

“It seems like the most sensible solution to the problem, doesn’t it? Nobody’s feelings get hurt. Two families—what do they call us, the magazines?—two
important
families are saved from disgrace. And I don’t have to find out what kind of a rotten mother I’d make.”

“On the other hand, you could get arrested.”

She snorts. “Somehow, I just don’t think the charge would stick. Friends in high places, you know.”

“Wow. Was there something in the wine?”

“Wow.”
Her voice mocks me, high and singsong.

“I’m just saying, you should take care of yourself, that’s all.”

“What are you, a fucking doctor?”

“No. But honestly? I’d give anything to be in your shoes right now, instead of mine.”

My eyes are adjusting to the darkness. I can pick out the cracks of light through the boards, the shadows of the trees beyond the open doorway. Sunset is still maybe a half hour away, but the radiance of daytime is gone, finished, see you tomorrow. The world has gone flat. Directly before me, the steering wheel curves in a perfect white arc above the dashboard. I rest my two hands at the very top.

“In my shoes. Is that so?” Pepper says dully.

“You have no idea.”

“I don’t get it. Why do women want babies, anyway? They ruin your figure, they take up all your time.”

“They haven’t ruined Vivian’s figure.”

“Well, that’s just Vivian. She only sits down to take a crap.”

A dizzy pause, and then I explode into laughter, helpless gusts of it. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God, Pepper.
Where
do you learn these awful . . . these awful . . .”

“Spend enough time around Washington men, darling, and you can be just like me.” She rummages in her pocketbook and comes out with another cigarette. “Knocked up and swearing like a sailor.”

“Well, maybe I’ll join you down there.”

“But wasn’t that the plan already? You and the Hardcastles.”

“There seem to be a few hitches.”

“Just as well. Impeccable Tiny. You’ll be shocked out of your girdle, darling, and I mean that literally.” She lights her cigarette and blows out a stream of smoke.

“You’d be surprised. I’m not quite as impeccable as . . .”

The bright beam of a flashlight slices the air in half between us. Pepper slides her feet off the dashboard and launches herself to an upright position.

“Hello?” I call out.

“Jesus. There you are.”

Caspian’s shoulders materialize out of the gloaming, silhouetted behind the circle of white from the flashlight. The beam switches back and forth between us. I hold up my hands in front of my face. “Stop that! Do you want to blind me?”

“Sorry.” The beam flips downward. “What in the hell are you two doing here?”

“Fixing the car,” says Pepper.

“What car?”

“The one we’re sitting in.”

The beam rises again and travels along the planes and angles of the Mercedes-Benz, pausing for a loaded second or two on the three-pointed star at the end of the hood, before traveling lovingly along the swoop of the left front fender.

“Holy Christ,” he says.

“That’s what I said,” says Pepper. “Or something like it.”

He walks along the driver’s side, running the beam along the sleek black metal before him. The glow reflects from his awed face. “Where did you find this?”

“Here.”

“
Here?
In this shed?”

“Yes, here in this shed. Did you think the tide brought it in?”

Caspian circles the left fender. I brace my knee on the seat and rise to follow him as he goes.

“But that’s impossible,” he says. “Do you know what kind of car this is?”

“Of course we do,” I say. “I don’t know much about cars, but I do know a Mercedes when I see one.”

He stops and meets my gaze. The wide-eyed greenness startles me. “Not just any Mercedes. It’s a landmark, a 1936 Special Roadster. I don’t think more than five or six of them were ever built. Don’t even know how many survived the war.”

“Well, at least one did,” says Pepper.

“We’re trying to fix it,” I say. “Pepper is, anyway.”

He continues his progress. “You would have had to have been European to get your hands on this. German, probably. You’d have had to know the president of the company. You’d have to be an aristocrat, someone at the very top. Is that a bullet hole?” He bends over the rear right-side fender, touches the metal with one finger, and straightens.

“Are you saying this is some Nazi’s car?” Pepper asks.

“The Nazis weren’t aristocrats. But something like that.” He stops at the front passenger wheel and whistles, low and slow.

“Then how did it get here?” I ask.

He looks up. “That’s a damned good question.”

Thirty minutes later, Caspian is buried to the waist inside the hood of the Mercedes. Pepper has just returned from the Big House with an armload of flashlights, which she dumps on the floor. “Thank God Granny’s gone to her room already,” she says. “Probably writing out my execution order.”

“Whoever tried to fix this car should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity,” says Caspian, muffled. His shirt is rolled up to the elbows; his jacket lies across the leather seat.

“Sorry,” says Pepper. “I’m not very good at German.”

“How do
you
know so much about it?” I ask.

He pops up, flashlight in one hand and wrench in the other. (Definitely a wrench.) A smear of grease obscures his cheekbone. “I spent eight years in Germany as a boy. I know this car like I know my own . . .” He glances at Pepper, then at me. “My own hand.”

“Lucky for us.”

“Lucky for the damned car, you mean.” He disappears back into the engine. “I can’t believe it. This car is a legend. It’s like working on a Stradivarius.”

“A what?” asks Pepper.

“A violin,” I say. “The ne plus ultra of violins.”

“What am I, a lawyer?”

“He means it’s the greatest car in the world, all right?” I fold my arms and study the snug military fit of Caspian’s trousers against his derriere. “The pride of the Nazis, apparently. And it just so happened to be hiding in Granny Hardcastle’s shed.”

“Surprise, surprise,” says Pepper.

“Now, Pepper. Granny may be difficult, but she’s not a Nazi.”

“How do we know that? Look at old Joe Kennedy. He practically goose-stepped down the Mall when he was ambassador in London. You know, right before the war.”

“And what do you have against Joe Kennedy, hmm?”

She folds her arms. “Nothing. I’m just pointing out what I
thought
was an obvious fact, that the older generation, our parents and grandparents, well, some of them weren’t exactly rioting in the streets against the fascists. Germany declared war on
us
after Pearl Harbor, don’t forget. Not the other way around.”

Caspian pops up again and lays his wrench on top of the fender. “Well, you’re damned lucky, ladies. You haven’t wrecked it beyond repair, though God knows it looks like you’ve tried.”

“What a relief,” says Pepper.

“What a miracle, you mean.” He spreads his fingers tenderly along the edge of the hood, like a caress. “All right. So what are your intentions here?”

“It’s a
car,
Major. Not your teenage daughter, for God’s sake.”

Caspian fixes her with his cast-iron look.

“We just wanted to see if we could make it run again,” I say. “A summer project to keep us busy. Idle hands, you know.” I lift my hands and wiggle my fingers to demonstrate.

“Okay. Have you tried to find the rightful owner?” He puts a little emphasis on the
rightful
.

“There weren’t any papers in the glove compartment.”

“Finders keepers,” says Pepper.

Caspian’s face goes all exasperated, an expression I rather enjoy. He walks around the front of the car and opens up the passenger door. He has to slide in sideways, on account of his soldierly figure. He pops open the glove compartment.

“See?” Pepper is triumphant. “No papers in sight.”

Caspian lifts himself back out of the car. “Well, you’ve got to find the registration, or it’s not worth a dime. To you or anyone else. No one’s going to buy a hot car.”

“Who says we’re going to sell it?” says Pepper.

He lifts an inquisitive eyebrow.

“All right. I’ll tell you what.” Pepper raises her alluring haunch and props herself on the hood like a living ornament. Her skin glows against the flashlight. “If you help us put this tin lizzie back together . . .”