Trophy House (21 page)

With a glass of champagne in his hand, Mitch Brenner welcomed his guests; several of them stared at their shoes while he talked. Their loss. They will never be willing to give a man like Mitchell Brenner an even break, so why try to win them over? They have nasty, chilly little souls. I wanted to go step on their feet. David came up behind me and nudged my shoulder with his cheek. “Look who's coming up the beach,” he said.

It was Beth. She was striding up the beach with—oh my God—Pete Savage, the P'Town cop. Something terrible must have happened. Had Halliday struck again? I ran to the top of the stairs and as soon as she got into hearing distance I called out to her, “Beth, are you okay?”

She looked a little sheepish. “Pete and I wanted to see what kind of circus Brenner puts on,” she said. She let me give her a hug. “I left my things at the house, Mom. I can stay 'til early tomorrow morning.” She grinned at Pete.

“Do you mind if I ask you something? I didn't know you two even knew each other…” I paused, scrambling for words. “Are you two an item?”

“An item? Mom, this is century twenty-one. But yes, as a matter of fact, we're seeing each other.” And as she said this, their eyes locked. Pete Savage, a short, compact person with a shaved head, an earring, and a decent smile, looked as if he enjoyed sex, food, and apprehending malefactors to the fullest. Whether or not he sprang from blue-collar stock didn't especially interest me, though, to be perfectly honest, he had the earmarks. His beefy hands, for one thing, and a certain nondefined quality to his chin and nose. I'm not a snob, I'm merely describing. At this point in my daughter's life, all I wanted was for her to find a guy who (a) wouldn't beat her up, (b) wouldn't ignore her, (c) didn't drink to excess, and, should she choose to have a child, (d) would be a loving father. If his own father had caught and filleted fish for a living, that was fine with me.

I hadn't asked them how they met, but Beth was good at reading my mind. “We met at a party in P'Town,” she said. “He was standing on the deck all by himself with this disgusting purple drink in his hand. He didn't look like he was having a very good time. So I just went up to him and started talking and—the rest is history.” She gave him a look of unmistakable love. He put his arm around her still-slim waist and drew her against his hip. “Your daughter is a wonderful person, Mrs. Faber,” he said. “But you already know that.”

Beth seemed embarrassed by Pete's directness. “Is David here?”

I nodded. “He's around here somewhere. Would you like to see the inside of the house?”

I took Beth and Pete on a tour of the guest rooms, while trying to regain my balance, which Beth had knocked me off. She was mostly silent, but I could tell she liked the rooms. I was prepared for her to say something like “What a waste,” but she didn't. “You did okay,” she said finally. Back outside, Beth dropped another bombshell: “I'm going to open a wedding planner business in P'Town.” She must have seen my surprise. “It's okay, Mom,” she said (while all the time basking in the light of her newfound lover's love). “I've done a lot of research and I know exactly what it entails. I applied to the Cape Cod Five for a small business loan.” Here, Pete interrupted: “They liked the cut of Beth's jib,” he said admiringly. “They approved the loan.” She said that a lot of people thought that same-sex marriage was going to be legalized within a year. “Gays and lesbians—don't ask me why, I really don't understand it—want to do it the most traditional way. They want all the trappings—gold rings, a three-tiered cake, formal clothes, matchbooks with their names intertwined, a catered, sit-down dinner. The works.”

“Sounds to me like they want to outstraight us straights,” I said. “Are you sure it's not a put-on?”

“Yes, I'm sure. They're very serious. A lot of them have done it already—only without it being legal. But that's going to change. I'm getting in on the ground floor, so to speak. There's a shitload of money in weddings.”

“What do you think of all this?” I asked Pete.

“I think it's a great idea,” he said. I had the impression that he would find any idea of Beth's a great idea.

“Does one of the two change his or her name?” I said.

“What do you mean?” Beth said.

“Like in a straight marriage. The woman usually takes her husband's name.”

“Whatever,” Beth said, abruptly switching gears. “I want a bunch of those clams. C'mon, Pete, let's eat!”

David said he knew Beth would show up. “She really loves you.”

“Sometimes I'm not so sure,” I said, starting to tear up. I told him about Beth's two pieces of news.

“Good for her,” he said.

“It probably won't last,” I said. “What are she and the cop going to talk about?”

“Crime and prime ribs. I hope in equal amounts,” David said.

“I should let go?”

David nodded. “What is it you really want?” he asked.

“If only I knew.” And then it came to me: “I suppose this.” I nodded toward the west. “I think this is the most beautiful place in the whole world. Of course I haven't seen the whole world but enough of it to know this ranks right up there. My legs go soft when I look out over the bay and watch the water moving softly like a dream. You're going to think I'm nuts, but sometimes it's almost pornographic. Do you know what I mean?”

David nodded. “I don't think you're nuts. Just, is it enough?”

“I used to think it should make me happier, more excited, more hopeful. And, bad as it was—and still is—I don't think this mood is really connected to September eleventh. I guess I'm like one of those Henry James characters, where happiness is just around the next corner. You're not like that, David.”

“I'm not?” he said. “Are you absolutely sure you don't want to be your daughter's first client?”

Anne Bernays is a novelist (including
Professor Romeo
and
Growing Up Rich
), and co-author, with her husband, Justin Kaplan, of
Back Then: Two Lives in 1950s New York.
Her articles, book reviews and essays have appeared in such major publications as the
New York Times, Sports Illustrated,
and the
Nation.
A longtime teacher of writing, she is co-author, with Pamela Painter, of the textbook
What If?
Ms. Bernays currently teaches at Harvard's Nieman Foundation. She and Mr. Kaplan have six grandchildren. They live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Truro, Cape Cod.