Summer's End (37 page)

“And if he's interested in getting to know you,” Hal added, “remember we're here to help. There'll always be room at the table for family.”

“He might have seven children,” Nick said.

Hal clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. “This is the wonderful part of being a man, Nick. You get to say things like ‘There'll always be room at the table,' and then the women have to do all the work.”

Nick grinned. “I may have been underrating family life.”

It was growing late. As reluctant as everyone was to go back out into the cold, Gwen had made it clear that not a single suitcase was to be opened in the garage. People had to sleep in the cabins.

Neither the bunkhouse nor the porch of the log cabin could be heated enough for sleeping, so Amy and Jack had dragged the bunk beds into the main room of the log
cabin. Phoebe and Giles were to take one of the bedrooms in the new cabin; Ian was to be in the other. The kids would spread out on the floor of that cabin. Amy and Holly had the bedroom of the log cabin; Ellie was on the sofa, and Nick and Jack were on the bunk beds.

“This will be the last time we have to do all this figuring,” Phoebe said as she was collecting the many things her family had already strewn all over the garage. “Our cabin will be done next summer. Then Ian and his family can have the new cabin and Amy, Holly, and Jack the log cabin.”

“I don't need the new cabin every year,” Ian said immediately.

“We can still trade.”

“You haven't seen what a difference Jack's skylights make in the log cabin.” Phoebe had seen them when she had been up in October. “You may think the new cabin is the short end of the stick.”

 

Thanksgiving Day dawned cold and clear. Even before they were out of bed, Holly and Ellie were marveling over the skylights. Jack had installed four, one in the bedroom, one in the kitchen, and two in the living room. Bright swaths of light spilled downward, sweeping across the floor, sliding up the log walls. This cabin would never have the convenient layout of the new cabin, but it was unquestionably more beautiful.

“I think I could lie here forever,” Holly sighed happily.

“I can't,” Amy said, even though she loved lying here in the light, knowing why Jack had installed these rooftop windows. He had hoped that they would tell her that he loved her. “I have to pee.”

“I wish you hadn't said that, Aunt Amy,” Ellie moaned from the living room sofa. “I was trying so hard not to think about that.”

The two of them pulled on their clothes and dashed shrieking to the biffy, the blast of cold air that greeted them when they opened the cabin door making their needs more urgent. But Gwen and Jack had already been up for more than an hour, so the garage was warm and a twenty-cup blue enamel coffeepot, the kind used on the chuck wagons of Western movies, sat in a pan of hot water on top of one of the wood stoves.

Even though it was mind-numbingly cold outside, everything else seemed startlingly easy. Gwen had set out mugs, cream, sugar, and spoons on a little side table so coffee drinkers weren't always trapising through the kitchen, elbowing cooks away from the stove. The tables were picnic tables with benches, so there was no need to hunt up chairs for every meal. Metal dishpans full of soap water were set on the wood stove, and everyone put their dirty dishes directly in the water. Kids then washed dishes on the picnic table, leaving the sink open for adults to tackle the pots and pans.

The women spent the day cooking, and Amy openly admitted that she enjoyed being the one who knew where things were. “I know it's not going to last,” she said to Phoebe. “By tomorrow you'll know everything better than me, but today I'm going to gloat.”

“You may gloat all you want,” Phoebe answered. “But in turn you have to promise not to laugh, because while you've been turning into me, I think I've been turning into you.”

Ellie leaned back from where she had been chopping celery and pointedly looked at her mother's rear end. “No, you haven't, Mom. Not by a long shot.”

“Ellie!” Laughing, Phoebe swatted her across the arm. “What kind of thing was that to say?”

“The truth,” Ellie answered.

“She's spending too much time with Nick,” Holly said. “He's not a good influence.” Then she looked at Phoebe. “I have dibs on Amy's butt. What other part of her are you taking?”

“The clothes part. You know how we decided not to dress up for Thanksgiving dinner?” The family usually wore black-tie for holiday meals, but no one could quite envision stumbling out to the biffy in satin pumps, so orders had gone out not to bring formal clothes. “I realized Tuesday afternoon that I really was going to miss that.”

“I wish you had told me,” Holly said. “I didn't bring a thing.”

“I know. I thought about calling you, but that would have left Gwen and Amy out.”

“We wouldn't have minded,” Gwen said.

“I would have,” Amy said. She might be struggling to change her role within her family, but no prospect of enduring happiness would make her give up her “Best Dressed” title. A person had to keep her priorities.

“I know,” Phoebe said. “So I had this idea, and I know it sounds sort of stupid, but Giles egged me on”—it wasn't like Phoebe to be so hesitant—“and most of the stuff the thrift shop hadn't been able to get rid of, and they gave me a lot of it, and we had extra room in the car.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Holly said.

“I do.” Amy clapped her hands together. “We're going to play dress up.”

Indeed they were. Phoebe had gone to the local thrift
shops and filled four big trash bags full of gorgeous junk. It was indeed out of character for her.

But it was fun. At first Holly and Ian were merely being cooperative, but within minutes a giddy playfulness captured even them. Only the two younger boys felt incapable of dressing up.

Giles had been warned to bring his tux, and Phoebe had driven over to Lipton to get Hal's. So the two of them were conventionally dressed except for their shirts. Giles's was a tied-dyed swirl of yellows and reds, and Hal's was a seventies monstrosity, Alice blue with black-edged ruffles. The shirt's collar points were so elongated that Hal was planning to carve the turkey with them. Jack was in his own jeans and one of the earth-toned shirts that Holly had given him, but he had accessorized himself with a pleated red cummerbund from whose folds dangled little plastic Santa Clauses and reindeer. There was a matching bow tie, but generous soul that he was, he was letting two-year-old Thomas wear it. He instead selected neckware that was silk-screened to resemble a bottle of Glenfiddich scotch whisky. Ian was wearing a red-lined black Dracula cape, and Nick had donned a metallic silver Hershey's Kiss Halloween costume.

The two little girls were safety-pinned into pastel prom dresses. Ellie and Gwen had on matching fifties-style cocktail ensembles, bumblebee yellow skirts slit up the front to reveal black toredo pants. Holly's gown was trimmed in acid green bugle beads; no one knew exactly what color arsenic was, but the general consensus was that she should be kept away from all food-preparation sites. Phoebe was in a draped, bias-cut oyster satin gown that Hal instantly recognized—or pretended to do so—as a homemade copy of Eleanor Roosevelt's gown from the
First Ladies Hall at the Smithsonian. Amy selected a crinoline-lined, ruffled royal purple taffeta skirt with a big watermark on the hem. She ripped a scarlet paisley shawl in half, wrapped one half around her torso in a mock bustier, even managing to fold the shawl into an interesting V at the front. She then used the other half of the shawl as a sash. Everyone instantly told her that she looked too good, that her outfit was too close to something a human being might actually wear. Since she was already cold, she pulled off the shawl, stole Jack's camel-and-tobacco-colored wool shirt, and cinched it at her waist with an elasticized silver sequined belt. All agreed she was now more in keeping with the spirit of the evening.

Then Phoebe brought out a worn velvet jewel case and called the two little girls over to her. Amy went too. She wanted to see what Phoebe had brought. A red, white, and blue rhinestone American flag pin would be the perfect thing to finish off her outfit.

But the jewelry was not from the thrift shop. Lying on a bed of ivory satin, glinting sullenly, were Eleanor's garnets, the ornate, elaborate parure that Amy had admired so much as a child.

They really were ugly.

Claire and Emily squealed. “Oh, can we wear those? Can we? Can we please?”

“If you're careful,” Phoebe said.

The set was large enough that each girl had a bracelet and a brooch the size of a Campbell's soup can lid. Neither had pierced ears, so Phoebe had wired the earrings to barrettes, and they were wearing them in their hair. There was only one necklace, but Phoebe told them that they could trade every half hour.

“Is there any chance I can get in on the necklace rotation?” Amy asked. “I always wanted to wear it.”

“They'll get bored with it halfway through dinner,” Phoebe answered, “and you can do whatever you want. But in the meantime…we need you to sit down and close your eyes.”

“Me? Why?” She noticed that Ellie had joined them, her hands behind her back. “Okay.” She sat down on one of the picnic benches, her purple taffeta billowing up over three spaces.

She felt something cold at her throat and then warm fingers at the back of her neck. “You can open your eyes now,” Ellie said.

Ellie was holding a small hand mirror in front of her. Amy looked at herself. Inside the collar of Jack's wool shirt, hanging just below her collarbone, was her mother's opal necklace, five rectangular-cut opals separated from each other by tiny diamonds. Simple and elegant, it had been given to Eleanor's mother, Amy's grandmother, when she had made her debut in London. Phoebe was holding the matching earrings.

“I also brought the topazes for you,” Phoebe said, “but they were too good a match with that shirt.”

“Phoebe…” Amy was speechless. “You don't have to do this.”

“I want to. She was your mother too.”

Amy could feel her eyes tingle, her mouth start to tighten. She was going to cry. For the last two years Phoebe had hugged Eleanor's memory to herself as if it were hers and hers alone. She was now sharing the memory, easing her grief.

Hal came over and put one arm around each of his daughters. Apparently Phoebe had told him that she was
giving Amy the opals and the topazes. “I'm going to sound like a silly old fool, but the two of you growing closer is a source of tremendous gratification. I always thought of us as a close family because of the lake, that we were close because we had this wonderful place where we spend so much time. Then I got to know Gwen and her children. They didn't have a special place like this, but they're closer to each other than we've ever been. A place, no matter how special, no matter how sacred it is, wasn't going to hold people together. It's the way they feel about each other, and I wish I could say this without sounding like a Hallmark card, but I don't seem to be able to.”

Amy liked Hallmark cards. “There's a reason Hallmark sells however many million cards a year; some of them are right. Some of them say things that need to be said.”

“Can I have some help?” Gwen called out from the kitchen side of the room. “From someone other than Nick?”

She was trying to take the turkey out of the oven, and her assistant was standing by uselessly, hampered by his complete ignorance and the probable flammability level of his silver metallic Hershey's Kiss costume.

True to their sex, all the men were quite ready to help now that everything was almost done. Until it was time to change clothes, they had been worthless, spending the entire day poring over Giles's blueprints and tramping back and forth between the cabins and the newly cleared site at the Rim.

After dinner they got the plans back out—apparently building plans were almost as satisfying as televised football—and Amy drifted over to look at them. She couldn't tell a thing from them, but that was all right. Looking at the plans was really only an excuse to come sit by Jack.

Giles explained the cabin's design to her. It was an A-frame, not big at all, but it had an open kitchen and living space, two little bedrooms in back, and a loft with two more small bedrooms. The lakeside of the cabin would be almost all windows. A broad deck opened out to the beach.

The plans had been professionally drawn, but the table was littered with yellow legal paper that the men had been making notes on. She recognized Jack's hand on one, so she picked it up. It had a rough hand-drawn site plan of the log cabin lot. She could identify three of the buildings, the cabin, the woodshed, the biffy, but there was a fourth square, much smaller than the cabin but larger than the others, drawn into an empty corner of the lot.

“What's this?” she asked, and before anyone answered, she picked up the sheet of paper that had been with it. It was obviously a drawing of a very tiny cabin, really only a bedroom. She could now recognize the architectural symbols. The cabin was to have a door, windows on three sides, a small stove, and three gas lights. “What's this?” she repeated.

Jack glanced over his shoulder. “Mom and Holly don't know about this yet, only Hal does, but I'd like to build this for my sister. She's been a good sport about coming up here, and she'll go on being a good sport, but I've been trying to think what would make her
want
to come here, not just because she's humoring Mom and me. She's used to privacy, she's used to quiet. Giles said that he didn't feel like he belonged up here until he started working on his boat. I think if Holly has her own little cottage, she'll come to love the place as much as Mom and I already do.”

Amy looked over her shoulder at Holly, who was at
the card table playing double solitaire with Nick. The soft gaslight muted the acid glitter of the bugle beads on her gown.