All of Us and Everything (19 page)

Augusta was right. When everyone flew into the dining room, Nick Flemming was standing on the other side of the table, in front of one of the chairs, waiting to greet them. Ingmar was eating some kind of doggy biscuit that Nick had brought with him for the purpose of subduing him. Nick was wearing a light-blue guayabera, his gray hair slicked back.

“You look like a Puerto Rican barber,” Augusta said breathlessly.

“That's racist,” Atty whispered.

“I've missed you,” Nick said to Augusta.

“Screw you,” Augusta said.

And then Nick Flemming made a gesture like he'd studied dance, or like, at the very least, he'd raised daughters who'd studied dance. (All the Rockwell girls had studied dance.) His arm swept out very slowly. His eyes teared up. “Look at my daughters.” His eyes fell on Atty. He whispered, “And my grandchild.”

And then he fell back into his chair like the backs of his knees had been hit by a bat, and, just like that, he was seated. The table was set for six. The plates stared up blankly. Ingmar nosed his empty hand, ready for another treat.

Jessamine cut through the dining room to get to the kitchen.

Teddy appeared in the door frame and said, “Hello. I'm—”

“This is Teddy,” Ru jumped in.

The girls took little notice of him, and Nick only glanced at him, giving a perfunctory, “Nice to meet you.”

Teddy nodded but kept quiet.

Jessamine bustled in, setting an extra place for Teddy.

“I hope I'm no trouble,” Teddy said.

No one assured him he wasn't. Ru wanted to but stopped herself. The comment hung in the air.

Liv wasn't even all that interested in Teddy, not in the presence of her father. She was struck by her father's full head of hair. She decided that if she were a son not a daughter this would be a great relief to her. She thought he looked fit and, as she had an eye for wealth, she figured he'd done well but wasn't showy about it. She wasn't emotional as much as she felt giddy, and the giddiness reminded her of being a little strung out, which made her feel like she had to fight such associations and so she felt tired. She said, “I picked a pretty time in my life to kick Klonopin.” It had been the toughest to let go of, Xanax had proved a pitiable substitute, and she was now hoarding her Valium, saving her antiques for a very rainy day.

Esme felt completely uprooted by the sight of her father. He was shorter than she'd expected. There was something around his eyes that was familiar in Atty. She folded her arms, gripping them to reaffirm that she had nerve endings, which reaffirmed her existence.

It still wasn't clear what Augusta might do next. She seemed coiled, ready to strike. She said, “You already know Teddy. He's the boy who made our lives a misery when Liv was a teenager in love. Then Ru went and wrote that fictional book that was clearly not all fictional.”

“Trust Teddy Wilmer,”
Nick said, then he turned to Ru and preempted. “I hope that's okay. It was available to the public.”

“You know my work,” Ru said, surprised. Sure, it was kind of a breach of their agreement, but he could keep up with her work without interfering, right?

“Of course he knows your work,” Esme said. “He knows everything. That's the problem!”

“What did you think of it?” Ru asked even though she knew she shouldn't.

“I noticed the absent father figures, and I felt bad about that.”

“Let's not get maudlin,” Liv said. “Self-actualization comes when someone has the courage to examine their own life—not other people's. Plus, it wasn't realistic. That's not how it happened. Right, Teddy?” His name felt so familiar in Liv's mouth that she wanted to say it over and over.

“Some essence of it seemed true,” Teddy said.

“Really?” Liv said. “It all rang false to me, personally.”

Ru didn't care whether it was realistic or not. She wasn't even really stung by her sister's comment. Instead she was simply struck by her father's physical presence—the
all
of him. She remembered him most clearly in small parts from their conversation in the bar—his eyes, his hands, the stupid school pin he'd worn on his shirt. She remembered how he was so proud of her. He smiled so hard that his cheeks were shiny and his eyes were wet with tears. At one point, he looked down at his drink, swirled it with his finger so that the ice cubes clinked, and said, “You're the most like me, of the three girls, you know it?”

Esme was the one to drive to her point. “You owe me,” she said to her father. “And the debt is so deep you can never, ever repay it.”

“She's right, Nick,” Augusta said.

“You think I'm right?” Esme said. Her mother never openly agreed with her.

And it felt like the entire family had always been barreling to this moment. It was inevitable that they would find themselves here—in just this way. Each of them somewhat shattered, full of longing, expecting something for so long but never knowing what form it would take. Here it was. At long last. Their father, Augusta's husband, the real man, returned to them, alive and whole.

“Would you believe that I had good intentions?” Nick said.

The girls looked at one another as if they could only answer as a unified front.

“You were there, Augusta.” He reached out and grabbed the edge of the table. Ingmar standing steadfast at his side, already won over. “Right from the start. I
did
have good intentions.”

“You could have given it up,” Augusta said. “You could have walked away and made a family with us.”

Nick leaned back and shook his head. “It had me already. It had me.”

There was only the sound of breathing—labored breathing. It was coming from Esme. She balled her fists. “Did you kill Darwin Webber? What did you do to him?”

“Jesus!” Nick said, tilting the chair back. “He's a cabinetmaker. High-end. The man charges a shit-ton and has a summer house on Long Island. He just changed his name.”

“To what?”

“Something simple. I can't remember.”

Esme glared at her father. “Remember it.”

“Uh, Parks, I think. Bob or Bill. Or Rob. Rob Parks.
Parks.
”

“What town in Long Island?” Her voice was gravelly and low.

“Um, that one…you know, where
The Great Gatsby
is set…”

“East Egg?” Atty said. She didn't think of herself as very pretty, and so she wanted to prove to her newfound grandfather that she was at least smart. “Or West Egg.”

“No, the
real
place,” Esme said. “Ru, you're the writer! Where was it?”

“Orgiastic,” Liv said, noting the controversial word on the final page of
The Great Gatsby,
a bubble from some educational moment that rose to the surface and popped. It seemed to catch Teddy Whistler's attention. The two exchanged a look. (Teddy Whistler had made her orgasm in his neighbor's aboveground pool.)

“Great Neck?” Ru said. “I think it was in Great Neck. He and Zelda had a place there.”

“Great Neck?” Esme said, glaring at her father. “Was it Great Neck?”

“Yes,” Nick said. “Great Neck, for the love of God. Great Neck!” And then he pounded on the table and shouted, “We're all in the same room! For the first time! My God, can I—” He pressed the fingers of one hand together and lifted them as if holding something precious. His hand trembled in the air. “Can I enjoy that? Can I be allowed to
enjoy
it?”

“No,” Augusta said.

It was quiet.

Teddy Whistler started to back out of the room as gently as he could. “Excuse me,” he whispered.

“No,” Esme said. “No one leaves.”

And he stopped moving, except for his eyes, which searched the others for some counterindication. None came.

Jessamine walked into the room holding a piping-hot lasagna with oven mitts, and took control of the situation by making a simple announcement, one she'd made a thousand times before in this house. “Dinner is ready!”

Augusta latched on to its ordinariness and said something she'd said thousands of times. “Sit down. Let's eat.”

When men arrived at the Rockwells' house, any guff of bravado wore thin quickly and they became stiff intruders. When they started to take a seat, someone would tell them that the seat was taken and would sit down in it. Sometimes as they made conversation, one of the sisters might burst into laughter for no apparent reason and another would nod at her encouragingly. The inside jokes were land mines.

The men were only invited one at a time. They were usually interrogated at first, eyed closely, and then an abrupt reversal would happen, and they'd find themselves pinned into the role of audience member—part of a larger audience that they were vaguely aware had come before them, and had failed to gain a foothold.

If one of the sisters clung to a man too closely, the others would sense weakness and things would go badly. It was best to let the man fend for himself.

Ru hadn't invited a man to the house since the cruise ship singer showed up during a break in the tour. He'd risked his job letting her be a fake roadie and stowaway; how could she say no? He was supposed to spend the night in the guest bedroom, but said he had to pee at some point during dessert and, wisely, left.

Liv had a string of boyfriends but she stopped the practice of bringing them home to meet the family once she hit college and dated a French foreign exchange student named Jerome. “We don't represent a typical American family,” she said. “We'll only confuse him.” But from then on, she'd never invited another man to the house on Asbury Avenue, not even her three husbands.

Esme only had
serious
boyfriends and, as the oldest and a rule follower and someone who wanted to rub her mother's nose in the benefits of engaging in a long-term relationship, she invited each to the house, including Darwin Webber, who was notable in that he was the only male visitor in the history of the Rockwell girls' suitors to win at a game of Spoons.

The last male visitor in the house had been Esme's soon-to-be ex-husband, Doug, seventeen years ago. That evening ended in a sour game of Scrabble—some argument about whether hoc as in
ad hoc,
was a legitimate word—but all had to agree that Doug was relatively likable. “Don't gloat,” Liv had told Esme after it was over. “It was likability by default. We just couldn't really find anything tragically wrong with him.”

His tragic flaws were now obvious.

And so for the first time in the family's history, there were
two
male visitors on the same night—one was their long-lost father, the other was Teddy, the subject of various controversies.

No one was quite sure how to handle the situation.

Jessamine had served the lasagna and salad, and sat alone at the kitchen table, holding her pocketbook, deciding whether to stay on to do the dishes or just go home. They could find dessert on their own. This was all so personal she felt she should go, but would Augusta need her? For God's sake, she'd asked Jessamine for advice. Advice! Anything could happen now.

Inside the dining room, Teddy also wanted to go but that seemed impossible. As he started to take a seat, Atty said, “That's my seat,” as if she knew, instinctively, how to treat a man inside the Rockwell home.

“Where would you like me to sit?” Teddy asked Ru quietly.

“Anywhere,” she said. “There are no rules.” She meant there weren't any rules anymore. Everything was up for grabs. She sat down across from Atty, and Teddy followed and sat next to Ru. And she felt embarrassingly happy that he had, like a kid with a crush. This thought terrified her. Would her sisters sense that she
liked
Teddy Whistler? She had the sudden fear that someone was going to ask her if she just
liked
him or if she
like-liked
him.

But what was worse was that she glanced at Teddy, and her stomach flipped. What if she
like-liked
him?

Augusta sat at the head, where she always sat. Nick stayed in his seat to her left.

Esme and Ru flanked Teddy.

Atty put her head under the table and then popped back up. “Ingmar is lying at his feet,” she reported, nodding to her grandfather. “It's like primal or something.”

Esme dipped under the table. “Stop it,” she said to the dog and when he just stared at her innocently, she said, “After all I've done for you.” She reemerged, snapped her napkin, and laid it in her lap.

They began passing the lasagna and salad, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise. “What do you do for a living these days?” Esme asked Teddy.

“I run a company.”

“That's vague,” Liv said.

“How many brothers and sisters do you have?” Atty asked.

“Two older sisters.” Teddy quickly turned to Liv. “What are you up to these days?”

“I'm trying to perfect my Zen.” She said it so seriously that Ru laughed, thinking she was going for deadpan.

“What's funny about that?” Liv asked Ru.

“That was the laughter of joy,” Ru said quickly.

Liv's eyes flicked around the table, as if she dared anyone else to mock her Zen.

No one did. It was quiet a moment. Atty Instagrammed her plate of food, and as if that were some kind of prayer, they all began to eat.

“So, having sisters, you're used to this kind of thing,” Atty said to Teddy, but no one knew what she meant. What
was
this kind of thing?

“Nope,” Teddy said. “Not at all.”

Nick gestured to Teddy's freshly punched face with a fork. “How's the other guy?”

“I'd guess his knuckles are sore,” Teddy said.

“Who punched you again? Context?” Liv asked.

“A groom punched me,” Teddy said and then he took a bite, clearly refusing to say much more.

“Why did you invite Teddy Whistler again?” Liv asked Ru as if he weren't there. “I'm confused.”

“I thought it would be a good thing,” Ru said.

“Teddy and I are all good. Right, Teddy?” Liv said, and then she turned to Atty. “Teddy and I were in love with the
idea
of each other when we were around your age.”

“I actually loved her,” Teddy said to everyone at the table. “But I also loved the
idea
of her.”

“Maybe it was like practice for real falling in love,” Atty said, thinking of Lionel Chang fondling the edge of her padded bra and dipping his fingers inside of it.

“Maybe there is no real falling in love,” Liv said. “That's something deep to really think about. Self-love, the love of others, which is which.”

Atty nodded. “Right.” She tweeted,
Maybe there's no such thing as real love. #love=santa

“I want to know if you're going after one of my daughters, Teddy,” Nick said. “What are your intentions?”

They all turned and stared at Nick.

“Excuse me?” Teddy said.

“You can't be territorial here,” Augusta said, as if reminding him of a small rule in a parlor game.

Ru was wondering if she'd written the goddamn Teddy Wilmer book with its absent fathers in the hope that her father would read it and be stung by the absence of its father figures. She hated him and herself and being in this room.

“Which one of them would he be going after anyway?” Atty asked. The idea struck her immediately as gross.
Will my mother ever be on the market one day? #ew

“That reminds me, Ru,” Liv said. “When are we going to meet your fiancé?”

Ru's cheeks went hot. She didn't want Teddy to know she had a fiancé and she didn't have one, not really, but she didn't want to announce that either.

“Yes,” Augusta said. “I've been meaning to ask.”

“Fiancé?” Nick said. “I didn't know—”

But Esme stopped him cold. “Don't play dumb.”

He raised his eyebrows and crimped his mouth.

“You're engaged?” Teddy asked.

“Can you miss that ring?” Liv said. “The shine of it could cure cataracts!”

“What's his name?” Teddy asked.

“Cliff,” Ru said. Stating his name allowed her not to have to lie in a bold-faced way. “He'll show up at some point soon.” She needed to return his voice message and set up a time and place to give back the ring.

“What do you have against the Ivy League anyway?” Esme asked.

“Nothing,” Teddy said.

“Not
you
!” Liv said and she laughed and then Atty laughed too and Ru smiled.

Esme didn't. She looked at her father. “You. What do you have against the Ivy League?”

“I don't have anything against it,” Nick said.

“But you derailed my entire Ivy League career!”

“Oh.” Nick wiped his mouth. “That. Right. It's not good for a kid to think they're better than everyone else in America. Heavy mantle. Screws with your head. Either you can't stay hungry enough and kind of give up the ghost, or you live in fear that someone will find out the truth.”

“What's the truth?” Atty asked.

“That you're a fraud,” Nick said. “And we're all frauds. That's the trick. If you know that, you're ahead in the game.”

Atty tweeted,
We're all frauds. If you know it, you're ahead of the game. #grampsisaspy

“What if my true self was Ivy League and this self is the fraud?” Esme said.

“Well,” Nick said, “that would be a real shame.”

“Do you mean a miscalculation?” Ru said. “Because it feels more like it would have been a miscalculation on your part.”

“Maybe a shameful miscalculation,” Esme said.

“But your life went the way your life went and if it hadn't you wouldn't have had me,” Atty said.

“Ha-ha!” Nick said. “See. You can't deny that logic!”

“After World War Two—a death toll of sixty-five million people—babies were born who wouldn't have otherwise been born,” Esme said. “And I'm sure that many of those babies grew into great people. But still, should we just shrug and say,
Well,
that
worked out
? Would you like to argue with
that
logic?”

Augusta leaned over to Nick and said, “There's nothing I can do for you. And if there were, I wouldn't.”

“Can you kill a man with your bare hands?” Atty asked her grandfather.

“The last time I needed to, I could. Yes.”

“I have a question!” Liv said.

“What's that?” Nick said, obviously hoping for a better outcome.

“When my neighbor died and left me that cash and the car and she'd been an invalid most of her life. She didn't drive. And, moreover, she didn't like me. That was you?”

Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I thought you needed it,” he said. “I thought…”

“Why did you give Liv a fake inheritance?” Esme said.

“The inheritance was
very
real,” Liv said. “Trust me. And thank you,” she said to her father. “It came in handy.”

“You're welcome. Of course, honey.”

“Wait,” Ru said. “When I said not to interfere with my life, I still thought things would be evened out through Mom. I still thought we'd keep this fair.”

“No, no, no,” Nick said. “You didn't say anything about keeping things fair. You told me—in no uncertain terms—not to be involved in any way. I honored that. Hard as it was. I did honor that request!”

“I'm going to go throw up,” Esme said. She stood, looking blanched, and said to Teddy, “Let me warn you. There's no use trying to worm your way back into this family. Can't you see that all men fail at this. Look at
that
failure! See him!” She pointed at her father. “They all fail.”

“I'm not trying to worm my way in. I'm here because Ru said she was going to help me because there's Amanda, and Ru writes win-backs and—”

“Amanda?” Liv said. “Are you back with Amanda?”

“Wait!” Nick stood up too. “Before you go, before this ends, wait. I just want to say that I've been here—I was standing off to the side, sitting in the balcony, gliding past the nursery glass to get a glimpse of my babies. I've been here all along, but not. You don't know me, but I know each of you in a way that no one else does or could. I know you distantly but I know your grace and your triumph and your sadness and your beauty. I know you. And that's worth something. When you get old, sometimes what you miss most of all is being known, in some way, being known and having been known for a long time. Augusta.” He turned to her. “Goddamn it, Augusta. Tell them that I willed them here. Tell them it was me. Tell them how much I love them.”