The Drowning Tree (34 page)

The statues I’d been admiring at the far end of the garden have for some time looked oddly lifelike—an effect I’d attributed to the flickering candlelight from the luminaria, their tulle wraps, and the two mojitos I had drunk. But now two of the three graces—a tall one and a short one—have undeniably detached themselves from the grouping and are wending their way through the box hedge maze, giggling as they trip over their wispy drapery. The third grace stands frozen and lonely and I remember now that she’s not a grace; she’s a statue of my namesake, Juno.

Before the two women in white reach us, they’re joined by a third figure who appears out of the shrubbery just below the pergola.

“Did you get it, Fay?” the tall grace, whom I recognize now as Regula Howell, asks.

“Did we look like statues?” the short grace, Joan Shelley, chimes in. “Do you think it will come out? Do you have the right film for night pictures—” and then seeing Falco and me standing above them on the terrace, calls out, “Reg and I have been playing statues. We did it all the time in college and Fay offered to take our pictures. Did you get it, Fay?” Joan asks, repeating Regula’s initial question.

Fay is looking down at the settings on her camera—a large 35 millimeter
Nikon. She looks up, not at Joan and Regula, but at me and Daniel Falco. “Yes,” she says, “I got everything. I was in the perfect location.”

J
OAN AND
R
EGULA COME UP THE STEPS TO THE TERRACE HOLDING UP THEIR DAMP
skirts. Fay trails behind like the forgotten third grace.

“I didn’t know you were a photographer,” I say to Fay, hoping that when she’s forced to look at me I’ll be able to guess if she overheard our conversation about Gavin.

She does look annoyed when she looks at me, but then she looks down again and mutters something about the film being stuck. “It’s just a hobby,” she says. “I started taking pictures at college functions for the alumnae magazine and Mr. Penrose liked them so much he asked me to take the pictures for his engagement party.”

“That’s just like Gavin,” Joan says, “always bringing out people’s hidden talents.” I glance down at Joan, who’s leaning against the balustrade, balanced on one foot while she puts her sandals back on—a pose that reminds me of a classical statue at the Met. She looks younger and more girlish than I remember her from four weeks ago at Christine’s lecture—she looks like a woman in love. If she suspects that Gavin might have another reason for getting Fay to act as unpaid photographer she certainly doesn’t show it.

Regula is also ready to sing Gavin’s praises. “I haven’t seen so many gardenias since I went to Joan’s cotillion in Charleston! And look at
this,”
she says, lifting Joan’s hand and angling it so we can all see the chunky diamond on her left ring finger—six carats at least, I estimate, recalling a gemology class I took a few years back when I started incorporating cut crystals into my glass designs.

Joan pulls her hand free and swats her friend on the arm playfully—all with her wrist flexed so that the diamond catches the candlelight from the luminaria and shines to its best advantage. “Reg! As if I cared about how big a ring I got! What I love is how thoughtful Gav is. He chose gardenias for the party’s theme because I’m from the South.” She picks up one of the votive candleholders to show to Detective Falco as an example of her fiance’s thoughtfulness. “Isn’t it darling? And wait till you see the
cake—it’s shaped like a giant gardenia. He had it done up by this sweet little Italian bakery called Gal’s that he’s been going to since he was a little boy.”

“Cafe Galatea,” I say, “my mother’s cousin runs it. In fact, I think I’ll go back to the kitchen to see if her daughter’s helping with the catering—” I notice that Falco is glaring at me as I back away from the group, no doubt because he’s dreading being left alone to hear Regula and Joan’s tales of cotillions and gardenia blossoms, but I wink at him and mouth the word
bill
as I turn to flee. From the confused look on his face I gather he thinks I’m talking about someone named Bill.
But he’s a detective
, I think, threading myself through the partyers in the dining room,
he’ll figure out that I mean to find out if Gavin has paid up for all these cannolis and biscotti
.

I cut through the central courtyard and into the butler’s pantry and kitchen on the north side of the house. I’m familiar with the layout because I helped cater a few parties myself back when I went here—and for a couple of years after as well—whenever Annemarie needed the help or she guessed I needed the extra money. She always made sure I worked in the kitchen doing setup and cleanup instead of serving so I could be spared the awkwardness of handing out canapés to my rich classmates. I’m not surprised that she’s got Portia working back here or that she’s put Portia’s friend—the industrious Latin scholar, Scott Heeley—to work washing dishes. Unfortunately, neither of them had anticipated my appearance; I find them kissing over a tray of half-filled cannolis.

“Zia Juno! What are you doing here?” Portia pushes away from Scott, who turns and plunges his hands into the huge sink full of soapy water (from the color of his face I’d wager he’d like to dive in headfirst and swim away), takes up a pastry tube, and hurriedly resumes stuffing cheese filling into the cannolis. I notice that both of them are liberally sprinkled with the confectioner’s sugar meant to dust the pastries. The whole scene reminds me of Francesca’s account in
The Inferno
of the courtship between herself and Paolo—how their book was interrupted by a kiss so “that day we read no further.” Without my sudden intrusion Portia and Scott might one day be saying, “that day we stuffed no cannolis further.”

“I just wanted to see if you needed any help back here—but it looks like you have everything under control.” Scott’s ears and the back of his
neck turn an even brighter pink. I turn away from him to look at the cake that Annemarie was working on when I came by earlier today. Sitting on a linen-covered serving cart strewn with real gardenia leaves, the flower-shaped cake gleams like polished ivory. Annemarie has outdone herself; it must have taken her all day to create this masterpiece. “Is your mother here?” I ask.

“She had to run down to the cafe for more ricotta for the filling. I hope she’s back in time to serve the cake so she can get the credit for it. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Multo bello
. I hope this crowd appreciates it—and I hope your mother charged enough for it. She’s always underselling herself.”

“Uh-uh. She told me no more—
finito
—she’s putting away every penny for my tuition to Penrose in the fall.” Portia raises her head and licks a dab of cheese filling off her finger and grins.

“Penrose? You heard?”

“Yep. I’m in—plus I’ve gotten a partial scholarship that pays half my tuition, but we’ll need the money from these catering jobs to pay for the rest—”

I step around the counter and hug Portia. Her apron is damp and she smells like vanilla and lemon dishwashing soap. When I step back I realize I’ve gotten confectioner’s sugar all over my dress. “—so we’d better get back to work,” Portia continues, trying to repress the grin on her face. “Mom says she’s owed on two other jobs she did for Mr. Penrose and she wants to make sure we do a super job on this one so we can collect for all three this week.”

S
INCE
A
NNEMARIE ISN’T BACK YET
, P
ORTIA ASKS ME TO HELP HER BRING THE CAKE
out. I send Scott ahead to tell Gavin Penrose to assemble the guests in the dining room and to make sure we’ve got a clear path through the courtyard. As we push the serving trolley across the uneven tiled floor I keep my eyes on the cake, which trembles gently, like a real gardenia blossom on a wind-swept branch. I have to stop myself from reaching out with my hand to steady it and spoiling the glossy buttercream icing.

I hear the little oohs and aahs from the assembled guests before
looking up to see them gathered in a semicircle around the dining room table. Gavin Penrose and Joan Shelley are standing in the front on either side of the table. Green porcelain plates shaped like leaves—no paper plates for this occasion!—have been arranged across the table in a deceptively haphazard manner so that it looks as if they had been blown there by a summer storm. Real gardenia leaves and petals have been scattered on the white linen tablecloth.

When Scott and another young man have finished filling champagne glasses Gavin lifts his glass and holds it aloft toward his fiancée.

“To my southern belle, my sweet gardenia blossom, fairer than that bloom because you will never fade.
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, for ever wilt thou love and she be fair!”

The guests raise their glasses and drink. I hand plates to Portia while she cleverly cuts the cake so that each slice looks like a petal. I hand the first plates to Gavin and Joan, who proceed to feed each other mouthfuls of cake.

“You ready to go?” asks Falco, who’s sidled up to me, hands stuffed deep in his pockets.

“Aren’t you going to have some cake?”

“I’ve lost my appetite,” he says, looking toward Gavin and Joan, who have managed to get cake crumbs and icing all over their faces.

“Yeah, feeding each other cake has always been right up there with ‘where’s the garter’ as my least favorite wedding tradition—and it’s not even their wedding!” I lower my voice but still I’m surprised at my own crankiness. Am I becoming a bitter divorcée carping at the happiness of others? Or is it the fact that Gavin chose the same poem—Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn”—to toast his new fiancée that he used to eulogize Christine a week ago that’s left me with a bitter taste in my mouth?

W
HEN HE PULLS UP IN FRONT OF THE FACTORY
, D
ETECTIVE
F
ALCO
—I’
M STILL
having trouble thinking of him as
Daniel
—puts his car in park but doesn’t turn off the engine. Although I hadn’t exactly been thinking about asking him in, something about his assumption that I won’t irks me. Or maybe I’m just still in a bad mood from the sight of Gavin and Joan enjoying their engagement cake.

“Are you sure Gavin Penrose’s alibi is airtight?” I ask.

Falco turns to face me.
“Airtight?
I think you’ve been watching too much
Law & Order
 …”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well, he says he drove Joan Shelley home to Manhattan and then
drove out to his house in the Hamptons. His E-ZPass account clocks him crossing the Triboro Bridge at 12:53
AM—
”

“Someone else could have been driving the car …”

“—and we have a video record of an ATM withdrawal in Riverhead at 2:33
AM
and a credit card purchase the following morning of some expensive garden knickknacks at a nursery in Sagaponack. So unless Mr. Penrose had an accomplice—and no, it can’t be Joan Shelley because she was at a co-op meeting at nine
AM
on the Upper East Side—with his taste in Mongolian sixth-century jardinieres, I’m afraid he’s not our man. Why do you want him to be so much?”

I look past Falco at the dark factory that I call home. “I guess I was spinning a little romance between him and Christine when I saw them together after the lecture and it bothers me that he was actually already engaged to Joan Shelley. Maybe he really liked Christine, but he needed to marry Joan for her money … it just doesn’t seem fair to Christine.”

“Look, I’m asking for blood samples from Penrose, Nathan Bell, and your ex, Neil Buchwald. If any one of them turns out to be the father of Christine’s child, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” I readjust my shawl over my shoulders and turn to get out of the car, but Daniel puts his hand on my arm.

“Do you want me to walk you in? It looks pretty dark in there.”

“No, thanks, I’ve got the dogs.”

I
LET
P
AOLO AND
F
RANCESCA OUT IN THE COURTYARD FOR A BRIEF RUN AND THEN
crawl into bed. As exhausted as this long day has left me, though, I know it will be a while before I can sleep. I take out the entry from Eugenie’s journal that I had started reading earlier today in the doctor’s office and pick up where I’d left off, with Eugenie’s little speech on interior decorating.

I think of the house I just left, Forest Hall, where Eugenie lived out her life in the shadow of all those paintings of her and her sister whom she never
saw again even though she was just up the river living in her own tower room, surrounded by paintings of a lonely pool that must have reminded her of that spot where the great painter Augustus Penrose first painted her. Had either woman found solace or comfort in their surroundings?