just a little too quiet.
Francie was wrapping a lavender scarf around her neck. Melody stared. The scarf was so light and diaphanous it reminded her of a passage from a children’s book she used to read to the girls when they were little, about a princess who had a dress that had been spun by moths from moonlight.
“Your scarf,” Melody said. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Francie looked surprised. She fingered the cloth a little and then unwound the scarf, folded it into a neat square, and pushed it across the conference table until it was in front of Melody. “Here,” she said. “Take it.”
“Really?” Melody, in spite of herself, was thrilled. She had never owned anything quite so delicate. It had to be expensive. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Francie said, pleased to see the appreciation on Melody’s face. “It’s your color. It will brighten the pallor a bit.”
“Have you spoken to Leo lately?” Bea asked Francie.
Francie watched Melody wrap the scarf around her neck. It wasn’t her color, but it still looked nice. She motioned for Melody to come closer and she adjusted the ends of the scarf, tucking them into place. “There,” she said. She turned to Bea. “I spoke to him last week. Briefly.”
“Is he okay?” Bea said.
Francie shrugged. “He’s Leo. He sounded perfectly fine, considering.”
“Does he understand your intentions?” Jack said. “That your incredible generosity on our behalf is not a gift but a loan?”
“I’m sure Leo doesn’t need to be told to be accountable for the money; he’s not dumb.” Francie was pulling on her gloves now.
“But he’s Leo,” Jack said. “He’s supposed to magically start caring about what happens to us?”
“We should give him a chance,” Bea said.
“You’re all delusional,” Jack said. He sounded more tired than angry now.
Francie’s brief sense of accomplishment over gifting Melody the scarf evaporated. She gave no one in particular a brittle flash of smile. “I’ll make sure he gets in touch with you as soon as he’s back in the city,” Francie said. “I can do that.”
“And then what?” Jack asked.
Francie shrugged. “Invite him to lunch.”
Meeting at the Grand Central Oyster Bar was part convenience—Melody disembarked at Grand Central, which was halfway between downtown where Jack and Leo lived and Beatrice’s place uptown—and part nostalgia. On the rare occasion when the elder Plumbs had brought all four children into the city, they had always dined at the Oyster Bar, summoning plates of oysters with exotic names—Chincoteague, Emerald Cove, Pemaquid—and steaming bowls of oyster stew. The Plumb siblings loved the bustle of the dining room (where they never sat) and the ordered efficiency of the sprawling, no-reservations needed, sit-down counter (where they always sat). They loved the dramatically vaulted ceilings covered in ivory Gustavino tiles and the strings of white lights that managed to make the space feel both lushly romantic and slightly antiseptic.
Melody had arrived early to intercept her brothers and sister before they found seats at the counter. She’d made the bold move of reserving them a table in the dining room. She was sick of the counter; it was hard for a group of four to talk when sitting in a row unless they got an end spot, which rarely happened. They needed to talk today, and she’d always wanted to eat in the dining room, sitting around a table, like civilized New Yorkers would. But Leo was late and the maître d’ would only seat a complete party. They’d ended up at the counter fending off the waiter with orders of shrimp cocktail and Coke.
“We could have just said we were three and then pulled up a chair when Leo comes,” Jack said. “If he comes.”
“He’ll be here,” Bea said.
“You’ve spoken to him?” Jack asked.
“No, but he’ll be here.”
Melody was glumly opening another pack of oyster crackers. The maître d’ had snapped her head off when she’d asked if he’d save them a corner table. “Madam,” he’d said, sourly, “please enjoy yourself at the counter seats.”
“Have you spoken to him?” Jack asked Melody.
“Me?” Melody said, surprised. “No. Leo never calls me.”
“I got an e-mail from him at work on Friday,” Bea said. “But since he’s not here yet, maybe we should talk about what to say when he does get here.”
The three of them squirmed on their stools a bit, eyed one another warily.
“Well,” Melody said. “I—”
“Go on,” Bea said.
“I think we should, obviously, make sure he’s okay.” Melody spoke haltingly; she was unaccustomed to going first. Jack looked dubious. Bea smiled encouragingly. Melody sat up a little straighter. “I think we inquire after his health. Find out where he’s staying. Offer our support.”
Bea was nodding along to everything Melody said. “Agreed,” Bea said.
“And then?” Jack said, pointedly.
“And then I guess we ask about The Nest,” Melody said. “I don’t know. How would you like to start?”
“I’d like to hand him an invoice and ask him when he’s paying it,” Jack said.
Bea swiveled on her stool to face Jack. “Are you guys in some kind of financial trouble? Is Walker not working or something?”
Jack let out an exasperated puff. “Walker is working. Walker is always working. I would like to offer Walker the opportunity to not work for a bit. Eventually. As in next year, which was our plan and has been our plan forever—that Walker could cut back and we’d spend more time in the country …” Jack trailed off. He was not comfortable talking to his sisters about any of this. He wanted to get Leo alone and make his pitch for payback priority without the other two interfering.
“I’m worried, too, you know,” Melody said. “Soon we’ll be paying college tuition. You can’t imagine what it costs now. And the house—”
“What about the house?” Bea asked.
Melody didn’t want to talk about her house, about Walter’s completely insane and unacceptable idea about her house. “It’s expensive!” she said.
Bea waved at the waiter and gestured for drink refills. “I get that this stinks for all of us,” she said, “but I also know Leo. If we go on the offensive today—” She shrugged and looked back and forth at Melody and Jack. “You know I’m right. He’ll just avoid us.”
“He can’t avoid us forever,” Jack said.
“What are we going to do?” Bea said. “Stake him out? Garnish his nonexistent wages? Beg?”
“I think Bea’s right,” Melody said.
“Since when has being nice to Leo worked?” Jack said. “Since when has anything successfully forced Leo to not put Leo first?”
“People change,” Bea said, opening up another pack of oyster crackers.
“More often, people stay exactly the same.”
“I still don’t understand why he didn’t fight Victoria on the apartment and everything else,” Melody said. “Why he didn’t try harder to recover something.”
“You