who got stuck in the well and had to have that guy with no collarbone rescue her? That story would never have been made today. Not even for TV.”
“Have another drink, Dick,” said Ward, winking at Little Hank. Little Hank winked back too enthusiastically, grateful to be in on one of Ward’s jokes. I sighed. Other people’s family dynamics.
Audra brought in a high chair from another room. I assumed it had belonged to her boys, even though it looked too new, with a special nontoxic glaze and padded with a seat cover trimmed with a yellow ruffle. Once Stella was tucked into the chair, she popped a crinkly red thumb into her mouth. When she was unsure of her surroundings she never cried, just became as uninteresting as possible. Maybe she would grow up to be a spy.
Ward pretended to sit in the air right next to Mary Rose, then scooted her over with his hips so he could share the chair with her. “Not enough chairs, Ma. Guess I’ll have to share with Mary Rose.” He wrapped his arms around her arms, laid a photogenic cheekbone on her shoulder. Ward also has one of those forever-boyish forelocks around which decades-long Hollywood careers have been built. What is it about a man with good hair?
Big Hank stood at the head of the table, methodically carving the turkey into disks with an electric carving knife. He hummed like a bored dentist. There was something with the turkey. It was white and shiny. All I could think of was a burn victim. Of course. Roasted without its skin. Audra’s devotion to low fat extended even to the calorie-fest of the year. Around the table, bowls were passed: steamed carrots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, whole-wheat rolls as heavy as billiard balls.
Only in sitcoms do women usually make quips and asides about the god-awful cooking of their hostess. Mostly, we smile and offer compliments; the worse the meal, the more effusive the compliments. I watched Mary Rose take a dry oval of charred bird and try to disguise it with two ladles of gravy, which turned out to be steamed and whipped rutabagas.
“Yum! This is a real taste treat!” said Mary Rose. She put the fork in her mouth, then took it out with the food still on it. “Mrs. Baron, meant to tell you, before I leave tonight let me take in the calla lilies for you. It’s getting a little nippy out there.”
“I’ll nippy you,” said Ward, walking his fingers up Mary Rose’s side in the direction of her breasts.
“Ward.” Mary Rose squirmed, delirious as a fourteen-year-old on her first date.
“Ward! Stop it some more, stop it some more,” said Ward in a girly falsetto.
“For one thing,” continued Dicky, louder, “everyone wants murder. They prefer multiple murder. What was so good about Romeo’s Dagger—and it was good, Brooke, don’t ever forget what a fine job you did there, do you hear what I’m saying?—is that it had meaning. It was about love and courage. It was about more than how twisted people are. Although twisted is what sells. Twisted is money in the bank.”
“Audra, please, call me Audra,” said Audra to Mary Rose. “I suspect you’re right about the calla lilies, and while we’re on the subject, I don’t think I’ve told you how much I love Paraiso Mexicano. It’s absolutely inspired. I’ve had enough azaleas and rhodies to last me a lifetime. I adore it, and as I recall, not everyone agreed with me.”
“As I recall, Ma, no one agreed with you,” said Little Hank.
“Mary Rose did. She’s the only truly creative landscaper in this entire city,” said Audra.
Paraiso Mexicano was Audra’s name for the subtropical garden Mary Rose had planted behind the four-car garage. Other gardeners had told Audra what Mary Rose should have: “Mrs. Baron, you cannot, I repeat, cannot grow bougainvillea in this climate.”
But where there was money—not to mention the beloved’s mother—there was always someone to say, “If you want the impossible, I’ll try to give it to you.” Mary Rose built a trellis for the Bougainvillea sanderiana against the south side of the garage, dropped some hibiscus and salmon-colored impatiens in the ground, and told Audra to keep her palms and calla lilies in pots, which could then be transferred to the sunroom in the winter.
“It was all your idea, Audra.”
“But you talked me out of the banana tree. That showed determination and vision. Not every landscaper has determination and vision.”
“I was just following your lead,” said Mary Rose. She was anxious, I think, to be both agreeable while at the same time disavowing responsibility for the collection of exotic plants, some shipped from nurseries in Phoenix, that would no doubt be black and limp with rot come spring.
“You’re not eating,” said Audra. “Have you been morning sick?”
You know that silence.
Suddenly, the weather, which no one had noticed for hours, seemed to be inside the room. The applause of rain against the Italian-tile roof. The candles sputtering in the heavy silver holders, victims of unseen drafts. Mary Rose slid a glance at Ward, who kept eating his carrots, sliding them between half open lips as if he was feeding a parking meter. She said nothing.
I thought I didn’t hear this right. I busied myself trying to feed Stella mashed potatoes.
“You’re right, Dick,” said Ward. “The fact-based movie is in decline. Romeo’s Dagger was great. What did that one review call it? ‘Shapely and ironic’?”
“That’s what I want on my tombstone,” I said.
“What was the last good true story you saw? Dad? What about you?”
Big Hank looked at Ward over his glasses as if he were mad. “The last time I was in a theater they still had ushers.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Audra. “I know you young people talk about everything. For God’s sake, look what they advertise on television these days. So let’s not stand on ceremony. Yes, Mary Rose, Ward told us the news. And we are thrilled, absolutely thrilled. This is ridiculous. I think we should be honest. I’m beyond thrilled. I thought I was never going to have any grandchildren. And since we’re being honest, I might as well say it. Two healthy kids like you and Ward. I’m not racist. You know that about me. But with all those poor African-American girls having a dozen children or more, why, we have to hold up our end, don’t we? Us poor old middle-class white people?”
“Speaking of which, who is someone who’s never been mugged?”
“Ward, quit trying to change the subject,” said Audra. “But there’s one thing. And I hope you hear me on this, Mary Rose. I know you’re kind of the earthy type, and will probably be into all that modern-day homeopathic nonsense, but please, please, I beg of you. I’ve heard of women saving their placentas—good God, how far we’ve come! Talking about placentas at the dinner table—”
“You’re the only one talking about them,” Ward said into his Brussels sprouts. “And, yes, I would like to change the subject.”
“You little devil,” said Little Hank, pitching a roll across the table.
“Don’t interrupt—my point is that I do not, I repeat, do not, want you saving the placenta to fertilize the roses. I’ve heard of that happening. I will absolutely not have your placenta decomposing, or whatever it does, under my “Billy Graham” or “Melodie Parfumee.” Mrs. Eldon’s daughter-in-law froze her placenta, then when it was time to use it to plant under a tree or something, it wouldn’t come out of the Tupperware—”
“Mother! You’ve made your point!”
“And she had to microwave it. Ward, I’m just trying to show you I’m modern, and that I support you.”
“We understand, Mrs. Baron,” said Mary Rose, tucking her hair behind her ears.
“Please, call me Audra!”
Mary Rose looked at Ward, who was busily smearing whipped rutabaga on a pile of curling meat. He smiled a weak, closed-mouth smile, gave his shoulders