“Neither, thanks.”
“I can have it ready in a jiff.”
He said, “I never was in the habit of coffee, you may remember.”
She didn’t remember, actually. She remembered only that he hadn’t liked sweets — unusual, in a young man. But when she said, “I purposely did not fix a dessert,” he said, “Oh, that’s all right,” as if he thought she was apologizing.
“I mean, I didn’t suppose you’d want one.”
“No, really, I’m fine.”
She gave up. “Well,” she said, “shall we go into the parlor, then, where it’s comfortable?”
Instead of answering, he leaned toward her. The movement was so sudden that she wondered, for a second, whether he had a stomachache. “Rebecca,” he said, “it’s occurred to me that this was providential.”
“Was… what?”
“That first night you telephoned, I had just about hit bottom. It was so incredibly providential that you called me when you did, Rebecca.”
He reached across the table and gripped one of her hands. Unfortunately, it was the hand that held her scrunched-up napkin. Also, she felt an instantaneous, nearly overwhelming urge to wriggle her fingers frantically, like some kind of undersea creature. She forced them to stay motionless, although the urge was so intense that she was almost vibrating. At the same time she had to remember to make her eyes look wider than they normally were, and to keep her head raised high so that the cushion of flesh beneath her chin would not reveal itself.
Then the front door slammed against the closet, and Zeb called out, “We’re home!”
He had promised they wouldn’t be back till ten! Or nine-thirty, at the earliest! But here came Poppy’s cane tip-tapping through the two parlors, following Zeb’s softer tread. Will withdrew his hand.
“In the old days, ice-cream places offered unlimited samples,” Poppy was saying. “Any kind of flavor you liked — eggnog, pistachio, rum raisin — on little wooden spoons for you to try before you committed yourself.”
They arrived in the dining-room doorway. “Well, hi, there!” Zeb exclaimed, in what struck Rebecca as an artificial tone of voice.
“What are you doing here?” she asked him coolly.
“We stopped for ice cream after supper and Poppy was so displeased with the service, he said he’d just as soon have his dessert here at home.”
He was looking not at her but at Will, who had turned partway around in his seat to see him. Rebecca still had a distant hope of avoiding introductions — if Zeb and Poppy would only retire tactfully to the kitchen, while she and Will moved into the front parlor — but now Will rose and held out his hand. “How do you do,” he said. “I’m Will Allenby.”
“I’m Zeb, Rebecca’s brother-in-law,” Zeb said, shaking his hand. With his poor posture and his dingy, wire-rimmed glasses, his strings of oily gray hair hanging over his forehead, he seemed almost ugly tonight. “This is my uncle, Paul Davitch,” he said. “Sorry to barge in like this.”
“I thought you two were going to a movie,” Rebecca told him.
“We were considering a movie,” Poppy said, “but after the ice-cream fiasco I just didn’t have the heart for it.” He stood poised in the doorway, pivoting his cane with both hands as if he thought he was Fred Astaire.
“What fiasco was that?” Will asked him politely. (Too politely, in Rebecca’s opinion.)
“I told the girl at the counter I’d like a little taste of butterscotch ripple,” Poppy said, “and she gave me one and it was weak, just very frail and weak in flavor. So I said, ‘Well, I believe I’ll sample the coffee nugget next,’ and she said, ‘Sir!’ in this smart-aleck tone — not a respectful ‘sir’ by any manner of means. ‘Sir, if we gave out unlimited samples we wouldn’t have any product left to sell, now, would we.’”
Will clicked his tongue.
“Back in my day, folks were more accommodating,” Poppy said.
“Mine too,” Will told him.
“So we thought we’d come on home and see what you-all’s dessert was.”
“We’re not having any dessert,” Rebecca said. “I didn’t make one.”
“I’ll go look in the freezer, then. Check what flavors of ice cream we’ve got. Want some ice cream… um?” he asked Will.
“That’d be great,” Will said, and he sat down again.
Rebecca slumped in her seat.
Poppy set off for the kitchen, humming something tuneless. He was leaning on his cane hardly at all, for once. He had a jaunty lilt to his walk that struck Rebecca as infuriating.
“So!” Zeb said chummily. He pulled out the chair next to Will. “You knew our Rebecca back when she was in high school, I hear.”
“Our Rebecca?” she demanded.
“Oh, way before high school,” Will said. “I knew her in nursery school. I knew her when she was too young for any kind of school.”
“I bet she was quite something when she was a little kid.”
“She was cute, all right,” Will said.
Rebecca rolled her eyes.
“Welclass="underline" cute,” Zeb said. “She was cute even when we met her. Showed up that very first evening in a blue dress and matching blue shoes, carrying a purse that was shaped like a workman’s lunch box.”
Rebecca would not have expected him to remember that. She hoped he wouldn’t mention some other things he might remember — like that twentieth-birthday party, which had taken place when she and Will were supposedly still a couple.
Before Zeb could say any more, though, the front door slammed open again. “Beck?” NoNo called. “Are you home?”
“Out here,” Zeb called, and he cocked his head at Rebecca — trying to imply, no doubt, that now he wasn’t the only one who’d interrupted her evening.
Rebecca just glared at him.
NoNo had Peter with her. She was wearing her work clothes — a green smock with a yellow trowel embroidered on the pocket — and she looked tired and out of sorts. “Where were you?” she asked Rebecca. “I’ve been phoning and phoning all evening, and nobody ever answered and the machine wouldn’t pick up.”
“I was entertaining,” Rebecca said pointedly.
This didn’t faze NoNo for an instant. “Anyway,” she went on, “Peter wants to ask you—”
Rebecca said, “Will, I’d like you to meet my stepdaughter, NoNo Sanborn, and her stepson, Peter. This is Will Allenby.”
“Oh. Hi,” NoNo said. Will had stood up again when she entered, but they were too far apart to shake hands. “Peter wants to ask you something,” she told Rebecca.
“Will was my high-school boyfriend,” Rebecca said.
It seemed important to make this clear, although she wasn’t sure just why.
NoNo gave Will a second glance and said, “Really? Well. Nice to meet you.” Then she turned to Peter. “Tell Beck what you wanted to ask her,” she ordered.
Peter said, “Um, at my school they have this, what-do-you-call…”
He had combed his hair flat with water, or maybe one of those newfangled gels. He had a skinned-back, pale, nervous look, and when he laced his fingers together Rebecca could hear his knuckles crack. “It’s kind of like a, well, maybe, exhibit; an exhibit of these projects we’ve been working on, and the thing of it is…”
He gazed imploringly at NoNo. She smiled at him and nodded several times.
“I don’t know why they do this,” he said, “but they call the exhibit Grandparents’ Day, and they have us invite all our grandparents.”
Rebecca was so anxious for him that she was nodding along with NoNo, willing him to get through this. But Will said, “Isn’t that great!”
Everybody looked at him.
“That he’s inviting you to Grandparents’ Day,” Will explained to Rebecca.