I rose, moving ahead of her to be in front of the dresser. Michael’s school picture hovered between us. Very quietly, but insistently, I asked, “Why was it stupid?”
“What?” She looked up at me, eyes unfocused.
I nodded at the boy in the blazer. “You said it was stupid. You mean, how he died?”
She nodded and swallowed hard. “He’d been warned. He knew it was dangerous. You weren’t supposed to ski that trail, that slope … I don’t know what you call it. I don’t ski. I never did. It’s Stick’s thing.” She returned the photo to the dresser. She ran a finger across the top of the frame and backed off, squinting at the window. “He knew he wasn’t supposed to.”
I waited for her to add more. She continued to squint out the window. There was another belch. She suppressed this one; only her shoulders heaved, the sound muffled. “We’d better go back to the party,” she said.
As we moved to the door, I commented, “It was something Stick had done? Skiing in an avalanche zone?”
She nodded, hardly interested in my inquiry and not at all concerned about the intimacy. “Stupid,” she commented and then asked brightly, “You want another drink?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Smart cookie,” she commented.
“Did Michael always try to keep up with his father?” I asked as we descended the stairs.
“Of course. They both do. But Halley’s a girl, so it’s different. It was hard on Stick. He was really close to Mikey. Mikey was his little twin.” We reached the bottom of the stairs and silently walked through the living room, the dining room and onto the glassed-in porch. When she arrived at the bar, she turned to me with a triumphant smile, “Good shrink stuff, huh?”
“Good shrink stuff?” I repeated quizzically.
She laughed at me. “Gin and tonic?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“You see, I’m a good host. I give my guests everything they want,” she commented, turning her back on me and reaching into the ice bucket.
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
She paused, a hand full of cubes. For a moment, I wasn’t sure she was going to acknowledge my comment. She dropped the ice, leaned on the bar, and twisted to look at me. “What did you say?”
“You didn’t tell me what I want to know.”
“What do you want to know?” she said. For the first time the words were slurred.
“Just how hard did he push?”
“Who?” Her eyes closed halfway.
“Stick. How hard did he push? How hard did Michael have to work for Stick to respect him?”
She shut her eyes and seemed to taste something, her lips moving. She took in a lot of air, opened her eyes wide and sighed. “Stick went down it the day before.”
“He skied the dangerous slope the day before?”
“Yep. You want to let me make you this drink?”
“I don’t want the drink.”
“I do.” She faced the bar and reached for the gin. “Yeah, he tried to get Mikey to go with him. Mikey said he didn’t want to. So Stick went on his own. Afterwards, he bugged Mikey, telling him he was too cautious. All night Stick bragged about the virgin snow. The fucking virgin snow. ‘Should’ve been out there,’ he kept saying.”
“You were there?”
“Sure. Halley was there, too. It was a family trip.” Her drink was fixed. She sipped it and turned to me.
“And Halley teased him also, of course,” I commented. “Big sister and all.”
Mary Catharine waved her hand dismissively, swallowing hard. “She didn’t mean anything. Mikey didn’t care what she said. Yep,” she sipped again. “All night we all sat around the condo listening to Stick talk about pushing the limit or testing the envelope … I can’t remember the goddamn cliché.”
“So he went to prove himself to his father?”
“It’s not Stick’s fault. Mikey knew better. He wasn’t a baby. I told him, ‘Don’t let your father get your goat.’ I was drinking hot toddies. That’s a wicked drink. Gives you a bitch of a hangover. In the morning Mikey was gone.” She pointed toward the patio doors. “I’m going back to the chitchat. You coming?”
“Sure,” I said, walking with her.
“So what do you think?” she asked as the sun shone directly on our faces and the charcoal smoke filled our nostrils. Stick was about three feet to our right, bent over the grill to turn a second round of burgers. “You’re an expert,” she raised her voice a little. “You think maybe I’m a lesbian like my Aunt Gina?” Stick straightened, stepped back from the barbecue, and stared at us. The spatula was poised in midair, a greasy sword. “Just kidding, honey,” she said and laughed. She called to one of the guests, “Jeff, I forgot your drink! Wait there. Don’t move.” She returned to the glassed-in porch.
A couple of Copley’s regional sales managers were beside him at the barbecue grill. Stick moved away from them, stepping over to me, still armed with a spatula, and said quietly, “She’s uncomfortable at parties and drinks too much.”
“She drinks too much all the time,” I said with no energy to the contradiction, as if I were talking about someone he didn’t know.
His stone face didn’t react. He said, “I’ve tried to get her into treatment.”
“Probably better if it comes from someone else. She’s rebelling against you and there are early symptoms of paranoia about you as well.” I leaned closer to his ear. “By the way, I pretended to be ignorant about Gene with Jack Truman. There are wild rumors circulating. Are they deliberate? Did you float the one about Gene destroying a Centaur prototype?”
Stick gave me one of his hard looks, a scrutiny I had become used to during the six meetings we’d had so far about Andy and his team. No matter how many times I showed no disapproval or judgment of his management, he continued to check my reaction, as if he couldn’t believe his good luck. I returned the stare of his dark eyes calmly and added, “It was a clever stroke.” I nodded at the pair of sales directors; they were pretending not to strain to hear our conversation. “Provides a comforting explanation. I didn’t contradict it.”
Stick nodded, eyes still brilliant and unblinking. He asked, “We have a Wednesday meeting, right?” I nodded. “I’d better turn the burgers,” he said, returning to the grill.
I stayed for another hour and a half, long enough to be confident that Mary Catharine’s drinking meant she would remember little of our conversation and to reassure Stick that nothing I had seen or heard altered my loyalty. I evaded Halley, always flirtatious and friendly when I couldn’t avoid contact, but quick to move on pointedly, paying court to the other women. She talked to the men while I gossiped with their wives. I noticed she kept her eye on me, obviously puzzled that I found these suburban women and their ratings of schools, nannies and malls, as well as their worries about aging parents, overworked husbands and fading beauty to be more fascinating than the male talk: golf, off-color jokes, how to make better use of focus groups, and which frequent flyer program is superior. What I hoped she would conclude is that I found the other women more interesting than she, in particular her mother.
When I announced my departure at four-thirty, explaining I wanted to leave early because I was worried about traffic heading into Manhattan to see the fireworks display, it was obvious I had succeeded. Halley said, “Could I get a ride with you?”
“You’re not staying?” her mother asked. “I thought you were sleeping over, honey.”
“I forgot, Mom. I’ve got to write an evaluation of Wales & Simpson’s print campaign.” She looked at me. “I came on the train. Do you mind? I’d like to avoid Grand Central on July 4th. It’s probably a nightmare.”
I frowned, but said, “Not at all.”