“But why? Don’t you want to meet him?”
“Do you want them to see us gaping?” he snapped. “Jesus, Lucy, they’ve hardly met — allow them some dignity!”
Apprehending him stirred by forces larger than the ones at hand, she sheepishly trailed after while Edward steered the buggy to the ramp. It docked and was pneumatically lifted.
Holding a tidy package of dry clothing above his head as they descended the low dune that overlooked the lot, a shivering, towel-wrapped Toulouse proposed a jaunt to Bel-Air. (The plan all along was to introduce Mr. Weiner to the peerless pleasures of Olde CityWalk. The cousins had wisely chosen a day when the in-laws were out of town.) Marcus enthusiastically agreed, begging the chance to first run home so he might make himself more presentable. It was exciting as hell to be courted by his son.
While Pullman leapt ahead, entering the MSV through the passenger side, Toulouse confessed to having brought his cousins and hoped Marcus didn’t mind. The man proclaimed it a delight. Seconds later, the dear, inquisitive face of Lucille Rose hung like a small pink lantern beneath the Mauck’s open wing, the long neck attached to a body still hidden in that amazing vehicle’s recesses. Mr. Weiner caught a glimpse but was diverted by the arrival of Sling Blade, who threw his old acquaintance a cocky salute. Lucy had by then retreated — and Edward was nowhere to be seen.
The small convoy left the lot, with Marcus in the Town Car ahead. Edward busied himself in the lavatory while Toulouse gingerly removed the sand between his toes and quietly mused; he still tingled from the sea and from other things, too, and the corners of his eyes stung from salt.
Lucy could contain herself no more. “Well, what did you talk about?”
“Not too much. We mostly swam.”
“Not in the water — on the way back.”
“Not too much. He said he was glad to see me.”
“Did he mention her?”
“Who.”
“Trinnie!” she exclaimed, marveling, but not in a charmed way, at his laconic mien. “Your mother—”
“No.”
He started in on the other foot, and she wanted to slap him. “Did you tell him about us?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does he know we’re here? That we came with you?”
“He saw you, didn’t he?” he said grumpily.
“I wasn’t sure.”
“I told him. He already knows all about you anyway. Your dad’s fucking told him everything, I’m sure.”
“Knowing about us is different from us just having invited ourselves along, OK? That could be construed as rude.”
Edward clumsily exited the bathroom.
“What I want to find out,” his sister continued, “is why he went to that cemetery in East L.A.” She was convinced that a chapter — if not her whole book — hinged upon that particular puzzle’s solution.
“Lucy,” Edward interjected. “Would you please just stop?”
“Edward, why are you so angry with me? It’s for my book.”
“Are you a writer or a journalist?”
“A writer,” she said, with a mixture of pride and caution.
“Well, I’m not sure if you’re either — but if you think you’re a writer, then act like one. Some things are better left as mystery.”
She sulked. “It’s interesting, that’s all. I mean, him going there. The possible reasons. Whatever.”
They arrived in Montecito and waited while Marcus readied himself. One of the men in suits poked a head in to invite them for refreshments at the house; another bade them stretch their legs on the manicured grounds. Only Pullman took them up on their offers.
After an interlude, that very animal shot back to the Mauck from the outside world. At the same time, there were boomy voices and, without warning, Mr. Weiner clambered aboard, causing immediate discomfort and general paralysis. He was still an enormous man in many ways, but a superbly dressed one, and his face, slapped with fine aftershave, shone with health, wit and good tidings. He had the stubble of a beard on him and had come from the shower — his hair glowed too and the tousled locks tangled and stormed so that for the life of him he resembled Neptune on holiday — and he filled up the Mauck in such a way that it felt close to bursting.
Toulouse made introductions and his father shook hands all around, taking care not to pulverize any mitts. Edward was disarmed by the air of diffidence and politesse that accompanied this fellow freak of nature; and the trace of an English accent, threadbare yet aristocratic, along with the old-fashioned cadence of speech further lifted his sour mood. Lucy developed a crush on the spot, even larger than her erstwhile devotions to the detective — it would be fair to say that all the children had their crush, if one can call it that; for they felt like lost, weary travelers emerging from a jungle clearing to encounter a smiling tribal chief of legendary wisdom and largesse. However we may define it, Marcus reciprocated, and was happily crushed himself.
They gave him the captain’s chair; he already knew its contours. He nestled in with an exhalation of comfort, and Sling Blade motored off.
The first cousin offered their celebrated guest sparkling water, and when he assented, Lucy scurried to the fridge. Toulouse took a crystal glass from a cabinet. After inordinate fussing with an ice bucket, two bottles of Perrier (deemed “flat” by Lucy’s eagle eye) were discarded; when a third green vessel reached his prodigious palm, it looked like a dollhouse prop. He sipped and nodded approvingly — relief all around.
“Who’s in the closet?” he finally asked. The children were confounded. “Do you mean to say no one’s hiding in the closet? Scandalous!” He smiled — and the children smiled, then laughed — and felt completely at ease. It was like a merry tree-house club in there.
Marcus was grateful that his son had reached out, and was eager to be “sane” and accessible — which of course, for all intents and purposes, he now was. He was moved by Edward’s fractured physique and the outlandish ways that he compensated for his lot in the world; the vestigial Victorian was particularly captivated by the ornamental intricacies of pattern-design and dye he’d availed himself of to be swathed from prying eyes. For his part, the cousin found Mr. Weiner to be unpretentiously imposing. In his presence, Edward felt like one of those bent trees that, managing to survive an eruption, is now forever in the good graces of the volcano gods.
When he democratically turned his attention toward Lucy and spoke of her book, she blushed, frowning at Toulouse for having said so much (when it was her own proud father who’d betrayed her). But the bearish magus distracted her by apotheosizing the Blue Maze — what an evocative title it was, how he’d already visited the one at Saint-Cloud and been duly impressed, what a fine centerpiece for a mystery it’d make, and so forth. He made her feel as if she were already on a bestseller’s tour. His interest was piqued when Edward brought up the venerable Mr. Coate, a master “labyrinther” met on their globe-trotting sojourn.
Half an hour from Bel-Air, Marcus gave a tender précis of the lost years leading to his imprisonment and subsequent liberation at the hands of their grandfather, the estimable Louis Aherne Trotter. He was compelled to add that after the storm there came a glorious rainbow of trainers, dietitians and pill-pushers (for whom he had a more dignified name), the latter dispensing compounds which altered, in a subtle and marvelous way, the very chemistry of his brain — allowing him to take stock of his life and start anew. No mention was made of his estranged wife, and that was fine for all concerned. The children were relieved that Marcus Weiner knew enough not to throw open every door.