"Hasn't it been stifling today?" his wife said brightly, and began to steer her escort toward the bar. I gather she didn't talk horses.
But as I glanced after them, I saw another interesting situation developing at the bar. Faith, the girl Bobby Wellesley had hotfooted to see, had her back to him and was talking animatedly to Dennis Muldoon. Bobby Wellesley shifted from one foot to the other, glaring at them.
"Are they still trying to foist Bobby off on Faith?" Rafe asked Ted.
"Faith's a nice child," McCormack replied. "I’d hate to see her having to cope with Bobby's inadequacies."
"Faith's no one's fool. Good seat. Nice hands."
McCormack laughed and slapped Rafe's shoulder. "Rare praise from you, Clery. Thought for a while there you'd marry the girl and save her from her match-made destiny."
Rafe grinned as he sipped his drink, giving me a sideways look. "She didn't have enough dowry for me."
McCormack let out a bark of laughter and pounded Rafe across the back. I assumed that Faith must be wealthy.
"We'll have to come to her rescue," Rafe said, and I hastily agreed when his look required that of me.
"Shame, though. She'd be the makings of young Bobby. That boy has a good mind, Rafe, even if it is filled up with this liberal nonsense and counterculture, technocracy. Oh, I suppose he has to 'find' himself," Ted McCormack went on, frowning toward the bar. "That's the current phrase, isn't it? And I suppose I'm being square when I refuse to go along with this drug phase the youth of this generation have to explore. But I haven't seen anything intelligent yet from a mind expanded by drugs. I have seen some pretty sick examples of its effects."
We all sort of turned toward Marchmount.
"You can't drop a hint to your mother, can you, Rafe?"
My husband lifted his brows quizzically.
"No, I guess you can't, can you?"
"There's no calories in grass, you know," Rafe said in a low voice.
"Where's she been getting it from? I thought the FBI cracked down on the marihuana."
I felt a need to drink, and took such a hasty swallow I nearly choked.
"Gotta watch that caloric intake, Nialla," Rafe advised in a drawl as he swatted me on the shoulder blades. "Who's that Urscoll fellow? Sounds Spanish, or Mexican."
"No clue. Came with Marchmount, talks about stock sales and some of those offshore oil ventures in the West, but he doesn't quite add up." McCormack was thoughtful. "Still, I'm glad Marchmount has a traveling companion. Man's half-senile. Talks about persecution and ruin and police interrogation and all that crap."
"You don't suppose his vices have caught up with him?" Rafe asked in the most casual of voices, as if he really wasn't interested in an answer. Talk about dissembling?
"How d'you mean?" McCormack was curious.
"If he talks of persecution, ruin, and police interrogation…" Rafe let the question trail off diffidently.
"You mean blackmail?" Ted McCormack was both surprised and mildly contemptuous. "Bull. Everyone knows what he's like."
"Ted…" called his wife from the bar, making his name sound as if it had four syllables.
"Excuse me," and McCormack went off.”
"I don't understand that," I said, bending toward Rafe in case anyone overheard us.
"What? Ted and Nancy? Oh, that's been going on for years. In their own way, they're devoted to each other."
"You know perfectly well what I meant, Rafael Clery." And then caught myself as he laughed. "Why would…"
I stopped, because Rafe's expression had turned into shocked incredulity. He was facing the French doors. I turned and beheld quite a vision-in electric-purple bell bottoms, a floral see-through shirt with flowing sleeves, ruffled at wrist and chest, accented by a white embroidered vest. The young man's face was adorned by as glorious a set of mutton chops and curling hair as any rock singer's. This paragon of East Village sartorial splendor was holding the hand of a girl with medium brown hair rippling down to her buttocks. She wore an almost indecently short purple (and the color clashed with her escort's pants) embroidered Indian shift and Indian toe sandals.
"Halloo, there, Raffles," cried the young man, and dragged his girl over to us. In the midst of hugs and back thumpings (the boy was eight inches taller), good-natured remarks about wedding bells, I gathered that this was Rafe's youngest brother, Presby Branegg. The girl and I exchanged tolerant grins as the fraternal exuberance continued.
"My name's Sara Worrell," she said, holding out her hand rather aggressively. "I guess you're the bride, so I ought to congratulate you."
"Naw, naw," Pres said, draping one arm around Rafe, the other around Sara, "you felicitate the bride, you congratulate the groom. Now, congratulate the brother. Rafael Clery, this is Sara Worrell. We met in economics class, and I can't figure out how she could spend four years at Yale without my seeing her;"
Rafe kissed the girl's lips lightly, because Pres was holding the two together. "Maybe she studied at Yale," he said as he broke away.
"You know, you're every bit as nice as Pres said you'd be," she said, and then blushed.
"Good things come in small packages," Rafe replied, and she blushed deeper, self-consciously trying to lessen her own inches.
" 'Bout time you found that out," his brother said crisply, "instead of going for the large economy size."
"They were anything but economical, brat," Rafe replied.
"Presby!" Wendy Madison's voice held a stern come-hither note, and the boy's attitude changed from good-natured chattering to anxious anticipation.
"What's her frame of mind?"
"Worried about Lou. Play it up," Rafe said, and jerked his head toward their mother, indicating the pair had better not dally.
"He's in for it," Rafe said after a moment. "God, did he have to dress like that and bring a girl along. Our mutual parent intensely dislikes sharing her men with any other female. And it takes more than a sweet featherweight like that to prevail against her. Poor kid."
"Doesn't the maternal edict apply to me? I'd the temerity to marry you."
Rafe regarded me in what I could only describe as an inscrutable fashion.
"Dear heart, I married you."
Before I could find an adequate comeback, a tall young man in a pale blue silk suit of impeccable cut came striding across the terrace from another side door. He was very Italianate, from his straight thick black hair, swarthy skin, and very dark eyes, to the subtle virility he exuded and the sensuality of his full, smiling lips.
"You can always count on John-boy to present the proper family image," Rafe murmured. "Nialla, my brother, John Milanesi."
Although this brother was far more sophisticated than Pres, complete with Continental bow and a kiss floating three inches above my hand, I found I preferred the mod one. The calculation in John Milanesi's eyes was almost offensive.
"I am charmed," he said, without releasing my hand, his fingers curling into my palm and caressing the skin, until I slid my hand free. "A lovely surprise… for me, at least." The sensuous lips curled up, as he intended me to realize that the marriage had not been well received.
"How's factory life, Giovanni?" Rafe asked with more reserve in his manner. Or maybe I was imagining it. John shrugged, too bored to enlarge further. "You'll lose your shirts on the midis if you insist on pushing them," Rafe said, and received his brother's full attention.
There was another diffident shrug. "It would amuse me to find the haughty fashionable deposed from their giddy heights. The maxi, at least, disguises feet of clay. And speaking of clay feet," he added, glancing toward his mother, "I see Pres made good his threat. Must you continually put that child in a position where he has to follow your example?"