Ian’s father, who kept mostly to the basement these days, told Ian this was all a result of a misstep in evolution. “Human beings should never have risen upright,” he said. “Now every pregnant woman has gravity working against her. Remember Claudia? Same thing happened to Claudia, back when she was expecting Franny.”
“That’s true, it did,” Ian said. He had forgotten. All at once he saw Lucy in her red bandanna with her hair hanging down her back. “Just, you know, a little bleeding …” she informed him in her quaint croak. Lucy had been pregnant herself at the time. She had been pregnant at her wedding, most likely, and only now did Ian stop to think how she must have felt going through those early weeks alone, hiding her symptoms from everyone, trying to figure out some way to manage.
“It won’t be real fancy,” she said.
And, “Twenty twenty-seven! Great God Almighty!”
She said, “Do you think Danny will mind?”
That evening while he and Rita were playing Scrabble, he rose and wandered over to Lucy’s framed photo above the piano. Daphne had hung it there some time ago, but he’d hardly glanced at it since. He lifted it from its hook and held it level in both hands. “I’ll trade you two of my vowels for one consonant,” Rita said, but Ian went on frowning at Lucy’s small, bright face.
Of course, she struck him as preposterously young. That was only to be expected. And everything about her was so dated. That leggy look of the sixties! That childish, Christopher Robin stance grown women used to affect, with their feet planted wide apart and their bare knees braced! She resembled a little tepee on stilts. A paper parasol from a cocktail glass. One of those tiny, peaked Japanese mushrooms with the thready stems.
He was noticing this to gain some distance. Surely he was able to see her clearly now. Wasn’t he? Surely he had the perspective, at last, to understand what Lucy’s meaning had been in his life.
But Rita said, “Okay, three of my vowels. For one lousy consonant. You drive a hard bargain, you devil.”
And Ian replaced the picture on its hook, no wiser.
This was going to be the first Christmas of their marriage and Rita had big plans. She sent Daphne on mysterious errands with shopping lists and whispered instructions. She phoned Thomas in New York and Agatha in L.A., making sure they were coming. She drew up a guest list for Christmas dinner: Mrs. Jordan and the foreigners and her mother and Curt. Ian had once mentioned how the Bedloes’ holiday meals used to be all hors d’oeuvres, and she decided to revive the practice even though it meant cooking from the living room. For days she lay on the couch with a breadboard across her lap, rolling pinwheels and stamping out fancy shapes of biscuit dough and mincing herbs that Doug obligingly toted back and forth for her. Ian worried she was overdoing, but at least it kept her entertained.
Christmas fell on a Monday that year. Thomas arrived in time for church on Sunday morning, and Daphne met them there, carrying her knapsack because she’d be sleeping over. Agatha and Stuart flew in that afternoon. For the family supper on Christmas Eve they had black-eyed peas and rice. Everybody was puzzled by this (they usually had oyster stew), but Rita explained that black-eyed peas were an ancient custom. Something to do with luck, she said — good luck for the coming year. Almost immediately a sort of click of recognition traveled around the table. Coming year? Then wasn’t that New Year’s Eve? They sent each other secret glances and then applied themselves to their food, smiling. Rita didn’t notice a thing. Ian did, though, and he was touched by his family’s tact. Lately he’d started valuing such qualities. He had begun to see the importance of manners and gracious gestures; he thought now that his mother’s staunch sprightliness had been braver than he had appreciated in his youth. (Last summer, laid up for a week with a wrenched back, he had suddenly wondered how Bee had endured the chronic pain of her arthritis all those years. He suspected that had taken a good deal more strength than the brief, flashy acts of valor you see in the movies.)
“To the cook!” Thomas said, raising his water glass, and they all said, “To Rita!” Rita grinned and raised her own glass. Probably for decades of Christmas Eves to come the Bedloes would be loyally eating black-eyed peas and rice.
It was afterward, in front of the fire, that Thomas announced his engagement. “You two won’t be the newest newlyweds anymore,” he told Ian. This wasn’t exactly a shock — he’d been dating the same girl for some time now — but they had been hoping he would get over her. They all felt she bossed him around too much. (He kept falling for these managerial types who didn’t have any softness to them; they might as well be business partners, Daphne had once complained.) Still, the women hugged him and Doug said, “What do you know!” and Ian suggested they call Angie and welcome her to the family. So they did, lining up in the hall to tell her more or less the same thing in several different ways. While Ian was waiting his turn at the phone he had a sudden memory of Danny presenting Lucy in this very spot. What was it he had said? “I’d like you to meet the woman who’s changed my life,” he had said, and then as now the family had received the news with the most resolute show of pleasure.
On Christmas morning they opened their presents — most of Ian’s and Rita’s relating to babies — and then cleared away the gift wrap and started getting ready for the dinner guests. Rita directed from an armchair Ian had dragged into the dining room, except that she kept jumping up to do things herself. Finally Agatha put Stuart in charge of diverting her. “Show her your card tricks, Stu,” she said. “Oh, please, no,” Rita groaned. Ian and his father fitted all the leaves into the table, and the women added last-minute touches to the dishes Rita had prepared. Everyone was entranced to find nothing but hors d’oeuvres. “Look! Artichokes,” Doug pointed out. “Look at this, kids, my favorite: Chesapeake crab spread. It’s just like the old days.” Rita beamed. Stuart told her, “Pick a card. Any card. Come on, Rita, pay attention.”
The current foreigners’ names were Manny, Mike, and Buck. They were the first to arrive — they always showed up on the dot, not familiar with Baltimore ways — and Mrs. Jordan followed, bearing one of her sumptuous black fruitcakes with the frosting you had to crack through with a chisel. Then Bobbeen appeared with an old-fashioned crank-style ice cream freezer, fully loaded and ready for the ice, and last came Curt, looking as if he’d just that minute rolled out of bed. Those who were guests had to have the hors d’oeuvres explained for them — all but Mrs. Jordan, of course, who’d been through this year after year. Mrs. Jordan said, “Why, you’ve even made Bee’s hearts-of-palm dish!” And later, once they’d taken their seats and Doug had offered the blessing, she said, “Rita, if Ian’s mother could see what you’ve done here she would be so pleased.”
“Remember the first time we tasted hearts of palm?” Agatha asked Thomas.
“Was that when we had the flu?”
“No, no, this was before. You were really little, and Daphne was just a baby. I don’t think she got to try them. But you and I were crazy about them; we polished off the platter. It wasn’t till five or six years later we had that flu.”
“Ugh! Worst flu of my life,” Thomas said.
“Mine too. I couldn’t eat a bite for days. But finally I called out, ‘Ian, I’m hungry!’ Remember, Ian? You were flat on your back—”
“I was sick?” Ian asked.
“Everyone was, even Grandma and Grandpa. You said, ‘Hungry for what?’ And I thought and thought, and the only thing that came to me was hearts of palm.”