“Don’t you just love it,” Clary said, when she noticed Emily gazing at the chandelier. “John and I found it in a lighting store in Paris. We saw it for sale in a shop window in the Marais and just had to have it.”
“It’s pretty eccentric,” she said.
“I’ve always found it downright hypnotic,” said Peyton, his voice deep and plummy and rather hypnotic itself.
“Where in the world do you get replacement bulbs?” Emily asked.
“I hope we brought a lifetime supply back with us,” said John, and he punctuated the sentence with another small laugh. “But I do fear someday we may run out.”
“When my father’s construction company was building the first greenhouses, he was investigating the best grow lights. I wonder what he would have thought of bulbs like these,” Peyton said, pointing at the chandelier ever so slightly with one of his long, elegant fingers.
“Tell me something,” Emily asked. “Why are there so many greenhouses in Bethel?”
“Do you girls want some juice-or cocktails?” Clary asked the twins, and Emily had the distinct sense that she was consciously avoiding the question by turning her attention-everyone’s attention-to Hallie and Garnet. “John makes a mean Shirley Temple.”
“I make a mean everything,” her husband said, raising his eyebrows rakishly.
Emily saw both children looking at her, trying to gauge whether she approved of their having cocktails. The word was such a throwback to another era that she wasn’t sure either girl even knew what it meant. “Why not have Shirley Temples?” she said to them. “You always like them at the airport.” Funny, Emily thought now: The girls did like Shirley Temples, but she and Chip only thought to order them for the children when they were traveling. She recalled almost at once all of the restaurants and bars and lounges along the concourses at the Philadelphia airport.
“Okay, I’ll have one,” Hallie agreed.
“And you, Garnet?” asked John.
“Yes, please.”
“I have cherries, but the red won’t be as magic as your hair,” he said to her and then retreated to the kitchen.
“Where would you like the girls to settle in?” Emily asked her hostess.
“Well, wherever they’d like!” said Clary, waving her arm at the living room as if she were a fairy godmother with a wand. “The couch, the divan, the carpets. Wherever they’d like!”
Emily recalled John’s invitation at the office-the way he had stressed that there was a playroom upstairs where the twins could escape the grown-ups. The last thing Hallie and Garnet wanted this evening was to sit like dolls on the divan. And so, even though it was awkward, she said to her hostess, “That’s really very sweet of you, but I know the girls are tired. They had dance in the morning and were doing yet more unpacking this afternoon. John said something about a playroom. Would it be okay if they just curled up there and dozed in front of a movie? They brought some of their DVDs.”
“Oh, of course. Just let us have them for a few minutes,” Clary said, and she smiled at the children. Her eyes hadn’t wavered, but in those two short sentences her voice had lost its saccharine lilt and grown demanding. Just let us have them. The words echoed in Emily’s head, and they sounded vaguely threatening. This was, she understood, a ridiculous and completely unhealthy overreaction. Still, she wanted her children to have a quiet evening upstairs. It was what she had promised them-and what she had been offered.
Reflexively Emily turned toward Chip for help, because the old Chip would have found a diplomatic way to have the girls excused as soon as John returned with their drinks. But the moment she saw him with that odd new posture of his-his left arm dangling down at his side, his right arm bent across his stomach, and his right hand cradling his left elbow-she knew there would be no cavalry approaching from that direction. He was still gazing at that bizarre chandelier. And so she grinned at her children and did nothing as Sage pressed her palm behind Garnet’s back and Clary did the same with Hallie, and the two older women guided the girls into the living room. Emily followed them, feeling a little obsequious and a little put upon. For a second she was afraid she was going to have to escort Chip into the room, but abruptly he pulled himself together and followed her.
“No one asked you two what you would like!” Peyton said to her. “That’s John for you-always the grandfather. Oblivious to adults when there are children present whom he can spoil. Would either of you like some wine? I brought a couple of very nice Malbecs from Sonoma.”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” she murmured.
“Chip?”
He waved his hand as if brushing a fly from his face. “Oh, that’s fine.”
Peyton nodded approvingly, clearly pleased to have a task, and went to the kitchen, where John was concocting the Shirley Temples.
“Now,” Clary was saying, sitting both Hallie and Garnet down on a round velvet pouf the color of a raspberry in August. “Tell me how you’re enjoying New Hampshire.” She and Sage sat on the floor before the children, as if the girls were storytellers or-and when the word came to Emily, she thought it, too, was an unhealthy connection-royalty. Clary was sitting with her legs straight before her while Sage had curled hers underneath her. Emily was impressed with the woman’s elasticity. She contemplated recommending to her daughters that they offer their hostess and her friend the pouf, but there were plenty of other places where these ladies could sit. They had chosen to sit on the floor before her daughters.
Hallie and Garnet glanced briefly at each other, deciding who should answer, and then Hallie rocked forward a bit and replied simply, “I like the greenhouse.”
“Me, too,” said Garnet.
“I am not at all surprised,” Sage said.
“Why?” Emily asked. She realized the moment the word had escaped her lips that it sounded like she was cross-examining the woman. But Sage didn’t seem to be disturbed by the tone.
“What’s not to love in a greenhouse?” she answered. “Think of the beauty and the magic inside and the fact the world is always new in a greenhouse. It can always be spring. You can have flowers every day.”
Emily noticed Hallie looking at her and nodding. She was reminding her of their conversation in the car ride home from dance that morning: Bethel had more greenhouses than the neighboring communities.
“Well, I’m not sure that’s why the girls love the greenhouse. We’ve discussed what we will and won’t do with the building, and Hallie and Garnet are pretty clear about this: It will be their playhouse, not my greenhouse,” Emily said. “Besides, I think this village must have enough greenhouses already devoted to tomatoes and phlox and whatever.”
“Tomatoes and phlox,” Sage said slowly, pondering Emily’s response. She didn’t seem especially happy. “We do grow both. At least some of us. But we also grow a fair amount of… whatever.”
“Really, why are there so many greenhouses in Bethel?” Emily asked. “There must be a reason.”
“There might be more than in some towns, but there’s no mystery to it,” Clary answered, jumping in. “There used to be a very active garden club in the village-women from Bethel won embarrassing numbers of blue ribbons at the county fairs for flowers and herbs and vegetables-and Sage’s father-in-law happened to own a construction company that specialized in them.”
“In greenhouses.”
“And solariums. And sunrooms. And he gave us all the ‘friends and family discount.’ ”