Keep Your Mouth Shut And Wear Beige Part 4

Cami spoke of her father with good-humored affection. Once, she was wearing a scarf so beautiful that even I noticed it. "Oh, it's from my dad," she had laughed. "He loves to buy presents, and the more expensive the better."

I'd asked Jeremy about Cami's mother. "I think she's the one who keeps them all on track," was all he'd said.

The rest of my information came from Mike, who had apparently googled them just as I had Claudia. The literary agency provided a comfortable living; their twelve-bedroom wealth was comparatively recent, coming largely from a few blockbuster clients and a shrewd, aggressive investment strategy that Guy had been pursuing for the last five or ten years. Mike had been interested in that. More interesting to me was a link he had sent me about Rose, Cami's mother.

The link was to an article from the archives of a glossy women's magazine. Written before their son, Finney, was born, it featured Rose and a seemingly perfect life. Beautiful herself, she had two exquisite daughters and a neat brownstone in Park Slope, a gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn full of artists and writers, filmmakers, doctors, and lawyers. Her days were full of children, friends, and books. She walked her daughters to school in the morning and scooped them up at the playground in the afternoon. Monday mornings she had coffee with the other moms from the school; Friday afternoons they all walked their kids to the ice-cream parlor together. She and her two next-door neighbors had connected their back decks so that they could pop into each other's kitchens without having to go through the long, narrow houses and up and down the front stoops. On Sunday nights she and Guy had drop-in pasta suppers, mingling neighbors, kids, dogs, and clients.

Yet she still had time to work, nestled into a big chair or sitting at her kitchen table, reading ma.n.u.scripts, looking for the silvery potential in what everyone else had thrown aside. She could spot literary talent anywhere. She had persuaded the mom who wrote the co-op preschool newsletter to write a novel. Her Brooklyn neighborhood was full of people trying to write their first books. They all knew Rose and were eager to get her to read their work.

In the article, Guy had been open about how much the agency depended on her ability. "She has such an ear for individual voices, and she knows how to help authors reach their potential," he was quoted as saying. "I only sell the ma.n.u.scripts. Lots of people can do what I do. Not many can do what she does."

I don't know why magazines publish articles like this. Are other people's perfect lives supposed to be inspiring? They just make me hate the person being profiled. Sure, you can have it all if you have healthy kids, a husband with a job, and a talent you can use while sitting at your kitchen table. I have a talent. I can get an IV into anyone. It's a good skill, a useful one. I can save people's lives with it, but I can't make a living doing it from home.

I knew that Rose's life had become slightly less perfect after Finney's birth. Cami had told me that he had been born with a midgut malrotation that had required several surgeries. He also had a severe corn allergy and what she termed cognitive challenges. I had asked Jeremy about those "cognitive challenges," and he'd used the term learning disability, so I had a.s.sumed that this was a case of a high-achieving family needing to explain why one of their children had intellectual abilities that were only average. Private schools are full of families like that. G.o.d forbid that anyone should have an average child. The least variation from brilliance had to be explained as a learning disability.

I watched as the doors to the limousine opened. Rose emerged first. She was, I saw, slightly taller than me, and her build was much curvier than mine. She had auburn hair, which she had scooped up and clipped to the back of her head, one of those casual get-this-out-of-my-way styles that looks messy unless you have a really great haircut, and apparently she did. She was a very attractive woman, and she had probably been a lovely girl, but a bit of flesh had settled around her chin and jaw, giving her face a squarish look that kept it from beauty.

We shook hands, she first with me, then with my father. Her voice was pleasant, her gaze direct. She was wearing a traditionally cut white blouse, open at the throat, and the cuffs flipped back so that with her dark red hair spilling from its clips, she could have been an idealized portrait of a Scottish laundress, looking up from her washtub, her face flushed from the warmth of the water.

But her blouse was a heavy silk that moved with liquid smoothness. Her tweed slacks didn't have a single wrinkle although she had been sitting for four or five hours. She was wearing the kind of shoes that I can never find, a low stacked heel, a thick, soft sole, but with enough detailing-bands of black suede inset with dark green leather-that the shoe seemed narrow and elegant. From the haircut to the shoes, this was serious money very well spent.

This wasn't fair. People with money were supposed to be jerks. They were supposed to have scary face-lifts and fas.h.i.+on-victim clothes. Then you could feel superior to them. But Rose Zander-Brown seemed to be doing it right. If I were willing to spend a month's grocery bill on a pair of shoes, hers were exactly what I would buy.

Rose was beckoning to her son, encouraging him to come to her. Eight years old, he was small for his age, a little boy with light hair and the utterly perfect skin that only little boys have. He came forward to shake my hand with the earnestness of someone who has been carefully taught.

"Finney starts with an F," he told me. His voice was thick, as if his tongue were a little too large for his mouth. "Phineas starts with a P."

I noticed that he had a small f.a.n.n.y pack around his waist. "Is Phineas your real name?"

He nodded earnestly. "It starts with a P."

"I'll remember that."

He nodded, then realized that he didn't know what to say next. He looked back at his mother anxiously. She mouthed "thank you."

He looked relieved. "Thank you."

"You are so welcome," I answered.

I shot a quick glance to my dad, and he nodded, agreeing with me.

I had misread the euphemisms. This boy did not have your garden-variety learning disabilities. He truly was cognitively challenged. He was developmentally disabled. He was, to use the most blunt term, r.e.t.a.r.ded.

The Zander-Browns had not intended to mislead us. Cami had brought up the "cognitive challenges" almost immediately, and in an e-mail about his corn allergy, Rose had mentioned them again, noting that Cami had said she'd told us. It was my own Jeremy who had used the misleading "learning disabilities."

And I, of course, had a.s.sumed that since these people had money, they must be jerks. I winced with guilt.

Rose touched Finney's shoulder, pointing him in my father's direction, apparently knowing enough about us to introduce Dad as "Dr. Bowersett." Finney again shook hands with a.s.siduous determination. Dad, his forty years as a pediatrician not wasted, asked the boy if he knew what letters were in his name. As an opening line, this was a big hit, and they chatted away about the alphabet. In a moment, Dad was patting his pockets, looking for pen and paper so he could show Finney that his name, "Douglas," didn't have any of the same letters as "Finney."

I turned my attention to Cami's sixteen-year-old sister.

Oh, my. Here was the pretty one. I'm not one for dwelling too much on what people look like, but this girl was exquisite. It was hard to stop looking at her. She was pet.i.te, no more than five-two or -three, with warmer coloring than Cami's. Her hair was a perfect strawberry blond, and as she stepped out from the shadow of the oak tree, the sunlight s.h.i.+mmered against the rose-hued highlights in her hair. Despite her short stature, she was an ectomorph; her neck was willowy, her fingers were long, and, although her clothes hid them, I was sure that her femur and her humerus, the bones in her thigh and upper arm, would be elongated.

Unlike Cami, Annie Zander-Brown carried herself as if she knew exactly how lovely she was. Her head was back, her shoulders were open, and her gestures were expansive. She wanted people to look at her; she expected it.

Her clothes were dramatic as well. She was wearing a calf-length skirt and boots. The skirt was complicated with seams that ran around her body instead of up and down as on a normal person's clothes. On top she had multiple layers, a little stretch something, another little stretch something in a different color and with a different neckline, a sheer blouse with more st.i.tching, some scarves and necklaces-too much for me to comprehend.

"What a cute house," she exclaimed after greeting me. Her voice was light but without the squeaky little baby tones some pretty girls affect. "I love the porch swing . . . it must be so much fun to live here." Then she turned to Rose. "Mom, Dad's still on the phone."

This was spoken with a slightly tattletale air.

From everything I had heard of his effusive personality, I would have expected Guy to be the first one out of the car, but he had not emerged yet. The limo's front pa.s.senger door was open, and a man's leg was out, with a foot on the ground. It was as if the leg's owner were promising his family that he would be with them in a moment, and in the meantime they could look at his foot. The leg was in jeans, but the shoe was a leather loafer, with heavy st.i.tching that looked seriously expensive.

"We make him sit in the front," Annie explained, as if she were drawing me into a family secret, "so we don't have to listen to him talk on his cell."

She went back to the car, moving with a skipping, almost dancelike step, and rapped on her father's leg as if she were knocking on a door. A second later the front door opened the rest of the way. Another leg joined the first one, and Guy Zander-Brown emerged from the car, slipping his phone into his pocket.

Over his jeans and expensive shoes, Guy Zander-Brown was in a blazer and an open-collared blue s.h.i.+rt. He was not at all tall, but he looked strong, mesomorphic with a muscular build. His salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed close.

"I'm sure my family has told you that this is the kind of rudeness you can always expect from me." His gaze was direct, his handshake firm. "I wish I could tell you that they're lying."

I meet successful men in the hospital all the time, but once they're in the ICU, either as a patient or as a family member, they have to accept that they don't have as much control as they'd like. Some of them turn into bullies; others try to cling to a confidence that rapidly becomes thin and mechanical.

Guy Zander-Brown had already logged his ICU time. His son's struggles had probably weathered him in an interesting way, teaching him how desperate and powerless a person can feel. He seemed completely genuine, not at all smarmy or overbearing, but successful, confident, and energetic. In lieu of formally greeting my father, he joined in the alphabet conversation, looking over Finney's shoulder at Dad's piece of paper, and pointing out that "Guy" had a g and a u like "Douglas" and a y like "Finney."

I hadn't even had a chance to apologize for Cami and the boys not being here when Zack's car turned into the drive. Jeremy was driving, Cami was sitting in the pa.s.senger seat, and Zack was in the backseat of his own car. I wondered how that had happened.

As soon as he saw Cami, Finney dashed to her. "Cami, Cami, that boy . . . that boy over there"-he gestured toward my father- "he doesn't have an i in his name. Just like Mommy and Daddy, he doesn't have an i."

"I hope he doesn't mind that too much." Cami's hug lifted Finney off his feet. Then she set him down and pretended to examine him. "How can you have grown so much in two months?" She kissed him again, then hugged her parents and introduce them and Annie to Zack.

Zack, G.o.d love him, took one look at Miss Annie Zander-Brown and was struck dumb. He was seventeen; she was sixteen. He was still awkwardly skinny; she was confident and radiant. He would have been very happy to have Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak so that he could look at her without anyone knowing it.

Fortunately for him, she was more interested in her sister's makeup. "Your eyes look awesome," she gushed to Cami. "How many different shades of shadow do you have on?"

I looked more closely at Cami's eyelids. They did look a little like National Geographic pictures of the Grand Canyon at sunrise.

"You should see this dress," Cami was saying to Annie. "It's unbelievable. It's like wearing a waterfall. Claudia says it's a bias-cut silk."

"Oh, how interesting. I hope you aren't taking it back to California. Rachel's little brother's bar mitzvah is black-tie. I could wear it to that."

"I thought you already got a dress for that."

"But it's not a bias-cut waterfall."

Rose touched my arm. "Please don't listen to them. If you don't have girls, you'll never understand."

The driver had opened the limo's trunk. "So, Mrs. Zee, you wanted the ice chest and that big white box?"

"The big white box, yes, please, but the ice chest you can wait a minute on."

I didn't have a clue what the big white box was, but I could guess that the ice chest was full of corn-free food.

Rose spoke to me quietly. "I hate being a nuisance about this, but-"

"No, no," I interrupted. "If this is about Finney's corn allergy, I understand completely. I saved all my labels; I can show you my recipes."

"Jeremy kept telling us not to worry, but I'm a *food-allergy mom,' and that's what we do, worry."

I knew that corn is one of the most difficult allergies to manage. Corn syrup is used in an extraordinary number of packaged or processed foods, and cornstarch appears even in many medications.

"Cami told me that Finney has been wanting to go to McDonald's," I said, "so we're having hamburgers and french fries. I made the buns and the ketchup. I got peanut oil for the french fries. I found a Jewish family who still had some kosher-for-Pa.s.sover c.o.ke." Observant Jewish families, I'd learned, avoid all grain products during Pa.s.sover, so in the spring the Coca-Cola Company produces a small run of c.o.ke that uses cane sugar instead of the cheaper corn syrup. "I also made the cookies and the ice cream."

Rose drew back with an involuntary gesture.

I guess I had overachieved on this meal. I'd told myself that I wanted to be nice, that I wanted to show Rose that our family understood the needs of her family. Instead I was probably coming across as terminally needy, so desperate for approval that I'd made my own ketchup.

"I like to cook," I was now apologizing. "And I like challenges."

"Jeremy said that too."

Jeremy and Zack were already climbing the stairs, black vinyl garment bags folded over their arms. I waved everyone inside. The driver followed us, carrying a very large package wrapped in glossy white paper and tied with an elaborate silver bow. Its size was daunting.

"Don't worry," Rose said to me. "We did not bring you the Taj Mahal as a hostess gift." She signaled to Annie and the girl handed me a perfectly straightforward gift bag-in fact, I recognized the design; her kids' school must have sold Sally Foster gift wrap too. Inside was a pair of very interesting handmade candles, white with spirals of buff. It was the sort of "anyone will like this" gift that I can never find, at least not at a price I'm willing to pay.

"Cami, this box is for you and Jeremy," Rose said.

"It's heavy." Finney said. "Very heavy."

"What fun. I love presents," Cami explained. She tested a corner of the box. "Oh, Finney, you're right. It is heavy. What is it? Who's it from?"

"I'm not going to tell you what it is," Rose said, "and if you read the card, you'll see it is from Jill Allyn."

"Oh." Cami suddenly was less happy about the gift. "Did she really make you bring it down here? Is that why you had to drive down? Because of this?"

"And Annie's clothes," Finney said. "Annie brings lots of clothes. Some of them are Mommy's."

"That's not big news, Finney," Annie said. "Everyone knows that."

Cami pulled Finney to stand next to her so that they could unwrap the gift together. I guessed that "Jill Allyn" was the novelist Jill Allyn Stanley. That article about Rose had mentioned her as one of Rose's "finds." I hadn't read any of her books, but patients' wives or mothers frequently had one of them at the hospital because it was what their book clubs were reading.

Cami and Finney were being careful with the paper, discussing which piece of tape to loosen next. Every so often the sun would catch the ring on her left hand, sending a glittering splatter of light against her little brother's s.h.i.+rt and the wall behind him. Finally, Jeremy suggested to Finney that it might be fun just to rip the paper. Finney brightened. He liked that idea. So he gave the paper a yank. It tore with a delicious crispness, revealing the box for a ma.s.sive espresso machine made of copper and hammered aluminum.

"Wow." Jeremy crouched down to look at it more closely. "This is something. I bet it makes great coffee."

Cami had a more realistic eye. "But it's so big. I don't know where we'll put it. Mom, we didn't register for anything like this. How are we going to get it back to California?"

"We'll drop it at a s.h.i.+pping place," Rose told her.

"It would have been nice if Jill Allyn had done that in the first place."

"Oh, you know her. She thought it would be fun for you to have a gift today."

"Let's not worry about it right now," Guy said briskly. "We'll take it back to Park Slope and worry about it there."

"Is it okay if we leave it there for a while?" Cami asked. "We really don't have room for it in our apartment."

"It's not like we do either," Annie said bluntly. "Come on, Cami, Mom is always after you to throw stuff out because we don't have enough storage s.p.a.ce. You know how p.i.s.sed off you got last Christmas because we were storing stuff in your room."

"I was p.i.s.sed off," Cami said, "because you had your clothes all over my bed. I didn't mind Dad putting a couple of boxes in the corner."

"Girls." Rose was warning them not to bicker. "We'll take the machine to Mec.o.x Road. That's where we're storing all the wedding things."

"Oh, right." Annie turned to me. "We have to be the only family in the world who views our house in the Hamptons primarily as an enormous closet."

Dad had started the grill when we'd first spotted the limo, so he and Jeremy went out to cook the burgers. As Cami and Rose helped me put the rest of lunch on the table, Finney waited patiently in a corner of the dining room. Once everything was ready and he'd been told where to sit, he looked to his mother to find out what he could eat.

"You can have whatever you want," she told him. "Jeremy's mother made everything and she was very careful."

He looked at me. "Very very careful?"

"Very very very careful," I a.s.sured him.

"Thank you," he said and instantly looked at Rose, wanting to be sure that she noticed him remembering his manners.

After being properly congratulated, he set to work, eating with a steady, determined joy. He was so absorbed in the food that several times he started to hum, but Cami, who was sitting next to him, would lay her hand on his arm and he would stop.

The time went quickly. Guy took charge of the conversation, and it was lively and interesting. No one described the trips that they'd been on or told long stories about people the rest of the group didn't know. Finally Rose caught Guy's attention and lifted her wrist, tapping her watch.

"Oh, lord," he groaned and leaned back in his chair to look out the dining-room window. "The car's probably been out there for an hour. We need to get moving. We have to eat again in two hours." They were meeting Mike, Claudia, and Mike's mother for afternoon tea at the Ritz-Carlton.

"Finney, you should use the bathroom before we go," Rose said. "Ask Jeremy where it is."

Obediently, Finney went upstairs. I heard him moving around, looking in the bedrooms. I wondered if he had forgotten Jeremy's directions or if he was just curious about the rest of the house. When he came down, he spoke hopefully. "Lunch again first?"

"You can have a snack in the car," Rose said to him.

"Okay," he said agreeably. "But Mrs. Van Darcy. I like her food. She makes good food."

"That's certainly the truth," Guy agreed and rumpled Finney's hair. "You have good taste, Mr. Finney. We'll certainly know where to find you if you ever run away from home."

Finney giggled, probably responding more to Guy's tone than his actual words. But the words did give me an idea. I spoke quietly to Rose. "Would Finney like to spend the rest of the afternoon here? We're not doing anything special, but it has to be better for him than tea at the Ritz."

Rose paused.

I understood. She couldn't be used to this, leaving Finney at other people's houses on the spur of the moment. Between his allergies and his cognitive disability, she couldn't just leave him someplace and hope for the best.

"Cami will be here," I reminded her.