29. Becks Takes the Cake
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28, 1976
Tip: Always keep white pie boxes and grosgrain ribbon on hand because a box lunch can turn a picnic on the beach, a day on the boat, a walk in the park into an event. Fill the box with something simple. My personal favorite is a pimento cheese sandwich, carrots, Ruffles, and oatmeal cookies. (Keep a roll or two of dough frozen and you’ll always have the perfect snack on hand!) It’s a run-of-the-mill lunch, but it feels special. And that’s the secret, Virginia: With gifts and women, lunches and decisions, sometimes presentation is absolutely everything.
Becks picked up the knife by Townsend’s plate at his end of the table and shined it on her blouse, making sure all was ready for tonight’s summer supper. Her seat at the head was closest to the kitchen so that she could see where the dinner magic was happening and had an easy escape route if the staff needed her.
She was trying to avoid the thought that this was her last summer supper, that the exhilaration of it all would soon be over. Before she had to break the terrible news to Townsend, she was trying to focus on the fact that the weather was beautiful, her children were here, and she would soon be surrounded by her family and friends this one last time, that they would enjoy this life together before she had to ruin it for everyone. It had been so sweet.
Virginia smiled at Becks from the other end of the table, where she was folding napkins, and Becks was grateful that they had the kind of relationship she and her own mother had lost. She wondered what it would take for a woman to hold a grudge so large for so long like her mother had. If it hadn’t been so hurtful, it would be impressive.
Virginia shared some of Myra’s fire, her fortitude, but she had Becks’s sweetness too, and a keen intuiton. She saw in Virginia’s smile, in the way it didn’t quite meet her eyes, that she knew something was wrong with her mother. Or that she suspected, at least. As hard as Becks had tried to hide it, she knew her clothes were hanging off her frame, her eyes were tinged yellow, her skin was an unmistakable gray. She was surprised that Virginia, who was always very frank with her, hadn’t asked her about it straight out. But Becks was grateful she hadn’t. She knew that, sometimes, avoidance was easier than facing the truth.
“Do you think you’ll ever want all these things?” Becks asked her daughter, gesturing toward the china, silver, and crystal. Virginia only shrugged.
“I don’t know, Mom. They’re beautiful things, sure. But I don’t know if I’ll ever need them. I’m really just so focused on my career now.”
“I know that, sweetheart. And I’m very proud of you. I want to hear more about the work you’re doing.” She lay down another knife and said, “I haven’t seen you as much this summer. I’ve missed you.”
She knew before the sentence had left her mouth that her daughter would take this as a criticism. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said. Becks noted a tiny bit of huffiness in her tone as she added, more quietly, “Not all of us have husbands to work while we flit off to the beach for the summer.”
Becks thought about letting this go, because she knew her daughter was feeling the pressure to move into this next stage of her life. All her friends were getting married and having babies. But Becks also knew the times she would have with this daughter of hers were getting fewer and farther between, and she didn’t want to leave this earth with her daughter having unrealistic visions of what her life had been like—or unrealistic expectations for her own. “You know, Virginia,” she said, inspecting a crystal goblet, “it hasn’t all been butterflies and flowers. Your father and I have been through a lot together. Families disowning us, death, war and the separation because of it. My life has been lovely, but there have been real rough patches. And that’s normal; that’s okay. Sometimes the valleys make us appreciate the peaks.”
“I know, Mom. I’m sorry,” Virginia sighed. “It isn’t you. Robert and I had a disagreement earlier, and it’s put me in a bad mood.”
“Ah, well. I’m certain he is to blame.” Becks smiled.
Virginia couldn’t help but smile too. “I think we both know that is not the case.”
Becks wasn’t one to pry, so she changed the subject. “How is work treating you?”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Purposeful.”
Virginia worked for a feminist arts organization, and she acted as though doing their clerical work was akin to curing cancer. Not that Becks didn’t support her daughter’s work or the organization. She did, wholeheartedly.
Virginia looked up at her mother. She asked, gently, “Did you ever wish you did something more, Mother?”
Becks knew what her daughter meant. She had read The Feminine Mystique, for heaven’s sake. She felt anger welling up in her, but for the sake of keeping the peace, she quelled it. “No, Virginia. I have been perfectly happy. I was a teacher in my youth. I was a teacher during the war. I was a teacher to my children, a partner to my husband, and I spent every summer weekend of my adult life creating friends out of strangers, serving people in the best way I knew how. So, no, I did not ever want more. I have been supremely, incredibly happy.”
Virginia shook her head. “I’m not trying to offend you. I’m just wondering. You’re so smart and so good with people. You could have done anything.”
Did her daughter not hear her? She did exactly what she wanted to with her one precious life. How many people could say that? How many people could claim they had lived a life they felt was truly meant for them? Becks didn’t think many. “It was a different time, darling,” was all she said.
Chef Evelyn walked into the dining room, cutting the conversation—which Becks was, quite frankly, tired of—short. Who was her daughter to question her choices? Who was she to act as though Becks’s contributions to society didn’t have merit? “Mrs. Saint James, would you like to taste the bouillabaisse?” Evelyn asked.
“I’ll run up and change while you do that, Mom,” Virginia said.
Becks smiled, grateful for the distraction, and smoothed her full skirt. “Why, Evelyn, that would be lovely.”
The bouillabaisse was a rich, gorgeous dish, full of the local seafood that the area was known for. And, much to Becks’s delight, there wasn’t one trendy, store-bought, distinctly 1970s dish on the entire menu for the evening. It was all fresh, all thoughtful. It was the perfect last supper.
Becks was about to walk upstairs to get dressed when she heard “Mom!” ringing through the foyer. She walked in to see her beautiful daughter, wearing the cutest hot pink and yellow bell-sleeved floral print dress. Becks had bought it for her a few months ago and she was pleased to see Virginia had liked it enough to wear it tonight. She was holding the arm of a dark-haired man in a tan suit with a striped tie. He looked nervous. He was handsome—but not too handsome, she was happy to note, as young men who depended on their looks to get by were often unpleasant company. “Mom, this is Robert,” Virginia said proudly.
“What a pleasure to meet you, Robert,” Becks said, smiling. He waited for her to extend her hand before taking it. “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Saint James.”
Becks’s heart swelled. She had wanted this Robert to be wonderful, of course. But her motherly instinct told her right away that he was. Confident, but not full of himself, charming but not smarmy. And anyone could see that he couldn’t take his eyes off Virginia.
She was glad for a moment of small talk before Townsend entered. Fathers could be intimidating.
As Townsend entered, he looked from Robert to Becks to Virginia with a puzzled expression. “And who is this?”
Virginia laughed as if her father was obviously kidding. Becks, knowing he wasn’t, tried to join in, to cover his gaffe. But, when Townsend didn’t instantly recover from his mistake, panic gripped her throat and the laugh wouldn’t quite come. They had talked about meeting Virginia’s new fellow for days, had been positively giddy—and even a little nervous—about it.
The young man said kindly, “I’m Robert Smith, sir. Thank you for having me.”
Townsend shook Robert’s hand tentatively, then turned to his daughter. “Virginia, could I talk to you for a moment? Excuse us,” he said to Robert, pulling Virginia aside into the other room. He started whispering loudly—Becks could hear him, and she was quite sure Robert could too.
“You know your mother doesn’t like strangers at her summer suppers,” he started to scold. “And especially not at her birthday dinner.”
Becks coughed loudly, trying to cover the sound of his words. “We just couldn’t be more thrilled to have you,” she said to Robert with as much cheer as she could muster. “Do tell me all about this cousin of yours who is getting married.”
As Robert talked, clearly uncomfortable, Becks could barely hear him as the pulse in her neck thrummed loudly. When Virginia and Townsend returned to the foyer, Virginia gave her mother a look of terror that Becks was certain she returned. But Virginia, like her mother, knew how to play the part. “Daddy,” Virginia said gently, to a still-frowning Townsend, “this is my boyfriend, Robert. The one I have been telling you about. The one we invited for Mom’s birthday dinner?”
It was then that fear flooded Townsend’s face too. He put his hand to his forehead and tried to laugh it off. “Oh, Robert, of course. Forgive me. It has been a long day on the water, and I must be dehydrated.” Then he said the thing he had said to Becks weeks earlier. “Plus, you know fathers always want to forget their daughter’s boyfriends.”
Townsend shook Robert’s hand heartily, the moment of anxiety over, and Becks would hand it to him: Robert hid the discomfort he must be bathing in quite well and clapped Townsend on the shoulder. “I can imagine that might be the case.” Virginia shot her mother another concerned look. But Becks thought it best to smooth this over for now. She knew she needed to address the situation, but what would she even say?
“Darlings, we need to get ready,” she said. “Virginia, why don’t you show Robert the boat while Daddy and I get dressed?”
She and Townsend made their way up the stairs.
“Well that was embarrassing,” Townsend said.
Becks squeezed his hand. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We all have our moments.” But she knew this was more than a moment. This was a lapse in memory too big for her to ignore or brush off. This was a sure sign of the decline she had feared most. And, if she was noticing it this much, she knew Townsend had to be noticing it even more, fighting a daily battle without telling her about it. It broke her heart that he was in this alone, that she soon wouldn’t be there to help. As they reached their room, Townsend wrapped Becks in his arms, and leaned down to kiss her. As always, his touch soothed her. She felt her heart rate return to normal. She could not control what came next. It was all going to be okay because it had to be.
Two hours later, while her favorite James Taylor album lazed out of the fabulous high-fidelity record player, four servers swept into the room, all wearing matching black double-breasted blazers and shiny shoes to serve the dozen guests around the table, refill wineglasses, and whisk away bread plates. Although Becks was still shaken from what had happened earlier, she now had guests to attend to and focus on—a distraction for which she couldn’t be more grateful. This was Becks’s favorite part. The pomp and circumstance of it all, so different from those first parties during the war, when they had made suppers out of whatever they could find, when the women had poured their own wine—if they could even get their hands on any. Life had been very different then. But the worst part? Townsend hadn’t been there.
She smiled at him at the other end of the table. All these years later, he was still so handsome. Selfishly, she was glad she would always see him as confident, capable, and sure. As if James Taylor knew what she was thinking, he began singing, “How sweet it is to be loved by you.”
She thought of the pages after the dinner party list in her summer supper bible. Behind the guest list, the menu, the questions for the evening, were four pages she had worked on all summer, which included her hospice contacts and plans, Townsend’s long-term-care plans, and both their funeral arrangements.
She had thought of it all. From the prayers to be prayed to the twenty-one-gun salute for Townsend, a true war hero, to the jewelry she wanted to be wearing when she was buried (just her wedding band), she had planned everything. Her children would still have plenty to contend with, but this should make it easier. If only Lon had married already. Daughters-in-law tended to be good at these things. Caring yet less attached. It was a good combination.
Becks smiled again at Townsend, then Patricia and Daniel, Ellen and Milton, Virginia and Robert, Lon and Jamie—his date who, she was quite sure, was not daughter-in-law material. The man who was supposed to be Violet’s date was running late, and so, while Becks was irritated that she had an uneven table, she was not upset in the least that she didn’t yet have a stranger at her last summer supper.
Just as everyone had been served, there was a knock at the door. Becks and Townsend shared a look that told him what he needed to know: He would attend to their latecomer. Becks was annoyed that this stranger had arrived at all—and certainly that he had arrived late. But she would never let it show. As her husband went to answer the door, Becks began the formalities of the evening’s conversation. “Well, friends, as another summer draws to a close—I can scarcely believe it, really—I can’t help but think of the Labor Day Bonfire on Harkers Point, of the children running free, the fireworks, the sparklers, the feeling that, yes, we might be leaving summer behind, but there is still so much good left to come.”
That’s how she wanted to feel now. There was good left to come. Wasn’t there? She was very glad she hadn’t picked up her glass to toast because, if she had, she was quite sure she would have dropped it when she saw the man who walked into her dining room. Becks froze. Was he here to confront her?
Before she could say anything, Virginia started: “Peter?”
He laughed easily, not seeming at all uncomfortable. How did he manage that? “Virginia! What a small world.”
Only Becks noticed Virginia’s slight recoil as Peter kissed her on the cheek. Becks was terrified. Why was he here? As Peter and Violet were introduced, Virginia said, in a halting voice, “Violet, Peter and I met in Washington, D.C.”
“And now,” Becks added, with a look to her daughter, “he’s our next-door neighbor.”
“Oh, how lovely!” Violet said demurely. Virginia shot her mother a wide-eyed expression, and Becks put the pieces together: Peter wasn’t here for her—he was here for Violet. He was the date Patricia was setting Violet up with. She tried to convey back that she knew what her daughter was trying to tell her, that she knew who Peter was, as he said, “It really is shocking how small the world can be.”
As he sat, Becks realized that while he seemed to find plenty of warm smiles for the rest of the table, they turned to icy glares when directed her way. Well, no matter. The show must go on.
“It really is such a small world,” Becks echoed, hoping her tone wasn’t as strained as it felt.
Townsend’s look at her from the other end of the table revealed that, unfortunately, it probably was. Well practiced in the art of keeping the peace, Townsend raised his glass. “Well, now that we are all here, I must propose a toast to my beautiful wife, the light of my life since the moment we met, on the occasion of her birthday. To Becks.”
“To Becks!” everyone chimed in.
“Thank you so very much,” said Becks, raising her own glass now. “And I have to propose a toast to summer, to my favorite season, where the days are long, the water is warm, and the feeling of freedom and expectation is almost overwhelming.” She cleared her throat to keep herself from getting choked up. “I will always look back on the days on the beach with my children, eating sandy pimento cheese sandwiches and jumping in the surf, as the best days of my life. And so I wanted to know from everyone else: What are your favorite summer memories?”
Becks diverted her gaze from her neighbor’s piercing eyes to, as was her custom, begin a conversation that everyone could share in, including the man in question. She wondered what it must be like to be in Peter’s head right now, to think that you could outrun your past in a sleepy seaside town, only to find it had caught up with you.
“Mother, your beautiful beach picnics for us were the highlight of every summer when we were growing up,” Virginia said, seeming not at all ruffled by Peter’s presence even though Becks knew she must be.
“Oh, yes!” Lon said. “And, Mom, I loved how when we were little you used to wake us at midnight every full moon to lie on the roof and look at the stars.” Her darling son. Her precious boy. Her heart felt like it was cracking in two and oozing out just thinking of becoming a part of those stars one day soon, of not being here with him.
But, goodness, she had been blessed with these children. In 1949, at thirty-six years old, after fourteen years of marriage, Becks had come to terms with the fact that she would never be a mother. But just as she and Townsend had made peace with never becoming parents, Townsend confirmed in his own office that his wife was pregnant with his first child. Then, four years later, when Becks was nearly forty years old, their little girl arrived. They had the family Becks had always dreamed of, the family Townsend had always wanted to give Becks. Their miracles.
And now, twenty-three years later, they were here, all of them, under the same roof of the happy home they had shared for so long. All of them, that is, except Becks’s mother, who never forgave her, never acquiesced. She had never even met her grandchildren, Becks was sorry to say.
“Hey,” Townsend interjected. “Was I there for any of these summers?”
They all laughed, and Becks knew this was the memory she would like to end on. She didn’t want what came next. The end of the summer. The end of the road.
As Patricia began, “The Fourth of July dance at the club always takes the cake for me—especially when one Mrs. Rebecca Saint James is in charge.” Becks smiled at her best friend. “What about when we are in charge together?”
“Then the real magic happens,” Daniel said.
“Stay out of their way!” Townsend added.
“I have a lot left to learn from you, Mom,” Virginia said, with a soft smile. Becks knew she was trying to apologize for the moment of tension between them earlier.
But Becks didn’t have time left to teach Virginia, and, besides, she didn’t need to. By the time she was eight years old, Virginia could plan a menu, arrange fresh flowers, order a perfect invitation. No, Becks had imparted all her hostess wisdom to her daughter. She had mothered her for twenty-three years by example and left reminders behind in her notebook. She had nothing left to to give.
Yes, she thought as the conversation rolled on, as laughter filled the room, if only she could control the timing of her own demise, she would choose tonight. She locked eyes with Townsend. If only God would let them go together. She knew that’s what Townsend would choose too. If only they could be so lucky. Just like that, Becks thought of the cake waiting patiently in the kitchen. And she knew exactly what her birthday wish this year would be.