The Party #3
Lydia slipped through the crowd into the kitchen. Lucas was already wiping up blood from the floor, the front of the cabinets, and the counter. Lydia put on rubber gloves, took charge of the knife, rinsing it, then soaping it thoroughly.
“I kind of want to throw this out,” she said.
Lucas said, “Put it under the sink. I’ll clean it with bleach. It will be fine.”
“But human blood, Lucas!” Lydia protested.
“Come on. When we were kids, we were spurting all over the place,” Lucas reminded her.
“Well, everything is clean,” Lydia told them. “And look, Beatrice’s cinnamon polka-dot vanilla bars don’t have any blood on them.”
“Always a recommendation.” Lucas took another knife from the block and quickly cut the bars into squares and set them on a platter.
“I’ll take them in,” Lydia told him.
Brick Three returned to the kitchen. He walked up to Lucas and put his hand on his shoulder.
“I’m proud of you, son. I didn’t know you knew that medical stuff.”
“Thanks, Dad. But remember, I was a lifeguard for three years.” Lucas held his breath. He’d let the nursing topic hang unspoken. It was for his father to broach the subject.
Brick Three nodded. “Why don’t you want to be a doctor?”
Lucas laughed. “So that would be okay?”
Brick Three crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the kitchen sink. “I’m just asking.”
Lucas said, quietly but firmly, “Because I don’t want to go to school for one hundred more years. Because AI is changing up medical care. Lots of doctors work on screens instead of the real patient. I want to be hands-on.”
“Okay. I get that. But it sounds like a hard job. I mean, dealing with frightened, injured people—”
“Dad. Look at me. Look how calm I am, how calm I was while Beatrice was freaking out and bleeding all over the place. I’m a calm person.
I’ve learned that. I can handle emergencies.
I can work in chaos. I like to move. I’m strong.
I think fast when I need to. Sitting in a chair behind a desk all day drives me crazy with boredom—I mean, like when I take classes.
You’ve always told me it’s important to be part of the solution. I like doing it up front and physical.”
Brick Three nodded. “Okay. I kind of get it now.” He met his son’s eyes. “You think you’ll come back to the island?”
Lucas smiled. “If the hospital wants me.”
—
During the commotion with Beatrice, the party had gone quiet. Jane stepped right up on the coffee table.
“The problem’s solved, everyone. Beatrice sliced her arm—accidentally—but the EMTs have it under control. She’ll be good as new in just a few minutes. So…as you were!”
Jane stepped back onto the rug and made her way into the dining room, avoiding the punch even though tonight she considered it a health drink.
People were laughing again, and some were recounting, with great exaggerated detail, their own time at the ER, and more people came crowding through the front door. The Parsonses’ Christmas Stroll party was back to its noisy normal.
The least likable man on the island, Harold Montpelier, who tried to make people pronounce his last name the French way, trapped Jane by the punch table.
Harold complained about everything, all the time.
Harold was always furious about the weather, the crowds, the people, and everything else he could complain about to anyone he could trap.
A person could be bleeding from the mouth or taking off her clothes and Harold would stand right there, complaining.
Retired from some enormous company like General Electric, he lived by himself in a small house far out of town off a dirt road with no other houses around.
Had he ever been married? Jane didn’t know and didn’t care.
She believed she was earning her sainthood by listening to him.
“So I asked would it be really that difficult to put some oil on the wheels of the shopping cart so people don’t have to listen to the terrible squeak squeak squeak, and Claudia said, and she’s only the assistant manager, I’m not going to be satisfied until I get the manager, and Claudia said…”
Jane continued to smile and nod, but her gaze passed over his shoulder, and she saw Lydia talking to Samantha Morgan.
Jane wanted to be very nice to Samantha. She knew the woman was a hard worker who was well-liked and an enormous help to Brick Three.
And if Lucas was going to be a nurse, and Florie was going to live in the Midwest, and Lydia was going to work in hospitality at the poshest hotels around the world, who would take over the insurance company?
It wasn’t a problem that needed to be solved immediately, but it would be hanging over her head like Damocles’s sword, or was it Poe’s pendulum? Probably both. Jane knew she would have trouble sleeping. So many things were going to change.
Harold didn’t seem to need to breathe. “…and we all know Stop & Shop can charge whatever they want and we have to take it…”
“Excuse me a moment, Harold. I need to speak to someone. Have you had a cinnamon polka-dot vanilla bar?” A plate of them was nearby. Jane picked it up and handed it to Harold before he could refuse.
She quickly moved away, heading for Samantha. She was almost there when her old friend Mimi took her arm and said she wanted to talk about the pageant that would take place Christmas Eve.
“You know the Watsons had a baby last month, so they were going to be Mary and Joseph with Mary holding the baby, but little Joshua has colic and apparently screams for two hours every evening, so they think they should step aside. We’ve asked the Hernandeses and they’re thinking it over, but their baby is three months old and very active—”
Jane kept a concerned-listener expression on her face as she listened to Mimi, while in fact her antennae had tuned in to the conversation Lydia was having with Samantha Morgan.
“Yes,” Samantha was saying, “we loved our trip to Kansas City. You know Chris’s family have a home there. We could easily afford to buy a house in Kansas City. The cost of living is much less than here.”
“Everywhere is cheaper to live in than here,” Lydia said.
Samantha continued, “We spent two weeks in Kansas City last winter and liked it a lot.”
Lydia warned, “But you know they have muggy summers there.”
“Oh, Chris and I love the heat. And we could afford a house with a pool, which would be awesome.”
Mimi stepped in front of Jane, blocking her view of Samantha.
“Jane. Are you even listening to me? We might have to use a doll for a baby. Remember the Christmas the Johnsons’ baby got upset by the talking reindeer and vomited all over Mary’s robe?”
Jane shook her head like a dog shaking off seawater. “Sorry, Mimi, I just…noticed that the punch needs to be refilled. I promise to ask around about another baby Jesus.”
By the time Jane had left Mimi, Samantha was moving in the other direction.
So. Samantha Morgan might move to Kansas City? Jane’s heart kicked beneath her Christmas sweater. She didn’t want to imagine how Brick Three would survive another loss.
Jane picked up a plate of canapés with only one small cheese stick left and carried it into the kitchen.
She took another bottle of champagne and the last bowl of brandied peaches to the dining room.
She lifted the ladle aside and gently slid the peaches into the sparkling bowl.
She scanned the table for a place to set the empty bowl while she poured in another bottle of champagne.
A new pack of friends came into the house, bringing the stirring scent of cold salt air with them.
By now there was no room left on the front hall banister, so Lydia took all their coats in a huge woolly pile through the crowd, down the hall, and into the guest bedroom, where she dumped them unceremoniously on the bed.
She returned to the living room. People were chatting, laughing, flirting, munching, sipping—it was a good party.
She searched for Jari and saw him by the Christmas tree. He was talking with Daniel.
What were they saying? She had to find out.
She slid silently through the clusters of people, picking up used plates and glasses, which gave her an excuse to stare downward and not make eye contact with anyone.
As vigilant as a spy, she crouched down near the coffee table, pretending to sweep crumbs onto a plate.
“Yes, of course,” Jari was saying. “I’ve read many of your fine American poets. Have you read any Finnish ones?”
Oh, no! This sounded like a competitive conversation. Lydia wondered if she should get Florie.
Daniel said, “I have, actually. I’ve read a few verses of the Kalevala, the Finnish book of myths. Have you read it all?”
Jari threw his head back and laughed. “I confess I have not. It has, after all, over twelve thousand verses.”
Daniel laughed, too. “I guess there wasn’t a lot to do back then.”
“Same now,” Jari said concisely.
“But people are always saying Finland is the happiest country in the world,” Daniel pointed out. “Why is that?”
“Because we like to walk in nature, by the woods, by the water.”
“People could do that here,” Daniel said.
“But do they?” Jari asked.
“We do in Wisconsin. You should visit sometime. I’ll take you on some excellent walks.”
Lydia scuttled away from the men, standing upright as she cut through the crowd and entered the dining room. She couldn’t wait to tell Florie that Daniel and Jari were having a truly nice conversation.
Someone in the family room shrieked.
Not again, Lydia thought, but she was close enough to the family room to see a girl she’d never seen before in her life with a bunch of other people she’d never seen before in her life, watching a football game on TV.
After a moment, the crowd yelled, “Touchdown!”