Chapter 11
A low-slung vintage convertible the color of Douglas fir growls up the driveway while Punkin and I are unloading the groceries from our weekly shopping trip to the mainland.
I stand by the trunk, tote bags slung from either arm, while it bumps over the potholes. The sky is overcast and a damp November chill has settled in the air, so the top is up and you can’t see the occupants.
But Punkin knows this car.
“I wonder what Sedge is doing here,” she says.
“Mr. Peabody.”
She goes on her tiptoes and squints through the approaching windshield. “Mr. Peabody and his grandmother, I think.”
“It can’t be his grandmother. She’s a hundred years old.”
“Well, whoever she is, she’s not Audrey.”
“Miss Fisher.”
“Miss Fisher,” says Punkin, as the car rolls to a stop and Sedge jumps from the driver’s seat.
“Hey, Luce! Sorry to barge in. Do you have a minute?” He swings around to open the passenger door. On his face hangs an apologetic grin. “Granny insisted.”
“I told you,” says Punkin.
Old Mrs. Peabody shakes off Sedge’s helping hand and climbs laboriously from her seat. “For goodness’ sake, Sedge. Go carry in Lucy’s groceries for her. Elise can help me up the stairs.”
My daughter bounds across the gravel to take Mrs. Peabody’s arm. “You can call me Punkin, Mrs. Peabody.”
“Punkin,” says Mrs. Peabody. “You have good manners. That’s a rare thing in this world. I want you to hold on to them.”
“Yes, Mrs. Peabody.”
Sedge reaches for the tote bags that hang from my arms like oversized ornaments on a Christmas tree. “Let me get those for you.”
“I’m fine, honestly. It’s all about the balance.”
“Do you want to get me in trouble with that one?” He jabs a thumb at Mrs. Peabody. “Come on, save a guy’s life.”
I laugh and hand over a couple of totes. “If you really want to lend a hand, you can bring in the milk.”
—
While I put the groceries away, Punkin whips up some hot chocolate and carries all four mugs to the parlor on a triumphant tray.
Mrs. Peabody sips from her mug. “This is excellent cocoa, Punkin.”
“I made the whipped cream myself,” says Punkin. “That KitchenAid mixer is a real beaut.”
“Aren’t they all,” says Sedge.
“Is that your puzzle, Punkin?” Mrs. Peabody nods to the coffee table, where a jigsaw depicting the Battle of Trafalgar lies half-finished.
“Mama found it for me on eBay. It’s a used one so there are a couple of pieces missing.”
“How extremely annoying,” says Mrs. Peabody. “But I do appreciate a good naval action, don’t you?”
“Well, we were looking for pirate ships, and this was the best we could do.” Punkin sinks her face into the cloud atop her mug.
“She’s been a little obsessed with pirates lately,” I say.
“Of course she is. It’s the family business. Tell me, Punkin. Have you figured out where the treasure lies yet?”
Punkin looks cagey. “I have some ideas.”
“That’s right.” Mrs. Peabody nods. “Never reveal your secrets. People will do the most dastardly things to get their greedy paws on a little treasure. Your grandfather used to come to me all the time. Try to drag all my facts out of me. I’m known as a bit of a local historian, you know.”
“Which is Peabody for world’s leading expert on early New England history.” Sedge snaps his fingers. “That reminds me. Audrey found a buyer for your Prohibition hooch. Restaurant in New York will take the whole case off your hands. I think it’s a nice price.”
“How much?” asks Punkin.
He eyes her and returns to me. “I’ll text you the details. Auction might bring you a little more, but it’s a process.”
“I remember those parties they used to throw here before the war,” says Mrs. Peabody.
“That would be your great-great-grandparents, Punkin. Back when the place wasn’t falling apart at the seams. Now, talk about liquor.
They spared no expense. Which is why the family went broke, I guess.
Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves, as they say. It’s the old story.”
I set my mug on the side table and wipe a speck of cream from the corner of my mouth. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Mrs. Peabody?” I ask.
“It was Sedge’s idea, really.”
“What?” He pretends outrage. “You were the one who insisted—”
“To tell the truth,” says Mrs. Peabody, “it all began with Audrey. She offered to make us Thanksgiving dinner at Greyfriars.”
Sedge looks at me. “You know Greyfriars, don’t you? The old Fisher place, over on West Cliff Road. Near the village.”
“I’ve seen it,” I say. “I didn’t know anyone still lived there. Didn’t some actress own it?”
“Meredith Fisher. That’s Audrey’s mother.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying that Meredith Fisher, the Oscar-winning actress—”
“Nominated,” says Mrs. Peabody. “She didn’t win.”
“—that Meredith Fisher had a baby with Mike Kennedy? Mike from the Mo?”
“They grew up together,” says Sedge. “The point is, Granny here got this idea that instead of a nice intimate Thanksgiving dinner at Greyfriars, we should invite the whole circus and hold it at Summerly. So now Audrey’s going to be sweating away in the Summerly kitchen for about two dozen ungrateful Peabodys and their offspring, and then this morning Gran calls me up at five-thirty—”
“If you hadn’t been sleeping over at your paramour’s house, I wouldn’t have had to call,” Mrs. Peabody says primly.
“This sounds like an adult conversation,” says Punkin.
Mrs. Peabody looks at her. “You make an excellent point. So I’ll cut to the chase. I’m here to invite you and your mother to join us for Thanksgiving dinner.”
—
For some reason, as I swing through the doors of the Winthrop Island School each weekday morning and inhale the familiar smells of paste and floor polish and cafeteria, I’m reminded of those early days with Arnaud.
I had recently started as a teacher at a lycée in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a tony suburb of Paris, where Arnaud taught French literature to classrooms full of bored, well-dressed daughters of the haute bourgeoisie.
I noticed him right away. Who wouldn’t? He was ten years older and so polished.
Slender and strong as a whippet. He had curling, overgrown brown hair that flopped over his forehead and wide, soulful dark eyes.
He made quick, long-fingered, elegant gestures as he spoke to his students and poured all his attention into you when you spoke to him.
All the other female teachers were in love with him—some of the men, too, let’s be honest—as were most of his students.
(It was an all-girls academy.) The way he plucked me from the teacher’s lounge on my third day of work and asked me to coffee—pour un café, Lucy—made my skin flush as if it were coming alive after a long sleep.
We went to coffee every day that week and dinner on Saturday evening.
He was a perfect gentleman and kissed me good night at the door of my shabby apartment building.
When he raised his head he caressed my cheek and said, with an air of drama such as only a Frenchman can carry off, This is only the beginning, Lucy.
Every day the next week I shimmered in anticipation of the following Saturday.
Our eyes flirted with each other, our bodies flirted—no words were necessary.
All the teachers saw what was going on and smiled knowingly.
It was March, spring was around the corner, what could you do?
We went to dinner Saturday and slept together afterward.
Spent the entire weekend in bed with each other, as you can only do when you’re young and free of any responsibility except to yourself.
We must have made love half a dozen times before heading to work Monday morning, blushing, exhausted.
At the end of term, I found a permanent job at a small private school in the 16th, and we found a flat at the other end of the Metro line.
By Christmas I was pregnant.
The Winthrop Island School is nothing like the exclusive academy in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where a trained chef prepared the girls’ meals each day and the chic gray uniforms might have been designed by Dior.
But the smell is strangely similar. Each time I turn the corner into the small, cramped teachers’ lounge, I feel something flutter in my belly—a vague anticipation.
But instead of Arnaud’s angular face, his soulful brown eyes that lit up when he saw you, his tweed jackets that smelled of espresso and bergamot, there are five or six perfectly nice weather-beaten American women wearing stretchy pants and colorful sweaters who sip Keurig coffee from mugs that say things like My Other Cup Is a Wineglass.
Leah Cowles makes room for me on the couch and asks what I’m doing for Thanksgiving.
“We’re heading over to my neighbor’s house,” I tell her. “My daughter’s making pies.”
“Elise is so adorable,” Leah says. She teaches music—the kids know her as Mizz Cowles, the moo-sic teacher—and knows how to play the piano and ten other instruments not very well.
She has a magnificent singing voice, according to Punkin, and she’s married to the gym teacher, a burly man named Dylan who used to be a lobsterman until he lost an arm after it got infected during an oyster-shucking gone wrong.
I don’t know if it was the knife or the shell that sliced him. I didn’t want to ask.
“She sure loves music class,” I tell Leah. “I think it’s her favorite.”
“She’s so…” Leah pauses, as if she’s about to say talented or musical but can’t quite bring herself to pronounce the word. Instead, she finishes with precocious.
“That’s so nice of you to say.”
“By the way, Lucy. I’ve been meaning to ask. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Mike Kennedy—he owns the Mohegan Inn? Used to tend bar there?—but he’s coached our girls’ basketball teams for forever.”
“Really? I thought I heard he moved off island.”
Her face darkens. “We’re not really sure where he’s gone, to be honest. He hasn’t been in touch. But it does leave us short a basketball coach.”
Since nothing can compel me to drink Keurig first thing in the morning, I always brew my own and pour it into a stainless steel travel mug, which I now hoist to my lips.
It’s still piping hot and never quite strong enough, no matter how much coffee I grind fresh and pack into the filter of the ancient Mr. Coffee.
I think of Arnaud and his café au lait in the giant mug.
I wonder if it would be appropriate to ask my mother for one of those De’Longhi espresso machines for Christmas.
“I don’t know that many people here yet,” I say to Leah. “Do you have anyone in particular in mind?”
“I was thinking of Sedge Peabody. Now that he’s more of a year-rounder? Involved in the community and everything?”
“Sedge?” I laugh. “He’s more of a fencer-slash-sailor type, if you know what I mean. I don’t know if Sedge knows a basketball from a flying saucer.”
“Maybe you could ask. You live right next to Summerly, don’t you? Aren’t you friends?”
“Yeessss.” I stretch out the word. “But he’s not around much, to be honest. He’s usually over at his girlfriend’s place. I could try. I mean, he might say yes. But I’m pretty sure the girls would be coaching him instead of the other way around.”
“Well, shoot. He was our last hope. It’s just so hard to fill these spots, you know? You need someone year-round, someone who isn’t in it for the money. Dylan’s filling in for now, but he’s already got his hands full with the boys.” She pauses. “I mean hand.”
I finger my mug. “If you really need someone who knows sports, I guess there’s always…”
“Who?”
“Never mind,” I say.
Leah heaves an exasperated sigh and hoists herself out of the sagging faculty sofa. “If a name comes to mind, call me. It’s for the kids, you know?”
—
Punkin volunteered us for pie. “I think between the two of us, we can figure out how to make pumpkin pie. I mean, how hard can it be?”
She held up her arms in that classic palms-up gesture that always leads to trouble.
I tried to point out to her that we were going to be serving up our first effort at American-style pie to a trained chef with a discerning palate. She said I cared too much what other people think.
“Besides, we’re French,” she said, as if that solved all our deficiencies in the kitchen.
“You’re half-French,” I reminded her. “I’m a basic American.”
So here we are, noon on Thursday, taking turns in the one working shower to rinse off all the flour and pumpkin filling and sweat.
We zip each other into appropriate seasonal clothing.
I swipe on a little lipstick and rummage out the pair of knee-high burgundy suede boots that Maman gave me for Christmas last year.
While I’m shimmying up the second one, there is a knock on the front door.
Punkin sings out, I’ll get it! and gallops down the stairs.
I hear voices. Barking.
Oh, damn, I think.
Downstairs, Punkin and Chief roll around the front hall in a tangle of glee and drool. Ben stands scrubbed on the porch, wearing a pair of tan chinos and a tweed blazer, hair slicked neatly back, hands in pockets. Thanksgiving ready.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he says. “Mrs. Peabody sent me to bring you over in the golf cart. Because of the pies?”