got married a few months ago," Mother hissed in my ear.
"Mom, hush," I hissed back.
"I need to talk to you, young lady," Mother responded in a low voice so packed with meaning that I began to wonder what I could have done that she'd heard of. I was almost as nervous as I'd been at six when she used that voice with me. We sat back down at the picnic tables set with their bright tablecloths and napkins, and Marcia rolled around a cart with drinks and ice on it. She was glowing at all the compliments. Torrance was beaming, too, proud of his wife. I wondered, looking at Lynn and Arthur, why the Rideouts hadn't had children. I wondered if Carey Osland and Macon would try to have another one if they married. Carey was probably forty-two, but women were having them later and later, it seemed. Macon must have been at least six to ten years older than Carey - of course, he had a son who was at least a young adult... the missing son. "While I was in the Bahamas," John said quietly into my ear, "I tried to get a minute to see if the house of Sir Harry Oakes was still standing." I had to think for a minute. The Oakes case... okay, I remembered.
"Alfred de Marigny, acquitted, right?"
"Yes," said John happily. It was always nice to talk to someone who shared your hobby.
"Is this an historical site in the Bahamas?" Aubrey asked from my right.
"Well, in a way," I told him. "The Oakes house was the site of a famous murder." I swung back around to John. "The feathers were the strangest feature of that case, I thought."
"Oh, I think there's an easy explanation," John said dismissively. "I think a fan flew the feathers from a pillow that had been broken open." "After the fire?"
"Yes, had to have been," John said, wagging his head from side to side. "The feathers looked white in the picture, and otherwise they would've been blackened."
"Feathers?" Aubrey inquired.
"See," I explained patiently, "the body - Sir Harry Oakes - was found partially burned, on a bed, with feathers stuck all over it. The body, I mean, not the bed. Alfred de Marigny, his son-in-law, was charged. But he was acquitted, mostly because of the deplorable investigation by the local police." Aubrey looked a little - what? I couldn't identify it. John and I went on happily hashing over the murder of Sir Harry, my mother to John's left carrying on a sporadic conversation with the mousy McMans across from her.
I turned halfway back to Aubrey to make sure he was appreciating a point I was making about the bloody handprint on the screen in the bedroom and noticed he had dropped his ribs on his plate and was looking under the weather. "What's the matter?" I asked, concerned.
"Would you mind not talking about this particular topic while I eat my ribs, which looked so good until a few minutes ago?" Aubrey was trying to sound jocular, but I could tell he was seriously unhappy with me. Of course I was at fault. That had the unfortunate result of making me exasperated with Aubrey, as well as myself. I took a few seconds to work myself into a truly penitent frame of mind.
"I'm sorry, Aubrey," I said quietly. I stole a peek at John out of the corner of my eye. He was looking abashed, and my mother had her eyes closed and was silently shaking her head as if her children had tried her beyond her belief, and in public at that. But she quickly rallied and smoothly introduced that neutral and lively subject, the rivalry of the phone companies in the area. I was so gloomy over my breach of taste that I didn't even chip in my discovery that my phone company could make my phone ring at two houses at the same time. Arthur said he was glad that he had been able to keep his old phone number. I wondered how Lynn felt about giving up her own, but she didn't look as if she gave a damn one way or another. Right after Arthur finished eating and they had thanked Marcia and Torrance in a polite murmur for the party, the good food, and the fellowship, they quietly left to go home.
"That young lady looks uncomfortable," Torrance commented in a lull in the telephone wars. Of course, that led to a discussion of Arthur