starved to death at yours, Madeline.”
“I don’t think we’re allowed to bitch about anything,” said Pagan, “when we show up this late.”
“Who’s bitching?” asked Sue.
At least I’d remembered to tuck Dean’s and my wedding gift into the rental car. It was a rather elegant Chinese-red lazy susan, fitted out with a series of blue-and-white glazed bowls—the perfect delivery system for those garnishes with which one hoped to enliven suppers of Minute Rice and indifferent Episcopalian curries.
“There’s Mom,” said Pagan, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go say hello.”
“I am sorely in need of some ice water,” I said.
“What, no gin?” she asked.
“Maybe later. Right now I’m just thirsty.”
“Call yourself a WASP?” Sue shook her head. “No pain, no gain.”
“Are you sure you’re not an Episcopalian?” I asked.
“I’m just good with the blending,” she said.
“ Big smile, bitches,” said Pagan. “Time to make the proverbial effort.”
We snaked our way through the drinking crowd toward Mom, single file.
“Oh fuck me,” I said, halfway there. “Larry’s wearing a kilt.”
They’d split the three of us up at dinner, scattering our place cards around the room to ensure that we’d have no actual support from one another.
“You’re the bride’s daughter?” The woman beside me pulled her head back, further exaggerating the cords of her tennis-leathery neck.
“The eldest child,” I said. “Yes.”
She peered at me, squinting with distaste at my outfit. Had there been a pince-nez handy, she’d have landed the part of “opera-bound matron” in a New Yorker cartoon circa 1934, hands down.
“I had a court date this morning,” I explained. “In Queens.”
“You’re an attorney?” she asked.
“Witness,” I said. “Homicide.”
With that, she abandoned me for conversation with the dining partner on her right.
Fine.
Whatever.
Rescued from ignominy by the delivery of a paillard of chicken in taste-free cream sauce, I turned toward the tiny octogenarian man seated to my left.
“I couldn’t help overhearing what you were just discussing,” he said.
“The sorry excuse for my appalling tardiness?” I asked.
“Just so,” he said, blue eyes twinkling beneath an unkempt white hedge of eyebrows. “I believe you mentioned a homicide.”
“I’m not sure it’s a topic you’d appreciate my going into, over
dinner.”
“Try me,” he said, patting my hand. “For an old coot, I’m surprisingly tough.”
“I first got involved last September.”
“Who’d been killed?”
“A little boy,” I said, “the day he turned three years old.”
“Did you see it?”
I shook my head. “I found his bones five months later, in a cemetery. That’s why I had to testify.”
“And who did it?”
“The mother’s boyfriend. I wanted to hear the verdict this morning. That’s why we got here late.”
“Did they get him?” my companion asked.
“Manslaughter,” I said. “I’ll miss the sentencing, I guess.”
“New York State?”
I nodded.
“Fifteen years,” he said. “Probably out in seven.”
I winced and took a sip of my water. “His mother as good as got off scot-free.”
“Fuckers,” he said.
I choked.
My new friend gave me a sturdy clap on the back.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “No doubt that editorial comment caught you rather by surprise.”
I laughed, eyes still watering.
“What are your thoughts concerning your own mother’s impending nuptials?” he asked.
I hedged. “Larry strikes us all as a very nice man.”
“Well played,” he said. “But don’t worry, I have no dog in this hunt. I’m only here because I’m old as hell and I don’t go south for the winter.”
“In that case, I give him six months.”
“Generous,” he said, resting his gnarled hands on the white tablecloth so they bracketed his untouched plate of chicken.
“You’re not going to eat?” I asked.
“One gets tired of nursery food. Creamed chicken and peas, a dab of wild rice.”
“Innocuous, at least.”
“I’m saving up for dessert,” he said, as people started clinking their water glasses with random cutlery.
I lifted a miniature slice of rye bread from my butter plate. “A toast.”
“Witty girl.”
“Thank you,” I said.
A bunch of old Yalies started singing about losing their lambs.
My dinner partner flexed his fingers, and I noticed that he wore a gold crest ring on each pinkie. They didn’t match.
“Tell me about those,” I said, pointing.
“Sharp eyes.”
I shrugged. “They look interesting.”
“They are,” he said. “I inherited them, one from each grandfather.”
“Did you like your grandfathers?”
“Never met them,” he said. “Only their widows, both of whom I loved a great deal.”
“That’s quite a story,” I said.
“There’s more,” he said.
“Tell me.”
“My grandfathers went down with the Titanic,” he said. “Each of them took off his ring and gave it to his wife once he’d made sure of her place in a lifeboat.”
The Yalies sat down.
“I’m going to have to stand up and say something,” I said.
“You’re the daughter