know ahead of time what’s gone on here. I can’t even believe Mom isn’t insisting on that already—”
He cut her off: “Your mother and I made this decision together.”
“Oh, now that’s just bullshit! Don’t even try to . . . Mom’s been knocked out all day. Don’t treat me . . . Jesus!” She stuck one hand on her hip, pushed the other through her hair and held it back from her eyes as she peered at him, lifting that final curtain of illusion about just what sort of man her father might be. She let the hair fall. The hand went to her other hip. “You have to tell them. You’d be an idiot not to tell them. If you tell them—a simple, discreet note in each of the rooms—then you present it to them exactly the way you want, exactly the way you want them to hear it. You have control over the information then.” It was like explaining combat theory to a wary recruit. “If you leave it ambiguous”—she said this as though her father might not know the word: am-big-u-ous—“then you’re chancing what they find out, how they find out—you’re risking all the rumor that might find its way in along the way. I can’t even fathom why you’d take a chance like that.”
It was entirely the wrong tactic. “I think, Suzy, there are a lot of things about this situation that you don’t fathom at all.”
“Oh, don’t give me that shit when—”
“That’s it, right now. I don’t want to hear any more. This conversation is over.”
Bud stood for a moment, staring down his daughter, then turned to Roddy, a few feet off, as though it were Roddy he’d just been chatting with all the while, and said, “I’ll be up at the house with my wife if anyone needs me,” and then he turned and walked away.
Roddy and Suzy just stood there in Bud’s wake, waiting for him to clear the threshold, for the slam of the kitchen door marking his exit. They stood a moment longer as the room settled, and looked around as though remembering the shape of the place, the smell of sea air and furniture polish.
Suzy let out a breath. “I need a drink.”
Roddy laughed before he could catch himself, before he thought to wonder if it was OK to laugh. Suzy stared, disbelieving, her mouth open slightly. “Should I make you one too, or are you just going to stand there mocking me?”
“Oh,” said Roddy. “I got it.” He went toward the bar as if to beat her to it. “What do you want? What can I make you?”
She flung up her hands.
“OK,” he said slowly. “Anything you’re particularly in the mood for?”
“Jesus!” She laughed. “Just hand me a bottle.”
And he was able to laugh too. He grabbed a bottle. Lorna was dead. Bud was an asshole. And Roddy Jacobs and Suzy Chizek were about to share a bottle of Maker’s Mark in the dining room of the Lodge at Osprey Island.
“Did you want some peanuts or anything?” he asked.
She gaped. “You are really one of the oddest people I think I have ever met.” His expression sank. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s OK. Not like I haven’t heard that before.” He came toward the table she’d chosen, the bottle of Maker’s under his arm and a glass in either hand. He went to pour, and his grip was visibly shaky. Suzy laughed again. “You need a drink more than I do.”
“You’re right.”
She took the bottle, poured both glasses, passed one to him, and they drank. The large room was strangely still: a fleet of empty tables, a few sconces glowing dimly along the far wall. Outside, through the panoramic sliding glass doors, the lights across the bay in Menhadenport were beginning to go on as the sky pitched from blue to black. Suzy took a sip from her glass, then set the drink down decisively. “You kissed me this morning.”
Roddy sucked his lips. He was nodding continuously, almost rocking. “I guess I did.”
She waited for more. They drank.
“Is that . . .”—she pawed for words—“is it something I should be on the lookout for . . . something I should be warned you might do again?”
He rocked. He didn’t answer.
She sent a quick push of air through her nostrils. A minute passed. “What exactly are we doing here?” she said.
“Having a drink.”
“Why?”
He waited. “Because you said you wanted one . . . ?”