“Well, I can’t exactly send my grandchildren out on the streets.”
“The streets?” Perry had been thinking more along the lines of a hotel. Or better yet, telling Phoebe to grit her teeth and live through her self-imposed house renovation like most people did. After all, it was Phoebe and Rob’s choice to sell their perfectly good house, buy a falling-down shack on the lake, and then tear it apart. It was hardly the cottage’s fault it was a hundred years old. “It might not be as temporary as you think, Mom. Renovations always take longer than planned. And the boys are great, but they’re a real handful. When you combine that with everything going on with Nana…”
There was a sudden clatter. His mother dumped the tray into the sink, and plucked a single cigarette out of her pocket. If she’d pulled out a switchblade, Perry could not have been more surprised.
“Mom?” The punch sloshed dangerously against the sides of the bowl.
Jane Goodwin did not smoke. Had never smoked. His father, Edward, enjoyed the occasional cigar, but Perry had no recollection of ever having seen his mother smoke, even in the haze of the early seventies when just about everyone seemed to. She reached for a high cabinet, ferreted around behind the sugar jar, and produced a lighter.
“Mother. What are youdoing?”
Jane blinked. “Oh, please. It’s just one.” Her heels clicked as she headed for the patio door and flung it ajar.
Perry watched in horror as she leaned out, lit up, and inhaled. “When did this start?” he asked. Then, “Do you understand how toxic that is? Your lungs!”
Jane Goodwin was a portrait of health. All his life Perry’s mother had been fit and trim. She played tennis. She ate salad. In a corner of their manicured lawn she tended an organic herb garden.
She took a deep drag and closed her eyes dreamily. “Take the punch out to those biddies. And not a word to your father.”
Perry navigated the small sea of guests precariously. Phoebe swept up beside him, and again he had to steady the bowl. “Watch it.” Then, “Since when does Mom smoke?”
“What? I don’t know. Listen, Rob is going to ask you about joining the Club. I want you to talk it down.”
“My Club?” Had she not just heard what he’d said about their mother?
Phoebe trailed him to the dining room, fidgeting with her bracelets. “Jesus, Perry. It’s notyours.”
Technically, perhaps. But Perry was the president of the Candlewood Cove Clubhouse, a rustic but exclusive enclave on the western shore of Candlewood Lake in his gated community. Residing in the Cove did not guarantee membership. It had taken him four years, since buying his two-million-dollar home, just to be sponsored. And several more to work his way onto the board and up to presidency. Phoebe may have just bought a cottage on the lake, but it was across the way. Outside the clubhouse community. And though he loved his sister, he did not exactly relish the thought of sharing his private escape with her and her boisterous young brood.
“Relax,” she told him. “The house renovations have been more involved than we planned, so joining the Club isn’t exactly in the budget. He might as well buy a pony. Will you tell him that?”
“That he should buy a pony?”
Phoebe waited until he set the bowl down and then socked him in the arm. “I’m serious.”
“Ow. All right.” Perry was used to this. As much as his siblings ribbed him for being uptight, they never failed to queue up when things went down. To ask advice. To borrow money. To try and twist his arm into approaching one family member or other to twisthis or herarm about one thing or other. Though this time he was secretly impressed by Phoebe’s unusual demonstration of financial restraint. Having bought the cottage was one thing, but the gut renovation was a whole other financial misstep. He couldn’t imagine where they’d come up with the initiation fee for the Club.
“Have you tried telling Rob this yourself?”
He watched his sister’s gaze land on her husband, who was standing by the window, talking to their father. The boys were back inside chasing each other in a hazardously widening circle around the guests. Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. “I’m a little over budget on the renovation.”
He knew they would be, of course. What he wondered was whether Rob knew. As with many other things in their marriage that struck Perry as unusual, Phoebe had taken the reins of the entire building project. “How much over?”
Phoebe flicked her head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“That bad?”
“Just forget it, Perry.” Now she was upset with him.
He scratched his head. “Listen, I wouldn’t worry about the lake Club membership. You guys use mine quite a bit anyway.”
“No, we don’t.”
They did. Every summer, in fact, but Perry did not say this. His bicep still smarted. Instead he said, “Just tell Rob that you want to wait until the house is done. That you want to keep a buffer.” He watched his sister’s eyebrows rise and fall, as they did whenever she was concentrating.
“I just ordered a three-thousand-dollar bathroom vanity. He won’t believe that.”
Three thousand?“Then blame it on me. Say it was my suggestion.”
