Beautiful Day(72)

“This is it?” Ann said. “You’re sure?” She checked the piece of paper from her purse. “130 Surfside Road.”

The taxi driver was about twenty years old; he wore a blue button-down oxford shirt and Ray-Ban aviators and appeared to be the identical twin of Ford from Colgate, their waiter at the yacht club.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. He wrote something on his clipboard. “This is 130.”

Ann climbed out of the cab, paid the kid an astronomical fare of twenty-five dollars (the same-length ride anywhere in the Research Triangle would have been seven dollars), and then felt utterly abandoned as the cab backed out of the driveway.

Ann walked to the front door, the damn Jack Rogers sandals torturing the tender spot between her first two toes, and knocked.

A moment later, H.W. answered.

Henry William, named after Ann’s father. Ann was nearly as happy to see him now as she had been when he turned up at the fairgrounds seventeen years earlier.

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

Of her three boys, H.W. was the least complicated. As a child, Ann and Jim had nicknamed him “Pup,” short for “puppy,” because he was just about that easy to please. Whereas Stuart was the dutiful firstborn and Ryan was the emotionally complex aesthete, all H.W. needed was to be run, fed, and put to bed. The occasional pat on the head.

“Hi, honey,” Ann said. “Is your father here?”

“Dad?” H.W. said. He turned around and peered into the house. “Hey, is Dad here?”

“No,” a voice said. Ryan appeared, smelling of aftershave, his hair damp. “Hi, Mom.”

Ann stepped into the rental house. It reeked of mold and cigarettes and beer. On the coffee table, she spied a dirty ashtray and empty bottles of Stella and plastic cups with quarters lying in the bottom. There was a sad-looking tweedy green sofa and a recliner in mustard yellow vinyl and a clock on the wall meant to look like a ship’s wheel. On the walls hung some truly atrocious nautical paintings. SportsCenter was muted on the big flat-screen TV, which looked as unlikely as a spaceship in the middle of the living room.

“Dad’s not here?” she asked Ryan.

“No,” he said.

“He hasn’t been here at all? Last night? This morning?”

“No,” Ryan said. He cocked his head. “Mom?”

Ann deflected his concern. She nodded at the walls. “Nice place,” she said.

“It’s like we’ve been beamed back thirty years to a time-share decorated by Carol Brady after the divorce and meth addiction,” Ryan said. “Jethro wants to burn it down solely in the name of good taste.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Ann said. On the far wall was a Thomas Kinkade print.

“But we drank and smoked like naughty schoolchildren,” Ryan said. “Went to bed so blotto that the plastic venetian blinds in the windows seemed whimsical.”

At that moment, Chance came down the stairs, wearing only boxer shorts. He was so long and lean and pale that seeing him in only underwear seemed indecent. Ann averted her eyes.

“Hey, Senator,” Chance said.

“Hi,” Ann said. “How are you feeling, sweetie?”

He shrugged. “Okay, I guess,” he said. “I can breathe.”

“Good,” Ann said. She had thought Jim would be here, he wasn’t here, that was bad, that was awful, and now she had to explain, or make up a story. Helen, she thought. Where was Helen staying? Did she dare ask Chance?

Suddenly she felt hands on her shoulders.

“Hey, beautiful lady,” Jethro said. He kissed the top of her head.

“Hey,” Ann bleated. She felt like a little lost lamb. To avoid further questioning, she gave herself a tour of the house. She stumbled through a doorway into the kitchen. A young woman was sitting at the rectangular Formica table, smoking a cigarette. She was wearing an oversized N.C. State T-shirt, and not much else. It was H.W. ’s T-shirt. And then Ann got it.

“Oh,” she said. “Hello. I’m Ann Graham.”

The woman stood immediately, setting her cigarette in a half clamshell that served as an ashtray, and held out her hand. “Autumn Donahue,” she said. She had hair the color of shiny pennies, and lovely long legs. “I’m one of the bridesmaids. I was Jenna’s roommate at William and Mary.”

Ann reverted to state senator mode and shook the woman’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Autumn.”

Ryan entered the kitchen. “I don’t understand why you’re looking for Dad at eight thirty in the morning.”

“He got up early and went out,” Ann said. “I thought he might have come here.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Ryan said. He eyed Jethro. “Isn’t she a terrible liar?”