At The Breakers: A Novel

Part Three: November & December

November & December part three 119 ONE Jo took Mrs. Caspari’s bag. They walked arm-in-arm, like old European ladies, her firm bosom pressed cozily against Jo’s upper arm. “I think it will just be Iris and you and Nick and I, till this is over.” “Won’t that be lovely and quiet?” Mrs. Caspari said, as though quiet would be a rare treat for her. Her fine hair was snatched back any which way, half of it falling down around her face, which, though weathered, still had an aspect of youthful sweetness. In spite of her sturdiness, there was a will-o’-the-wisp, drifting quality to her, but occasionally through the sweet vagueness came a quick, pointed glance, as unexpected as lightning from a puffy white cloud, that said, nobody’s fool. What she mainly was, Jo had begun to understand , was sad. She had played for thirty years with the Caspari String Quartet, named for her husband, Dominic Caspari, the famous cellist . After he died, the quartet had disbanded, and Mrs. Caspari went back to the orchestra from which he had recruited her, and played then for another ten years, before retiring the past August. Perhaps her music had kept her buoyed up after her husband’s death. Now, without her music and without her husband, she must feel bereft, mute, not on the surface but deep inside. Jo was harboring some hopes, based on the piano in the back lobby. Mrs. Caspari had told her she could hear, just not with enough acuity to tell a C-natural from one drifting toward C-sharp. But maybe she could still play the piano, with its definite keys. She had been taught by her mother, a rehearsal pianist for the Bolshoi Ballet, 120 and did not take up the violin until the age of eleven, after she and her mother had arrived in America, when her uncle, realizing her talent, had given her his old fiddle. Back at The Breakers (wonderfully warm, radiators hissing away), Jo climbed the steps with her to her room, helped her out of her coat. Shefinishedclearingawaythedishes.Then,becauseshecouldn’t quiet a small fluttering uneasiness, she went out and moved her car from the hotel lot to a side street eight blocks away. A pathetic little safeguard—if Hank suspected she was down here somewhere on the shore and wanted to find her, eventually he’d find her. He might already have done so, for all she knew—last night, during the big party, before her fear had caught up with her. But her fear, she reminded herself, was based on one of Ramona’s riffs on how everyone in the world was in love with her. She wasn’t going to take it seriously. She’d just keep her can of mace with her at all times, even when she was asleep. She walked back to the hotel and, paying close attention, made turkey, tomato and provolone sandwiches on Lottie’s whole wheat rolls for the three of them, took Iris’s and Mrs. Caspari’s to their rooms on trays, which she went to some trouble to arrange with relishes, fruit, cookies, a pot of tea, chocolates, for a quiet, snowy afternoon. Iris was still in her dressing gown, a little hungover, she confessed coquettishly, through the half-open door, her white hair in a braid over her shoulder. “They’ve all left?” she exclaimed. “Hell! I wanted to dance again—” Nick came back from the boardwalk with a couple of boys from the night before, their faces all bright red. They sat at the kitchen table, inhaling the sandwiches they made for themselves, slabs of ham and turkey slapped down on bread, yelling out, with their mouths full, their inscrutable jokes about each other, taking great drafts of milk, doubling over with laughter, ignoring Jo. Charlie lay on top of Nick’s feet. It’s going to be all right, she thought, cautious joy rising in her. 121 “Mom, since everybody left and everything, would it be okay if I spent the night with Matt? Otherwise, if we’re snowed in, it’ll just be me and the ladies.” “Oh, horrors!” Jo said. “Come on, Miz Sinclair. My mom’s down with it. When it’s over, we’ll all come back and shovel snow, okay?” Matt wheedled. “Donny’s coming, too. We’ll have a blast...