Never had Desie seen her husband so infuriated. His face was swollen up like an eggplant.
She said, “Palmer, why did you have to lie?”
Before Stout could tee off on her again, Twilly slapped a fresh strip of hurricane tape across his lips. The pillowcase came down over wide hate-filled eyes.
Amy Spree said, “Son, don’t be too rough with the man.”
Twilly hauled the rocking chair indoors while Desie whistled for McGuinn. Later Amy Spree served dinner, broiled shrimp over rice under a homemade tomato-basil sauce. They brought Palmer Stoat to the table but he made clear, with a series of snide-sounding grunts, that he wasn’t particularly hungry.
“There’s plenty more,” said Twilly’s mother, “if you change your mind. And I apologize, kids, for not having wine.”
“Mom gave up drinking,” Twilly explained to Desie.
“But if I’d known you were coming, I would have picked up a bottle of nice merlot,” said Amy Spree.
“We’re just fine. The food is fantastic,” Desie said.
“What about your puppy?”
“He’ll eat later, Mrs. Spree. There’s a bag of chow in the car.”
Dessert was a chocolate cheesecake. Twilly was cutting a second slice when his mother said, “Your father was asking about you.”
“You still talk to him?”
“He calls now and again. Between flings.”
“So how’s waterfront moving out on the West Coast?” Twilly said.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you. He quit the business!”
“I don’t believe that. Quit, or retired?”
“Actually, they took away his real estate license.”
“In California?”
“He didn’t go into all the gory details.”
Twilly was incredulous. “Don’t you have to disembowel somebody to lose your real estate license in California?”
“Son, I couldn’t believe it, either. Know what he’s selling now? Digital home entertainment systems. He mailed me a color brochure but I can’t make sense of it.”
Twilly said, “You know what gets me, Mom? He could’ve quit the business after Big Phil died. All that money—Dad didn’t need to hawk one more lousy foot of beach. He could’ve moved to the Bahamas and gone fishing.”
“No, he could not,” said Amy Spree. “Because it’s in his blood, Twilly. Selling oceanfront is in his blood.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Excuse me,” Desie interjected, “but Palmer acts like he needs to use the little boy’s room.”
“Again?” Twilly rose irritably. “Jesus, his bladder’s smaller than his conscience.”
Later Amy Spree walked them downstairs, where her son hoisted the rocking chair (with Palmer Stoat, squirming against the ropes) into the station wagon.
She said, “Twilly, what’re you going to do with him? For heaven’s sake, think about this. You’re twenty-six years old.”
“You want to take his picture, Mother? He likes to get his picture made. Isn’t that right, Palmer?”
From under the puckering pillowcase came a snort.
“Polaroids especially,” said Twilly.
Desie blushed. From the rocker came a dejected moan.
Amy Spree said: “Twilly, please don’t do something you’ll come to regret.” Then, turning to Desie: “You stay on his case, all right? He’s got to buckle down and work on that anger.”
Twilly slid behind the wheel, with Desie on the other side and McGuinn hunkered between them, drooling on the dashboard.
“I love you, son,” said Amy Spree. “Here, I wrapped the rest of the cheesecake.”
“I love you, too, Mom. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks for remembering.”
“And I’ll bring back the rocking chair.”
“No hurry.”
“Might be next year,” said Twilly, “maybe sooner.”
“Whenever,” said his mother. “I know you’re busy.”
Word of the governor’s veto somehow reached Switzerland. Robert Clapley was floored when one of the bankers financing Shearwater Island called him up in the middle of the night. “Vot hippen to ze bridge?” All the way from Geneva at two-thirty in the morning—like he’d never heard of international time zones, the icy-blooded bastard.
Yet Clapley was wide-awake, skull abuzz, when the phone rang. All night long he’d been trying to contact Palmer Stoat, as the Barbies were on a bimbo rampage for more rhinoceros powder. Clapley had returned from Tampa and found them locked in the bathroom, a boom box blasting fusion dance music from behind the door. An hour later the two women emerged arm in arm, giggling. Katya’s hair was tinted electric-pink to match her tube top, and from the sun-bronzed cleft between her breasts arose an ornate henna fer-de-lance, fangs bared and dripping venom. By contrast, Tish had dressed up as a man, complete with a costume mustache, in Clapley’s favorite charcoal gray Armani.