"What are you doing hiding underneath there?" I ask.
"I don't know. Just felt like I needed a warm hug."
"I think everyone who's ever interacted with my mother had that same feeling," I say, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
I take her hand in mine and intertwine our fingers.
"She really likes you."
She sits up, surprised.
"And I don't say that lightly. She really likes you," I say. "It's uncanny, and actually, it's making me question whatever it is that we have."
"What are you talking about?" Jacqueline leans forward, clearly not getting my sense of humor.
"Okay, not really, but it's very disarming, to say the least," I clarify. "Mom has never been a big fan of most women. And she has hated Marguerite for so long that I was just certain that she would hate you as well. But my, my, my, you have managed to make an impression."
"Holy shit. Really?" She puts her hand over her mouth.
"Yes."
"Are you sure?" she asks, mumbling through her hand.
"That's what she told me."
"Even after she caught us almost doing it?"
I nod. "Yeah, it's shocking. I have no idea what happened, but whatever you said, whatever you did, keep it up."
"I just tried to be polite and nice and told her about myself."
"Well, one thing's for sure, tomorrow morning, Marguerite is in for a big surprise."
The following morning, Jacqueline gets up a little early, takes a shower, washes her hair, and puts on a little bit of makeup.
She doesn't have anything else to wear, and is a little frustrated by the fact that she has to wear the same black dress.
She begs for me to drive her over to the cottage so she can change, but I insist that that's just going to make her look either like she's desperate to make a good impression, or like she had packed a bag and brought it here intending on a longer-term stay.
Heading downstairs, I wear shorts and a short sleeve button-down shirt, just dressy enough for a family breakfast to not make it look like I'm eating in my pajamas, but not really much above that.
In the kitchen, we find Mom sitting in a long silk robe with a newspaper open in front of her.
“Huh, I didn't realize that those are still getting delivered."
Mom straightens it out to show me the front page. It's the local Hampton Times.
"Just trying to see what's new in the neighborhood. Hi, Jacqueline," she says, waving to her.
After a brief hello, Jacqueline goes to the fridge to get some orange juice, offering to get my mom a glass as well.
The two of them sit on opposite sides of the table, and Mom puts down the paper and immediately launches into telling Jacqueline about the newest fundraising goal for her new foundation.
And then, looking at them from the outside, it suddenly occurs to me why Jacqueline has made such an impression on my mom. Marguerite has always been tense. She took some etiquette classes, but even in employing them and putting them into practice, there's something unnatural and awkward about it.
But Jacqueline is a chameleon.
She sits up straight, even though she often slouches. She crosses her feet at her ankles. She doesn't put her elbows on the table, and she looks Mom straight in the eye.
She listens actively, comments slightly, and lets Mom lead the conversation. Not necessarily to suck up, just to fit in.
That's when I realize that Jacqueline has quite a gift for acting like she belongs somewhere.
And if she can make this impression on my mother, someone who is notoriously impossible to please, as her six other husbands would attest, I wonder how good she could be infiltrating Vasko’s operation.
25
Dante
When Lincoln and Marguerite come downstairs, I immediately see the smile on Marguerite's face vanish.
She tenses up, and everything about her body language starts to work on the short circuit in my mom's presence. There are brief hellos, polite and very curt, distant, though Lincoln smiles a little more and tries to make nice.
"Have you two met?" Mom asks Marguerite, who nervously twists a strand of her hair around her finger.
"Yes. Yesterday.” Jacqueline smiles. "We actually had breakfast together. Dante made waffles."
"Dante knows how to make waffles?" Mom raises an eyebrow.
I nod.
"Well, I guess we know what we're having for breakfast today."
I laugh, but dutifully walk over to the counter and start to get out all of the supplies that I need.
I don't mind being busy with this. It actually puts me at ease to do something with my hands instead of walking on eggshells around my mom, Jacqueline, and Marguerite, and even Lincoln, to make sure that breakfast doesn't veer off into one particular direction that neither of us want.
And it doesn't. Everything is pleasant, actually, beyond pleasant.
Mom is in a good mood. She sits next to Jacqueline and gushes about all of the interior design work that she has recently got done on her house. She shows the little cottage and all the details about the interior. She's so much more open and outgoing and friendly.
I realize why she has so many friends in town and why everyone invites her to all of the parties.
This is just a glimpse, the kind that a family gets, a side of someone very popular that lives with you on a daily basis, but the side that you rarely see because you are, after all, a family member.
The whole time, they laugh and practically giggle.
Marguerite sits next to Lincoln with a sour expression on her face. I try to get her engaged. I ask her about her pregnancy and Mom indulges that topic just a little bit to keep everything at bay.
She even offers her condolences for all the nausea that Marguerite has been experiencing.
But as soon as Marguerite says, "Well, I'm feeling a lot better now ..."
"Good," Mom adds, and then shows Jacqueline more of the interior plans that she has for the other parts of the estate. "You know, you and Dante really have to come and visit me sometime. It's marvelous. I have a beautiful library, which I know you'll love."
Jacqueline smiles and her whole face lights up. Not only do they share their love for animals, but also books, and fiction in general. It helps that Jacqueline has a lot of profound things to say about Patricia Highsmith, one of my mother's favorite writers, as well as Thomas Hardy and Nora Roberts.
Like Mom, Jacqueline is a nondiscriminatory reader who loves stories with passion that I rarely see. There are no highbrow/lowbrow writers. There is just a good story and a bad one.
After we finish the waffles, Marguerite helps collect all the dishes and starts loading them into the dishwasher while Lincoln and I have another round of Bloody Marys and start talking about investments around the kitchen island.
Mom and Jacqueline remain in place, debating the merits of Philip Roth's early work and comparing it to the work of the less-known Beatniks writers, friends of Jack Kerouac, but the ones that I have never heard of.
"Are you okay?" I look over to Marguerite, who finishes loading the dishes and comes up for air in a little bit of a huff.
Her stomach is starting to weigh her down considerably, and I notice that she has to catch her breath now almost after every simple exertion.