Strangers at the Feast by Jennifer Vanderbes Page B

suffering from arthritis, so Denise watched as he now carefully removed his running shoes, as though every joint and bit of cartilage in his knees was telling him to back off. As he straightened up, he palmed his silver hair into place and gave her a nod. That was Gavin’s hello. No hugs, no handshakes. A nod. He wasn’t one for gabbing. When Douglas first brought her home to meet his parents, the bulk of her interaction with Gavin had been when he led her out back to look through his old telescope.
    “You know any constellations?”
    “Zilch,” she said.
    “Well, neither does Douglas. You two should get along well.”
    Early on, Douglas had mentioned that his father served in Vietnam, that he was smart, ambitious even, but had been passed over for jobs because he was a veteran. He’d then been slowed, like many men his age, by the economic swamp of the 1970s and had never quite regained his footing. What struck Denise, though, was the insecurity Gavin elicited in Douglas. Ginny, too, seemed somewhat cowed by her father. Only Eleanor appeared at ease with Gavin’s gruffness, and that was because she ignored it. Eleanor treated him more like a defiant child than a remote husband. Denise had never minded him—it wasn’t in her nature to be intimidated.
    “Nobody drink the tap water.” Douglas emerged from the basement and brushed off his shirt. “Those pipes look like they’re from the Revolutionary War.” At the sight of his father, he stiffened. “Hey, Dad.”
    Douglas often complained about his father’s pessimism; he felt his father was too critical of him. After visiting his parents, Douglas, who rarely said much about his feelings, was often unable to sleep. In the dark, he’d whisper to Denise, “It’s like he judges the way I breathe.” She had at first thought Douglas’s compulsive optimism was a rebellion against his father. But over the years she had come to see that Douglas was simply rallying enough confidence in himself to make up for what his father had withheld.
    As Douglas and Gavin simultaneously plunked down on the flimsy red couch, the coils whimpered. They looked shockingly like father and son. If Denise had measured each of their jaws, square and chiseled, there might have been only a millimeter’s difference. But for two men who looked so much alike, they couldn’t have been more different, or more awkward around each other. They triangulated themselves with the platter and reached for the knives.
    “The Packers are having a great season,” said Douglas, looking at his watch. “An hour till kickoff.”
    “Did you see today’s news about Freddie Mac?”
    “I’m taking a news holiday. Today’s just food, family, and football.”
    “A lot of people are going to be taking holidays soon. Mark my words. First the write-downs, then the layoffs.”
    “You let this stuff psych you out, you make mistakes, miss opportunities. Speaking of. Okay, Dad, if you could go back in time, let’s say to the mid-seventies, fiscal crisis, everything’s cheap, where would you put your money?”
    “We didn’t have money then. We had two small children.”
    “I’m saying hypothetically. You came into an inheritance.”
    Denise never understood Douglas’s bizarre addiction to hypothetical situations. It charmed people the first time they methim—got conversations going at parties—but after years of marriage, it wore on Denise. Hypothetically, Doug, she imagined saying, if you lost all our money and I were to leave you, what would you do?
    Gavin smeared a cracker with hummus and shoved it into his mouth.
    “Or let’s say you won the lotto,” urged Douglas. “You found a briefcase full of hundreds. Do you put it in GE? IBM? Johnson and Johnson?”
    “I report it to the police.”
    As though she could tell they were all assembled, Ginny slowly came down the stairs, the Indian girl at her side. The barefoot girl wore an ankle-length purple dress, which she carefully lifted off the stairs.