The Drowning House by Elizabeth Black

“What do you mean?”
    Eleanor shook her head. “You’re lovely,” she went on. “Or you would be if you smiled more.”
    I thought of Leanne and the determined way she flexed her facial muscles. “Smiling isn’t something I can do for effect,” I said. “I need a reason.”
    “You could have another child. You and Michael.”
    “I don’t want another child.”
    “You say that, but …” She looked at me, and for once her gazelacked the customary element of appraisal. “I want you to be happy,” she said. “Why can’t you believe that?” When I didn’t respond, she sighed. “What will you do?”
    “What I’ve always done, I suppose. Look around. Take photos. Try to learn something.”
    Eleanor straightened as though drawn by an invisible wire. “Don’t be foolish.” A waiter hurried in from the next room. Someone, a woman, her voice low and cracked, called after him. “Easy on the water, for Christ’s sake.” I heard a prolonged and complicated cough.
    Leanne was making her way back toward us through the crowd. Eleanor saw her, and she moved to take my arm again, but I shook her off. “Will you come with me?” she asked.
    I couldn’t remember Eleanor ever asking for anything. What she did was give signals. When she stood at the end of a meal, we knew to help clear the table. If she picked up a suitcase, my father would take it from her and carry it to the car. Her request was so unexpected I followed her without protest.
    Over my shoulder I saw Leanne with a plate in her hand, staring.
    The adjoining room, the solarium, had been the height of fashion when the house was built, when the palaces of Long Island’s North Shore set the pace for extravagant construction. It was filled with the same sort of plants that grew naturally outside—palms of different sizes, ferns, a monstrous lily in an oversize porcelain pot. Despite the air-conditioning, there was a smell of musk.
    Mary Liz Carraday, Will’s wife, was sitting on a wicker chaise. A throw covered her motionless legs. She held a cigarette in one hand, a ribbed gold lighter in the other.
    “So it’s you,” she said. “Well, come over here where I can get a look at you.” She squinted up at me. “Still carrying the camera.” There was grudging approval in her voice. She took my wrist between her thumb and forefinger and swung my arm away from my body. “My God, you’re puny. You never had much chest and now look at you. Flat as a board.”
    Faline appeared and placed a fresh drink on a small glass table.“What is this,” Mary Liz said, “cat pee?” She held the glass to the light. “Looks like half water.”
    “Well it’s not. So you better make it last.” Faline bent and rearranged the throw. “I told Clayborn and them not to let you be doubling up.”
    “So he’s under your thumb now, too. I suppose no one entering this house is safe.” Mary Liz turned and looked up at a stranger who was standing beside her. “I met you already,” she said. “Will’s new boy.”
    If this was meant as a dismissal, the stranger paid no attention. “We’ve been talking about preservation,” he said, smiling.
    He was compact, with the build of a wrestler. I remembered the high-school meets, the boys circling each other until I thought nothing was going to happen. Then all at once they were twisting on the floor. Maybe he was used to sudden attacks. Maybe that was why they didn’t bother him. “Charlotte doesn’t approve of old houses being moved, even to save them,” he said. He smiled at the woman standing next to him. I wondered if I should remember her.
    “Charlotte will bore you to death on that subject if you let her,” said Mary Liz.
    “You know you don’t mean that,” said Charlotte. Her features were neat and small, the kind that would have been described as “cute” when she was young but were now insufficient for her face, which had puffed up around them like a dinner roll. She had the confidence that often