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“It’s not the kind of thing I’d ever do,” Lisa Livia went on. “I mean, ever do, talk like that, I mean, unless somebody, you know, tried to fuck my daughter over on something she wanted, because in that case, if that happened, I would pour lye over every single fuckin’ inch of this town. You think Sherman did some damage on his march through here? I’d make him look like fucking Merry Maids, what I’d do to you and everybody in this godforsaken hole if you or anybody else fucks with my kid, or her happiness, so if she says she wants fuckin’ flamingos, she gets fuckin’ flamingos right here at Two Rivers. The wedding will not be at the country club, it will be here and it will have flamingos and anything else my kid wants, do you understand?”
Agnes drank some more wine and so did Maria. She was pretty sure Evie understood. The First Lady of Keyes might not be Caesar’s wife, but she was Jefferson Keyes’s wife, and Jefferson Keyes’s wife did not get felt up under an oak tree by a cop or, God forbid, laid, not even twenty-five years ago.
A quiet fell over the group.
Then Evie stood up. “Very well.” She nodded to Maria. “I think this is a terrible mistake, but your mother is correct, it is your wedding. You may have your flamingos here at Two Rivers.”
“Now wait a minute,” Brenda said, but Evie turned and walked down the steps and around the corner of the house to her Lexus, her dignity unspoiled even if her reputation had a dent in it.
Brenda turned to Lisa Livia. “Well, that was certainly a disgusting display worthy of your father’s family.”
“Shut up, Ma,” Lisa Livia said, her hands on her hips. “Like you weren’t born in the Bronx, and the Fortunatos weren’t a big step up for you. Now you listen to me. You try to move this wedding away from Two Rivers again, I’m gonna clean every skeleton out of every closet you got and make them dance, you hear me? I’ll dig up everything you ever buried, including my daddy, and then I’ll sink that beat-up rowboat you’re living on so you’ll be out in the street with nothing. Do not fuck with my kid and do not fuck with my friend, they are all the family I got, and they are off-limits to you. Understand?”
Brenda drew back as if she’d been slapped, and then she glared at LL, and for a moment they were mirror images, two curly-haired mini-furies, one blonde and one dark, little but lethal. Then Brenda said, “I’m not going to listen to that kind of talk from my daughter,” and turned to Agnes. “I’d like to speak with you before I go,” she said coldly, and went into the house.
“I thought she’d never leave.” Lisa Livia turned to Maria, who was sitting on the porch swing beside Agnes, her arms crossed in mirror image of her mother, the third fury in the triumvirate, although she looked more exasperated than enraged. “You got your flamingos, baby,” Lisa Livia said, her voice doting.
“I don’t want flamingos, Ma,” Maria said. “I was just trying to make them crazy so they’d give me the wedding I really do want. I’d have talked them back to Two Rivers with the butterflies and the daisies and everything I wanted, but now thanks to you, I got flamingos.”
Lisa Livia stared at her daughter for a long moment, and then she said, “I hope someday you have a daughter, and when you do, I hope she breaks your heart the way you just broke mine.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Maria said, and went into the kitchen.
Agnes held out the wine bottle to Lisa Livia. “We tried to head you off. Wine?”
“Fuck that,” Lisa Livia said. “Get me a bourbon.”
“Kitchen,” Agnes said, and they both went in.
Brenda was just inside the door, staring openmouthed at the kitchen wall, where the outline of the basement door could be seen easily now since so many people had gone through it.
“Agnes, what is that?” she said, as if Agnes had done something vile.
“The door to the basement I didn’t know was there,” Agnes said. “Your husband’s old den is down there. Which you failed to mention when you sold me the house.”
“Daddy’s rec room?” Lisa Livia said, and went over to it. “Is the Venus still down there?” She pushed open the door and poked her head through. “My God, I’d forgotten all about this.” She sounded ready to cry, which was not like Lisa Livia.
“Ma?” Maria said to her, momentarily distracted from her own anger.
Agnes got out the bourbon. “Coming right up, LL.”
“If you don’t want the Venus, can I have it?” Lisa Livia said to Agnes.
“God, yes,” Agnes said. “You can have everything that’s down?—”
“Why is this door open?” Brenda said.
“A boy named Thibault fell through there and broke his neck,” Agnes said.
“Thibault?” Brenda put her hand on the counter to steady herself.
“He came to dognap Rhett,” Agnes said.
Brenda sank down on the counter stool. “Oh, my God.”
Agnes took the bourbon to Lisa Livia, who was still peering into the basement, biting her lip now. “You okay?”
“My daddy loved this place,” LL said, and took the glass. “Just loved it. My God. And the Venus is still down there?”
