Free Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead

army was the last dying flutter of independence, his last binge of freedom before he saw the light. The army would never love him the way Livia did. “I don’t want you to hope it has something to do with you,” Biddy said.
    Livia began breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth and staring off into space. The therapist she saw at school, Dr. Z, had taught her that trick: if you feel like you’re about to lose your temper, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth and count to five or ten, depending on the direness of the situation. Winn hated that Livia saw a shrink. He said she should learn to grin and bear it.
    “Anyway,” Livia said after five seconds, “after we saw Jack, Daddy decided we should go check on their new house.”
    “The Fenns’ house?” said Biddy. “Why?”
    “I think he wanted to sit there and glower at it and think about thePequod. Not about how Teddy knocked me up and dumped me, no, no. About how unfair it is—what a great injustice it is—that there’s a club out there he can’t join.”
    “Maybe it’s easier for him to think about the Pequod,” Dominique said.
    Biddy looked at her, annoyed. The casual analysis seemed to violate Winn’s privacy. And Dominique couldn’t possibly understand what his clubs meant to him, what it was like to live inside their particular social world. Hadn’t she just been saying she didn’t belong anywhere?
    Dominique was standing at the counter with a bottle of white wine she had helped herself to from the fridge, presumably to pour a nerve-settling glass for Livia. The natural melancholy of her face lent an air of pensive deliberation to even her simplest actions, and she contemplated the bottle as though it were a bouquet of condolence flowers in need of arranging. Thoughtfully, slowly, frowning, she twisted in a corkscrew and then glanced up, catching Biddy’s eye and, surely, some trace of her enmity.
    “You know what I mean,” Dominique said levelly. “We all have our safe thing to run back to when we get overwhelmed.”
    Biddy remembered that only minutes before she had been grateful enough for Dominique’s presence to have cried. Apologetically, she said, “He likes to keep track of new houses on the island.”
    “Honestly, I think the house is great,” said Livia. “They have an amazing location. The house is big, but so what? It’s Fenn Castle.”
    “The Fennitentiary,” Dominique said, handing a glass of wine to Livia. “Biddy, may I pour you a glass?”
    “No, thanks.”
    “Fennsylvania,” said Livia.
    Biddy tried to think of a pun but couldn’t come up with anything. Had Dominique ever even met any of the Fenns? Most likely not, though certainly she had heard plenty about them—both Daphne and Livia kept up e-mail correspondences with her, and over the past few days the house had effloresced with girl talk. “Is Teddy on-island?” she asked Livia.
    “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Probably.”
    “Well, you won’t run into him.”
    “What if he calls me?”
    “Do you think he will?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. You’d think he’d want to tell me about the whole army thing.”
    Biddy sat back down at the table.
    Livia stepped closer and studied the mess of cards and charts. “Shouldn’t Daphne be doing this?”
    “Seating isn’t really Daphne’s strong suit,” Biddy said. “She gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. She doesn’t see where conflict might arise.”
    “On the other hand,” Dominique said, “I assume the worst.”
    “You’re very good,” Biddy said. She reached across Livia to pat Dominique’s hand.
    “Do you know all these people?” Livia asked Dominique.
    “Not all of them,” Dominique said. “Biddy’s been explaining the web.”
    “The web?”
    “All the connections between everyone. It is impressively tangled, I will say.”
    “Do you think Daphne’s strong suit might be shucking corn?” Livia asked.
    “I’ll help you,” Dominique said.