She needed a dress. She took a full morning off with Siobhan, and together the two of them hit the town. It was impossible to buy certain things on Nantucket—a set of plain blue cotton sheets, for example, or gym socks, children’s underwear, a plastic colander, a softball, anything in bulk. But if you were looking for a party dress, Nantucket was utopia. Claire and Siobhan shopped at Hepburn, Vis-à-vis, David Chase, Eye of the Needle, Erica Wilson. So many sensational dresses! Siobhan wanted something black, something dramatic, something that would stand in contrast to her chef’s jacket. She found a knockout dress at Erica Wilson, a halter dress with a fitted skirt and beading. Absolutely gorgeous. But everything looked good on Siobhan; she had healthy coloring and a tiny little body. Claire was harder to outfit. She tried on everything: some things looked truly hideous, clashing with her red hair, making her look like a cadaver. She found a few things she liked, nothing she loved.
They ate lunch on the patio at the Rope Walk—lobster rolls, fried clams. Claire felt like a tourist, which was nice, if odd. They were drinking wine to boot—Claire a glass of viognier (she ordered it automatically now) and Siobhan a fat glass of chardonnay.
Siobhan raised her glass. “This is fun,” she said. “This is what I miss.”
“Me, too,” Claire said.
“No,” Siobhan said. “I mean it.” She covered Claire’s hand with her own, smaller hand. Claire knew Siobhan’s hand intimately—its elfin size, the nails bitten to the quick, the simple wedding band in white gold. “When all this is over, do I get you back?”
“Don’t be silly,” Claire said. “You have me now.”
Siobhan pushed her darling square prescription sunglasses up her nose. “Do I get you back, Claire?”
Claire sipped her wine. Her stomach squelched at the smell of fried food in the air. Here, on their carefree day of shopping, Siobhan was asking for something. She wanted Claire back with Jason, ensconced in the Crispin clan, fitted snugly in her place.
Do I get you back?
Meaning: No more Lock.
Their onion rings arrived at that second, and then a woman from the next table asked if Siobhan would take a picture of her and her family. Claire leaned back in her wrought iron chair and looked out at the brilliant blue harbor, the circling seagulls, the white snap of sails, the wispy clouds. The day sparkled.
This is fun. This is what I miss. Do I get you back, Claire? Do I get you back?
Claire sipped her viognier and enjoyed the sun on her face, despite the inevitability of freckles. The family said, in chorus, “Cheese!” The question floated away, without an answer.
Eleven days to go. Claire woke up suspicious. Something wasn’t right. She rolled over. Jason was gone. He was at the Downyflake; through a fog of sleep, she’d heard him get up, dress, leave. Out in the kitchen, she found her cell phone and called him. It was considered a major foul to interrupt Jason at breakfast, but she had a persistent, nagging worry that something was amiss. She pictured him in a crowded airport, fed up, leaving. Had he left?
“Hey,” Jason said. He sounded uninspired, impatient—but this she expected. He was marking off the days on the family calendar until the gala. This past Sunday, reclining in his chair at the beach, he’d muttered under his breath (when Claire thought he was asleep),
In two weeks the goddamned thing will be over.
“Is . . . everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“You’re at the Downyflake?”
“Of course,” he said. “Where else would I be?”
Claire made the kids breakfast. She was preoccupied, but she could do it in her sleep. Should she call Siobhan and check on her? No, she was losing her mind. She was looking for something to go wrong.
J.D. said, “Mom!”
Claire looked up, alarmed. “What?”
“I want to go to Nobadeer. Pan keeps taking us to Eel Point, and it’s a
baby
beach.”
“Think of Shea,” Claire said. “And Zackie.”
“I want waves,” J.D. said. “I haven’t used my boogie board once all summer.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Claire said.
“You don’t care about me.”
“That’s not true.”
“You only care about Zack.”
“J.D., you know that is not true. It hurts me when you say that.”
“It hurts me that I can’t go to Nobadeer.”
“I can’t let Pan take you there. Zack would drown in ten seconds. And even worse is your sister—she’ll be out in those waves, trying to keep up with you, and—” Claire shuddered. “I can’t even stand to think about it.”
“You take me, then.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Why can’t you take me?”
The obvious answer was that she was busy. She had been doing another set of vases for Transom—for income, to appease Jason—and out of the blue, Mr. Fred Bulrush of San Francisco had called.
I heard you were back at it
. How had he heard? Claire had no idea—she had yet to call him back—but it would be nice to get a commission and see some real money. Claire was supposed to meet Isabelle at noon to go over the seating chart, though really this was fruitless: Isabelle would seat people where she wanted, no matter what Claire said. So why
not
spend the afternoon at Nobadeer with J.D.? She loved spending time with the kids one-on-one, though she rarely got the chance. Why not take advantage today? Get sandwiches and sodas at Henry’s and take her oldest son to the waves? She could read the new Margaret Atwood novel while J.D. rode his boogie board.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll take you.”
“I want to go,” Ottilie said.
“Me, too,” said Shea.
“No,” Claire said. “This is just an outing for J.D. You two are going with Pan. I’ll pack extra Oreos.”
Ottilie scowled; Shea was appeased by the cookies. Claire’s phone rang. It was Lock—calling at five minutes to eight? Fear gripped Claire’s knees. Here it was: the bad news.
“Hello?” Claire said.
“I have bad news,” Lock said.
Claire killed the burner under the bacon. “What is it?”
“Genevieve can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what?”
“The gala.”
“She can’t
cater
the gala? Ten days and counting, and she can’t—”
“That’s right. Something about her mother in Arizona—she’s sick, terminal, I guess. Genevieve has to get there now, today, she doesn’t know when she’ll be back, she can’t prep an event for a thousand people, and she has no second, no one to take over. We have to find someone else.”
“Like who?”
“Well, I thought you might call Siobhan.”
“Siobhan,” Claire said.
“Yes. That’s the obvious answer, right?”
“Right,” Claire said. But was it? The catering question had been painful from the beginning—it had caused a rift in Claire and Siobhan’s unriftable friendship—and only now had things settled. Only now did Siobhan seem comfortable with the outcome. To reopen discussions of Siobhan and Carter’s catering was unfair. But if Genevieve couldn’t do it, someone had to step in, and if Claire overlooked Siobhan as that person—if Siobhan wasn’t asked first—there would be a fresh hell to face.
“Okay,” Claire said. “I’ll call.” She hung up the phone and looked at J.D. “Get your suit on.”
J.D. breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God,” he said. “I thought you were going to bag on me.”
“Bag on
you?
” she said. “Never.”
She picked up Zack, washed the syrup off his face and hands, and carried him into her bedroom, where she dialed Siobhan.
“Hey,” Siobhan said.
“Hey,” Claire said. “You know, I woke up with a funny feeling that something awful was going to happen, and it has.”
“Are the kids okay?” Siobhan said.
“Everyone’s fine. It’s a different kind of awful.”
“Tell me.”
“Genevieve flaked.”
“Huh?”
“She canceled. Her mother is sick in Arizona. She has to go. She bagged the gala.”
Silence. Then laughter. Siobhan was chuckling musically. There were two ways in which this was not funny: it was not funny that Genevieve’s mother was dying (Claire had lost her mother to cancer, and so had Siobhan), and it was not funny that the gala had no caterer.
“I hate to ask you this, but—”
“Oh, no!” Siobhan said. “No way!”
“You won’t do it?”
“Are you kidding me?” Siobhan said. “I have seats right up front and a kick-ass dress. Why the hell would I trade that in so I can spend the next ten days slaving and sweating and swearing? Bad enough I have the Pops to do on Saturday. I have no desire to turn around on Sunday and start prepping for another monster job.”
“It’s a lot of money, though, Siobhan.”
“I am happy to say, I don’t care.”
“So you won’t do it?”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked. But I thought you wanted this job.”
“No,” Siobhan said. “After all the crap I’ve been through . . . I mean, I realize I’m ‘on the committee’ and that means I should be there in the final hour to bail you guys out, but Edward had a chance to hire me, and he passed. He chose Genevieve. The fact that Genevieve flaked is utterly predictable. I find it gratifying that she flaked because that means I was
not
bad-mouthing her back in April but rather speaking the truth about her. She’s unprofessional and she should never have been given the job. When someone comes forty-dollars-a-head under, there’s a reason.”
“Okay, well, if you’re not going to do it, who else should I call? I have to get someone today.” Claire’s phone beeped. The display said,
Isabelle French
. “Oh, shit, Isabelle’s on the other line. I’ll call her back. Who else should I ask?”
“To feed a thousand people in ten days?” Siobhan said. “Nobody I know. It’s August, Claire. People are booked and overbooked. If someone is free, there’s a reason, and you shouldn’t hire them.”
“Great,” Claire said. “So you’re telling me the only people I want are people who aren’t available?”
“Pretty much.”
Isabelle’s number beeped in again. Claire should switch over, but she wasn’t ready for that brand of hysteria.
“Okay,” Claire said. She knew she should be panicked. They had no caterer for the gala—no food, no drink. But Claire felt calm. She had woken up with a bad feeling, and here it was, realized. J.D. walked into the bedroom in his bathing suit with a towel around his neck. Should she bag on him and instead spend all day in the office with Isabelle, dialing every caterer in the phone book? Was this the right thing to do? The right choice was usually the more difficult one. Who had told her that? Father Dominic? Her mother? But putting the gala before her family and disappointing her son could not be the right choice here. So in this rare case, the right choice was the less difficult one. “Listen, I’m taking J.D. to Nobadeer, just the two of us. Want to meet me there with the boys?”
“I am up to my tits in Pops,” Siobhan said. “But what the hell, I’ll come for an hour.”
The hours Claire spent at the beach were like hours spent dreaming. The sun was hot, the water refreshing, and J.D. was happy and exhilarated by the waves and by his cousins. Siobhan came for an hour and brought Claire half a chicken salad sandwich, a cup of gazpacho, and a bottle of fancy Italian lemonade. Claire’s phone rang off the hook—Isabelle, Lock, Edward, Genevieve—but Claire didn’t take a single call. She would deal with the catering problem later, and quite possibly, by the time she gave it her full attention, it would be solved. It was liberating to let it go; it was fortifying to spend four hours being herself—a woman who loved the beach, the mother of a ten-year-old boy. She even tried to boogie-board a few times—it was too hot to stay out of the water. She rode the waves to shore, enjoying the swell and the rush, enjoying even the sand in her suit and the salt stinging her eyes.
They left the beach at quarter to five, in time to get home and relieve Pan. Claire was so relaxed that she let J.D. sit in the front seat next to her. His dark blond hair was damp, his bare torso suntanned and rippling with emerging muscles. He, like Jason, would be handsome and strong. J.D. switched the radio station fifteen times—ah, to finally be in control of the music!—and he polished off his Coke, then casually hung his elbow out the open window. As they turned the corner onto their street, J.D. said, “Mom, that was awesome. You rock.”
Claire grinned. Her face was tight and warm from the sun. Ten, she decided, was the perfect age for a boy. J.D. did not need the constant caretaking that the other kids needed, but his heart and mind were still those of a child.
“You were great company,” she said.
There was an unfamiliar car in their driveway. As Claire pulled in, her good mood evaporated. It was not an unfamiliar car at all; it was a green Jaguar convertible, the car Lock drove in the summertime. Lock was not a man who got excited about cars. As the director of Nantucket’s Children, he always said, he should be driving a twelve-year-old minivan. But this car he loved. The XKR was sleek, curvy, and fast, in a prestigious racing green. He would not park it on the street; it spent all summer in the yacht club parking lot. Now here it was in Claire’s driveway. Lock sat in one of the Adirondack chairs next to Claire’s mudroom door. He was wearing a khaki suit, a pink seersucker shirt, a darker pink tie, and loafers without socks. A hanging geranium twirled above his head; a few pink petals had dropped onto the creamy shoulders of his jacket. How long had he been sitting there? He was pitched forward, his forearms on his knees, staring expectantly out at Claire’s cul-de-sac. Willing her to appear? Well, yes, obviously. Claire had never known Lock to idly wait anywhere, for anything. The man was a model of efficiency, always on the phone, or reviewing paperwork, or drafting letters, or reading relevant articles in philanthropic magazines or the
Economist
or
Barron’s.
It was almost like this wasn’t really him.
“Who’s that guy?” J.D. asked.
Claire was frozen. She could barely twist her wrist to remove the key from the ignition. She was stunned by Lock’s presence. He had stopped by unannounced only one other time, and that was back in January, when he had entered her hot shop while she was working. Back then, she had been surprised, yes, certainly, but back then a part of her had been expecting him. Back then, he was always on her mind; thoughts of him followed her everywhere, so the fact that he had appeared out of the blue seemed right. That day had marked the first time Lock had told her he loved her. It had been magic, his appearing to declare that; it had been supernatural. But now, today, Claire was tense, on guard; she was a little repulsed. Part of this was because she looked awful. As she got out of the car, this came into clearer focus: the fronts of her legs were sunburned, she was wearing a damp cotton beach cover-up that had at one time been white but was now the color of old chewing gum, and her hair was like a clump of seaweed, tangled and salty. Her feet were sandy and she could feel freckles popping out all over her face. She did not want Lock to see her this way, looking like something that had washed up on the beach. Nor did she want to see Lock in all his seasonal pink, sockless, his thinning hair windblown from a ride in his convertible. She had done a thorough job of blocking him out of her mind and had successfully forgotten all about the catering nonsense.