But now she would have to deal with it.
This wasn’t what petrified Claire, however. What petrified Claire was the notion that Lock had not come on official gala fix-the-catering nonsense but had come, finally, to whisk Claire away. The Jaguar was the white horse. Lock had been watching for her so eagerly, and stood so suddenly when she emerged from the car, that Claire thought,
Oh, God, he’s going to do it—ask me to run away with him.
He wanted her to climb into the Jag and drive off with a wave, leaving J.D. baffled on the porch.
Claire opened the back of the Pilot, pulled out the sandy towels, and took her time shaking them. She slid out the boogie boards, handed them to J.D., and said, “Would you rinse these, please, sweetheart?”
J.D. was looking at Lock; Lock was looking at Claire.
J.D. took the boogie boards to the hose on the side of the house. Claire trudged up the porch stairs in her dime-store flip-flops. He would never ask her to go with him, she realized. And suddenly that was all she wanted. For him to ask, for him to beg.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he said.
She wondered about her other children and Pan. They weren’t home yet; the inside of the house was too quiet. Claire busied herself with folding the damp towels.
“You’ve taken me by surprise,” she said, moving to the mudroom door.
“I was on my way home from work,” Lock said. He smiled tightly. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day. We have to talk.”
She turned to him. She couldn’t breathe. Really, if he asked her, if he meant it, if he promised her all the right things, if he’d thought it through very carefully and still made it romantic and spontaneous, the chance of a lifetime, the chance for happiness with a man who understood her better, differently, would she go with him? No, never. But she might.
“About the catering,” he said.
As they entered the house, Claire wondered: Was it a mess? In her mind the house was always a mess, with the flotsam of their lives littering every surface—bills, mail, magazines, the girls’ ponytail holders, Zack’s pacifiers and bottles with half an inch of sour milk left, sunglasses, keys, the nails and screws and spare change that Jason emptied from his pockets each evening. Yes, it was all there, the family’s life exposed: someone’s used Band-Aid was on the counter, and Claire swept it into the trash. Claire had never been to Lock’s house, but she gathered it was one of those homes where everything was tucked away so that the place was left with as much personality as a hotel room.
Claire’s answering machine was blinking. Eight messages.
Claire opened the fridge. “Would you like some cold grapes?”
“You don’t have to entertain me,” Lock said.
Claire pulled out the colander of grapes anyway and set it on the bar. “How about a beer?”
Lock shrugged. “After the day I had? Sure.”
Okay, so he was going to talk about his day, one hell of a day he had, while Claire was at the beach, boogie-boarding and drinking sparkling Italian lemonade. J.D. marched in, and Claire said, “Outdoor shower, please.”
“I’m going.”
Lock offered his hand. “Hey, you must be J.D. I’m Lock Dixon.”
J.D. shook his hand, looked him in the eye, smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Dixon.”
“I’m a friend of your mother’s.”
“We work together,” Claire said. “We’re working on the gala together. Mr. Dixon runs Nantucket’s Children.”
“Okay,” J.D. said. He disappeared out the back door.
“He has nice manners,” Lock said.
Claire pulled one of Jason’s beers out of the fridge and flipped off the top. “Glass?”
“No thanks.”
He was here in the house, he had met and approved of the oldest child, he was drinking Jason’s beer, and Claire was supremely uncomfortable with all of it.
“Give me the lowdown,” she said.
He removed his jacket and hung it on the back of the barstool. He rolled up the sleeves of his seersucker shirt neatly. Here was Lock Dixon relaxing with a beer after work. Claire watched him. He was her lover, but he was a complete stranger.
Claire heard stampeding feet in the mudroom. The rest of the gang traipsed in, Zack crying, Pan looking beat up and weary. The girls, like J.D., stopped what they were doing (bickering), dropped their sodden towels on the floor, and stared at Lock.
“Who’s that?” Shea demanded.
“This is Mr. Dixon,” Claire said. “Mommy’s helper on the gala.”
Lock waved at Pan. “Nice to see you again.”
Pan smiled and handed Zack off to Claire. He was hot and unhappy and his diaper was leaking and full of sand.
Claire wasn’t sure what to do. This wasn’t exactly how she wanted Lock to see her life.
“Is that your car?” Ottilie asked.
“It is,” Lock said.
“I like it!” she said.
“I have to talk to your mom right now,” Lock said. “But next time I come, I’ll give you a ride.”
“Can I ride, too?” Shea asked.
There was a knock at the door. The front door, which meant UPS or a neighbor’s child selling raffle tickets.
“Okay,” Claire said to the kids. “To the shower, please.” She was using her Julie Andrews voice.
They’re only young once! Must enjoy them!
She wanted Lock to see that she was a good mother, the best mother, despite her obvious shortcoming. “Excuse me one second,” she said, and she went to the door.
There was another knock before Claire could reach the door—crisp, insistent. Claire peeked out the window—another car in the driveway, a cherry red Land Rover with roo bars. So not the Girl Scouts. The first thing Claire saw when she opened the door was the hair, long and lustrous.
“Isabelle!” Claire said. Now she was officially aghast. Zack’s diaper was so heavy it was falling off. Claire could hear the girls pounding on the door of the outdoor shower to get J.D. out.
“Hello,” Isabelle said, with a mixture of surprise and distaste, as though it were Claire who had ambushed her at home and not the other way around. She stepped inside. “Is Lock here?”
“Yes,” Claire said. She looked down at her cover-up, her legs, her feet. Isabelle was looking very tan and lithe in a white eyelet sundress, and Claire was wearing a trash bag with four hot, sandy, hungry children running around like wild Indians. When she had woken up this morning and felt like something bad was going to happen, she could never have predicted that it would be something this specifically
bad
. But as Isabelle walked past her into the great room without so much as a word of apology, or, for that matter, greeting, Claire got ahold of herself. Lock and Isabelle had shown up without warning and had plopped themselves down in her home. She would not allow herself to feel self-conscious about how she looked or about the fact that there was no babbling koi pond at the entryway or that she didn’t have a pitcher of gin and tonics and hors d’oeuvres ready. She would deal with these people graciously, then send them off.
First, however, she had to deal with the Indians.
“I have to change a diaper,” she said. “Lock, will you pour a glass of wine for Isabelle, please? There’s a bottle of cold viognier in the fridge.” This was, incredibly, true, and Claire was secretly thrilled. She took Zack upstairs, rinsed him off in the sink, changed his diaper, and dressed him in an adorable blue terry cloth playsuit. When she came back down, Lock and Isabelle were seated at the bar with their drinks, popping cold grapes, while the three kids stood, wrapped in towels, dripping onto the floor and looking like refugee boat people.
“Go get dressed,” Claire said, “and I’ll let you watch a little TV before dinner.”
“What’s for—”
“Steaks,” Claire said. “And corn.”
The children slinked off, casting furtive looks at the strangers in the kitchen. As soon as the kids were gone, Isabelle got down to business.
“We have a serious problem,” she said.
Out the mudroom window, Claire saw Jason’s truck pull into the driveway. She felt a wash of relief.
“We’ll find another caterer,” Claire said.
“I’ve called everyone on Nantucket. I spent all day on the phone and so did Gavin and so did Lock. No one is available. I called all the restaurants; I even called the head of the high school cafeteria.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Claire said.
“Someone said the woman did private catering on the side. I called fourteen places on the Cape, all the way down to Wareham, and nobody can do it. The party is too big, they don’t have the staff, it’s too expensive to get here, we don’t have a prep kitchen . . .”
“It’s not looking good,” Lock said. “To bring someone in from New York, which is what we may have to do, will be prohibitively expensive. And again, the problem of the prep kitchen.” He took a swill of beer. Claire needed a drink herself, but Lock had not poured her one. Claire pointedly poured herself a glass of wine. She looked at Lock and Isabelle, sitting side by side in their perfect summer clothes like two people who had escaped from a Renoir painting. They were a natural pair. Claire could see this suddenly, clearly, without feeling one way or the other about it. They should be together. Isabelle was unmarried, or nearly so; the two of them were much better suited for each other than Claire and Lock. She wasn’t able to follow this train of thought, however, because at that moment, Lock dropped the bomb.
“We need you to try one more time with Siobhan.”
The “we” bugged her royally. “We,” meaning Lock and Isabelle, meaning the people who had slaved over the problem while Claire was at the beach, meaning Nantucket’s Children—it didn’t matter.
“I did,” Claire said. “She said no.”
“We need you to try
again
again. We need you to beg. No food, no drink. Or food and drink that is so expensive, we don’t make one red cent on this gig, after all the work we’ve done. You get it? We’re up against the wall. Desperate.”
“Desperate,” Claire repeated. She looked at Isabelle, who had her head bowed in folded hands, in a posture of prayer. It fell to Claire and Claire alone—again! Would it never end?
The mudroom door slammed. Jason stepped into the kitchen. He looked at Isabelle, then Lock, then Isabelle again. Claire felt a sting of jealousy, but how could Jason keep from staring at Isabelle when she had all that beautiful long hair and the even tan and the thin gold bracelet at her wrist and the perfectly shaped nails polished to look like glass? She was the most put-together woman who had ever graced their house.
“That Jaguar yours?” Jason said.
“The Rover is mine,” she said.
“Jason, this is Isabelle French, my cochair for the gala. Isabelle, my husband, Jason Crispin.”
“Pleasure,” she said, and they clasped hands.
“Jason,” Lock said, standing. Jason and Lock shook hands.
“The Jag is yours?” Jason said.
“It is.”
“Sweet.” Jason eyed their drinks. “Can I get you another? Lock, another beer? Isabelle, more wine?” Jason was suddenly the consummate host.
Claire said, “We’re having a meeting. The caterer for the gala, Genevieve, can’t do it. Her mother is very sick. We have no caterer.”
“You should ask my brother,” Jason said to Lock. “And Siobhan. They’ll do it.”
“I did ask them,” Claire said. “They said no.”
“Ask again,” Jason said, popping a beer. “Or I’ll ask.”
“That would be great,” Isabelle said. “It would honestly be so great if you would ask again. We’re up against the wall.”
“No problem.” Jason clapped Lock on the shoulder. “Are you two staying for dinner? Claire, what’s for dinner?”
Was this really happening? Claire couldn’t be sure. Maybe she was still asleep in her chair on the beach.
“Steaks,” she said. “And corn.” She raised her eyebrows at Lock. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to say something grossly inappropriate. “You’re welcome to stay if you’d like.”
“No, thanks,” Lock said. “I have a dinner at the yacht club.”
“Oh, funny,” Isabelle said. “So do I.”
Funny? When Claire smiled, her teeth were cold. Her face was stiff from the sun and the salt. She wanted Lock and Isabelle out of her house. They could go on to the yacht club for dinner; that was fine. Claire wanted to sit with her kids on the back deck and shuck the corn, and while the corn was boiling and the steak grilling, she wanted to take a long, hot outdoor shower. Jason could call Carter and Siobhan and ask about the catering yet again at Isabelle’s behest, but they would say no and Claire would be able to end her day with a fat, satisfying
I told you so.
Claire smiled at Isabelle and Lock a little more broadly. They weren’t finished with their drinks, but she didn’t care.
“I’ll walk you out,” Claire said.
Isabelle downed her wine in one gulp. “Everything is going to work out,” she said. “I can feel it.” She slid off her stool, and at the door she linked her arm through Lock’s. Lock glanced at Claire. Claire could not look at him.
“I’m sorry we just barged in on you,” Lock said. “I tried calling.”
“I know,” Claire said. “I was avoiding my calls.”
“We’re in a legitimate bind,” he said.
“I realize that,” Claire said.
“We both found your little disappearing act today discouraging and immature,” Isabelle said. “You were at the beach! You should have been helping us. You are the cochair.”
She couldn’t wait for them to leave.
Get in the car,
she thought.
Please! Leave!
“Did you?” she said. “Well, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t sound sorry.”
“I took my son to the beach. I had a nice day.”
Lock cleared his throat. He looked like he wanted to shrug Isabelle’s arm off, but he was too polite.
“The gala is in—”
“I’m well aware of when the gala is, Lock.”
He sighed and searched her face for . . . what? Love? Tenderness? A sign that she was contrite for not sitting on the phone all day, dialing caterers? At that second, she thought,
Run away with Isabelle, since she’s so devoted to the cause!
Lock and Isabelle found her immature and discouraging. What was discouraging was that they had dumped the catering disaster in her lap, and now she would have to own it.