By the end of the day, the women were exhausted and Meg was practically shell-shocked. They ordered a pizza and collapsed in front of a romantic comedy DVD.
Later, on their way to bed, Arden eyed Meg and said, “About your pajamas …”
Meg held up her hand. “No more. I need some time to adjust.”
From behind Arden, Jenny joked, “Once Liam sees the new Meg, she won’t have time to put on pajamas.”
In order to prepare the arts coalition site, Tim and Jenny had to interview and photograph a number of visual and performing artists, as well as visit local art studios and galleries and meet the owners. The interviews they did on their own, dividing up the tasks, and they prepared a questionnaire for the artists and the gallery owners to fill out and submit. But they needed to see some of the work to get a sense of what the artists would prefer for their site, and they needed some brilliant photographs. Most of their professional collaboration thus far had been by e-mail or phone, but viewing and documenting local artists’ work meant Jenny and Tim had to actually spend time together. They agreed to meet on Friday night, the night most art galleries had their openings.
At five o’clock, Jenny was paralyzed in front of the bathroom mirror as Arden swept in wearing a fabulous tight white cocktail dress.
“I’m off to the library gala with Palmer. What are you—what
are
you doing?”
“I look like a boy.” Jenny stared at her image with huge frightened eyes. This was one of the rare times when she wished she knew something about her biological father. Had he been ugly or handsome?
“You could never look like a boy. You haven’t worried about it before.”
“I know. I don’t know why I’m so anxious tonight. I guess because Meg is so stacked. Plus, I’m going to see all those artists.”
Arden inspected Jenny’s face. “What did you wear when you went out with Bjorn?”
“Bjorn liked everything natural. We usually were on a boat or swimming.”
“Okay. Got it. Tonight, artists.” Arden cocked her head. “Take off the black tee, put on your sequined tank top.”
Jenny went into the bedroom, tossed off one shirt, pulled on the multicolored tank.
“Great. I’ve got just the earrings. Stay there.” Arden went to her room, returning with long dangling gold earrings that hung almost to Jenny’s shoulders. “Put these on. Now sit on the bed and hold still.” Deftly, she brushed on eye shadow, bronzer, blush, and lip gloss. “Now look.”
“Wow,” Jenny breathed. “What a change. Thanks a lot. How did you do that?”
“Tomorrow. I’ve got to go. Have fun.” Arden rushed out.
Jenny dropped her digital camera into a small clutch bag and headed out, walking into town to meet Tim at the East End art gallery. She didn’t miss the admiring looks shot her way as she passed, and her spirits lifted. On Nantucket, the arts group was lively and sophisticated, internationally famous and edgy. The
East End Gallery had once been a fisherman’s shack. Tonight it would be crowded with millionaire art connoisseurs.
The gallery was already packed by the time Jenny arrived. Inside the shack, the artwork was displayed—tonight paintings by Gay Held and Michael J. Moore. Outside, tables were set up with a tuxedoed bartender pouring drinks and another laden with cleverly exotic finger foods.
“Well, hey.” A stranger wearing bright yellow linen slacks and a patchwork blazer approached Jenny. “You look like you could use a drink.”
The guy was good-looking enough and he knew it. Jenny quickly decided he was a creep. “Sorry, I’m busy.” She stepped away.
Inside the gallery, she took time to study the paintings and took several shots of the crush of people grouped in front of the artwork.
“So you are working.” Tim squeezed through the crowd to stand next to her.
“Of course,” Jenny retorted, puzzled.
“Your friend in the fluorescent slacks didn’t think so.”
Jenny glared. “What’s your problem?”
“Well, you don’t look exactly professional,” Tim said accusingly.
“Well, you do sound exactly like an asshole!” Jenny shot back, nearly shouting to be heard in the crowd. She cold-shouldered him and pushed her way between partiers to get out to the fresh air. For some reason, his words had upset her. She thought she was going to cry.
She stood in line to get a glass of white wine. The evening was still hot, the sun only slightly lower on the horizon. The throng pushing in and out of the gallery made her glad she’d worn the tank top.
Deciding to act professional even if she didn’t look it, she stepped back and began to snap photos.
Tim came up to her. He did look professional, in a crisp white shirt and a navy blazer. “I’m sorry,” he said. When she didn’t respond, he continued, “Really. I apologize. I don’t even know why I said that.”
“It’s fine,” Jenny told him coldly. “What do you think of the show?”
“It’s great. In fact, I saw a picture by Gay Held that should be on the ‘Paintings’ link of the site.”
“The one called
Monomoy
?” Jenny asked.
“Yeah, I think so. How did you know?”
“It’s my favorite. Kind of hard-edged, not all dreamy.”
Tim took her arm. “Come on. Let’s be sure it’s the same one.”
He led her into the gallery again. The crowd was thinning out so they were able to stand side by side, looking at the painting.
“Yeah,” Jenny said. “That’s the one.”
“I’ve already got a quote from Gay about her work.” Tim held up his pad. “Listen to this. ‘The horizon line is a consistent theme in my work. It represents a place of rest and the notion of infinite beginning.’ ”
“ ‘ “A place of rest and the notion of infinite beginning,” ’ ” Jenny repeated. “What a fabulous quote. That’s what Nantucket is for people.”
Tim smiled at her, and she smiled back. Collaborators. With an infinite beginning.
Arden had drawn up an Excel spreadsheet of island events, and all that July, she volunteered to help with fund-raisers—the Maria Mitchell Association Science Museum, the Nantucket Historical Association Whaling Museum, A Safe Place, the Atheneum, the
Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum. Willing to do any job, no matter how small or inelegant, she got to know all sorts of people, from the locals on the island to the wealthiest summer residents. She discovered she had a talent for simplifying events as well as houses.
“Don’t set the bar up right here,” she suggested sweetly to a trustee as she helped ready a party for The Homestead in the backyard of a brilliant gardener. “Put it over by the roses, so people aren’t clogged in a bottleneck just getting in. This way, too, they’ll get to see more of this magnificent place and they’ll be happier, more likely to donate.”
“Don’t spend your money on scotch and bourbon,” she told a committeewoman planning a party for a private school fund-raiser. “Most of your guests are young parents. Only older people drink the hard stuff. The young marrieds want wine, maybe some Prosecco, even beer. They’ve been out on the water all day, they’re stopping by here on their way to dinner, they have little kids who’ll wake them at six tomorrow, they don’t want to get bombed.”
Because she was a minor celebrity herself, people listened and took her advice. She became sought after. By the end of July, her cell phone and e-mail were stuffed with messages.
She piled up guests for her show.
The Safe Place benefit was held at a benefactor’s house on the cliff overlooking the gleaming sweep of the harbor. A large wooden deck with benches built into the railings extended into the green grassy lawn. Both deck and lawn were packed with women in silk, satin, and sparkling gems. Arden wore her fuchsia dress that night, the one with a short, flouncy skirt and a diamanté flower at the waist. Tight, brief, flashy, it was dynamite on her and she knew it.
Palmer had complimented her on it when he picked her up for the evening, but now as he approached her over the deck, his smile was amused.
“Arden,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Winkie Linden.”
Arden’s breath caught in her throat. Winkie Linden was the widow of a former Massachusetts senator, dressed as always in her trademark black with a necklace of diamonds and pearls. Winkie herself was a jewel, a grande dame of eighty with pearly white skin, a nose like an eagle, and brilliant blue eyes. Briefly, she assessed Arden in her showy frock, and then, to Arden’s relief, she held out her hand.
“I know about your show, Miss Randall. I’ve been meaning to contact you. I’ve got a rambling old summer house that’s been in the Linden family for years. The Linden Society has taken all they consider relevant to their museum, but the house is still absolutely crammed with dusty old artifacts that don’t leave room for anything new. I wonder, is this a project you could work with?”
Stunned, Arden replied, “I think so. Tell me more.”
“Oh dear. Let’s see. Old portraits of ancestors who were senators in Massachusetts in the 1800s. My grandmother’s wedding gown. An early set of gardener’s tools. Even”—Winkie smiled—“corsets and flapper dresses.”
Arden nearly clapped her hands. “Oh, what fun. Yes, absolutely, we could do something on
Simplify This
. It sounds like we could do a miniseries and tie it in with our historical show,
Nest Eggs
.”
“A miniseries?” Winkie’s smile broadened. “What a pleasant idea.”
“When could I come talk with you about it?” Arden asked. She took the widow’s information just as another one of the late senator’s admirers approached to introduce Mrs. Linden to his family.
“Well done,” Palmer whispered to Arden as he strolled down to the lawn with her.
“You brought her to me,” Arden told him. “Thank you for that.”
“ ‘You can lead a horse to water,’ and so on,” Palmer replied. “If she hadn’t taken to you, she would have cut you dead. She’s always been that way, makes snap decisions and acts on them. Obviously, she liked you.”
“I’m surprised,” Arden said. “This dress is rather flashy.”
“You look very nice in that dress,” Palmer told her.
“Nice?”
Arden challenged.
“Would you like a stronger response?” Palmer challenged back.
An almost-famous singer, young and radiant, sidled up to Palmer. Placing a ring-studded hand on his arm, she said in a syrupy voice, “Thank you so much, Mr. White, for getting me that gig on Channel Six.”
Arden arched a knowing eyebrow at Palmer and drifted away, leaving Palmer in the young woman’s eager hands.
Arden didn’t want to intrude on Zoey’s territory, but could she help it if some younger people invited her to simplify their homes? When, at another benefit, Ludmila Soares, the fourth and most exotic wife of the owner of a major football team, confessed she was overwhelmed with organizing the summer home at the same time she took care of her two-year-old while she was five months pregnant, how could Arden not offer to help?
Ludmila, who had been a model, adored being on camera and was thrilled to show off her child and the seven-thousand-square-foot house she and her husband spent two weeks in every year. Another big catch for Arden.
To her delight, Arden was also making friends on the island with some of the clever businesswomen who ran the poshest shops in town. She didn’t want to take the time to go to Boston to search for clothes to wear to the galas, parties, dances, and cocktail hours, so she stopped in at Zero Main to have Noel fix her up, and frequently drifted into Moon Shell Beach, where she
got to know Lexi Laney, whose sensual silks and drifting shawls were not the sort of thing Arden could wear on television, but felt divine on hot summer nights. After observing the women who clustered in Lexi’s store, Arden asked Lexi if she could take her out to dinner.
“Consider it business,” Arden told Lexi, although she sensed a kindred spirit in the delightful workingwoman.
One late July evening, at a restaurant down by the harbor, Lexi and Arden settled by a window, ordered, then sat back to enjoy their vodka tonics.
“Business first,” Arden said frankly. “I have a show in Boston—”
“Of course.
Simplify This
. I watch it all the time.”
“I knew I liked you.” Arden laughed. “I’m wondering if you have any suggestions for people with summer homes that might need an organizational touch.”
Lexi sipped her drink. “Maybe. Let me think about it, okay? I have a question for you.”
“Oh?”
“What’s the deal with you and Tim Robinson?”
Arden let her gaze drift out over the boat basin, where yachts tied up to the docks bobbed in the calm water. “I go out sailing with him now and then. He’s handsome, he’s nice, he’s smart—”
“But no chemistry, right?”
Arden checked Lexi’s face. “Right. How do you know? Oh, are you interested in him?”
Lexi laughed. “Not at all.” She held out her hand. “Haven’t you noticed this?” She waggled a twinkling engagement ring. “I’m going to marry Tris Chandler. He runs a boatyard out in Madaket, and you’ve probably seen his teenage daughter, Jewel, in my shop. Anyway, yeah, I’ve seen you out with Tim on the water. That’s why I asked.”
“We’re just friends,” Arden said. “I’ve been too busy working to think of anything like romance.”
“What about Palmer White?”
Shocked, Arden barked with laughter. “You do notice things, don’t you?”
Lexi lifted an elegant winged eyebrow. “I’ve seen you at a lot of parties recently. Sometimes you’re with Palmer. He’s obviously hot for you.”
“He’s egotistical and insolent.”
“Yeah, like Tommy Lee Jones with a tasty touch of George Clooney. He’s a
man
, honey.”
Arden sighed. “You’re right. Palmer is an actual grown-up in a world of overgrown boys. He’s powerful; he’s used to getting his own way. I suppose he’s sexy, too … but really, I don’t want to get involved.”
“Why not? How old are you?”
“I’m thirty-four. No, I haven’t been married. No, I don’t want children. I relish my career. The funny thing is,” she added thoughtfully, “my two sisters are thirty-one and they haven’t been married yet, either. Our father was Rory Randall—”
“I remember Rory. What a dreamboat. Handsome, and he could charm the birds off the trees.”
“He could charm women into bed,” Arden added cynically. “I suppose having him for a father made all three of us shy of trusting men.”