Tate heard footsteps and turned to see Barrett coming up the steps with the bags.
“Third floor?” he said.
“You guessed it,” Tate said. “Kids sleep in the attic.” She reached for her bag.
“Allow me,” he said.
“You’ve done so much already,” Tate said. “The place looks amazing.”
“I hope you weren’t expecting Jacuzzi tubs and granite countertops,” he said. “I think maybe your mother was…”
“No, she wasn’t,” Tate said.
“It cost a fortune just to get the place back to zero,” Barrett said. He took the narrow stairway to the attic, and Tate followed him. The attic was, as ever, hot and gloomy, ventilated by one small window, too high up to provide any breeze. The attic slept six: there were two double beds and a set of bunks. The idea was that all five cousins (Cousins cousins and Bishop cousins) could sleep here at once if need be, though the three Bishop boys—Billy, Teddy, and Ethan—had preferred to sleep downstairs on the screened-in porch. Easier to sneak beer from the icebox and piss in the yard, Tate supposed. The screened-in porch was awful in rain, so the attic beds had gotten used in inclement weather. Tate noticed a large cardboard box from Pottery Barn at the foot of the bunks. She peeked inside and found brand-new summer linens in bright sherbet hues.
“What’s this?” Tate said. The sheets and blankets of the Tuckernuck house were supposed to be threadbare and as full of holes as Charlie Brown’s Halloween costume—that was part of the charm. “Does UPS deliver here?”
“They deliver to me. I brought them over last week. Your mother ordered them. She wants you to be comfortable, she said.”
“I don’t need six hundred thread count to be comfortable,” Tate said. She sat on the double bed that had traditionally been hers, the one farther from the door (Chess had a bladder the size of a golf ball, and she needed to be closer to the door, too, to escape from the bats).
“The other sheets
were
really bad,” Barrett was saying. “I used them as drop cloths when I painted downstairs.”
Tate took a deep lungful of the stuffy attic air. “So how
are
you, Barrett Lee?” she said. She had her own business, two hundred thousand dollars in the bank, a condo, a plasma TV, sixteen pairs of True Religion jeans, and a million frequent-flier miles. She was going to be direct with Barrett Lee.
He laughed, as though she were telling a joke. “Ha!” His blue eyes settled on her for one uncertain second, and she thought—ecstatically!—that he was going to say something she could muse over later. Perhaps tell her how great she looked. He took off his sunglasses, ran a hand through his sandy hair, replaced his sunglasses on top of his head.
He said, “I better get the rest of the stuff.” And he disappeared down the stairs.
Tate wondered if she should be offended. Barrett Lee was no more interested in her now than he had been at eighteen.
Yet!
Tate told herself. After all, this was only the first hour of the first day. There was plenty of time.
S
he had made a terrible mistake in coming.
And goddamn it, it wasn’t
like
her to have lapses in reason. She was the only person whose judgment she trusted. She, India Bishop, made decisions based on the one thing that had never failed her: her common sense. She didn’t compromise her standards; she didn’t get “talked into” things. So what was she
doing
here?
India was the widow of one of America’s premier sculptors and the mother of three handsome and successful sons. At one time, her wife- and motherhood had been her entire identity. But then Bill shot himself in the head (fifteen years ago now) and the boys grew up, graduated from college, embarked on careers. Billy was married and expecting his own child, a boy, to be named after his father (of course), at the end of the summer. The boys needed India less and less often, and that was as it should be. India had been free to reinvent herself. She had become the most revered woman on the arts scene in the city of Philadelphia. She was a curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts—which was not only a museum but a university—and she consulted for the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Barnes Foundation. There were those people (small-minded, emotionally one-dimensional people) who believed India had acquired her position and accolades solely because she was Bill Bishop’s widow. And while it was true that Bill’s far-reaching fame had allowed India to know all the right people, and while it was true that everyone in the City of Brotherly Love and its bucolic suburbs felt sympathy for India after Bill’s suicide, these two things did not a brilliant curator make. India held a master’s degree in art history from the University of Pennsylvania. She had traveled the world with Bill—to Peru and South Africa, Bombay, Zanzibar, Morocco, Copenhagen, Rome, Paris, Dublin, Stockholm, Shanghai—and in each place, she was exposed to art in its many forms. Plus, India was smart—in an IQ way and in a practical way and in a social way. She dressed well, she said the right things to the right people, she drank white Burgundies and listened to Mahler. She used the money from Bill’s estate—and there was a fuckload of it—to surround herself with exquisite things (a low-slung Mercedes convertible, Jonathan Adler lamps, a slender Patek Philippe, first editions of
Madame Bovary
and
Anna Karenina,
season tickets to the Pennsylvania Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra). Success had not been given to her out of pity. She had earned it.
But enough tooting her own horn. Today, she should be scolded! Today, she had messed up. She had agreed to spend a month on Tuckernuck, an island the size of Central Park. It was as remote as one of Jupiter’s moons, and she would be here for thirty &%$# days! (India loved to swear, a bad habit learned from Bill that she had not shed, although she knew Birdie abhorred it.) Under the best circumstances, when Bill’s psyche had been healthy and the boys were good ages for this kind of outward-bound adventure, they had stayed on Tuckernuck for two weeks. When India had come the two summers following Bill’s death, she hadn’t been able to last more than five days.
So what was she
doing
here?
India had fielded Birdie’s phone call at a weak moment. India had, only hours before, discovered that the most promising young artist at PAFA, Tallulah Simpson, had withdrawn from the four-year certificate program and absconded with her considerable talent to Parsons in New York. Tallulah Simpson, who was known throughout PAFA as “Lula,” was a protégé of India’s, and not only a protégé but a friend, and not only a friend but an intimate friend. And yes, it did get more complicated than that, and yes, something had transpired between Lula and India that had, most likely, instigated Lula’s defection to PAFA’s biggest rival. If Lula made what had happened public, it would become a scandal. The news of Lula’s withdrawal came as a shock to India—a literal, hair-raising, body-buzzing, 150-volt
shock
—but she hadn’t let on that this was the case. When India’s secretary, Ainslie, delivered the news, gently, along with India’s usual latte, India didn’t flinch, or she flinched only a little. (She couldn’t be taken by surprise ever again, she believed, after receiving the news that her husband had put a bullet in his brain.) India had to pretend that she had seen this coming. She had to be nonchalant and dismissive, when inside she was hurt and frightened, and filled with regret.
PAFA was on fire: Lula’s departure was all anyone wanted to talk about. India had quietly closed her office door and smoked ten cigarettes while she tried to figure out what to do. Should she contact Lula? Meet her for a drink at El Vez—or somewhere in New York? Should she go to Virgil Seversen, the director of the academy, and explain what had happened? Should she go over Virgil’s head, to her ultimate boss, Spencer Frost, president of the board of directors? India’s actions had been beyond reproach. She had, even in the most intense moments with Lula, followed her doctrine of impeccable behavior. But Lula was young (twenty-six), she was fiery, she was an artist, and she had fallen madly in love with India. Who knew how she would present things?
The hallowed halls and galleries of PAFA, which for the years since Bill’s death had served as India’s inspiration and her refuge, was now a field of land mines. Was Virgil Seversen looking at her oddly? Did Ainslie suspect? Had Lula posted gossip on Facebook? Foremost on India’s mind when she fielded Birdie’s phone call was how to escape the awkwardness of her present situation, and there was Birdie with the answer: Tuckernuck. India couldn’t hope to get much farther away than Tuckernuck. Birdie had been convincing: Chess needed her. And so, India agreed. A tragically dead ex-fiancé fell exactly within India’s sphere of emotional expertise; she
could
help. She had more than enough vacation time stored up; summers at PAFA were slow. India would connect with people she loved but didn’t see often. Her sister. Her sister’s daughters.
Her intentions had been good, and they had made sense at the time, but the reality was, India couldn’t stay here. She had never loved Tuckernuck the way Birdie did—and that was why her parents had left the house to Birdie and given India the equivalent in cash. India was too urban for Tuckernuck. She needed action. She needed cappuccino.
They sat around the picnic table writing up a grocery list for Barrett Lee. Barrett Lee was as ruggedly handsome as his father had been at that age. India looked between Chess and Tate; one of them would snag him. Which one?
“Bread,” Birdie said. “Milk. Special K. Sugar. Blueberries, American cheese, saltines.” She was dictating for Tate, who was writing everything down.
“American cheese?” India said. “Saltines? Let’s think like grown women here. When the kids were small, we bought American cheese and saltines, but now we can get camembert and a baguette. And a stick of good Italian salami. That, and some nice, ripe apricots and a pint of raspberries and half a dozen green figs.”
Birdie looked at India. India thought,
Five days from now is Wednesday. Can I make it to Wednesday?
She had not had a cigarette since leaving Philadelphia, and her body was craving nicotine at red-alert levels. She had a carton of Benson and Hedges upstairs in her suitcase. As soon as possible, she would sneak one.
“You’re right,” Birdie said. “We can eat figs and cheese if we want to. And we should get some wine.”
“God, yes,” India said.
“Chess?” Birdie said. “Is there anything
you
want?”
Chess shrugged. India recognized the slump to her shoulders, the far-off expression. Here they were, wrapped up in the Camp Fire girl task of making a list of provisions, and Chess couldn’t have cared less. India knew all too well how Chess felt. India hadn’t shaved her head after Bill died, but she had done other self-destructive things: She had subsisted on Diet Coke and toast for months, until she fainted behind the wheel of her car (thankfully, she was in her driveway). She had refused to return the lawyer’s calls until her bank account was overdrawn and a check for Ethan’s high school football uniform bounced. She and Chess would have a long, frank talk before India escaped this barren hell, and India would tell her… what?
You will survive. This will pass, like absolutely everything else.
But right now, all India wanted was a smoke. She was a bad girl.
“Bluefish pâté,” Birdie said. “A bag of those Tuscan rosemary crackers. Lobster salad, butter lettuce, corn on the cob, aluminum foil.”
India removed her reading glasses. They had been Bill’s and were, without exception, her most valued personal possession. She regarded their Brad Pitt boy Friday. “Barrett,” she said, “are you married?”
Birdie stopped her litany. Tate’s cheeks flared an attractive pink.
“Um, no. Not anymore.”
“Divorced?” India said.
“No,” Barrett said. “See… uh, it’s tough. My wife, Stephanie? She died. She had Lou Gehrig’s disease?” The way he said it made it sound like a question. India nodded, and thought,
Ooooh, Lou Gehrig’s disease. The worst way to go.
“She died two years ago. A little more than two years.”
Everyone at the table was silent. India felt like an ass for asking. This was further proof that she didn’t belong here. She never put her foot in her mouth; she never made other people uncomfortable. Now, she wanted to hide under the table. Here she had just crowned herself Queen of the Widows, with a deep emotional reservoir for those who had lost a loved one, and she had managed to fry Barrett like a bug under a magnifying glass.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” she said. “Do you have children?”
“Two boys, five and three.”
“Names?”
“Cameron and Tucker. Tucker after Tuckernuck.”
“Wonderful,” India said. “I have a particular fondness for little boys! You’ll bring them sometime? So we can meet them?”
“Maybe,” he said. “They’re with my mom during the day and Stephanie’s parents in Chatham every other weekend.” He was quiet for a second, looking off at the water. “Yeah, I’ll bring them over sometime.”
There was silence then; it was either respectful or awkward, India couldn’t quite tell. The girls were no help. Chess was picking at a knothole in the picnic table, and Tate stared at Barrett the only way one could stare at him—with sympathy and wonder.
“Are we done with the list, Birdie?” India said. “There’s so much stuff here, Barrett’s boat is going to sink.”
“No worries,” Barrett said. “Finish the list. I’ll have everything back here later this afternoon.”
India let out a breath. Having Barrett Lee around would make things bearable. He would be their romantic hero this summer the way Chuck Lee had been her and Birdie’s romantic hero in the late sixties. Chuck Lee had been India’s initiation to a certain kind of man; he had a crew cut and a tattoo and a thick New England accent. India had desired him before she even knew what desire was. Now here was his son: handsome and helpful and tragically widowed. Barrett Lee and his surprising revelation energized her.