Tate said, “Do you want me to wash their hair?”
“Would you?” he said.
She would, of course she would, she would do anything for Barrett and his two little foot soldiers. It felt happy and domestic—Barrett off to fetch the pajamas, Tate lathering the boys’ hair with Suave shampoo for kids, which smelled like cherry pie filling, sweet and artificial. They cried, the shampoo got in their eyes, the water was too hot and then, when Tate turned it down, too cold. Tucker ran out of the shower and stood in the middle of the dry, dusty square of dirt that was the failed garden. His hair was white with soapsuds and now his feet were muddy.
“Tucker, come back here!” Tate called.
He was crying, and Cameron was whimpering, but at least he was clean and rinsed. Tate wrapped him in a towel. Where was Barrett with the pajamas?
“Tucker!” she said. “Come on, sweetie!”
He cried, rooted to his spot.
Tate ran out to the garden and snatched up Tucker, who wriggled and squirmed in her arms like a greased pig. She stuck him under a spray of water and he howled. Tate worried what Barrett would think, she worried about the neighbors, she worried that a woman not his mother forcing him into the shower would be a topic Tucker would revisit years from now, in therapy. She got him rinsed and in the process became soaked herself, but the warm water felt good to Tate, it felt magical, and she was tempted to strip down and shower herself right then and there, but that really
would
send Tucker into therapy.
She cut the water. There had been only one towel hanging in the shower, not two, so Tucker had no towel.
“Barrett!” Tate said. “Bring a towel, too!”
Barrett didn’t appear. Cameron slunk in the sliding door while Tucker howled, buck naked and wet. Tate picked him up and carried him inside.
Tate called out again for Barrett. There was no answer. She followed Tucker to his room. On her way, she grabbed a towel from the bathroom and dried him off. He stopped crying and wandered over to his train table, naked.
Tate said, “Where do you keep pajamas?”
Tucker pointed to a row of hooks. Pajamas!
Tate got both kids dressed and collected the wet towels. She felt like she had just run an obstacle course. Where was Barrett?
Cameron walked in and said, “I’m hungry.”
Tate said, “We’re getting dinner. Hold on.”
She wandered up to the living room. If Barrett was on the deck with that beer, she was going to strangle him. But the living room was deserted, and the deck was empty. Tate went back outside to the shower, thinking maybe they’d missed each other somehow, but he wasn’t there. She hung the towels from the clothesline like a good wife.
“Barrett?” she called. Nothing.
She wandered back into the house and checked on the boys, who were playing with Tucker’s trains. “Have you seen your dad?”
Cameron said, “I’m hungry.”
Tate moved down the hall to Barrett’s bedroom. If he’d fallen asleep on top of his bed, she was going to strangle him.
The door to his bedroom was closed. She tried the knob; it was locked. She knocked. “Barrett?” She could hear him talking. He was on the phone. She knocked again. He cracked open the door, pointed to the phone at his ear, then closed the door again. She heard him say, “Anita, listen. Listen to me.”
She walked back down the hallway and sat on the bottom step of the stairs. She thought about Chess, mixing up the lime and chili marinade, pouring it over the pearly white swordfish steaks, flipping the fish to make sure both sides were evenly coated. She thought about Chess in her blue crocheted cap, wearing Birdie’s denim apron, moving about the small, campy kitchen with a sense of purpose for the first time in weeks. Was Chess smiling, whistling, ordering Birdie and India around like minions?
Tate tried not to cry.
Barrett stayed on the phone with Anita Fullin for nearly an hour. Tate, in the meantime, made the boys dinner: microwaved hot dogs cut into coins the way they liked them, served with ketchup. Each kid got a handful of pretzel Goldfish and a container of applesauce. They got Hershey’s syrup in their milk because Tate was in charge. They ate dinner hungrily and happily, and Tate tried to conceal her growing anger and anxiety each minute Barrett was on the phone. What could he and Anita be talking about? Their relationship had moved out of bounds. Other caretakers didn’t talk to their clients for an hour or more behind closed and locked doors, of this Tate was certain.
After dinner, Tate presented both kids with a pudding cup topped with a squiggle of whipped cream from the can.
Tucker said, “I like you.”
Cameron said, “Where’s Dad?”
When Barrett got off the phone, it was ten minutes to eight. He clapped his hands and used a cheerful, in-charge voice.
Where are my lieutenants?
Tate and the kids were on the sofa watching an episode of
Go, Diego, Go!
Tucker was nodding off in the crook of Tate’s arm. Cameron didn’t move his eyes from the screen.
Barrett touched Tate’s shoulder. She didn’t move her eyes from the screen either. Diego was trying to rescue a baby jaguar. If she looked at Barrett, she would growl. If she opened her mouth, she would bite him.
“I’m sorry that took so long,” he said. He lifted Tucker up. “Let me put him to bed. I’ll be right back.”
Tate said, “When this is over, Cam, we have to go brush our teeth.”
“Okay,” Cameron said.
Tate oversaw the teeth brushing. She said to Cameron, “Did you go to the dentist yesterday?”
“Yes,” he said. “I got a new toothbrush!” He held it up, grinning. So Barrett hadn’t lied about the dentist. Tate felt strangely disappointed.
Cameron climbed into bed and Tate read him three stories. She was a wonderful mother. She kissed Cameron on the forehead, turned on the nightlight, and left the door open six inches, the way he liked it. There was an enormous sense of accomplishment in getting a child to sleep.
Tate poked her head into Tucker’s room. Tucker was asleep, and Barrett was snoring beside him. It was impossible to be mad—the two of them were adorable—but she was mad. She didn’t wake Barrett up.
She walked upstairs, opened a beer for herself, and foraged through the pantry until she found a can of Spanish peanuts. She settled on the sofa and turned on the TV. This was a luxury. She could watch any of her shows on HBO or Showtime; she could get sucked into the dramas of her old life—all fictional—and forget the dramas of her new life. But instead, she found the Red Sox—playing the Yankees!—and she was happy with that.
She picked up one of the photographs of Stephanie: a picture of her in a sundress. It had been taken from across a table, it looked like, at a restaurant maybe. Steph was sunburned, smiling, happy.
Had she ever had to deal with Anita Fullin–related nonsense? If so, had she left a handbook?
Tate fell asleep on the sofa with the TV on. She had worked her way through three Coronas and half the can of peanuts. When Barrett woke her up at 1:10, the evidence was on the coffee table: empty bottles, the open can of peanuts, Steph’s picture.
“Hey,” he said. He lifted her legs, sat down, put her legs in his lap.
“Hey,” she said. She wasn’t mad anymore. She was too tired to be mad.
“I’m sorry about the phone call,” he said.
Tate was silent. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
“I have some explaining to do,” he said.
She stared at him in the dark. What was he going to say?
“Anita wanted to buy your aunt’s sculpture. The little one in the bedroom that we saw the other day.”
“Roger?”
“Roger,” Barrett said. “She really wanted to buy it. And the thing is, when Anita decides she wants to buy something, it takes on incredible importance. She obsesses about it. Because she has nothing else to do. No job, I mean, and no kids. Acquiring things is her life’s purpose.”
Tate wanted to comment on how sad and pathetic this was, but there was no need.
“So anyway, I asked your aunt. I told her Anita wanted to buy Roger for fifty thousand dollars and would probably go to seventy-five. But your aunt said no. She’s not going to sell it at all.”
“She has plenty of money,” Tate said. “And Roger belongs on Tuckernuck.”
“Right. Any other person would understand that. But not Anita. She isn’t used to being turned down. She isn’t used to encountering things that aren’t for sale because what’s left in the world anymore that isn’t for sale?”
“She’s upset because she can’t buy Roger?” Tate said.
“Devastated,” Barrett said. “And you have to know Anita. She sees it as your aunt—and you, the four of you on Tuckernuck—having something that she can’t have. And she’s jealous of you for other reasons—because I come over twice a day, because I’m fond of your family, because you and I are dating. So she pulled a power play the other night and begged me to come for the barbecue. She said she’d pay me overtime, knowing that I could never turn that kind of money down. Then she made me promise to bring her to Tuckernuck the following day. I wish you could understand how manipulative she is. She doesn’t leave room for me to say no.”
“Have you slept with her?” Tate asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m sure you find that hard to believe, but the answer is no. I am not attracted to Anita. She is pushy and inappropriate and a deeply sad and empty person.”
“Okay,” Tate said. “So that was the whole phone call? Anita being upset about not being able to buy Roger, and you explaining, and… what? Comforting her?”
“No,” Barrett said. “Not exactly.”
“So what else?” Tate said.
“She offered me a job,” Barrett said.
“You have a job. You own a business.”
Barrett sighed. “She offered me basically three times what I make in a year, plus health insurance, to work for her only.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Work for her, here on Nantucket? Or do you have to go to New York, too?”
“Here on Nantucket,” he said. “I would do everything—oversee the house, the gardens, the boats, the cars. I would manage everything and everyone, get them a driver, make their dinner reservations, schedule their flights, make sure the newspapers are delivered, order the flowers, oversee the maids. I would be the house manager, the caretaker, their personal assistant.”
“Would you still work for us?” Tate said. “Or any of your other clients? The AuClaires?”
Barrett shook his head. “Only the Fullins.”
“Is this what you want?”
“It can’t be about what I want,” Barrett said. “They gave me
Girlfriend;
they could take her back. And another thing you don’t know is that I borrowed a lot of money from Roman and Anita when Steph was sick. A
lot
of money. Two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Holy shit,” Tate said.
“I needed it to pay the private nurses,” Barrett said. “So we could keep Steph at home at the end.”
“Oh,” Tate said.
“I was going to go to the bank and take out a second mortgage,” he said, “but Anita offered. She said I could pay her back whenever I wanted. I didn’t have to worry about defaulting and losing the house.”
“Okay,” Tate said.
“It was worth it,” Barrett said. “Even if I have to take this job and give up my business, it was worth it to have Steph at home.”
Tate looked at the photograph of Steph, smiling.
Of course,
she should say.
Of course you’re indebted to Anita Fullin for the rest of your life because she gave you
Girlfriend
as a bonus, and she lent you the money that allowed you to keep your dying wife at home.
But this wasn’t true.
“It’s blackmail,” Tate said. “Or something like that.”
“I can’t turn down the money,” Barrett said. “Or the health insurance. I have two kids.”
“I know you have two kids,” Tate said. “I bathed them and dressed them and fed them while you were on the phone.”
“Tate…”
“She’s trying to buy you,” Tate said. “Tell her you’re not for sale. Tell her she’s fired. You don’t want her for a client anymore.”
He laughed, but not nicely. “And what am I supposed to do for money? And what about my debt? You can tell me she’s trying to buy me, and you’re right, she is, but I’m not a wealthy man, I wasn’t born with money, I didn’t grow up in New Canaan with a summer home on Tuckernuck. I am me, I need money. I’m taking this job, Tate, because I have no choice.”
She wasn’t buying it. “You do have a choice. You can choose to work for other clients. You can pay Anita back steadily or take out that second mortgage and pay her back all at once. I can see how you think working for Anita would be easier. It’s the quick fix and there will be more money. But you will end up paying out more in the end. You’ll be paying out your integrity. And your freedom.”
Barrett stood up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?”
“Good night,” he said.
At the first light of dawn, Tate sneaked down to Barrett’s room and made love to him before he was fully awake. He accepted her, welcomed her, cherished her; she could feel the love in his touch. Desperation. Apology. Afterward, she cried on his chest. She was going to lose him.
D
ay twenty.
Plans for the wedding were taking over my life. My mother was insisting on a floating island in her pond; she’d had a dream about it and she was determined to make it a reality. My father didn’t want to pay for a floating island. I stepped in, I pleaded my mother’s case, I pretended I really did want a floating island, though I couldn’t have cared less. My father, perhaps, realized I couldn’t have cared less, but he relented. I hung up the phone, then stared at it, thinking not only did I not care about the floating island, but I didn’t care about any of the wedding plans.
I didn’t want to get married.
I knew Nick was back in New York because Michael had told me. Evelyn wanted to have a family dinner honoring Nick’s return, celebrating his record deal. She wanted to have it at the country club.