Winter Storms (9 page)

Norah had been surprised to hear from Jennifer, or possibly she had only been acting surprised. She knows Jennifer is an addict, and as much as Jennifer would like to blame Norah and think her evil, Jennifer can't blame anyone but herself. She wishes she had found a dealer who didn't know her; the connection between her and Norah makes her very uneasy. When Jennifer called two days ago to say she would be on the island, Norah said, “Family vacation?”

Without thinking, Jennifer said, “Margaret is getting married, actually.”

“Really?” Norah said. She then pressed Jennifer for details, and what could Jennifer do but comply? Dr. Drake Carroll, pediatric neurosurgeon, ceremony on the beach at Eel Point, Kelley giving Margaret away. It was confidential information—no one wanted the paparazzi to show up—but Margaret had once been Norah's mother-in-law, and if Jennifer remembered correctly, Norah had been fond of Margaret. And Margaret had been kind and gracious with Norah because Margaret was kind and gracious with everyone.

“Wow,” Norah said wistfully. “I bet it will be a beautiful wedding.”

Jennifer actually felt bad that Norah hadn't been invited—
which was crazy. The only thing that could confuse and frustrate you more than family was… former family.

Jennifer jogs into the driveway of the Vale family compound at five minutes to nine. Jennifer has been here only once, years and years earlier, when Kevin and Norah were still married. The compound is off Hooper Farm Road—it's mid-island, where the island businesses are and where the locals live. There are four vehicles in the driveway: Norah's black truck; an old Jeep Wagoneer, its bumper plastered with beach stickers; and two old taxis, one of which is on blocks, that Jennifer knows used to belong to Norah's parents. Also in the driveway are two rusted-out bikes, a sun-bleached Big Wheel, half of a brass bed, a pile of scallop shells that stinks to high heaven, and a deflated kiddie pool.

A German shepherd fights its chain in the backyard, barking an announcement of Jennifer Barrett Quinn's arrival at the low point in her life. She puts her hands on her hips and bends in half to catch her breath. She closes her eyes, but even the black is splotched blood red.
Turn around,
she thinks.
You don't need the drugs.

She does need the drugs.

Norah comes bouncing out of the house wearing… here, Jennifer blinks. Norah is wearing a Lilly Pulitzer shift dress. It's light pink patterned with hot-pink flamingos playing croquet and it has white curlicue appliqué down the front that looks like icing on a birthday cake. The neckline is high enough to cover Norah's terrifying python tattoo. Norah's hair is in a French braid and she's wearing pearl earrings and white Jack Rogers sandals. The transformation of Norah Vale is complete; she is indistinguishable from any of the women who lean over the railing of the party yacht
Belle
holding gin and tonics.

“You look great,” Jennifer says.

“Thanks,” Norah says. She gives Jennifer a shy smile. “I'm having lunch with one of my clients at the Wauwinet today.”

This statement pulls Jennifer up short. The Wauwinet! Even Jennifer and Patrick don't splurge on lunch at the Wauwinet. And when Norah says “client,” she means… another woman she sells drugs to, right? It seems wrong somehow. Jennifer is an interior designer;
she
has clients. Then Jennifer realizes that, in some ways, she and Norah are doing the same thing. Jennifer is selling women Persian rugs and nautical prints, antique chests and silk drapes—things they don't need but that they buy for the high, she supposes, the high of owning beautiful things.

Jennifer can't dwell on this.
She
is not a drug dealer. And yet, any favorable comparison of herself with Norah fails at
this moment. Norah looks successful and put together, whereas
Jennifer looks like a sweating, jonesing junkie.

She pulls a wad of cash out of the back zipped pocket of her Lululemon shorts. “Here you go.”

Norah hands over the pills, this time in a jar of multivitamins. Smart girl; she knows Jennifer is going back to the inn.

Jennifer takes the pills and feels a wave of relief and elation and all-is-right-with-the-world. Sixty pills.

Norah's eyes float over Jennifer's right shoulder and before Jennifer can do anything more than blink, Norah turns and runs.

Jennifer swivels her head to see Kevin's white pickup pull into the driveway.

Did he follow her here? Jennifer wonders. Instinctively, she tucks the vitamins into her waistband. She will come up with an explanation.

Kevin gets out of the pickup. And then… so does Patrick.

No,
Jennifer thinks.
No, this isn't happening.

“Jennifer?” Patrick says.

 

S
he and Potter dance in the front row of the Bar until closing. The band plays “Add It Up” by the Violent Femmes as their last song but then the crowd chants, “One more song! One more song!” and the band obliges and plays “Just Like Heaven” by the Cure. Potter spins Ava around and dips her and she is as carefree as she has ever been in her life.

“Let's go find your brother,” Potter says.

“I'm sure he left,” Ava says. Patrick is the responsible stick-in-the-mud of the family. There's no way he's still hanging around the Bar at one thirty in the morning.

As Ava and Potter weave and wend their way through the crowd, someone grabs Ava's arm.

It's Scott.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” he asks.

Before Ava can answer, Potter steps in. “Hi there,” he says. “I'm Potter Lyons. Is there a problem?”

“No
problem,
” Scott says. His lip curls in a way that makes him seem surly. What is
wrong
with him? Ava is pretty sure Scott has never struck anyone as surly in all his life. “I'd just like a chance to talk to my girlfriend, if you don't mind.”

Potter holds his palms up and takes a step back.

Ava says, “Your
girlfriend?
I am no longer your
girlfriend,
Scott. Your
girlfriend
is at home, pregnant with your
child.
”

“Whoa,” Potter says. “I'll be at the bar. I'm going to grab a glass of water. Come find me.”

He disappears and Ava glances up at Scott. He still doesn't look like himself. “I can't do this right now, Scott, I'm sorry.”

“I need to talk to you. I need to tell you something. Something bad.”

“Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it,” Ava says.

“But—” Scott says.

Ava raises a hand like a traffic cop. “This is what cold turkey feels like, Scott. Cold.”

At the bar, Ava finds Potter with Jennifer. Potter hands Ava an ice water.

“You saw Scott?” Jennifer says. “What did he want?”

What did Scott—or Nathaniel, for that matter—always want? They wanted to make Ava's life tumultuous and confusing. It was as if they waited until Ava was relaxed and actually enjoying herself before they pitched the next curveball.

Ava shrugs. Jennifer signals the bartender. “Two shots of Fireball,” she says.

Patrick offers to drive Ava and Potter home, but Ava says no, thank you. She and Potter will take a cab.

When they are finally alone in the quiet of the backseat, Ava says, “Thank you for a truly wonderful evening. It's not everybody who could attend an intimate family wedding for a very famous woman at the last minute and rock it like you did.”

Potter laughs. “The pleasure was mine, I assure you.”

The taxi delivers them to Old North Wharf. Potter is staying on his sailboat,
Cassandra
.

“Would you like a tour?” Potter asks. “Or a
nightcap?”

She's not surprised he's asking; it's the natural way to end their night—with some good old-fashioned making out that may or may not turn into rollicking boat sex.

But Ava can't do it.

She reaches her arms around Potter's neck and gives him a kiss on each cheek. She still thinks he's too handsome for her, and now she knows he's also socially savvy, oodles of fun, and a better dancer than Nathaniel and Scott put together. But she doesn't have the energy for another relationship or even a one-night stand. The run-in with Scott has left her addled.

“Thank you for tonight,” she says.

He nods slowly, understanding her. “How will you get home?”

“I'll walk,” she says. “I need to clear my head.”

He holds her face and gives her one soft but insistent kiss on the lips, and immediately Ava remembers the desire she felt when he kissed her on the Sunfish in Anguilla. It is almost enough to flip her.

“Text me when you get home so I know you're safe,” he says. “And Ava?”

She raises her eyebrows. Those blue eyes. Whoa.

“Come see me in New York.”

 

S
he has asked for one thing, discreetly, as a wedding present from her three children, and that is a lunch at Something Natural, just the four of them. She thinks about how selfish it is for her to request this—no Drake, no Isabelle, no Jennifer, no grandchildren, no Kelley or Mitzi—but Margaret doesn't care. She wants an hour eating sandwiches in the sunshine with her children.

Not on Sunday, when everyone will be hungover and exhausted. Margaret wants to spend Sunday with Drake alone. But on Monday, at noon.

Margaret bikes to Something Natural all the way from her and Drake's hideaway in Sconset. She wears a hat and sunglasses so as not to be recognized.

Ava is already waiting for Margaret, sitting on the steps in front of the sandwich shop.

“I got us seats,” she says, pointing to a picnic table tucked in the back corner of the property, partially under the shade of a giant elm.

“Shall we wait for the boys before we order?” Margaret asks. She can't believe how excited she is about this lunch date. It's the most difficult for Kevin, she knows, who has had to leave Quinns' on the Beach in the hands of his newly appointed assistant manager, Devon, two of the past three days. Both he and Ava will head to Quinns' as soon as lunch is over.

“They were right behind me,” Ava says.

And sure enough, a few seconds later, Kevin's white pickup pulls into the already congested driveway; he squeezes the truck into a spot between two Range Rovers, and then both he and Patrick shimmy out through their open windows.

Patrick has lost a lot of weight in jail; Margaret noticed that on Saturday.

They all get in line and order their sandwiches. Margaret gets the Sheila's Favorite on oatmeal; Ava gets avocado, cheddar, and chutney; Kevin orders smoked turkey, Swiss, and tomato on herb bread; Patrick gets the lobster salad on pumpernickel.

Margaret adds chips, Nantucket Nectars, and four huge chocolate chip cookies to the order.

“I've had a rough twenty-four hours,” Patrick says.

“The kids?” Margaret asks.

“The wife,” Patrick says.

“Jennifer?” Margaret says.

“She's the only wife I have,” Patrick says. “Although there were some guys in prison who wanted the job.” He smiles wanly. “I'm kidding. It wasn't that kind of prison. And if it were, I wouldn't tell you.”

Margaret is surprised to hear that there's a problem with Jennifer. She single-handedly ran the family for a year and a half, and, as far as Margaret could tell, she did it beautifully. She cared for the boys, kept their routines, loved and nurtured them. She stayed true to Patrick, visiting him at every chance, calling every week, sending letters and noncontraband care packages. She ran her business and held her head high in the community—and that couldn't have been easy. Patrick married Jennifer Barrett because she was strong and an achiever like him, but as Margaret has learned, it's easy to be strong when life unspools as it should—kids, house, cars, vacations, money—and another thing when the man you love lies to you and everyone else, loses his job, and disgraces his name by going to prison for fraud.

Fraud.
Margaret loathes the word now. It chills her.

Margaret can't imagine Jennifer giving Patrick a rough time but if she has, she should be forgiven.

“Let's sit,” she says.

The four of them settle—they unwrap their sandwiches, open chips, pop the tops off their Nectars and read the factoids on the caps.

Margaret's says:
The body of water between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket is the Muskeget Channel.

“I did
not
know that,” she says. She hoists the bottle in a toast. “Thank you for indulging me in this one wish. I really want to catch up with the three of you before I go on my honeymoon.”

They all clink bottles. Cheers.