The Blue Bistro (25 page)

“What was it like being friends with her?” Adrienne asked.

“I’m still friends with her.”

“Growing up, I mean. What was it like?”

“It was like growing up,” Thatcher said. “She lived in my neighborhood. We went to school together. She cooked a lot and I ate what she cooked. We drove to Chicago for concerts in the summer. She had boyfriends, but they all hated me. One of them siphoned the gas from my car.”

“Really?”

“They were jealous because we were friends. Because, you know, I would eat over there during the week and I walked into her house without knocking, that kind of thing. Once a month or so, she would go to the hospital—sometimes just to St. Joe’s but sometimes up to Northwestern and I was the only one who she let come visit.”

“And what was that like?”

“It was awful. They had her on a vent, and the doctors were always worrying about her O
₂
sats, the amount of oxygen in her blood.”

“Who knows that she’s sick?”

“Some of the staff know, obviously—Caren, Joe, Duncan, Spillman, and everyone in the kitchen—but it’s the strictest secret. Because if the public hears the word ‘disease,’ they shun a place, and in that case, everyone loses. You understand that.”

“I understand,” Adrienne said. She nearly told Thatcher that Drew Amman-Keller knew. He knew and was keeping the secret just like everybody else, but Adrienne was afraid to bring it up. She still had his business card hidden in her dresser drawer. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“Of course not. I trust you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust you.”

“Does Fiona know about us?”

“Everybody knows about us,” Thatcher said. “Which is fine. When the public hears the word ‘romance,’ they come in droves. The phone rings off the hook.”

“We’ll have to beat them back with a stick.”

Thatcher tucked her under his chin and buried his face in her hair. “Exactly.”

If Will Novak was too soft, and Kip Turnbull too hard, then Michael Sullivan, the third man Adrienne dated, was just right. Sully was the golf pro at the Chatham Bars Inn, where Adrienne worked the front desk. Unlike Will and Kip, Sully was Adrienne’s age, he had a degree from Bowdoin College, and he, too, was living the resort life with the reluctant backing of his parents, who lived in Quincy, forty-five minutes away. Sully had valued one thing above all others for his entire life and that thing was golf. Adrienne first noticed him on the driving range smacking balls into the wild blue yonder. He was tall and freckled; he wore cleats and khakis and a visor. Adrienne met him a few nights later at a staff party where she tried to impress him by reciting the names of all the golfers she knew: Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, Payne Stewart, Seve Ballesteros.

“Everyone you named is either dead or on the seniors tour,” he said.

Still, he asked her out and they went to the Chatham Squire for drinks after her shift one night. Adrienne found him easy to be with. On days when she was free, he let his tee times go; he cancelled lessons so that he could take Adrienne out to lunch, and eventually, he arranged to have the same day off as she did each week. He told her he loved her after only three weeks—and he had all the symptoms: he lost weight, he lost sleep, and he shunned his friends. He wasn’t sure what was happening, he told her one evening as they walked Lighthouse Beach at sunset, but he thought this was “it.”

The summer as Sully’s girlfriend flew by—days at work, nights eating ice cream at Candy Manor and strolling down to Yellow Umbrella Books where they bought novels they
never found time to read, partying on the beach with people from work. Bonfires, fireworks, summer league baseball games, days off cruising around in the Boston Whaler, strolling in Provincetown, whale watching. Adrienne loved the flowers that arrived at the desk, she loved waking up in the middle of the night to find him staring at her, she loved it every time he picked up the phone to cancel a golf lesson. She loved his dark hair, his freckles, the way his strong back twisted in the follow-through of his golf swing. The e-mails to her father that summer were full of exclamation points. “I’ve met a guy! A guy who treats me the way you are always telling me I DESERVE to be treated! I am having the time of my LIFE in this town!”

At the beginning of August, Sully drove Adrienne to Quincy to meet his parents. His father was a neurosurgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and his mother had spent many years working as a nurse before she quit to stay home and raise six boys. His parents had both grown up in south Boston and they had stayed there. They lived in a huge Victorian house that was filled with photographs and crucifixes and needlepointed Irish blessings. Sully’s mother, Irene, was a lady of about sixty with red hair and a huge bosom. She hugged Adrienne tightly to her chest the moment Adrienne stepped out of the car and, in essence, never let her go. (Adrienne still sent Irene Sullivan a postcard every few months.) They sat on the sunporch and drank iced tea and ate shortbread and Irene filled Adrienne in on the business of her six sons. “God didn’t bless me with a daughter,” she said, “but I’m thankful for the boys. They’re good boys.” Kevin, the oldest, was a priest; Jimmy and Brendan were married with sons of their own; Matthew lived in New York City. “Matthew’s a homosexual,” Irene said, breaking her shortbread into little pieces. “Not what his father and I wanted, but he has a friend who comes for the holidays. I figure I already have six boys, what’s one more?” Then there was Michael, then Felix, the youngest, who was a freshman at Holy Cross. Irene brought out pictures of all the boys at their first communion, then in their Boston Latin football
uniforms. She brought out pictures of the grandsons, and a picture of Matthew and his boyfriend in Greenwich Village with their arms wrapped around each other. “And here are some of Mikey.” All of the pictures showed Sully golfing—in Scotland, in British Columbia, at Pebble Beach. “He has a gift, no question,” Irene said, sighing. “But we wish he would settle down.”

Adrienne left the Sullivan house feeling like she could move in and become part of the family. When they got in the car to leave there was waving and blown kisses; Adrienne had Irene’s shortbread recipe in her purse.

“What did you think?” Sully asked.

“I wish she was mine,” Adrienne said.

As autumn approached, Sully began to talk about “the next round.” He received a job offer in Vero Beach, and then, a coup: a job offer in Morocco at a course built for the king. Sully wanted Adrienne to come with him to Morocco, and he wanted to get engaged.

“Engaged?” Adrienne said. They were lying in bed, watching Sunday night football on ESPN. How had “the next round,” which Adrienne tolerated as yet another innocuous golf term, become
engaged
?

“I want to marry you,” Sully said.

“You do?” Adrienne said. This was the moment every girl waited for—wasn’t it?—the perfect guy proposing marriage. And yet, what struck Adrienne most forcefully was her shock followed by her ambivalence. She thought of life married to Michael Sullivan—and she had to admit, she could think of worse lives. They could travel, he could golf, she could work hotels until they had a child. Adrienne could call Irene Mom, and the two of them could enjoy a lifetime of chats at the kitchen table.

Adrienne was twenty-six. She understood that what Sully was suggesting—getting married, having children—was what people
did.
It was how life progressed. Adrienne didn’t say anything further to Sully on the topic of marriage, but in his chirpy, good-natured way, he played through as though a
decision had been made. In the following twenty-four hours, he called Irene and told her that a big announcement was coming, but first he wanted to ask for Adrienne’s hand. He pestered Adrienne for Dr. Don’s phone number, then with a shy smile, he said, “I have stuff to talk over with him.”

Adrienne felt like someone was wrapping a wool scarf over her nose and mouth. She was hot and prickly; she couldn’t breathe properly. She was terrified and, in a mindless panic, she ran: packed her stuff while Sully was at work, wrote him a letter, and had a short, teary conversation with her front desk manager. She cried through the cab ride to Logan, and through the flight from Boston to Honolulu. She was afraid to call her father. She knew he would assault her with the obvious question:
What is wrong with you?

Within a week, Adrienne had a job on the front desk at the Princeville Resort on Kauai. She had photocopied the letter she wrote to Sully and every time she considered dating a man that winter, she read it. To keep herself from doing any more damage.

Before Thatcher there had been three and a half men, and the half a man was Doug Riedel. But that was just Adrienne being mean. It was more accurate to say that Doug and Adrienne had only had half a relationship, or a half-hearted relationship. Doug Riedel was a mistake, an accident; he was a one-night stand that lasted an entire winter. Adrienne met him right before Christmas while she was skiing on her day off. They skied together, they après-skied together, they après-après-skied together. The next thing Adrienne knew, Doug Riedel was showing up at the front desk of the Little Nell on Christmas morning with a gift-wrapped box from Gorsuch. Adrienne, who had been feeling sorry for herself for working on Christmas (she always worked on Christmas because she had no kids), opened the box that held a pair of shearling gloves and thought: What luck! Doug was darkly handsome, he had a great dog, he worked as one of the ski school managers at Buttermilk. He was a catch. She started meeting him after work to walk Jax, he took her out for a day
of cross-country, he was calling her before he went to the gym, after he got home, before he went out to the Red Onion, after he got home. He was, somehow, becoming her boyfriend.

Right around the busy February holidays, Doug lost his job at Buttermilk Mountain and, subsequently, his housing.
You’re probably going to break up with me now,
he’d said. If Adrienne had been half paying attention, then this was exactly what she would have done, but instead she found herself fibbing to management so that he could move in with her and bring Jax. Then, his unevenness began to register. Sometimes he was funny and charming, but sometimes he was disparaging and negative. He hated Kyra (what a slut), he hated the Little Nell (a bastion of phony luxury), he hated Aspen in general. He spent more and more time in Carbondale with a mysterious friend. Adrienne thought he was sleeping with someone else, but she didn’t care. He was a houseguest who had overstayed his welcome—he was grouchy, he had a constant head cold, he stayed up all night watching
Junkyard Wars,
and every morning he went to the Ajax Diner for scrambled eggs with ketchup. He did nothing about finding a new job, and yet he never seemed to be short on money.

Well, yeah!
Adrienne shuddered with anger every time she thought of her empty Future box, her money gone, her prospects stolen, her master key card swiped. Doug Riedel was the devil himself. But if it hadn’t been for Doug and his felonious ways, Adrienne reminded herself, she wouldn’t be here on Nantucket, working at the Blue Bistro, with Thatcher.

Adrienne and Thatcher had been dating for less than three weeks and already this relationship was different.
Exercise good judgment about men!
her napkin screamed. Talk about your feelings, but give nothing away. Be careful, but don’t act scared. Nothing she told herself helped. With Thatcher, she felt like a person afraid of flying: Was it safe to board the aircraft? Would the plane crash? Would she be left on the open sea with a broken leg and a flimsy flotation device?
Would she die? Already her emotional investment was so great that complete devastation of the life she had worked so hard to cultivate seemed possible. This was all brand-new.

On July second, there were two hundred and fifty covers on the book, their first sellout of the year. It was eighty degrees at four o’clock and when Adrienne sat down for family meal at five, she was uncomfortably warm. Thatcher was at an AA meeting; it was his second meeting that day. He had gone to one at ten that morning while Adrienne covered the phone. Now, as she ate, she worried about Thatcher. Was it normal to go to two AA meetings in one day, or was there something wrong? Then she worried about Mrs. Yannick.

Mrs. Yannick had called that morning with a trick question. “Is your restaurant child-friendly?”

“How old is your child?” Adrienne asked.

“Two.”

Adrienne faltered. Thatcher, no doubt, had a smooth answer that would perfectly convey to Mrs. Yannick that while they did have one high chair in the back of the utility closet, it was covered with cobwebs, and seemed to be there only in case of emergency. Would it be grossly inappropriate to suggest Mrs. Yannick get a babysitter?

“We don’t have a children’s menu,” Adrienne said. “And we don’t have any crayons. This is fine dining.”

“So you’re not child-friendly.”

“Well . . .”

“You allow children but don’t encourage them.”

“We do allow children.” Adrienne thought of Shaughnessy—and Wolfie. “And I myself am not a parent. But it seems like you’d be asking an awful lot of a two-year-old to have her sit through a meal with wine and so forth. And the other guests . . . I think you might be more comfortable if . . .”

“We tried to get a babysitter,” Mrs. Yannick said. “We tried and tried. But we’re away from home and I don’t want a stranger. I’m afraid I’m out of options.”

“Maybe another night?” Adrienne said.

“Not possible,” Mrs. Yannick said. There was a long
pause. “We’re bringing William with us.” There was another long pause. “I’m really sorry about this in advance. I’d just cancel the reservation but the number-one reason why we come to Nantucket is to eat at your restaurant.”

Ah, flattery!
Adrienne still wasn’t immune to it. “We’ll see you at six,” she said.

Adrienne had been too cowardly to mention the Yannicks’ reservation at the menu meeting. She tried to tell herself it was no big deal. After family meal, Adrienne pulled the high chair out of the closet and wiped it down with a wet rag. She set it at table four, the least desirable table in the restaurant—the farthest away from the beach, the piano, and the glitz of table twenty. The waitstaff worked on a rotating schedule; Adrienne hoped table four would go to Elliott or Christo, who were too new to complain. But no such luck. Tonight, it was Caren’s table.