The Island (12 page)
W
hen Barrett arrived back with the eight bags of groceries, he caught Birdie fiddling with her cell phone at the dining room table. She was so surprised when she saw him that she gasped and then clutched the phone to her chest. If she had been fast enough, she would have slipped it into her bra.
“Whoa, sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
She didn’t even try to collect herself. She was frazzled, it was hot, they had risen at six that morning, and Birdie had done all the driving. It was nearly five o’clock now and she was beat.
“Is there wine in one of those bags?” she asked.
“The wine is still on the boat,” Barrett said. “I’ll go get it now.”
“Would you?” Birdie said.
“For you, madame, anything.” Barrett smiled at her and she felt herself flush, more out of shame than anything else. Barrett Lee had been back and forth between Nantucket and Tuckernuck dozens of times this week on their behalf, and then Birdie discovered that the poor boy had lost his wife and had two small children at home to raise on his own, and yet he managed to be charming and upbeat. Birdie needed to pull herself together.
When Barrett left to get the wine, Birdie found his check. The repairs to the house had cost $58,600. Birdie had donned her linen suit and driven to the city to Grant’s office to present him with the bills. Since Michael Morgan’s death, Grant had called the house every day—to talk to Chess, to check in with Birdie about Chess. He had gone with Chess and Birdie to the funeral, and he had paid an exorbitant hourly fee for Chess to see a psychiatrist each day. Dr. Burns thought Tuckernuck was a good idea, and hence the repairs to the house were validated. If Chess needed Tuckernuck, then Tuckernuck would have to be fixed up. Right? Birdie wasn’t sure Grant would see it that way; she was confronting him in person to plead her case.
Grant’s office was painted oxblood red. Birdie had picked the color herself nearly two decades earlier when Grant became managing partner. She had picked out all of the appointments in his office; it was amazing, two years after their divorce, how nothing had changed. There were still the photographs of her and the children, and there were still the golf landscapes—Pebble Beach, Pinehurst, Amen Corner at Augusta.
Birdie handed Grant the bills. She felt like a sixteen-year-old. “I’m sorry it was so expensive,” she said.
Grant looked over the bills, then tossed them in his in-box, which meant he would pay them. “Don’t you get it by now, Bird?” he said. “It’s just money.”
Birdie placed the check before her on the dining room table. Barrett appeared with the wine; the bottles clinked against one another. Birdie fetched a corkscrew and two glasses.
“You’ll join me?” Birdie said.
“I’ll let you enjoy your family,” Barrett said.
“Please?” Birdie said. “Everyone else has scattered.”
Barrett paused. His eyes swept over her and perhaps took in the check on the table.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll sit for a minute.”
“Good,” Birdie said.
“Let me,” Barrett said, and he took the wine and corkscrew from her. He opened the bottle like a professional. “I waited tables at the Boarding House for a few summers there. Got pretty good at this.”
“I see,” Birdie said.
He poured two glasses of the Sancerre. “This isn’t as cold as you’d like it, probably. And you know the fridge isn’t exactly a Sub-Zero. I’ll bring ice tomorrow in a good cooler. And I’ll bring gas for the Scout. It still runs. I started her up last week.”
“Amazing,” Birdie said. “You know, I got the Scout stuck out on Bigelow Point when I was pregnant with Tate. Chess was just a baby. She was crying while Grant tried to dig the tires out with a plastic bucket and the tide was coming in. I thought we were going to sink the car for sure, but Grant dug and pushed and we must have had a little help from above, because we got it out of there. I remember that like it was yesterday.”
Barrett smiled. Was she boring him?
“Here’s a check for the house,” she said. “And we agreed on seven hundred and fifty dollars a week for you while we’re here, plus expenses, plus gas for your boat. I know it isn’t cheap.”
“That’s more than fair,” Barrett said.
“And you’ll come every morning and every afternoon?”
“I will,” Barrett said.
“It’ll be all the usual stuff,” Birdie said. “Groceries, newspaper, gas, ice, trash, firewood, laundry back and forth to Holdgate’s, plunge the backed-up toilet…”
“Remember not to flush toilet paper or anything else,” Barrett said. “Put up a sign if you have to.”
“The outdoor shower works?” Birdie asked.
“It’s a spritzer, cold water only,” he said.
Birdie smiled. “That used to drive Grant nuts.”
“Part of the Tuckernuck charm,” Barrett said.
“And…” She paused long enough to get his attention, but once she had his attention, she felt bashful. “Oh, I don’t know how to say this…”
“What is it?” he said.
“Well, I don’t want your time here to be all work,” she said. “You’re not our servant, after all. I want you to relax, have a glass of wine, bring your boys over if you can. I know Tate and Chess would love to… spend some time with you. Especially Chess. I told you she was getting married and I told you her wedding was called off, but what I didn’t tell you was that over Memorial Day weekend, her fiancé, or ex-fiancé I guess he was by then, died in a horrible accident.”
“No,” Barrett said. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“He was rock climbing in Moab,” Birdie said. “He fell and broke his neck.”
“Oh, man,” Barrett said.
“He was a good boy,” Birdie said. “And Chess feels guilty because she didn’t treat him very nicely at the end.” She clamped her mouth shut. Two sips of wine had gone straight to her head.
Barrett nodded.
“Chess is depressed, she needs help, and I’m not sure what to do. You noticed she’s shaved her head?”
“I noticed.”
“I’m worried sick about her,” Birdie said. “Earlier, when you said you lost your wife…”
Here, Barrett looked at the table.
“It occurred to me that you and Chess had something in common. Sort of. And maybe talking with you would help her.”
Barrett sipped his wine, then set the glass down and twirled the stem. “I’m not really into the whole support-group thing.”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything so structured…”
“I’m into survival,” Barrett said. “I have two little boys to think about. They require a lot of me. I don’t have time to sit around commiserating with other people who’ve lost significant others…”
“I understand that,” Birdie said.
“Maybe you do,” Barrett said. “But probably you don’t.”
Birdie looked at him. “Oh, God, you’re right. I probably don’t. I just thought maybe the two of you could hang out.”
“Hang out?”
“Maybe you could take her out on your boat.”
Barrett stared at Birdie over his wineglass.
“Didn’t you take her out when you were teenagers?”
“I took her to Whale Shoal for a picnic,” Barrett said. “I had quite a crush on her back then.”
Birdie tried not to appear anxious. She tried not to think of Chess as she had seen her twenty minutes ago—alone in the dim attic room, staring into space, looking as forlorn as Sylvia Plath or some other tortured soul. She had taken her cap off, and her bald head was exposed. Birdie had to avert her eyes. Without her hair, Chess looked sick, she looked alien. She looked like a full-grown baby. Birdie needed someone to help her. She tried not to appear like she was paying Barrett Lee $750 a week to be her daughter’s male escort, though nothing would make Birdie happier than to see a friendship spark between Chess and Barrett Lee. He could help restore her confidence, make her laugh. If Grant knew she was thinking this, he would reprimand her.
What in God’s name are you thinking, Bird? Stay out of it!
Birdie pushed the check across the table. “It would be nice if you hung out,” she said. “We all like you.”
“Well, I like you, too,” Barrett said. He nodded at Birdie’s cell phone, which was on the table. Birdie had forgotten about it. “There’s no hope for that here.”
“Oh, I know,” Birdie said quickly. She picked up her phone and studied it. “Really? No hope?”
“Actually,” Barrett said, “there is one place on the island that gets reception.”
“There is?” Birdie said. “Where’s that?”
“If you’re good, I’ll tell you.” Barrett stood up, pocketed the check, and said, “Thanks for the wine, Mrs. Cousins. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Birdie said. “God. I hate to be pushy…” She did hate to be pushy, but she was desperate in a way she couldn’t explain or defend. He turned to her with a wary look in his eye; he probably thought she was going to bring up Chess again. “Can you tell me where the place is that I can get reception? Please?”
Barrett chuckled. “Someone you want to call?”
Birdie didn’t know how to answer. On her last night with Hank, he had taken her to Lespinasse for dinner, and then they had gone to the top floor of Beekman Tower and drunk champagne and danced. Hank had gotten them a room at the Sherry-Netherland for the night and they had made love on the exquisite sheets. The window at the foot of their bed overlooked Fifth Avenue. Hank had roses sent up in the morning on the breakfast tray, along with champagne and melon and strawberries. They asked for a late checkout so they could enjoy the champagne and each other and then go back to sleep for a while. Birdie had worried that the whole thing was costing a fortune, and Hank said, “It very well may be, but we are alive and in love and I would happily go bankrupt romancing you, Birdie Cousins.” Birdie almost wished they had spent their last night at a bingo hall or a pizza joint, because then perhaps her heart wouldn’t ache this way. Just thinking about the pink roses in the sweet little vase on the tray made her want to cry.
“Yes,” Birdie said to Barrett.
Barrett said, “Bigelow Point. Probably right where you got stuck in the Scout, at the very end. Reception clear as a bell. But don’t tell anyone. The last thing anyone on this island wants is to see the four of you ladies standing on that beach using your cell phones.”
Birdie said, “Of course not. Thank you, Barrett, for everything. I mean it.”
“No problem,” Barrett said.
She was sad to see him go, but grateful that he’d told her where to use her phone, grateful that he had admitted to having had a crush on Chess years ago, grateful that he hadn’t flat-out refused to spend time with Chess. That was all she was asking as a concerned mother; she couldn’t make them confide in each other. If Barrett thought she was a nut, he was right: she was. She was tired and addled from travel, she had yet to get her bearings, and she was worried about her daughter. She wondered how it was that she could feel more alone here when she was living with three other people than she did when she was at home in New Canaan by herself.
She missed Hank in a way she hadn’t thought possible at her age.
Thank God there were eight bags of groceries to unpack. Thank God there was dinner to make. Birdie stood up and got to work.
The Tuckernuck house had been built seventy-five years earlier by Birdie and India’s paternal grandparents, Arthur and Emilie Tate. Arthur Tate was trained as an orthopedist, and he had written a seminal medical text used by bonesetters across the country. He held an endowed chair at Harvard Medical School, and he and Emilie lived in a glorious brownstone on Charles Street. They took their summers on Nantucket. They owned a yellow clapboard house on Gay Street; the front porch was hung with fuchsias and ferns. Emilie’s half sister, Deidre, from her father’s second marriage, had wed a wealthy Parisian businessman, and they, too, spent summers on Nantucket, in a house on the side of Orange Street that overlooked the sparkling harbor.
Emilie hated Deidre. This was family legend, but Birdie’s father had saved Emilie’s diaries, so Birdie could see for herself:
abhor, detest, nouveau riche, unmannered, inconsiderate, French, Franco, froggy, faux, faux, foe!
The half sisters saw each other only on Nantucket, and even that wasn’t often because Gay Street society and Orange Street society didn’t commingle. Arthur was a sailor. He and Emilie were members of the Nantucket Yacht Club, where they ate their dinners out, attended dances, sailed, and played tennis. Problems between Emilie and Deidre arose only at the onset of the Great Depression. No one had any money, the country was sinking, the currency devalued. Somehow, Deidre’s French husband, Hubert, was able to procure a membership to the Nantucket Yacht Club with money, rather than with connections as had been the custom—or at least this was Emilie’s suspicion. And so, in the summer of 1934, when Arthur and Emilie arrived on Nantucket, they found Deidre and Hubert sitting at the next table at dinner and playing doubles on the neighboring tennis court. Emilie found her mortal enemy
in her club!
At the end of the summer, a scene ensued between the two sisters on the parquet dance floor during the Commodore’s Ball. The orchestra had stopped playing. Emilie insulted Deidre. Deidre raised her hand to Emilie. Both women left the club in tears.
The next summer, the summer of 1935, Arthur and Emilie sold the house on Gay Street and bought a parcel of beachfront land on Tuckernuck for $105. They built the house, grandiose for its time. In her diary, Emilie noted that they wanted
something simpler. A simple life.
Town life on Nantucket had become fraught with social obligations.
It has become not so different from life in Boston,
Emilie wrote.
We seek a quieter place, a more remote escape.
Tuckernuck.
But the truth was, Emilie had come to Tuckernuck to escape her sister.
Birdie reminded India of this story as they lingered outside their respective bedrooms with only their flashlights to see by. Birdie was flat-out exhausted, but India seemed to be looking for something to do at nine o’clock at night. She knew there were no clubs on Tuckernuck, right? No bars, no restaurants, no whorehouses. There was only peace and quiet, and the weight of their family history. They had come here as girls, their father before them, their grandparents before him.