A Summer Affair (38 page)

They made their way down the porch steps, Isabelle’s arm wrapped through Lock’s like a snake. Isabelle trailed Lock to his car, and after he got in, she stood at the driver’s side, talking to him sotto voce. Talking to him about Claire.

Jason was in the kitchen. “Claire!” he said.

Claire wanted Jason next to her at the front door. He was the other half of her united front: the happy Crispins.

“Claire!” he called.

“What?” she said. If he wanted dinner, he could start by lighting the grill.

“Look at this.”

She turned to see Jason crouching down, holding Zack by both hands. But then he let go, and Zack took one, two, three, four, five steps, bumped into the cabinet that held the pots and pans, and fell onto his butt.

Claire shrieked, “He walked!”

Zack grinned at his parents, then started crying.

“He walked!” she said.

“He walked,” Jason said. “He’s a walker.” He grabbed Claire’s hand and pulled her in tight, kissed her throat. She hugged him—and suddenly she was so, so happy, happier than she’d been in a long time.

“He’s a walker,” she said. And she hoped that this was all she would remember about today.

T
he morning after Claire had offered Siobhan the gala catering job and Siobhan turned it down—once and for all, she hoped that was clear—Siobhan was awakened by a voice in her walk-in closet. She looked at the clock: ten past six. Fucking absurd. Siobhan climbed out of bed, naked as a jaybird, and stood in front of the closet door to make sure.

Yes, Carter was in there. On the phone. Growing up, Siobhan and her siblings had pulled blankets over their heads, spoken in pig Latin, stretched the cord of the phone all the way to the stairs of the root cellar, then slammed the door for privacy. Gossiping about Michael O’Keefe at first, and then, in later years, about where they hid the beer. They didn’t do it to save their father’s ears.

Siobhan did not knock—though with the boys always underfoot, knocking before entering a room was law—because the closet was not a proper room. Siobhan flung open the door, and there was Carter, naked as the day he was born, sitting his hairy ass on her velvet footstool, the newspaper in his lap. On the phone with Tomas, his bookie in Las Vegas (where it was three in the morning!), betting on the bloody Red Sox. What Siobhan heard Carter say was,
Put down five thousand even. Schilling is pitching.

How to describe the scene that ensued? It was cinematic. It was Shakespearean. Siobhan snatched the phone from Carter’s hand and ran like a jackrabbit into the master bath. She eyed the oval pool of the toilet, and her gag reflex kicked in. She was going to be sick. She heard Carter coming. There wasn’t time! She flushed the phone down the toilet.

What the hell?
Carter said.

Siobhan canceled their credit card.
Stolen
, she said. When she hung up, Carter was staring her down. Five thousand dollars! She fired Carter right there and then—fired Carter from the business that they owned together, the business in which he was the head chef. Siobhan had no idea if she had the legal right to do this, but she could not have been more fucking emphatic:
You are no longer part of Island Fare. Do not prep any more jobs. Do not set foot in the kitchen. You are throwing every red cent we have earned into some stinking Vegas cesspool.

Carter tried several tacks. He apologized with the desperate mien of a druggie begging his dealer for one last score. He cried.
Please, baby, please, one more game. It’s a sure thing, I promise. Schilling is pitching, baby!
Siobhan was so livid, she could not speak. She stormed into the kitchen for coffee, and Carter followed, crying, both of them naked. She poured coffee, but she missed her cup; it spilled all over the counter and dripped onto the floor and this sent Siobhan over the edge. In the most venomous whisper she could summon, she said,
You’re trying to ruin us!

No, baby, I’m not
. . .

Have you no shame?
she asked. Because, really, they had a mortgage and, besides that, two little boys upstairs who would, unlike Siobhan or Carter, go to college someday. Carter was confused by the question. Shame? Siobhan said,
Look at you. Pathetic.

At this, he became belligerent—
You can’t tell me what to do! You can’t fire me from my own business!—
and stormed out, though not before stopping in the garage to grab some shorts and collect his surfboard.

Siobhan called Claire. If this had happened last August, Siobhan would have regaled her with all the gory details, right down to her visceral disgust at finding Carter resting his unmentionables on the velvet footstool she had inherited from her grandmother. But now, of course, things had changed; she and Claire were operating on a need-to-know basis, and all Claire needed to know was that yes, Island Fare would cater the gala. They were eager to do it.

Claire yippeed and made some other yee-ha cowboy noises.
Yesterday was so bad,
Claire said.
But then Zack walked, he took his first steps, and now you’re going to cater the gala, just like the two of us planned in the beginning! It feels so right, it’s all coming full circle! Hooray!
Claire was eager, then, to get off the phone; she couldn’t wait to call Isabelle and Lock and
tell them the happy news!

Claire did not think—would never, under current circumstances, have thought—to ask,
Why the sudden change of heart?
Why, when Siobhan had been so adamant the evening before, was she so eager now? Had something happened? Claire didn’t ask, and really, it was just as well. Siobhan didn’t need a lot of caretaking. She was a hardscrabble girl, tough as a turnip, mean as an underfed chicken; she was a survivor. She would make this work all alone; she would be better off without the liars and the cheaters and the gamblers to bring her down. She would be just fine.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

She Hides It Away

T
he days leading up to the gala were a blur, and Claire couldn’t remember which things happened in which order—and in fact, many things happened simultaneously—but each and every detail of these days was charged and important.

On Monday they filled the last table of ten. They had one thousand guests. Gavin answered the phone and took the credit card for the final table, and it was he who led the celebration—high- fiving Lock and hugging and kissing Isabelle, Claire, and Siobhan, all of whom were in the office, ironing out the catering details.

Also on Monday, the late summer issue of
NanMag
was released, featuring the article about Nantucket’s Children and the summer gala. The text of the article was long, and preachy about the cause in some places, but no worries—few people would actually read it. What mattered were the photographs! There was a shot of Lock standing in front of the Elijah Baker House, surrounded by half a dozen children; there was a shot of the chandelier (unwired), taken in Claire’s hot shop; there was an old snapshot that Claire had dug up of herself and Matthew in high school—they were in the sand dunes on Wildwood Beach, Matthew holding his guitar, Claire staring moodily at the ocean; there was a photograph of Claire and Lock sitting side by side (though not touching) on the edge of Lock’s desk.

They were in the office when they looked at the article—Isabelle was actually the one who got ahold of the copy of
NanMag,
hot off the press—and all of them skimmed through it together, Lock holding the magazine while Gavin, Isabelle, Claire, and Siobhan read over his shoulder. Lock read certain lines aloud. (“The summer population may believe their beautiful island is immune to the tough realities that face other communities—substandard housing, latchkey kids, petty crime by teenagers, gangs, drug use—but they are wrong. For example, in the winter months, Nantucket has the highest incidence of heroin use per capita in the commonwealth—and too often, it’s the island’s children who pay the price.”) Claire studied the picture of her and Lock. It was, as far as she knew, the only picture of them ever taken. Did they look like a couple? They did not, she decided. They were completely mismatched, a French film dubbed in Italian, a giraffe with tiger stripes. Claire was still stinging from the way the catering situation had fallen out; Isabelle’s words “discouraging and immature” replayed in her mind.

Claire didn’t have the heart to be tart or snotty with Isabelle, however, because Isabelle was morose enough as it was. Not one of the people she had personally invited to the gala had deigned to come. She was candid about this, more candid than Claire might have been in the same situation.
They sent checks,
she said,
but they won’t come.
Claire thought for a minute or two that Isabelle was going to blame the declines on Max West, but it became clear from her near-teary demeanor that she took it personally. They weren’t coming because of her, because of whatever had transpired last fall, at the Waldorf.

Thankfully, Isabelle was distracted by the magazine article.

Siobhan said to Claire, “Your hair looks good.” These were the only nice words Siobhan had uttered since coming up to the office. She was exhausted from doing the Pops, which had ended very late on Saturday night and took all day Sunday to clean up, and Carter had been no help. He was sick, Siobhan said. Siobhan had agreed to cater the gala, but she did not seem happy about it. She let everyone in the office know that she was not happy, and everyone in the office, including Claire, cowered and deferred to her because she represented their one and only hope.

“Thank you,” Claire said sweetly, though she disagreed: she thought her hair—which she had tried hard to straighten—made her look like Alfred E. Neuman.

“Your hair looks good, too,” Gavin said to Lock. And everyone laughed. Except Isabelle.

It took Claire a few minutes to notice, but Isabelle was silently seething. Finally she let an audible hiss leak—and she stepped away from the group.

“Nice article,” she said flatly. “It really showcases all the work you’ve done on the event, Claire.”

The room fell silent. Claire reeled with surprise—not that Isabelle was offended that she hadn’t been photographed or mentioned as cochair, but that neither she nor Lock (nor Gavin, who had proofread the article weeks ago) had
noticed
that Isabelle had not been photographed or mentioned as cochair. What Claire thought was,
Ohhhhhhh, shit
. What Claire said was, “We all know how much work you’ve put into this, Isabelle. I can’t believe there’s not more in this article about
you
. . .”

“There’s
nothing
in the article about me!” Isabelle spat.

Claire scanned the article. “Surely your name is listed as—”

“It’s not!” Isabelle said. “I’ve been completely overlooked.”

“It’s a faux pas on
NanMag
’s part,” Gavin said. “We should call them right now and complain. Maybe they’ll print a correction in the next issue.”

“A correction?” Isabelle said. “What good will that do?” She snatched up her Peter Beaton bag and stormed out.

Lock closed the magazine. Gavin, Siobhan, and Claire went to collect their things, but nobody said a word. What to say? Isabelle was right. She—the woman who had hired a cellist from the New York Symphony to play at the invitation stuffing, the woman who had wooed Manolo Blahnik into underwriting the event to the tune of fifty thousand dollars, the woman who had painstakingly made a hundred phone calls on the day of the catering crisis—had been overlooked.

Would she quit? Claire wondered. Now, in the final hour? Would she not show?

Lock said, “Let’s give her time to cool down. I’ll call her later.”

L
ock was on the phone with Isabelle—in the middle of a long, teary (on Isabelle’s part) conversation—when Ben Franklin walked into the office. It was nearly six; Gavin had gone home. Ben stood in front of Lock’s desk with the financials clenched in his hands for several minutes as Lock attempted to placate Isabelle. (“No one is selling you short. Everyone on the committee understands how hard you’ve worked, how much of yourself you’ve poured into this event . . .”)

Lock put his hands over the receiver. “I can’t help you now, Ben. I’m trying to talk someone off the ledge here.”

Ben’s face was stoic. This lack of emotion, and the way he was holding forth the financials, made him seem like nothing so much as a butler.

“It’s important,” he croaked. “Eliza was right.”

“I’ll call you in the morning,” Lock said. “First thing.”

Ben nodded and, turning on his heels, left the office.

O
n Tuesday, at the office, the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Everyone wanted gala tickets!

“We’re sold out,” Gavin said. “I’m sorry. I’ll have to put your name on the waiting list.”

By noon, the waiting list was forty-six people long. What
was
this? Had everyone read the article in
NanMag
? Or were people just such procrastinators that they didn’t think about Saturday’s plans until the Tuesday before? Either way, they were out of luck. Gavin thought this rather smugly. Despite the fact that it wasn’t at all his type of music, he was attending the gala as Isabelle’s guest. He had called her on Monday afternoon to see if she was okay, and she had asked him.

Will you be my date for the gala?
Isabelle had said.

At first he thought she was kidding. He had laughed.

She said,
No, I’m serious.

Are you sure there isn’t someone else who—

No!
Isabelle said.
Absolutely not! I’d like to go with you.

Isabelle French—the beautiful, wealthy cochair of the event—would be attending with Gavin Andrews, handsome (Best Looking, 1991, Evanston Day) and single office assistant. He was on fire! He wished to God that he had known this was going to happen. If he had known, he would never have . . .

Lock came back from lunch at one o’clock and said, “Damn! I forgot to call Ben Franklin!”

Gavin coughed. His throat was . . . blocked. Ben Franklin?

“Ben Franklin?” he said.

“Yeah,” Lock said. “He took a look at the financials. Nice that he takes an interest
now,
for the first time ever, when I am insanely busy with other things.”

Insanely busy with other things. Yes: Gavin had been so busy answering the phone and taking care of other gala business and thinking of sex with Isabelle French that he hadn’t even noticed the financial records were missing. Gavin’s breathing was shallow; he needed the bathroom. Jesus, he had to get out of here before he was arrested. Go home, get the duffel bag with the money, and leave. Get to Hyannis, at least, then decide where to go. He should have had a better plan! But he had expected to go undetected for a lot longer than this. Ben Franklin took the financials? Unthinkable. Ben Franklin was completely clueless. Even if he looked at the financials, would he know what was going on? Would he see the cash taken from every deposit? Would he be able to figure it out?

Gavin had to leave. The less fanfare attending his departure, the better. He should just say he was going to Even Keel for an iced coffee and never return.

But the fact of the matter was . . . Gavin didn’t
want
to leave. He didn’t want to leave this office, which had kept him busy and engaged—and had, for the past few weeks, anyway, felt like the center of the universe. The work he was doing fulfilled him; he went home happy. To leave the office now, with the best, most exciting moments to come, with the concert, which Gavin was attending with Isabelle French, on the horizon, would be horrible. To leave Nantucket forever would be even worse. And his parents! Just last night the three of them had had dinner together at the Pearl, and both his parents had remarked on how well he seemed to be doing. Gavin had finally received some much-sought-after approval. Furthermore, it struck Gavin for the first time that his parents were older people—his father now had a hearing aid—and there was no one in the world to care for them but him.

What have I done?
Gavin thought. Stupid, idiotic, moronic, immature, insecure, dishonest, small-minded, shortsighted, and pathetic: that only began to describe the little game he’d been playing since last October. What was money? Money was nothing. What Gavin wanted was esteem, and just as he was starting to get it legitimately, his crimes were catching up with him.

How to undo?
he wondered. There must be a way.

“I’m going to call Ben right now,” Lock said. “Hold my other calls.”

Gavin nodded briskly. He had no time to undo. He had to get out of there. But then he heard footsteps on the stairs, and Heather slunk in around the corner, the picture of teenage discontent.

“Dad,” she said.

Lock, who was dialing, hung up the phone. “Jesus, I forgot!” He jumped up. “Those are what you call whites?”

Heather shrugged. She was wearing a pink Lacoste shirt, a pair of almost-faded-to-white denim shorts, and a green grosgrain-ribbon belt. And Tretorns that had been laced up backward so that they tied by her toes.

“We have a father-daughter tennis match,” Lock said to Gavin. “Couldn’t have come at a worse time, but we have to play, don’t we?”

“You say so,” Heather said.

“We have to! Greta and Dennis Peale? We’ll kill them!” He turned to Gavin. “Are you okay to hold down the fort?”

“Okay,” Gavin said.

C
laire was on her way to the rec fields to “supervise” the construction of the tent. Claire would not be consulted about a single decision, but the gentleman at the town parks and rec department, which owned the fields, wanted a representative from Nantucket’s Children “on hand” in case there were any questions. Claire had called Isabelle to see if she wanted to do this or to help Claire do this, but Isabelle did not answer her phone. She was still pissed about the magazine article. So Claire decided she would go and sit alone in the baking sun while the crew from Tennessee assembled the forty-thousand-square-foot tent.

She sat at a picnic table, drinking diet iced tea, playing solitaire. She tried to make the cards say something: Stay with Lock, or leave him? Continue to pray for strength, or just exhibit it, reclaim her life, work on her marriage? She loved Lock and she hated him. The worst things about adultery, it seemed, were countless.

At noon, when the crew broke for lunch, she left.

On the way home, she stopped by Siobhan’s commercial kitchen to see if she could help somehow. She couldn’t construct a tent, but with direction she could whip up a batch of curried mango chutney.

Claire walked into the kitchen without knocking. Why would she knock? She expected a kitchen full of people—Siobhan, Carter, Alec, Floyd, Raimundo, Vaclav. It was, after all, the middle of August, and Island Fare had a herculean task ahead of them. By not knocking, however, Claire interrupted something. She blew into the kitchen—which had all of the fans running, possibly masking the noise of her entrance—and caught Siobhan and Edward by surprise. Edward Melior? It just wasn’t possible. But yes—he and Siobhan were at the long stainless steel counter, standing very close to each other. Siobhan saw Claire first and jumped and pushed Edward away, or so it seemed, and Edward whipped around and saw Claire—and whereas his face registered guilt, it also registered relief. Claire was not Carter.

“Hi,” Claire said brightly and casually, as though there were nothing about finding Edward Melior in Siobhan’s prep kitchen that shocked her. On the counter were the makings for the crispy pork wontons. Claire pointed to the stack of wonton wrappers and said, “Yum, my favorite.”

Siobhan said, “What are you doing here?”

And Edward said, “Hey, Claire. How’s it going with the tent?”

Claire plucked a water chestnut out of a five-pound can and ate it. “Tent’s going up!” she said. What was going on here, exactly? Siobhan could not abide having Edward’s name mentioned in conversation—and yet here they were, alone together. Claire had wondered if something had happened between the two of them at the invitation stuffing at Isabelle’s house—they had both stepped away from the table for a long time. But when Claire had asked,
How was it with Edward the other night?
Siobhan had shrugged and said,
Laborious. As usual.
Claire was bowled over by Edward’s presence here. And where was Carter? Was she
missing
something?