The Beach House (11 page)

Brokeback Mountain.
He had seen it with Bee, then seen it by himself. Six times. He had sought out gay films, gay literature, programs on television with a gay bent, glazing over at the love scenes, trying to reassure himself that he was turned on just because it was sex, not because it involved two men.

Perhaps he was bisexual, he had started to think, but then he would lie in bed at home and watch Bee, so feminine and womanly, her breasts so full, her secrets and wetness so utterly repellent to him that he almost shuddered at the thought of her.

“I am lucky,” Steve said, nursing a beer as they sat at a quiet corner table. “Lucky because you changed my life, you made me see that I wasn’t being honest, and I couldn’t carry on living a lie. I have meant to thank you many, many times, but it has been so many years, and I guess life just got in the way. So how are you? How has life been for you?”

With hindsight it would have been so easy for Daniel to open the floodgates, to let it all come pouring out, and who better to talk to than Steve? But he found he couldn’t, couldn’t admit that he was living the very lie Steve was talking about, had lived it for years, had almost,
almost
accepted it, until Steve had phoned out of the blue, had turned up to show him what his life could have been had he been brave enough to embrace his true self.

“I’m great,” he lied that night. “Couldn’t be better. I adore my girls, and seem to be living the American Dream.”

Steve stared at him hard, and they left after that beer.

“You take care,” Steve said. “Look after yourself.”

And although Daniel hadn’t confessed, it was seeing Steve again, seeing how comfortable he was in his skin, that made it impossible for him to suppress those feelings anymore.

He loves Bee, but can’t love her in the way she needs. He has always known that, but has thought that what they have is enough. He has assumed that if he stays, and he is going to stay, has no choice but to stay, they would make it work. And then there are the girls. He doesn’t want to be anything other than a full-time, present father. He is terrified of what might happen should they get divorced, terrified that Bee might turn into one of those crazy women who poisons their children against the father.

How can he possibly tell her why he is leaving? How can he get those words out, tell her that he is gay? Yet sitting here in Dr. Posner’s office, saying those words out loud to someone else, it is as if a cloud has lifted, a cloud that has been sitting on him his whole life, and he knows now, without a doubt, that there is no going back.

Daniel has never felt he had any other choice, but suddenly, since seeing Steve, he has realized that there might be another option after all. That simply accepting the truth, which had always seemed so terrifying, so utterly overwhelming to him, may be all he has to do if he ever wants to know what it is to be Steve.

What it is to be happy.

"Nan, do you know you have messages?” Sarah hauls the large paper bags in and puts them on the kitchen table, then she starts to unpack the groceries.

“Oh I know, darling.” Nan picks up a pile of coupons from the grocery store, walks over to the answering machine and lays the coupons on top of the blinking red light. “It’s terribly annoying seeing that thing flashing all day. I keep putting papers on top of it and someone—” she shoots a look at Sarah—“keeps taking them off.”

“Well, I’m sorry,” Sarah says, and laughs, “but generally red blinking lights mean there are messages, which means someone’s trying to get hold of you. Don’t you want to listen? What if it’s important?”

“It’s Andrew Moseley.” Nan sighs. “He wants to talk to me about money, and while I think he’s absolutely charming, I really don’t want to talk to him.”

Sarah stops unpacking and watches Nan light a cigarette, worry in her eyes.

“What are you going to do?” she asks gently. “I know things are tough. Will you have to . . .”

Nan looks up sharply. “Sell Windermere? Absolutely not. I don’t need much, so I was thinking perhaps I ought to sell some of the furniture, some of the things in the house that I really don’t need.”

Sarah looks dubious.

“Some of this stuff is wonderful, the antiques dealers would have a field day. And think of all those tourists and people spending twelve and a half million dollars on houses—don’t you think they need furniture? And this isn’t that reproduction stuff you find at the furniture stores, this is the real McCoy—people will pay a fortune for this.” Nan gets animated as she gestures around at an antique Welsh dresser, the oak kitchen table.

“Right,” Sarah says, trying to sound upbeat, and not wanting to point out that almost every piece of furniture in the house has coffee-cup rings, cigarette burns, is in a condition that no antique dealer would be the slightest bit interested in.

“And then there’s my mother-in-law’s jewelry collection. She collected paste earrings for years, and I have them all in boxes in the attic.”

“Okay.” Sarah recalls opening the boxes once upon a time and seeing what she thought was a load of junk. But she’s not a jewelry expert, and who knows what people will pay. “So you think this would be enough?”

“For the time being,” Nan says, enthusiastic now, excited at the prospect of a project. “And once it’s over we can figure out what to do next. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a job.”

“Folding T-shirts at Murray’s Toggery?” Sarah grins.

“You never know.” Nan winks. “Stranger things have happened. Why don’t we start pricing some of the furniture? Let’s see what we can actually get rid off.”

By the end of the afternoon, Sarah’s clipboard is filled with scribbles and notes, rough sketches of the furniture Nan has deemed suitable for selling.

“Are you
sure
you don’t need your bed?” Sarah asks, somewhat dubiously.

“I’ll keep the mattress,” Nan says firmly. “But the damn thing’s too high for me anyway and I’ve never liked how ornate it is. That was Everett’s choice, not mine.”

“And the chest of drawers?”

“No. I feel like it’s time to spring-clean. Clear out all the cobwebs, start afresh. I feel lighter already just thinking about it. So tell me, my dear, how much does all this come to?”

Sarah looks down at her clipboard, and clears her throat. “Well, if everything is worth what you think it’s worth, we should make around two hundred and fifty thousand from this sale.” She wants to laugh, the figure should be laughable, except it isn’t funny. It’s just completely and utterly mad.

Nan spent the afternoon pulling figures out of thin air. “This is beautiful,” she’d gesture at some ugly little stool. “People pay a fortune for these on eBay, so let’s price this at five thousand dollars.”

Five thousand dollars!
She’d be lucky if anyone paid five, Sarah thought.

“Are you
quite
sure you want to get rid of all your things?” Sarah asks again.

“I’m quite sure I need the money. And it will be fun! You and I can advertise it this week, and just imagine, we’ll fill the house with billionaires snapping up our furniture. Honestly, Sarah, I know you’re worried, but this is good stuff, and they won’t find anything like this anywhere else.”

Sarah casts a glance over at the fraying tapestry chair in the corner that has one broken leg and is falling apart. Nan priced it at six thousand dollars. And then there are the clothes. Moth-eaten dresses from the sixties, and fur coats that have developed alopecia while reclining in a hot attic over the years—bald spots all over them, but Nan believes there is a thriving market for vintage clothes, and as she said to Sarah, modeling a particularly skimpy fox-fur jacket, “What woman doesn’t feel beautiful in a real fur?”

Well, she thinks, Nan’s certainly right about them not finding anything at this price anywhere else.

She takes a deep breath and follows Nan downstairs to draft the wording for the ad, wishing that Nan hadn’t cloistered herself away quite so much, for why else would she be pricing things so ridiculously? If she had any idea how the real world worked, she wouldn’t dream of asking what she’s asking, and good reproductions of most of this furniture can be found at every Pottery Barn in the country.

Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Beautiful antiques— beds, hutches, dining table—Chippendale-era, stunning collection of 1920s jewelry, vintage clothes and genuine fur coats! Everything must go!

Open House, Saturday, 30 June, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday, 1 July, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

No early birds please!

Nan has made a special effort for the sale. Resplendent in one of her vintage dresses, her hair is pulled back in a chignon, her lipstick is perfect, and she truly does look like the lady of the manor.

Sarah, on the other hand, is exhausted. She doesn’t want Nan to be humiliated, but she can’t see any other outcome. She has spent the last few days cleaning furiously, attempting to patch up the furniture to make it presentable, trying to justify the absurdly large price tags Nan has insisted on placing on everything.

Nan has set up a folding table by the front door. At the back of the hallway is a large chestnut table ($25,000) on which are two enormous glass decanters filled with lemonade, a platter of chocolate chip cookies in front to entice the buyers.

The first people arrive at 8:45, and Nan flings open the front door and invites them in.

“We just bought a home in town,” says the wife, enthusiastically entering the hallway. “And we’re desperate for furniture. We’ve found fabulous pieces in estate sales at home in Boston, so we can’t wait to see what you’ve got.”

“Oh how wonderful.” Nan welcomes them in, and proceeds to walk them around the house, not seeing how their faces fall as they see the condition of the furniture, nor their shock at the prices.

“I think she’s crazy,” Sarah hears the wife whisper to the husband at one point when Nan, playing gracious hostess, excuses herself to personally welcome some more people who have turned up.

The house fills up, and Nan notices something curious: there are several men on their own, clearly disinterested in the sale, but interested in the house. More than once she finds someone on the widow’s walk, gazing out to the ocean, or walking around the garden, winding their way through the long grass to the beach.

“Developers,” she says to Sarah and sniffs, watching one man get out a notebook and scribble something.

“You’re right,” a voice says, and she turns to see Mark Stephenson, builder of the twelve-and-a-half-million-dollar house, standing in the doorway.

“Mr. Stephenson,” she says, genuine warmth in her voice as she extends a hand.

“Mrs. Powell,” he says, stepping over the threshold and bending down to kiss her cheek.

“Nan,” she corrrects.

“Nan. Of course. I saw you were having an estate sale and couldn’t resist. I’m still waiting for my invitation for drinks, you know.”

“I can offer you lemonade.” Nan gestures to the table with raised eyebrows and a smile, and Sarah watches with fascination, for while Nan is twenty years older than this man, she is clearly flirting, and Sarah suddenly sees how stunning, how irresistible, she must have been.

“I’ll take it,” he says, taking her arm as they cross the room. “And you are a clever woman. I know most of these men.” He nods hello and waves at someone walking upstairs. “They
are
all developers and they’re all checking out your house.”

“I’m not selling it, you know. Everything inside the house. Not the house.”

“You wouldn’t want to sell it to any of them anyway,” Mark said. “Even if you were interested they’d tear it down in a heartbeat and have four McMansions up before you could blink.”

“I take it you wouldn’t do that sort of thing?” Nan looks at him with a smile. “You’re, what? A developer with a heart?”

“I’m an artist who fell into developing,” Mark says. “I’d love a house like this but not to tear down, I’d love to live in a house like this.”

“An artist?” Nan gazes at him coolly. “I knew there was more to you than met the eye. What sort of an artist?”

“I paint,” he says. “I went to Parsons many moons ago, but couldn’t make a living out of it and fell into my father’s business of real estate. I hate saying I’m not like all the others, but it’s true, and I think it’s one of the reasons why people like working with me. I’m not a shark. I live in Nantucket because I love how strict the planning and zoning regulations are, I love that the houses have to be shingle, and although I have built ridiculous houses, it’s to cater to the changing market, not because I would ever want to live in a house like that. Basically,” he adds, shrugging, “I have always believed there is more to life than money. I think that’s what makes me different.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” Nan leads him up the stairs to show off her house. “You can protect me from the rest of those sharks. Now let me show you some of my furs—imagine how thrilled your wife would be with a beautiful vintage fox.” And he follows her into the master bedroom.

“Three hundred dollars?
Three hundred dollars?
Good Lord.” Nan sinks down in the chair with dismay and Sarah looks defeated. “Don’t these people have any taste? Don’t they know good furniture when they see it?”

“What do you want me to do?” Sarah asks. “Shall I take the price tags off?”

“Oh Lord, I don’t know,” Nan says. “I need to go and lie down. I’m exhausted. Let’s just leave things as they are for now. Let me have a nap and let’s talk later.”

At two o’clock in the morning Sarah’s phone rings. She snaps on the light and grabs the phone, immediately worried, for phone calls in the middle of the night can only mean an emergency.

But this is no emergency. This is Nan, unable to sleep with excitement.

“I’ve got it!” she says. “I’m going to open up my house!”