The Beach House (39 page)

“Do we have anything in writing?” Daff plays dumb.

“No we damned well don’t, but we had an agreement.”

“We did? I thought our agreement was off.”

“No, it’s not off!” Mark Stephenson yells. “Get me that house, and of course I’ll pay you! What’s the offer for? How much do I need to pay?”

“I’m sorry,” Daff coos. “I’m afraid the deal is now off the table. I only came here as a courtesy, not as a negotiating tactic.”

His voice turns menacing. “You listen here. There’s no such thing as fucking courtesy in this kind of deal. You tell me right now how much I need to pay, or I swear to you . . .”

“You’ll swear to her what?” Michael appears in the doorway, just as Daff is starting to worry.

“Oh!” Mark Stephenson’s expression changes instantly, affecting a charm he quite clearly doesn’t have. “Michael.” He extends a hand which Michael ignores. “I had no idea you were here.”

“Clearly,” Michael says wryly.

“I was just making the point that this is no way to do business, ” Mark Stephenson says. “I understand that your mother has an offer on the table, and I’d like to come up with a competitive offer. Whatever it is, I’ll top it by . . . half a million.”

Michael shakes his head. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Well, how much is the offer? I can go up if I have to.”

“No,” Michael says firmly. “I don’t think you understand. Some things, and some people, cannot be bought. My mother is one of them. Come on, Daff, we’re done here.”

Taking her arm, he leads her out of the room.

Summer 2008

Bee wakes up, as she does every day, just before five thirty a.m. In the old days, living in Westport, married to Daniel, waking up was always a struggle for her—she’d lie in bed trying to sleep her life away, until one of the girls woke her up, and bleary-eyed she would be forced to get up, stumble downstairs and blindly reach for the coffee as she made breakfast for the girls.

Now it is an effort to sleep past five. She awakens every morning filled with energy, jumping out of bed, padding across the floor, stepping onto the deck outside her bedroom to watch the early morning sun, listen to the crickets, the soft silence, and gaze at the boats bobbing lazily on the water in the distance.

She runs downstairs, pours herself some coffee and sits outside on the doorstep, sipping slowly as Albert, a stray kitten that seems to have adopted them, winds himself around her ankles, mewing for breakfast, before jumping on her lap and purring contentedly as she absentmindedly rubs him under the chin.

Every morning, as she sits here, she is filled with bursts of joy, a happiness she didn’t know she would ever find, for she always looked for it in the wrong places.

For years she thought a man would bring her happiness. When she married Daniel, she expected to finally find it, but it is only now, now that she is truly on her own, with her girls, doing work she adores, that she knows what happiness is.

She and the girls are still in the house on Quidnet, but it has been a year since they moved in, a year of testing the waters, finding out whether Nantucket is a place they could live, rather than just stay until they find their footing again.

A year later, Bee knows Nantucket is home.

When her dad died, it was a huge scandal. There had already been gossip about Everett Powell returning but a tenacious journalist had followed it up and got the story, and for a few weeks Bee had the unpleasant experience of being at the center of a news story that felt like it had no end.

The
New York Post
got hold of it, running the story for days, photographers and journalists camped outside her house to get pictures of her and the girls. The local papers all tried to woo her into talking, as a new-found member of island royalty, but she didn’t speak.

Eventually they all left her alone, moved on to the next story, and other than a few stares when she went to do her shopping, she was able to live her life. In some ways, she was relieved the story came out. Arthur Worth wrote to her, and she went to his house, staying for hours to listen to stories about her father as a young man, putting together the pieces of the puzzle that made up her father’s life.

There have been others. Many others. People who had known her father, who had loved him, who were shocked by the story but eager to get to know Bee, help her put her history together, find out who she really is.

Now she is writing a book. Part memoir, part biography, she is writing about her life: growing up thinking her family was perfect, marrying a man with whom she thought she could mirror her parents’ marriage, then discovering everything she thought was true and real was in fact a sham.

She is writing about the Powell family. How they reached the island, how they came to be such an important part of Nantucket’s history. And she is writing about her father. His life, his marriage to Nan, the trouble that led to him faking a suicide; how life came full circle, finally bringing him home.

She misses him still, but writing this book has brought him to life again. She feels him around her, supporting her, loving her, gently encouraging her and leading her to people and places she is convinced she would not have found had he not been somewhere, watching over her.

After a few minutes of feeling the early morning sun wash over her, Bee takes her coffee to her computer in her bedroom, and opens her notebook, reviewing what she wrote yesterday, what she has to write today.

She still doesn’t think of herself as a writer, yet over the past year she has had three short stories published, one in the back of the
New York Times
magazine. Just a few weeks ago she sent a synopsis of her book and three sample chapters to one of the big New York agents, fully expecting never to hear from them.

Three days later the agent called her, said she loved it, could they meet.

Now she has an agent, and as soon as the book is finished they are sending it out to the publishing houses. Bee still can’t quite believe it. She celebrated with the girls when she found out: champagne for Bee, sparkling apple cider for the girls, as they danced around the deck, cheering.

Today will be a difficult day to write. Some days it comes so easily, like writing on auto-pilot, the words flowing from her fingers, her mind so calm it is as if the book is writing itself. Other days it is like squeezing blood from a stone.

Bee has learned the secret—the magic tool that separates the true writers from the people who merely dream of being writers, who have a wonderful idea but never get started, or get started but never finish. She has learned the secret of discipline, of plowing through even when it feels like she has nothing to say; of writing even though she doesn’t know what to write; of writing even when there are days, like today, when she is fighting the excitement of the party tonight—the farewell bash at Windermere, for Nan is moving out of the house next week.

Bee has come to love Nan, to think of her as a second mother. She has taken to dropping in at Windermere almost daily, often with the girls, who now, unsurprisingly, call Nan “Nanna,” since Nan is more of a grandmother to them than Bee’s own mother.

Bee had never quite understood what family meant. She had always ached for a large family, had grown up feeling she was missing something. What she has come to understand since her father passed away, is that the people with whom you surround yourself, the people you love, become your family. Whether there are blood ties or not.

Nan is now her family. And Michael, who she thinks of as her brother, and Daff, and Jess. These people, who she didn’t know a year ago, are now part of the fabric of her life, have helped her settle down on this island that is already more of a home than anywhere else she has ever lived.

There is more to it. For the first time in her life, Bee is comfortable in her skin. No longer buttoned up, playing the part of the successful suburban housewife in her pink and green Capri pants, her sparkly gold and diamond jewelry, her hair perfectly blown out twice a week at Peter Coppola, lunching with girlfriends at V or Zest, or swinging into school in her Lexus wagon to collect the girls.

Now her hair is long and curly, with natural golden highlights from the sun. Her skin is bronzed, her face makeup free. She lives in shorts, T-shirts and flip-flops, and dresses up only for very rare occasions, and when she does so she pulls on something she already owns, instead of doing what she used do: buying something new at Mitchells, for you didn’t want to be seen out wearing the same thing twice in a row.

Bee does yoga four times a week, joining a small group of women on the beach early in the morning, women who are slowly becoming friends. She takes her girls to school every day, and bakes cookies with them in the afternoon, plays with them on the beach, brings them with her as she looks at houses to buy.

The time has come for her to buy a house. This house on Quidnet, while beautiful, is not hers, and she and the girls need to build life anew, in a place that is home. She wasn’t going to buy anywhere until she was absolutely sure, but these past couple of months she has started to look at houses, knowing that Nantucket is where she wants to raise her children, where she wants to spend the rest of her days.

The house in Westport has been sold, the furniture divided, although Daniel didn’t want much. Her share of the furniture sat in storage for a while, Bee eventually selling it all, wanting to start all over again, wanting a true beach house, in blues and whites, fresh and beachy, to signify the new beginning.

Last week she saw a cottage that was so perfect, she almost burst into tears walking through it. A bright hallway led into a small office, and beyond a large archway you came into a huge open kitchen and family room that had three walls of windows overlooking the bay, sunlight streaming through, creating dappled patterns on the floor, a fan spinning lazily from the vaulted ceiling.

Upstairs were three bedrooms: the master suite at the back, with a wide bay window opening onto a deck, a bay window that would be the perfect place for her desk and her computer, and the girls’ bedrooms at the front, sharing a Jack and Jill bathroom.

The girls had scampered up the stairs with excitement. “Mommy! I love it!” Lizzie had cried, running into the bedroom she immediately claimed would be hers.

Outside was a beautiful garden. High, clipped privet hedges separated a small swimming pool from a cutting garden; there was a stone terrace covered with a pergola, honeysuckle and clematis tumbling over the top. Bee instantly saw herself at a small glass table under the pergola, glass of wine in hand, having dinner with the girls.

She didn’t want to show the realtor how much she loved it, but she couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. This was, she knew instantly, home. This was what she had been waiting for.

She had checked the details. It was a fortune, but then everything on the island was a fortune, and thanks to her father she wouldn’t have to worry about money again.

Her father had been, it seems, a very wealthy man. Since conquering his gambling addiction in his former life, he had learned to be clever with his money, had grown the family business into something huge, and had invested his own money in the right deals.

When he died, he had left Bee a third of his money.

The rest was split evenly. Between Michael and Nan.

Nan pushes the boxes out of the way and grabs the phone.

“Hello? . . . Why, Mr. Moseley! Again! What a lovely surprise, but I do hope you’re ringing to tell me you’re coming to our little get-together tonight . . . No? . . . Oh I am sorry.” A pause and Nan catches Sarah’s eye and grins at her. “Why, that’s so sweet of you to think of me, Mr. Moseley, but I’m afraid my money is busy working elsewhere . . . Absolutely you can call me again . . . Yes . . . No . . . No. We’ll miss you too. Cheerio!”

Nan makes a face as she puts the phone down. “I always thought that Mr. Moseley was terribly nice, but I do wish he wouldn’t keep asking me to give him money to invest.”

“You’d think after what happened last year he’d be too embarrassed, ” Sarah says.

“He’s a financial adviser. I think he was born without the embarrassment gene,” Nan says with a chuckle. “Sarah, let’s leave the packing for now. There’s still so much to do for the party.”

“There really isn’t.” Sarah smiles. “Stephen and Keith have sent over their party planners and the caterers are setting up in the garage. Keith’s outside with a walkie-talkie telling people where to hang the lanterns. I honestly don’t know how we could help.”

“Isn’t this so much fun!” Nan claps her hands together. “Finally throwing a party like the ones we used to!”

“And, more to the point, throwing it with the new owners.” Sarah laughs. “I love that they’re insisting on paying for other people to do all the work.”

“I’m going to take a rest upstairs before I start getting ready,” Nan says. “I can finish packing my clothes up while I’m at it.”

Nan walks up the stairs slowly, running her hands over the mahogany banisters, feeling every nick and groove, thinking about all the years she has spent in this house, loving it, thinking she would never leave.

And yet, now that the time has come, it feels easy. More than easy, it feels right. Not that she was forced to sell it. The day before going to contract with Stephen and Keith she discovered she was a beneficiary of Everett’s will.

He had finally done the right thing.

He left her more than enough money to do the repairs at Windermere and live out the rest of her days here, but once she had made up her mind she knew there was no going back.

Now she truly is a wealthy woman, and most of Everett’s money has been put in a foundation that will fulfill the work the Powell family started on the island, making Powell once again a great Nantucket name.

There was some put aside for investment purposes, hence the repeated calls from Andrew Moseley, but Nan no longer wants to put her money into stocks and shares, things she doesn’t understand. Instead she has bought a couple of rental houses, knowing that with the prices on the island going up as they do it is a far safer bet than risking anything on the stock market.