The Love Season (11 page)

Yes. What got her through was the promise of summer. The summer
would never change; it was the love season. Porter rented the cottage on Polpis Road; he wanted Daisy with him every second she could spare. For years it was the same: nights in the rope bed, roses in the outdoor shower, kisses on the back of the neck as she sauteéd mushrooms in clarified butter. The first daylily bloom was always a cause for celebration, a glass of wine. “Cheers,” they said. “I love you.”

Porter was private about his family, referring to his parents only when he was reminiscing about his childhood; Marguerite assumed they were dead. He did on one occasion mention that his father, Dr. Harris, a urological surgeon, had been married twice and had had a second set of children rather late in life, but Porter never referred to any siblings other than his brother Andre in California. Therefore, on the night that Porter walked into Les Parapluies with a young blond woman on his arm, Marguerite thought,
It’s finally happened. He’s thrown me over for another woman
.

Marguerite had been in the dining room, lured out of the kitchen by the head waiter, Francesca, who said, “The Dicksons at Table Seven. They have a present for you.”

It was the restaurant’s fourth summer. Yes, Marguerite was popular, but the phenomenon of gifts for her as the chef was novel, touching, and always surprising. The regulars had started showing up like the Three Wise Men with all kinds of treasures—scarves knit in Peru from the wool of baby alpacas, bottles of ice wine from Finland, a jar of fiery barbecue sauce from a smoke pit in Memphis. And on this day the Dicksons at Table Seven had brought Marguerite a tin of saffron from their trip to Thailand. Marguerite was thanking the Dicksons for the tin
—Such a thoughtful gift, too kind; I so appreciate—
when Porter and the young woman
walked in. Porter had told Marguerite when she left the cottage at five thirty that he’d have a surprise for her at dinner that night. She had been hoping for tickets to Paris. Instead, she faced her nightmare: another woman on his arm, here in her restaurant, tonight, without warning. Marguerite turned away and, lest any of the customers perceive her reaction, rushed back into the kitchen.

How dare he!
she thought.
And he’s
late!

Thirty seconds hence, the kitchen door swung open and in walked the happy couple. The woman had to be fifteen years Porter’s junior.
Contemptible
, Marguerite thought,
embarrassing for him, for me, for her
. But the woman was lovely, exquisite, she was as blond and blue-eyed and tan and wholesome looking as a model in an advertisement. She had a face that could sell anything: Limburger cheese, industrial caulking. Marguerite barely managed to tear her eyes away. She searched her prep area for something to do, something to chop, but her kitchen staff had everything under control, as ever.

“Daisy,” Porter said. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He had the trumpet of self-importance in his voice. He’d had a cocktail or two, someplace else. Marguerite busied herself selecting the words she would use when she threw him out.

Marguerite summoned enough courage to raise her eyes to the woman.

“My sister, Candace Harris,” Porter said. “Candace, this is Marguerite Beale, the woman solely responsible for my happiness and my burgeoning belly.”

Sister
. Marguerite was an insecure fool. Before she could straighten out her frame of mind, Candace came swooping in. She put her hands on Marguerite’s shoulders and kissed her. “I have been dying to meet you. What Porter told me in private is that he thinks you’re pure magic.”

“Candace is moving to the island,” Porter said. “She has a job with the Chamber of Commerce and she’s training for a marathon.”

“Really?” Marguerite said. The Chamber of Commerce rubbed Marguerite the wrong way. She had paid the membership fee to join just like everybody else, and yet the Chamber was hesitant to recommend the restaurant to tourists; they felt it was too expensive. And Marguerite’s heart wasn’t that much warmer toward people who engaged in any kind of regular exercise. They eschewed foie gras, filet of beef, duck confit; they tended to ask for sauces without butter or cream. (How many times had she had been forced to explain? A sauce without butter or cream wasn’t a sauce.) Exercisers, and especially marathon runners, ate like little birds. And yet despite these two black marks against the woman right away, Marguerite felt something she could only describe as affection for this Candace person. She was relieved, certainly, by the word “sister,” but there was something else, too. It was the kiss, Marguerite decided. Candace had kissed her right on the lips, as though they had known each other all their lives.

Marguerite led Candace to the west banquette while Porter stopped to chat with friends. She pulled a chair out for Candace. As she did this, she noticed a subtle shift in the conversation in the dining room. The decibel level dropped; there was whispering. Marguerite’s back burned like the scarlet shell of a lobster from the attention she knew was focused on her and this newcomer.
It’s his sister!
Marguerite was tempted to announce. A half sister, she now deduced, from his father’s second marriage. Marguerite slipped onto the red silk of the banquette, where she could keep a stern eye on her customers. She held out the tin of saffron.

“Look,” she said. “Look what I’ve been given.” She opened the tin to show Candace the dark red strands, a fortune in her palm, dearer than this much caviar, this many shaved truffles; it was for spices like this that
Columbus had set out in his ship. “Each strand is handpicked from the center of a crocus flower that only blooms two weeks of the year.” She offered the tin to Candace. “Taste.”

Candace dipped her finger into the tin, and Marguerite did likewise. The delicate threads smeared and turned a deep golden-orange. This was how Candace and Marguerite began their first meal together: by licking saffron from their fingertips.

Marguerite wasn’t really asleep. She was resting with her eyes closed, but her mind was as alert as a sentry, keeping her memories in order. First this, then that. Don’t step out of line. Don’t digress, wander down another path; don’t try to flutter away as you do when you’re asleep. And yet, for a second, the sentry looks away, and Marguerite is set free. She sleeps.

And awakens! It might have been an internal alarm that woke her, one saying,
There isn’t time for this! The silver! The Herb Farm! The blasted tart! (If you’d wanted to sleep, you should have chosen something easier!)
It might have been the sluicing sound of the mail coming through the slot. But what stunned Marguerite out of sleep was a noise, another blasted noise. It was the phone. Really, the phone again?

Marguerite held the summer blanket against her bare, flushed chest. She took a deep breath. She had a funny feeling about the phone ringing this time; she imagined some kind of memory police on the other end. She would be charged with reeking of nostalgia. She thought it might be Dusty, calling to ask her on a date, or perhaps it was someone Dusty had talked to that morning, a faceless name that would bounce around Marguerite’s consciousness like a pinball, knocking against surfaces, trying to
elicit recognition.
We heard you’re back among the living
. An old customer who wanted to hire her as a personal chef, a reporter from
The Inquirer and Mirror
seeking a scoop on her Lazarus-like return. Marguerite dared the phone to ring as she buttoned her blouse. It did.
Okay
, she thought.
Whoever this is must know I’m here
.

“Hello?” she said.

“Margo?” Pause. “It’s Daniel Knox.”

Marguerite’s insides shifted in an uncomfortable way. Daniel Knox. The memory police indeed. Marguerite tried to decide how surprised she should sound at his voice. He sent a Christmas card every year, and the occasional scrawled note on his office stationery, but not once had he called her. Not once since the funeral. However, the fact of the matter was, Marguerite was not surprised to discover his voice on the other end of the line, not at all. He’d obviously found out Renata was coming to dinner and would try, somehow, to prevent it.

“Margo?”

Right. She had to do a better job on the telephone.

“Hello, Dan.”

“Are you well, Margo?”

“Indeed. Very well. And you?”

“Physically, I’m fine.”

It was a strange thing to say, provocative; he was cuing Marguerite to ask about his emotional well-being, which she would, momentarily, after she stopped to wonder what a “physically fine” Daniel Knox looked like these days. Marguerite didn’t keep his picture around, and the snapshots that arrived at Christmas were only of Renata. She imagined him shaggy and blond gray, an aging golden retriever. He had always reminded Marguerite of a character from the Bible, with his longish hair and his beard. He looked like an apostle, or a shepherd.

“And otherwise?” Marguerite said.

“Well, I’ve been dealt quite a blow today.”

Quite a blow?
Was he talking about Marguerite, Renata, the dinner? This dinner should have taken place years ago; it would have, Marguerite was sure, if it weren’t for Dan.
The girl wants to find out the truth about her mother. And can we blame her?
Dan had kept Renata away from Marguerite—from Nantucket altogether—for fourteen years. Marguerite couldn’t scorn his parenting skills because anyone with one good eye could see he’d done a brilliant job just by the way Renata had turned out, all her accomplishments, and Dan had done it single-handedly. But Marguerite suspected—in fact she was certain—that on the subject of Marguerite, Porter, and Les Parapluies, Daniel Knox had been all but mute. Curt, dismissive, disparaging.
It’s nothing a girl your age needs to know
. Except now the girl was becoming a woman and it was difficult to complete that journey without a clear image of one’s own mother. There were photographs, of course. And Dan’s memories, which would have been idealized for the sake of his daughter. Candace had been presented to Renata as angel food cake—sweet, bland, insubstantial, without any deviling or spice or zing.

“Renata’s coming to me tonight,” Marguerite said. “Is that what you mean?”

“No,” he said. “No, not that. I knew she’d come to you. I knew it the second she said she was off to Nantucket.”

“You didn’t forbid her?” Marguerite said.

“I advised her against it,” Dan said. “I didn’t want her to bother you.”

“Ha!” Marguerite said, and just like a clean slice through the tip of her finger with a sharp knife, she felt anger. Daniel Knox was a
coward
. He was too much of a coward to tell his own daughter the truth. “You hate me.”

“I do not hate you, Margo.”

“You do so. You’re just not man enough to admit it.”

“I do not hate you.”

“You do so.”

“I do not. And listen to us. We sound like children.”

“You resent me,” Marguerite said. It felt marvelous to be speaking aloud like this. For years Marguerite had dreamed of confronting Daniel Knox; for years his words had festered, hot and liquid, inside of her.
All you got in the end was her pity. She pitied you, Margo
. With time, however, Marguerite’s convictions desiccated like the inside of a gourd; they rattled like old seeds. But now! “You’ve always resented me. And you’re afraid of me. You want Renata to be afraid of me. You told her I was a witch. As a child, to scare her. You told her I was insane.”

“I did no such thing.”

“Oh, Daniel.”

“Oh, Margo,” he said. “I admit, it’s complicated. What happened, our history. I asked her not to contact you, but she did anyway. So you won. You should be happy.”

“Happy?” Marguerite said. Though secretly she thought,
Yes, I am happy
.

“Anyway,” he said. “That wasn’t why I called. I called because I need your help.”

“My help?” Marguerite said. And then she thought,
Of course. He never would have called unless he needed something
.

“Renata phoned me a little while ago,” Dan said. “She told me she was coming to you, and then she told me about the boy.”

“The boy?”

“You don’t know? She says she’s getting married.”

Ah, yes. The fiancé. Hulbert Avenue. “You just found out?” Marguerite said.

“This morning.”

“I wondered when she said ‘fiancé.’ I wondered about you.”

“I can’t allow it.”

“Well…” Marguerite saw where this was headed. Dan wanted Marguerite to be his mouthpiece.
Talk her out of it. Explain how hasty, how naïve, how reckless, she’s being
. As if Marguerite had any influence. If she did have influence, would she waste it talking about the fiancé? “She’s an adult, Dan.”

“She’s a teenager.”

“Legally, she could go to the Town Building on Monday and get married by a justice of the peace.”

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “I can’t allow that to happen, Margo. I will get on a plane to come up there right now. If she marries him, it’ll last a year, or five, and then she’ll be the ripe old age of twenty-four and maybe she’ll have a child or two and then—you know it as well as I do—something will happen that makes her see she missed out on the most exciting time of her life. She’ll want to ride elephants in Cambodia or join the Peace Corps or go to culinary school. She’ll meet someone else.”

“She’s in love,” Marguerite said. “Some people who fall in love get married.” She spoke ironically, thinking of herself and Porter.
Some people fall in love and dance around each other for years and years, until one partner tires, or dances away
.

“If he’s knocked her up, I’ll kill him,” Dan said.

“She didn’t sound like she was in that kind of trouble,” Marguerite said. “She sounded blissful.”

“Nineteen is too young to get married,” Dan said. “It should be illegal to get married before you’ve traveled on at least three continents, had four lovers, and held down a serious job. It should be illegal to get married
before you’ve had your wisdom teeth out, owned your own car, cooked your first Thanksgiving turkey. She has so many experiences ahead of her. I didn’t spend all that time and energy—fourteen years, Margo, every single day—to stand by and let her ruin her life this way. Marry some spoiled kid she’s known less than a year. If Candace were here, she’d—”