Winter Street (17 page)

A
va is chastened. She has been so busy fretting about her relationship with Nathaniel that she hasn’t had two seconds left over to think about Bart.

She and Bart used to be…
so close.
When he was born, Ava was ten years old; she would push him in his stroller, pretending he was
her
baby. He had soft, chubby cheeks and blue eyes and blond chick fuzz on top of his head. He was a living doll.

When Ava was a teenager, the thrill of taking care of Bart wore off a little. She was
always
called on to babysit him, and when she turned sixteen and got her license, she was enlisted to drive him and his pesky friends all over the island. Did she complain?

Yes, she complained. She called him a spoiled brat. Mitzi
never punished him, he was never held accountable for his actions, and as he grew older, his actions became more and more atrocious. He started smoking at fourteen. Ava caught him and his friend Michael, each with a cigarette, in the back parking lot of the high school. She turned him in to Mitzi, who cried and blamed herself. Bart hosted enormous parties at Dionis Beach with beer he stole out the back door of the Bar. He crashed three cars in eighteen months, he got caught repeatedly with marijuana—by Kelley and Mitzi, by the high school principal, by the police—and he broke and entered a summer house in Pocomo one weekend night in February when he and his derelict friends were bored.

But Ava doesn’t want to spend her moment of silence running down Bart’s rap sheet. What a person does isn’t the same as who a person is. Bart is charming, fun loving, mischievous, and magnetic. Bart is her little brother, and Ava needs him to be safe.

D
ear Lord, please keep Bart in the palm of your hand. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

H
e has been having a great Christmas, the best of his life, perhaps. He remembers Eric Metz giving away money he could most certainly use.
This is for Nantucket Hospice,
Eric said.
They made things so much easier for my mom at the end.

Grace,
Kevin reminds himself.

He prays for Bart—
Bart, man, stay well, stay safe, stay strong, be smart, not reckless, don’t take any unnecessary risks, Mitzi needs you, man, and so does Dad.

Kevin has been convinced that Bart wears a Teflon shield, that everything slides off him, but right now, Kevin becomes aware that, wherever Bart is, he is probably scared and more than a little lonely.

We’re thinking of you, man.

P
atrick has spent the past nineteen years being a mentor and a role model for Bart, but no longer. Now, the tables have turned—Patrick is the screwup and Bart is the hero, and who would have ever predicted that?

Before Bart left for Germany, he spent the night with Patrick, Jen, and the kids in Boston. Jen made roast chicken and potatoes and a banana cream pie, because it’s Bart’s favorite. After dinner and tucking in the kids, Patrick and Bart walked over to Silvertone and had a couple of drinks. Patrick told the bartender, Murph, that Bart was shipping overseas with the Marines, and with that, the fact that Bart was nineteen was ignored, and the first round was on the house.

Patrick said, “So, are you nervous?”

“God, no,” Bart said. “I’m pumped.”

“It’ll be good for you to get off the island,” Patrick said.

“Yeah,” Bart said. “I think Mom and Dad have finally run out of patience with me. And I don’t want to go to college, not right now, anyway. I’d party my ass off, flunk out, come home to Nantucket, and work as the first mate on some fishing boat the rest of my life. The Marines, man, it
means
something. Defending our country, our freedom, so people like you can go out and make millions of dollars each day.”

Patrick had laughed. They had done a shot of Jameson together with Murph, they had played some Kings of Leon on the jukebox, they had arm wrestled, and Bart had won. They had stumbled home arm in arm. Patrick experienced brotherly feelings he’d never had with Kevin, probably because he and Kevin were so close in age, raised as twins, or as two halves of the same person—the go-getter and the slacker,
the perfectionist and the one who liked to half-ass things. Bart looked up to Patrick instead of resenting him, as Kevin did, and that felt good.

Patrick sighs. He thinks,
Be honorable, wherever you are, Bart. Do the right thing instead of the easy thing.

A
men,” he says, and he squeezes hands with Margaret and Isabelle.

Margaret and Ava serve dinner: the standing rib roast, the Yorkshire pudding, roasted asparagus, spinach salad with fresh mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and hot bacon dressing, snowflake rolls with cranberry butter.

Mitzi, Kelley notices, takes only asparagus and a roll—and then, on second thought, another roll and a small serving of salad.

Kelley wants to introduce a nostalgic topic of conversation, and the first thing that pops into his mind is the genesis of this family. The way he met Margaret. The kids all know this story—he used to tell it every Christmas—but Isabelle hasn’t heard it, and neither has Scott or George; nor have the grandchildren.

“My first Christmas in Manhattan,” Kelley says, “I was so
poor
.”

“Oh boy,” Ava says. She slugs back some wine, then feeds him the next line. “How poor were you, Daddy?”

“Well, I was putting myself through business school at Columbia and living in a university-owned apartment with four roommates.”

“And one disgusting bathroom,” Margaret says. “It was, what, forty years ago? And I can still picture it.”

“You’re getting ahead of me,” Kelley says. “I haven’t met you yet.”

“But you’re about to.”

“But I’m about to, yes,” Kelley says. He sips his wine and cuts into his perfectly cooked roast beef. It’s rosy pink, and the Yorkshire pudding is high and light and flecked with chives. He squints at Margaret. “I still don’t understand that thing about Martha Stewart.”

“What
about
Martha Stewart?” Jen asks.

“Just tell the story, please,” Margaret says.

“So, anyway, I was too poor to go home to Perrysburg for Christmas, and my brother, Avery, decided at the last minute to go to Key West with Marcus. Which left me alone in the city. All my roommates went home. We had a sad little wreath on our door, but nobody felt like spending money on a tree. So basically I was looking at a Christmasless Christmas. I was looking at Chinese takeout and bad TV.”

“Sad,” Isabelle says.

“It
was
sad. But—never one to feel sorry for myself—I became determined to feel the holiday spirit, and so I took the crosstown bus to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Angel Tree.”

Ava nudges Scott. “Ask him what that Angel Tree is.”

“What’s the Angel Tree, Mr. Quinn?” Scott asks.

Kelley says, “It was a twenty-foot tree on display in one of the galleries that was decorated with angel ornaments. The angels were all different sizes and colors, and they were made from different materials—felt, velvet, metal, straw, wood, cloth, stones, feathers, beads, gold, jewels, you name it—hundreds of different angels on this tree. I got to the museum an hour before it closed on Christmas Eve. Back then, the museum was free with a ‘suggested donation’ of five dollars. I had five dollars, but I needed to take the crosstown bus home, so I gave the staff member two dollars, but she said since it was late and it was Christmas Eve, I could go in for free.”

“Lucky you,” Ava says.

“Lucky me,” Kelley says. “But not because of the two dollars. I was lucky because the gallery with the tree was empty, and it was dark except for the lights on the tree, and a song was playing. ‘Silent Night,’ my favorite carol.”

“But the gallery wasn’t really empty, Daddy, was it?” Ava asks.

“No,” Kelley says. “It wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t?” George says. He’s leaning forward over his
own loaded dinner plate (he has no problem eating beef, Kelley notices). He’s engrossed in the story; next to him, Mitzi sits with her hands in her lap, her sad little dinner untouched. She has heard this story before, right? He must have told her at some point how he and Margaret met, but probably not in this much detail.

“It wasn’t empty,” Kelley says, “because Margaret was there.”

“I was sitting on a bench, staring at the tree,” Margaret says. “And Kelley asked if it was okay to sit next to me.”

“We didn’t speak,” Kelley says. “Didn’t say a word. We sat and watched the tree and listened to the carols, and then the guard came up and told us the museum was closing. We stood up and walked out together.”

“And your father asked me if I wanted to go get hot chocolate,” Margaret says. “And I said yes.”

“And because I still had five dollars, I had money to pay for it!” Kelley says.

Margaret says, “And that’s why, when Ava brought home her paper angel ornament from Sunday school in second grade, it was so special. In fact, I brought it with me last night.” She pulls the paper angel out of her pocket like a magician.

“Look at that!” Kelley says. “I remember when Ava made this. I can’t believe you still have it!”

“I’ve had it a long, long time,” Margaret says.

“That is a good story,” Isabelle says.

There’s a clatter at the other end of the table. Mitzi has dropped her knife and fork onto her plate.

“Well,” she says, “that was a lovely stroll down memory lane. I’m sure you and Margaret have been scheming about all the possible ways to humiliate me.”

“Humiliate
you?
” Kelley says. “That’s rich.”

“Why is she even
here?
” Mitzi asks. “She hasn’t come to Nantucket for Christmas in years. She’s too busy and too important to spend the holidays with her own children.”

“Watch it,” Kelley says.

“I can’t believe you’re defending her,” Mitzi says. “I can’t believe you’re letting her sit at this table,
in my chair.
I can’t believe you let her cook
beef, in my kitchen!
”

“Well,” Kelley says, “there are a lot of things I can’t believe either. But at least I am adult enough to play through. I am man enough to have invited you and George here for dinner because you had nowhere else to go.”

“My suspicions all these years were right,” Mitzi says. “You still loved Margaret all the years we were married. You never loved me, and you never cared for Bart.”

“Hey, now,” Patrick says.

George puts a hand on Mitzi’s arm. “Calm down,” he says. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Of course I’m
DRINKING!
” Mitzi screams. “Kelley called up Margaret Quinn, the most famous woman in
America, so the two of them could make me feel like a common whore, when the fact of the matter is, I’ve been lonely in this marriage for years and years!”

“Mitzi,” Kelley says, “please stop. There are children present.”

The three kids don’t seem interested in Mitzi’s soliloquy, however. Pierce is playing with his new iPad under the table.

Jennifer says, “They’re finished. Boys, you may be excused.”

“Yes,” Mitzi says. “I’d like to be excused as well.” She stands up and sets the fedora back on her head. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

“Powder room,” Kelley says.

Mitzi vanishes.

“Well,” Ava says, “I like the story of the Angel Tree.”

“So do I,” George says. “And, you know, you have a beautiful family. I’ve always thought that.”

“Thank you,” Kelley and Margaret say together.

“Does anyone want seconds?” Margaret asks. “Look at all the beef!”

“Sandwiches tomorrow,” Kevin says.

Kelley eats dinner, trying to savor it. Maybe it
was
insensitive to tell the Angel Tree story? Okay, yes, it was, but he didn’t tell it to ruin Mitzi’s night. Okay, maybe he
did
tell it to ruin Mitzi’s night, but doesn’t she deserve it? A little bit?

The food is
so delicious,
he can’t believe it. He wonders if Margaret made dessert. He noticed that Mrs. Gabler
brought a plum pudding. Would Margaret be able to whip up some of her hard sauce to go with it?

His vision of sugar plums is interrupted by Mitzi, who storms back into the dining room. Her face is as red as her hat. She is holding something up in her hand, something shiny. She is shaking it.

“Look what I found next to your bed!” she shouts.

Kelley opens his mouth to protest. Did he or did he not tell her to use the
powder room?
But did she listen? No. No, she marched right into the master suite. Possibly she was after the remaining inch of her organic hairspray. She doesn’t like to waste
anything,
and she might have worried that Kelley wouldn’t recycle the bottle properly.

Margaret gasps. Under the table, her hand grabs Kelley’s knee.

Kelley squints to focus on what Mitzi is holding in her hand.

“Margaret’s watch,” Mitzi says, “was on your bedside table.”

Everyone at the table is rendered silent.

Margaret says, “I’ll take that now, Mitzi, please. I didn’t realize I left it there.”

“You must have taken it off before you slept with my husband.”

“Mitzi…,” George says.

“That hideous watch!” Mitzi says, rattling it like a castanet. “I see you wearing it on the news. It ruins your already ugly outfits.”

“Mitzi!” Ava cries out. “Honestly! You sound like you’re ten years old.”

“Wait a minute,” Margaret says, “are
you
the one who writes the blog about me? Are you Queenie229?”

“I hate this watch because I know who gave it to you,” Mitzi says.

“
I
gave it to her,” Kelley says.

“Yes,” Margaret says, “after Ava was born. That was long before he met you, Mitzi; there’s no reason for you to feel threatened.”

“Except that you wear it every single night on the
national news
as a signal that you still love him! It’s always sickened me! And it further sickens me that you showed up here and crawled right into bed with Kelley only a scant day after I crawled out!”

At this, both Patrick and Kevin stand up to defend their mother’s honor, but Margaret is hung up on something different.

“
Are you
Queenie229?” she asks Mitzi.

Yes,
Kelley thinks. “Queenie” for Roller Disco Queen of King of Prussia, PA, and 2/29 is Mitzi’s birthday. Leap Day.

Mitzi says, “Not everyone in America loves you. Not everyone in America thinks you have impeccable style.”

“Well, I’m glad I know it’s you,” Margaret says. “Although trashing your husband’s ex-wife anonymously in a blog is a move I would have thought was beneath you. It’s tasteless.”

“That’s it!” Mitzi says. “I’ve had it. I’m not going to stay here while you insult me. George, we’re leaving.”

George stuffs a large piece of roast beef into his mouth and takes one more snowflake roll before he stands up. “Yes, dear,” he says weakly. It sounds like he and Mitzi have been married fifty years.

Kelley pulls out the present from Mitzi and quickly opens it. It’s a Barefoot Contessa cookbook; Mitzi gives him the newest one every year.

“Thank you for this,” he says. He holds the book up like a librarian at story time, showing everyone the cover.

“Oh,” Margaret says, “I love the Barefoot Contessa, and I know her. Ina Garten. I can introduce you, if you like.”

“I’ll tell you what’s
shameless,
” Mitzi says. “Your name-dropping is shameless!”

“I for one would love to meet the Barefoot Contessa,” Isabelle says.

“You!” Mitzi says. “I saved you, Isabelle. You would have been sent home long ago if it weren’t for me. But you have taken her side, too.”

“It isn’t about sides,” Ava says. “She’s our mother.”

“And you
were
our stepmother,” Kevin says.

“Merry Christmas, Mitzi, George. Good night,” Kelley says. He does not stand up, however. He is going to sit and finish what’s on his plate, and he may even have seconds.

Mitzi and George leave the dining room, but Kelley waits until the front door slams shut before he resumes eating. He
meant to tell Mitzi that Eddie Pancik will be listing the inn, but that can wait until after the holidays.

He smiles at Margaret. “What are you doing on New Year’s?”

“I’m broadcasting from Times Square,” she says. “Wanna come?”