The Winters

by Lisa Gabriele

  I stormed past them and the shirtless guy passed out on the couch, slamming my bedroom door behind me. Pulling the dusty rucksack from beneath the bed, I thought how I might never have to sleep in this miserable room again, and yet why did I feel like I was being ripped from the only home I had ever known and sent into a punishing exile? For what? For behaving like a wanton local who deceived herself into thinking a rich tourist, passing time while moving his fortune from one account into another, might have loved her. Stupidly, yes, I was in love with Max Winter, in the way only young women fall in love, swiftly, uncritically, mind, heart, and body in complete and total collusion.

  The sudden realization that I had no one to say goodbye to, and that everything I owned could fit inside one shabby bag, was what finally brought me to my knees. I started to cry, a silent, mucusy cry, my breath coming at shuddering intervals. I cried for what was and what would never be now. I cried for my short, pathetic past and my uncertain future. She would laugh at me, wouldn’t she, Rebekah? You idiot, she’d say. What were you thinking, that you’d get away with this? That a love like this was possible for someone like you? Run along, she’d say. Work hard and earn your own way. Then find a nice boy and let this go. Max isn’t for you. My sobbing nearly drowned out the honking of the taxi.

  I wiped my face with my sleeve and stomped past the roommates, now frozen in mock fear of me, slapping open the screen door so fast I almost took it off its hinges. But there was no taxi waiting for me. It was Max Winter, stepping out of his dark sedan, feet bare, hair wet, wearing a thick blue bathrobe, remnants of shaving cream dotting his cheek and chin.

  “Max!” I wanted to run into his arms but I was afraid I would never leave them.

  “What’s going on? A maid told me you came by. I only just got your text. I was in the shower.”

  “I was trying to— Max, I have to go. I’m leaving for St. Barts. Right now.”

  Just then the taxi pulled up behind him. Max looked at my bag and the taxi. “Why?”

  “Laureen’s transferring me. She wants me to run the charters there.”

  “Today? Right now?”

  “Right now. I came to say goodbye. And to thank you. I have to take this job or I—or I won’t have a job.”

  He drove his fingers through his wet hair, his eyes darting from the taxi to me, back to the taxi. “I mean, do you want to go to St. Barts?”

  “Of course I don’t. Not yet anyway. I won’t know a soul. I have no idea what the job entails. But it isn’t exactly an employment hotbed here and there is the matter of the money I owe Laureen.”

  “You actually don’t . . . owe her anything.” He winced. “Wait there. Don’t move.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He walked over to the taxi and ducked to speak to the driver. The car backed up and drove off.

  “Max, what are you doing?”

  He took a deep breath. “I emailed Laureen yesterday and offered to pay your father’s debts.”

  “You what?”

  “It bothered me that she was hanging it over your head. It’s criminally unfair, if not plain criminal. So I told her you’d done an exceptional job this month and asked her to put whatever amount you owed on my bill. I was going to tell you tonight, as a surprise. But now I realize I should have asked you first. I’m afraid I might have instigated this . . . this ridiculous transfer. I can’t tell you how sorry—”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said you wouldn’t want that.”

  “And she’s right!” I threw down my bag, covered my face with my hands, and turned away from him to hide the new influx of tears. So this is why Laureen raced back. My mortification was complete. I turned to face him, my voice pitched high. “How was I to pay you back for what I owe her?”

  “It’s not like that. I expect nothing from—”

  “I never asked you for anything. I don’t want anything from you.”

  “That’s why I did it.”

  We stood there looking at each other. My chest painfully constricted. Was this what a heart attack felt like?

  “Tell me something,” he said. “Where would you rather go? St. Barts or Long Island?”

  “Stop.”

  “It’s a serious question.”

  “I can’t go to Long Island with you, Max. To do what? To live where?”

  “To live at Asherley with me. With us.”

  With one step he closed the space between us, glanced around, and awkwardly bent down on one knee on the hot gravel road, the sun directly above us. I told myself that what was about to happen wasn’t real, that I was imagining this, that he was stooping to pick something up off the ground.

  “This isn’t how I planned to do it. I had hoped to be better dressed at least. But if this is the way it has to be . . .”

  “Max, you’re being ridiculous,” I said, a smile fighting to break out across my sodden face. “You don’t have to do this—”

  “Your hand, please. I can’t put a ring on it right this instant. But hear me out.”

  I gave him the hand that wasn’t covering my mouth in astonishment. He cleared his throat and continued.

  “You have made me a happy man these past few weeks. I wake up every morning in this phony paradise, away from friends and family, where I come to conduct the dullest, most heartless part of my business, cheered only by the fact that by nightfall I will get to see you. So I see no reason why we should not continue to be together. And I know we haven’t known each other very long. I know I’m not an easy person to love. I have a . . . complicated life, and a complicated daughter who will probably make this a little harder for you before it gets easier. But you see, fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your reply, I am falling in love with you. And I am the type that’s intent on finishing what I start. So will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

  When he bent his head to kiss my hand, I gently pulled it loose before he made contact. Even in my most ludicrous fantasies, when I imagined us carrying on beyond this past month, it never involved this, a proposal, marriage, relocation, or my living, of all places, at Asherley. Even in my dreams, even as I tried to imagine myself trailing my fingers along the boxwood at the bottom of the sloping lawn, or attending glittery political functions in the great hall, or making my way down to breakfast, one hand on the carved balustrade, the other crunching sleep out of my eyes, I could not get any closer to the estate than the iron gates.

  “Oh, Max. I’m so . . . Please stand up. It can’t be comfortable down there.”

  Stiffly he rose, brushing gravel off his now pocked knee. “Seems I have misconstrued things. I was of the mind that you might have felt the same about me.”

  “Oh, I do. I do. I am . . . falling in love with you, too. I think. No. I am. So you must know what this means to me. It’s so kind. But you can’t marry me. I don’t belong at a place like Asherley. This is the biggest house I’ve ever lived in,” I said, my thumb indicating the rundown townhouse behind me. “You need someone with more experience, with—I don’t know—glamour. I’m mangling this. Can’t we just continue like we’ve been doing, maybe talking on the phone now and again? Perhaps you can make a trip to St. Barts sometime soon to see me.”

  He had a wan smile on his face. “Yes,” he said, “except for the simple fact that I want you in my life now. Don’t you think I know best who belongs at Asherley, who belongs in my life, in Dani’s life? I promise you if you’re miserable, I’ll bring you right back here, no worse for the wear.”

  “What about Dani? She might want to weigh in on this.”

  “Oh, she has. I’ve already told her all about you. I even sent a picture.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Naturally she will need some time to get to know you, to love you like I know she will. She’s headstrong. But she’s not in charge. And believe me, bringing you home with
a ring and a promise will accelerate the bonding. She needs to know you’re not just some temporary girlfriend. So I will ask the question one more time. Do you want to go to St. Barts right now, or do you want to come home to Asherley with me?”

  What could I say? My epic self-sufficiency, my resistance to anyone’s generosity melted away. His words had also planted a small, noxious seed of pride in me. You’re not some temporary girlfriend; he wants you to be his fiancée, his wife. He was once married to Rebekah Winter. Now he chooses you.

  “I want to go to Asherley,” I said, “with you.”

  He grabbed me and kissed me, then lifted me around in a circle. I threw my bag into the backseat of his car and we sped off. I insisted he drop me at the end of the pier so I could tell Laureen.

  “You don’t want me to come with you?”

  “No. I can do this alone. I’ll meet you at the bungalow,” I said, before kissing him.

  I walked slowly to the end of the pier, savoring the smells of lunch and the sound of seagulls circling overhead looking for sandwich crusts or potato chip crumbs scattered about the dock. I thought of how I wouldn’t have to clean any of these boats anymore, or hose off those paddleboards or lug that rental canoe back into storage.

  When I entered the office, Laureen looked up from the desk. “Oh good Lord.”

  “Laureen, I came to tell you something. It turns out I can’t go to St. Barts,” I said. “Max Winter and I have . . . well, we just got engaged.”

  She fell back into the office chair and closed her eyes. “I worried something like this would happen.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about. We fell in love, and I’m going to America with him in a few days.”

  She gave me a look, one eyebrow up, mouth set in a weary, crooked line. I wanted to believe she was jealous. Here she was, a woman who had worked all her life to build her wealth, and I was lazily marrying into it. Yet I got the sense from her expression, the softness around the eyes, that in fact she pitied me. Fine, I could live with that, because the man I loved was waiting for me in his bungalow. After this, I’d never, ever have to see her or set foot in this nasty little hovel again.

  “I know you don’t believe me right now, kiddo, but I was actually trying to save you from this very fate.”

  “Stop calling me kiddo. And I don’t need to be saved. I’m a twenty-six-year-old woman engaged to be married to a man I love. And I’m sorry if my leaving makes your life harder.”

  She sighed, looking me up and down. “Actually, it’s your life that just took a more difficult turn. If you seriously think working for me is harder than marrying a man like Max Winter, and living in a big, old drafty mansion, and trying to raise a nightmare kid like Dani Winter, you’re kidding yourself. I’ve taken you for a lot of things, some I was right about, some wrong. But I never took you for stupid. And what happens after he gets sick of you? Or the kid chews you up and spits you out? Then what? What’s your life going to look like then?” Her voice lowered. “Tell me, has he made you sign anything?”

  I bristled at the baseness of her question. “No, he hasn’t. But I’d sign anything. I don’t want any of his mon—”

  “Sign absolutely nothing until you get a lawyer. You want some goddamn guarantees that he’ll leave you a little better off than he found you.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be all right.”

  “Ha! Men. They kill me. They’ll do absolutely anything not to be alone in the world with their sad little memories. So weak.”

  I was finished listening. I turned to leave.

  “After it all goes to hell, and it will,” she said, “don’t come crawling back here. I’ll be over in ‘I told you so’ land, making my own money, earning my own keep.”

  I slammed the door behind me.

  * * *

  • • •

  We relocated to a suite at the Ritz and spent the next several days in a rush of errands. Max had a few more meetings. I needed to get my paperwork together, close a bank account, say goodbye to a few people. It was difficult to find appropriate winter clothes in George Town, never mind a diamond ring both small enough for my liking and serious enough for Max’s.

  “It’s the first place Dani will look,” he said, dismissing anything below two carats. “And I want her to know we mean business.”

  Still, we both had to laugh when I slid the simple solitaire onto a finger left scarred and calloused by ropes, its nail bed permanently damaged by an errant anchor.

  “I feel like a grave robber,” I said, watching it glint in the sun against its ruddy background.

  The next day, I was strapping myself in for my first-ever jet ride. I’d island-hopped on small props from the private strip but had never before been on a plane that sat more than twelve people, including the pilot. I looked around at the murmuring crowd settling in. There was no denying it now. I was leaving the Caymans to live in America. I was going to be Max Winter’s wife.

  Before takeoff, while Max got up to fetch more blankets, his phone, tossed on the seat next to mine, pinged a text that flashed across the home screen. If you bring ur fucking fling home daddy ill kill myself. When Max returned with his bounty I feigned a sudden fixation with something on the wing, my face scarlet with upset.

  “I cleaned them out,” he said as he tucked one of the blankets around my bare ankles. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him pick up his phone and read the text, his reaction that of a man checking a weather app. He dropped the phone in the pocket of the seat in front of him, took my hand, kissed it, then settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. If true, that she would rather die than have me come live at Asherley, then Max, who knew her better than me, looked perfectly content to call her bluff. If her own father didn’t take her threats seriously, then why on earth should I?

  EIGHT

  To go from constant heat to my first cold winter, from calm blue vistas to a jagged gray skyline, was a jarring experience that created some holes in this part of my story, which I blame on a small memory bank, granted to someone who was never meant to go through this much change. I don’t remember, for instance, exactly how many days we spent in New York City. Was it three or five? Or if Max had his car brought to him or if he’d left one parked at the airport. I do remember we drove ourselves to the hotel, the traffic moving like a slow funeral procession, the better to take in the impressive buildings, some familiar to me from movies yet as alien as anything I’d ever encountered. Did we run into that brash financier Max went to college with at that fancy restaurant with the pale pink ceiling or while in line at the Broadway show? I do remember the wife, thin and flinty, looking me up and down, no doubt comparing me to Rebekah, wondering how I did it, how did someone like me manage to land Max Winter. She was in a fur, the original animal unrecognizable from the way the coat was dyed and shaped. I was wearing my first real winter coat, a heavy camel wool one with a snug belt that cost as much as a used car. She told me she’d love to come out and see us after we settled, and Max answered for me, saying that would be nice, and that we’d be in touch, muttering “never” after they were finally out of earshot.

  I loved navigating the crowds, those perpetual parades, and how Manhattan felt bigger than the Caymans even though it’s much smaller, the same way furnished rooms feel bigger than empty ones. But the idea that I was on a small island whose surrounding water might go unseen for days, weeks, or years was oddly disorienting. I had to remind myself that an ocean is right there, that its currents were made up of the same water I once swam in, just blacker and colder.

  The morning we packed for Long Island, Max could tell I was nervous. Though he’d been intent on spoiling me in the city, I had only bought a few basics: a couple of pairs of jeans, some sweaters and sweatpants, a pair of boots, and other necessities, enough to fill my new suitcase. I wanted to avoid arriving at Asherley accompanied by a caravan of things.

  “The
only people who will be greeting us work for me. I pay them to like you, so what does it matter?”

  He was kidding, but my need to make a good impression, to be liked by others, to satisfy their expectations, was as old as I was, instilled in me by people similarly afflicted. When your livelihood depends on the benevolence of tourists, it becomes a hard trait to shake.

  These were my thoughts as we crossed the Queensboro Bridge that cold day, putting the protective canyons of Manhattan behind us. I had loved our time in New York. Far from feeling cowed by the noise and size, I had begun to feel nestled—carried, even. There was always something to look at, something new to do or eat, and there was freedom in the anonymity the crowds provided. You didn’t have to drag around your history. You could go a long time, I bet, without running into anyone you knew. That seemed like a gift to me. So as sad as I was to leave, I was buoyed by Max’s promise that I could take a car into the city as often as I liked, once I grew accustomed to driving on the other side of the road.

  Asherley. I was almost as nervous to meet the house as I was to meet Dani. It had begun to occupy a mythical place in my mind so it was hard to believe I would actually see it, walk around inside it, and live in it. I still couldn’t picture myself getting past the gate—its walls and paintings, its furniture and carpets remained indistinct, blurring in my peripheral vision.

  When we left at one o’clock, the sky was dun colored, only mildly forbidding. By the time we reached the outer boroughs, the dusting of flakes had turned to flurries. The clouds ahead were low and dark; we were driving into bad weather, not away from it. Max veered south to take the parkway.

  “Might take a bit longer, but there’ll be less traffic,” he explained.

  I nodded, grateful for any delay, hoping by the time we got there my nerves would be calmer, my fears dampened. I wanted to feel excited to begin our lives together. Instead I experienced a vague unspooling, as though I’d tied a string to something in the city to help me find my way back, but the farther out we drove, Max pointing out Islip, Patchogue, Shirley, East Quogue, the more untethered I felt. Max seemed confident, happy to be going home, but I could sense the icy road just beneath the veneer of snow and the effort the tires were making to grab and hold the curves.