The Perfect Couple

by Elin Hilderbrand

  “If it were the bride who had died,” Laney says, “I would have suspected Jules.”

  “Damn straight,” Casper says.

  Laney sighs. “It’s sobering, you know. Thinking someone our age could die just like that.”

  Casper reaches out to his wife. “Hey,” he says. “Don’t let it get to you. We don’t know what happened.”

  “Life is so short.” Laney smiles at Casper. “Forget the Whaling Museum,” she says. “Let’s go to the beach.”

  Benjamin Winbury is sequestered in his father’s study with his father and his brother.

  Intellectually, Benji understands that Merritt is dead, that she drowned out front, but he can’t quite come to terms with this new reality. His mind won’t switch over to Merritt is dead. He is stalled, stuck, in Merritt is alive and the wedding will go ahead as scheduled at four o’clock. His tuxedo is hanging up in the closet, and in the breast pocket of the jacket are the rings, which Benji was going to hand over to Shooter along with Shooter’s best-man gift, a pair of monogrammed cuff links. He still has things to check off on his to-do list, such as setting up a boat trip and a spa day for Celeste once they get to Santorini, but now his procrastination doesn’t matter. The wedding has been canceled.

  Of course the wedding has been canceled. There was no question of going forward with a wedding when Celeste’s best friend was found dead.

  Benji is experiencing a host of very confusing emotions. He is upset, shocked, and horrified just like everyone else. And yet also mixed in there are anger and resentment. It’s his wedding day! His parents have gone to enormous effort and expense to make this wedding unforgettable and now it’s all for naught. But aside from the predictable shallow complaint that the happiest day of Benji’s life has turned out to be tragic and chaotic, there is a deeper sadness that he won’t be entering into a lifelong commitment with the woman he loves beyond all comprehension.

  He has been influenced enough by Celeste that he now occasionally thinks in wildlife metaphors. Celeste is like a rare butterfly that Benji was somehow able to capture. That comparison is, no doubt, inappropriate on many different levels, but that’s how he thinks of her in his private mind where no one can judge him, that she’s like an exotic bird or butterfly. If he takes that imagery further, then marrying her is akin to putting her in a cage or pinning her to a board. She was supposed to be his.

  What Merritt’s death has brought to light, however, is that Celeste belongs only to herself.

  She was the one who found Merritt. With Roger’s help, Celeste pulled Merritt’s body from the water. She was hysterical, beyond talking to, beyond consoling. She couldn’t breathe, and Roger and the paramedics had wisely decided to take Celeste to the hospital where they could get her calmed down.

  Benji waited two hours before he went to see her in order to give her time and space to process what had happened, but when he arrived to pick her up, their conversation had not gone the way he expected it to.

  She had been in bed, woozy from the Valium, her eyelids fluttering open when he walked in the room. He sat at her bedside, took her hand, and said, I’m so sorry.

  She shook her head and said, It’s my fault.

  For reasons he could not explain, this answer had unleashed a mighty fury within him. He thought Celeste was blaming herself for having an oceanfront wedding, for asking Merritt to be her maid of honor, for bringing her here to Nantucket. And Benji’s response to this came flying out: She was lucky to be here, lucky she had a friend like you, she didn’t deserve you, wasn’t worthy of you, Celeste. And furthermore, she probably did this to herself! You told me once that she stockpiled pills and considered suicide, so what’s to say that’s not what this is? She orchestrated this to ruin our big day!

  Celeste had closed her eyes and Benji thought the sedative had reclaimed her but then she spoke. I can’t believe you just said that. You blame Merritt. You think this is her fault. Because you’ve never liked her. You thought she was a bad influence. But she was my friend, Benji. She was the friend I’d been looking for my entire life. She accepted me, she loved me, she took care of me. If I hadn’t met Merritt when I did, I might have left New York. I might have gone back to Easton and worked at the zoo in Trexlertown. I might never have met you. You blame Merritt because you can’t imagine a scenario where maybe someone in your house, someone in your family, made a very, very grave mistake. You think your family is beyond reproach. But you’re wrong.

  What are you talking about? Benji asked.

  You’ll find out soon enough, Celeste said. But right now I’d like you to leave. I want to talk to the police. Alone.

  What? Benji said. What about your parents? Do they even know? They were still in their room when I left.

  I’ve called my father, Celeste said. Now, please, go.

  Benji had been incredulous, but he could see by the set of her jaw that she was serious.

  Benji stood to go. He knew there was no point broaching the topic of getting married in Greece or rescheduling the wedding for August. Merritt’s death had changed things. He’d lost Celeste.

  Now he’s left to pace Tag’s study, asking the same question over and over again of his father and brother.

  “What happened?” Benji had gone to bed after they all got back from town last night. But Thomas and Tag stayed up. “Right?” Benji asks. “Right?”

  “Right,” Tag says. “It was Thomas, myself, Merritt, and Featherleigh.”

  “What were you guys doing?” Benji asks.

  Thomas shrugs. “Drinking.”

  “Drinking what?” Benji asks. “Scotch?”

  “Rum,” Tag says. “I just wanted to finish my cigar, enjoy the evening. I was sitting in peace with your brother until Merritt and Featherleigh joined us.”

  “Where did they come from?” Benji asks.

  “They’d clearly met at the party and hit it off,” Tag says. “They came out of the house chatting like soul sisters. Like Thelma and Louise.”

  “Abby called me up to bed shortly after those two sat down with us,” Thomas says. He holds up his palms. “I literally have nothing to do with this. I barely knew Merritt. But she had that look. You know the look? She was trouble.”

  “Amen,” Tag whispers.

  “Did Merritt seem really drunk?” Benji asks. “Did it seem like she was on something?”

  “You need to relax, bro,” Thomas says. “The police will sort this out.”

  The police, Benji thinks. That’s why the three of them are holed up in his father’s study; they’re waiting to be questioned by the police. The study smells like tobacco and peat and it’s filled with antiques—sextants, barometers, prints of long-ago British naval victories. Most men find Tag’s study intriguing; Benji finds it obnoxious. Although, under the circumstances, it makes a serviceable bunker, and Benji could use a drink.

  “Pour me a Glenmorangie?” he asks his father.

  “Before you talk to the police?” Tag asks. “Is that wise?”

  “Nantucket Police, intimidating bunch,” Thomas says. “I’ll pour it.” He heads over to the bar. “If they suspected Benji, they would have questioned him first.”

  “Suspected me?” Benji says. This isn’t something that has crossed his mind. “Why would they suspect me?” At that moment, there’s a knock on the study door, and Benji’s heart somersaults in fear. Do the police suspect him?

  Tag strides across the room to open the door. His father looks respectable in a white polo shirt and a pair of dark madras shorts, but Benji and Thomas are still in the gym shorts and T-shirts they slept in.

  It’s Reverend Derby at the door. All three Winbury men exhale a sigh of relief. The reverend embraces Tag.

  “I came to see if I can help,” the reverend says.

  Benji can’t handle any talk of God right now. He isn’t in the mood to hear that this was part of God’s plan, nor does he want to debate the question of whether it was a suicide and what that might mean for Merritt’s soul.
r />   “What’s going on out there?” Tag asks Reverend Derby. “Is there any news?”

  “No one has said anything directly to me,” the reverend says. “But I overheard someone saying that the medical examiner found a sedative in the young woman’s bloodstream. She must have gone swimming for some reason and then just passed out.”

  A sedative, Benji thinks. Bingo. Merritt took an Ambien and went into that well-documented twilight state where her brain was shutting down though her body was still awake. She went out for a late-night swim and she drowned.

  Reverend Derby claps Benji on the shoulder. “How are you holding up, young man?”

  Benji shrugs. He sees no point in lying to Reverend Derby. He is like part of the family, as close as an uncle. Most of Benji’s memories of him are secular. Reverend Derby comes each year to the Winburys’ anglicized Thanksgiving; he goes with Tag to Yankee games; he has spent many weekends here on Nantucket; he attended Thomas’s and Benji’s graduations from high school, college, grad school. Having Reverend Derby around always lent the family a certain moral authority, although none of the four Winburys is particularly religious. Or Benji isn’t. He understands he can’t speak for anyone else’s interior life, but his life has been so blessed—up to this point—that he has had no need for religion.

  “I’m mostly concerned for Celeste,” he says. “This has blindsided her.”

  Reverend Derby looks at him with his watery blue eyes but knows better than to speak. He lifts his hand from Benji’s shoulder. “I’m going to give you your privacy. Just know I’m here if you need me.”

  Tag shakes Reverend Derby’s hand as he shows him the door.

  Thomas says, “Scotch.”

  Benji and Thomas are each a drink and a half in when there’s another knock at the door. Again, Tag stands to answer. Again, Benji’s heart reacts like a pit bull straining on a chain.

  It’s Benji’s mother.

  “May I come in?” she asks Tag. Her voice is arch. Benji knows she doesn’t like the way Tag guards the privacy of his study. It makes her suspicious, she says.

  Tag holds the door open and extends a hand. Greer walks in. She, too, is dressed appropriately, in a pair of white pants and a linen tank the color of whole-wheat bread. Her hair is up in a chignon and she is wearing lipstick. Celeste would be offended, Benji suspects, that Greer saw fit to put on lipstick this morning, but Greer is a certain kind of British woman who wouldn’t want the strangers in the house—the police, the forensics experts, the detective—to see her without makeup, no matter the circumstances.

  “Mom?” he says. He believes in his mother’s ability to somehow make this situation bearable.

  “Oh, Benny,” she says. She uses his long-abandoned childhood nickname. It hits the right note; he knows she loves him. She squeezes him so tightly he can feel her bones and her beating heart. When she pulls away, she looks right at him and he can feel her trying to shore him up. If anyone’s hopes and dreams have been razed as much as his by the wedding going up in smoke, it’s Greer’s. And yet she seems to be processing the turn of events with mournful dignity, exactly as she should.

  “Have you talked to the Otises?” he asks. “Celeste said she called her father.”

  “They haven’t emerged from their room,” Greer says. “I had Elida deliver a tray with lunch, but I’m sure they’re too upset to eat much.” She eyes the tumblers of scotch on the coffee table. “Have you boys eaten anything?”

  “No,” Benji says.

  “I could eat,” Thomas says.

  Greer looks at him sharply. “Well. There are sandwiches in the kitchen.”

  “What’s going on, exactly?” Tag asks. “We’re still waiting to speak to the detectives.”

  “I had my interview with the fellow from the state police,” Greer says. “I daresay, he has it in for me—”

  “For you?” Benji says.

  Greer waves a hand. “I’m not sure what they’re thinking. The Nantucket Chief just called to ask what inn Featherleigh is staying at.”

  “Featherleigh?” Thomas says. “What the hell does she have to do with anything?”

  “Well,” Tag says, “she was the last person to see Merritt.”

  “Was she?” Greer asks.

  “She was?” Thomas says.

  Tag turns away from all of them and goes to pour his own scotch at the bar cart. “I believe so,” he says, looking into his glass before drinking. “Yes.”

  “Wasn’t Featherleigh with you?” Greer asks. She sounds more interested than accusatory. “Didn’t you take her out for a ride in the kayak?”

  “Featherleigh?” Thomas says. “Why would Dad take Featherleigh out for a ride in the kayak? She’s hardly the seafaring type.”

  “I didn’t take Featherleigh out in the kayak,” Tag says.

  “You didn’t?” Greer says.

  “I didn’t,” Tag says.

  “You took someone out for a kayak,” Greer says. “The kayak, the two-person kayak, was left overturned on the beach. With only one oar. And we all know nobody else used it.”

  Benji sinks into one of the leather club chairs and throws back what’s left of his scotch. He doesn’t like where this is headed. Here is his nuclear family, his parents and his older brother. They are the Winburys, a very fortunate group, not only because of their money, position, and advantages, but also because, by the standards of today, they are “normal.” A happy, normal family; a family, he would have said, without secrets or drama.

  But now he’s not so sure.

  He speaks to the room. “Who did you take out in the kayak, Dad?” He thinks back to what Celeste said, that someone in his family had made a very, very grave mistake.

  Benji stands up. “Dad?”

  Tag is facing the bar cart. He has one hand on his glass and one hand wrapped around the neck of the Glenmorangie. Greer is watching him. Thomas is watching him. They’re all waiting for an answer.

  His voice is barely a whisper but his words and tone are clear.

  “Merritt,” he says. “I took Merritt out in the kayak.”

  KAREN

  Karen wakes up with a start. The sunlight is pouring through the windows, bright and lemony. She was supposed to be up at eight thirty to help Celeste get ready, but she can tell it’s much later than that. She reaches over to check her phone. It’s half past noon.

  Karen shrieks and sits up in bed. Bizarrely, there’s no pain. No pain? Her last oxy was late last night, but still, that was twelve hours ago. On a normal day, her nerve endings are screaming after seven or eight hours.

  “Bruce?” she calls out. His side of the bed is empty but—she reaches out a hand—still warm.

  She hears him retching. He’s in the bathroom. The blackberry mojitos and the scotch must have caught up with him. The toilet flushes, the water runs, and then Bruce comes into the bedroom. He looks smaller, she thinks. And ten years older.

  He comes to sit next to her on the edge of the bed.

  “Karen,” he says. “The wedding has been canceled.”

  “Canceled?” she says. Somehow, she already knew this, but how? She tries to piece together the events of the night before. Celeste had wanted to stay home but Bruce and Karen had encouraged her to go out. They wanted her to enjoy herself.

  Celeste!

  Karen had had a bad dream—she was trying to find Celeste but couldn’t get to her. And then came the revelation: Celeste didn’t want to marry Benji. Karen had tiptoed down to Celeste’s room; it had been empty. She had gone downstairs. She had overheard the strange, awful conversation between Bruce and Tag.

  Robin Swain.

  Karen shakes her head. Last night, the confession about Robin Swain had seemed so devastating, but this morning, her shock and horror have vanished, just like her pain. Human beings experience all kinds of crazy and unexpected emotions while they are alive. Robin Swain was nothing more than a tiny blip on the screen of their distant past.

  “Celeste doesn’t want to marry Benj
i,” Karen says.

  “No, Karen,” Bruce says. “That’s not it.”

  But that is it, Karen thinks. She has never once said this, but she does believe she is naturally closer and more in tune with Celeste than Bruce is. Celeste is Bruce’s little girl, no doubt about that, but he doesn’t understand Celeste’s mind like Karen does.

  “Merritt died, Karen,” Bruce says. “Celeste’s friend Merritt. The maid of honor. She died last night.”

  Karen feels like her head is going to topple right off her neck and onto the floor. “What?” she says.

  “They found her floating in the harbor this morning,” Bruce says. “She drowned.”

  “She drowned?” Karen says. “She drowned last night?”

  “Apparently so,” Bruce says. “I was with Tag and then I came to bed. You were asleep when I came in. That was pretty late, but it must have happened afterward.”

  “Oh no,” Karen says. She is aghast, really and truly aghast. Merritt was so young, so beautiful and confident. “How… what…”

  “She drank or took drugs, I guess,” Bruce says. “And then she went swimming. I mean, what other explanation is there?”

  “Where’s Celeste?” Karen asks.

  “The paramedics took her to the hospital,” Bruce says. His eyes fill with tears. “Celeste was the one who found her.”

  “No! No, no, no!” Their poor, sweet daughter! Karen fears Celeste doesn’t have the strength to deal with this. She is too fragile, too gentle and kind. This had been true even in adolescence, especially in adolescence. Other people’s daughters had been drinking and smoking, secretly going on the pill or being fitted for diaphragms. Celeste had stayed home with Bruce and Karen watching Friday Night Lights. That had been their favorite show, so much so that Tim Riggins and Tami Taylor felt like friends of the family, and, often, Bruce, Karen, and Celeste would look at one another over their morning cereal and say, “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.” Celeste volunteered at the Lehigh Valley Zoo in Trexlertown on the weekends. Bruce would drop her off and Karen would pick her up. Karen would nearly always find Celeste with the lemurs or the otters, either feeding them or scolding them like naughty children. Karen used to have to yank her out of there. On Saturday nights, they would go to Diner 248 and then to the movies. Celeste would often see kids from school in groups or on dates and she would wave and smile, but she never seemed embarrassed to be seen with her parents. She was always even-keeled and content, as though she simply preferred to be with Bruce and Karen. Mac and Betty.