by Laura Dave
Maggie smiles at her. “I’m not sure if that is a compliment, but I can do that.”
“Excellent.”
“Can you not attempt to kill my girlfriend as soon as you meet her?” Nate says.
Georgia rolls her eyes, and she rolls them again in case he missed it. Then she hands Nate the keys, and opens the backseat door for herself. “You can drive. I’m lying down in the back with my tub o’ candy.” She pauses, points her finger at him. “But I feel the need to warn you that if you tell me I’m huge, or that I’m growing, or that I look anything but like the most gorgeous pregnant person you’ve ever seen, I’m going to toss this candy at you. Even if it runs us off the road.”
Nate opens the passenger side door for Maggie, winking at her. “So maybe this isn’t the best time to say that you look like a house?”
Georgia slams Nate in the arm with the taffy, and Maggie starts to laugh. “Any brothers?” Georgia asks.
Maggie shakes her head. “I wish.”
Georgia pulls on her taffy, throws a piece at her brother, hitting him on the arm. “Really? Even now?”
“Less so,” she says, and they all get in the car: Nate and Maggie up front. But instead of lying down like she said she was going to, Georgia wraps her hand around the back of the driver’s seat, and sticks her head between the two front seats.
“So we need to talk, Nate,” she says.
“You don’t waste any time,” he says.
He is just pulling out of the parking space, and down the main street of town: restaurants and surfing stores appearing on Maggie’s left, the beach and ocean getting larger on her right until she can hear the water, feel its breeze.
“Well, if you ever called back your pregnant sister, I wouldn’t be so anxious. But you need to be prepared. You need to be prepared before we get back to the house. It’s like the twilight zone around here.”
Maggie immediately feels uncomfortable, like she shouldn’t be present for this. So she rolls down the window, tries to listen to whatever is happening outside.
But Georgia taps her on the shoulder. “Can you close that? I need you to hear me. Because I’m going to need you for backup.”
“For what?” Maggie asks.
“For when Nate pretends this isn’t a big deal, and you’re going to have to help me convince him that it is.”
Nate looks at her in the rearview mirror. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, for one thing, Dad is like a huge Buddhist.”
“A huge Buddhist?” Nate laughs. “I don’t think you can be a huge Buddhist.”
“It has become his whole life, Nate. There is nothing else he wants to talk about. Like when I miss Denis or something, he keeps telling me to live in the present moment. To let myself be present. It’s all I can do to not say, ‘Presently you are being a total ass.’ ”
“Georgia . . .” Nate says.
“Mom is not acting like herself either,” she continues. “They say this divorce is amicable, but they both seem like they swallowed a box of pills to get there.”
Nate is quiet, as they drive out of town and up into the hills. He points to a structure no bigger than a dot, far out in the distance. “We used to jump off that bridge when we were kids. You can’t see it clearly from here, but there’s this great roof on the top—”
“Nate! Come on, man!” Georgia says. “You’re not even listening to me. Please listen to me.”
“I’m listening,” he says. “But this is what Dad and Mom want, remember? Don’t you want that for them? We’re not kids anymore. And they’re definitely not. Maybe you should be focusing on your own . . . situation.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Because I’m not married, Denis and I could fall apart at any minute?” She drills Nate with a dirty look, as if he is missing everything, and turns to Maggie. “You understand what I’m saying, right, Maggie? You understand this isn’t good?”
“Which part?” Maggie asks.
“How fucked up things are about to get,” she says.
Maggie watches Nate turn on the blinker, fights her urge to ask him why he is not chiming in—why he seems to have no opinion about any of this? Why he seems not only calm, but, also, unbelievably . . . removed.
But before she can say a thing, Nate takes another right into an area called Ditch Plains: small cabana houses, a low-rise condominium, the beach and ocean out before them. And then they are heading toward it, heading to a street marked PRIVATE: a threat of prosecution if they drive through. Nate does anyway, driving all the way down the road—past several long driveways and high gates—until he has arrived at the farthest one, a small rock in front of the drive with white paint on it, reading: HUNTINGTON HALL.
Why does that sound familiar to Maggie? Maggie doesn’t know, not until they drive farther down the driveway and his family’s house comes into view. And then it hits her, in a bright flash, almost like a home movie: zoom in on a large oversize cardboard box of postcards. Pan out to a childhood bedroom, Maggie’s bedroom, Maggie sitting in the corner, poring over the postcards. She would do this for hours. In fact, that was what she wanted to do when she was a kid. She wanted to make postcards. She figured to make them, you had to be able to go to all the places where the pictures were taken.
She loves those postcards. They are the one possession she has held on to, still safe in her childhood room. These hundreds of postcards, many of them she still knows by heart. This is why the name resonated with her: Huntington Hall, Hunt Hall. On the back of the postcard, that was how it was labeled: Hunt Hall, Summer Cottage. A photograph of the house, life-size before her now: this Victorian home with beautiful white pillars, an enormous wraparound porch, a windmill on top of the third story, cliffside surrounding it, as far as the eye sees.
“There is a postcard of your house?” she says. She turns toward Nate. “You grew up in a postcard?”
“You have a copy of it?” Georgia says. “How cool!”
Which is when Georgia’s phone starts to ring.
“It’s Denis!” Georgia says. “Stop the car.”
And just as Nate does, she reaches over the front seat, takes the keys from the ignition and is out of the car, leaving the door open, and racing away from them, racing toward somewhere she can speak to Denis in private. Maggie watches her stop by the steps leading to the porch, flipping her phone open, her free hand instinctively wrapping around her stomach.
She keeps her eyes on Georgia, focuses on her and not on the house behind her, or on Nate, until he slides over into the passenger seat, moving her onto his lap, his hand cupping her leg. She doesn’t know exactly why it comes to her, but it does: a memory of the two of them sitting, similar to this, in a hospital emergency room, near her father’s house, after she dropped a speaker on her foot. She had been carrying it across the bar, the first time Nate came home with her, and she dropped it, slicing her ankle open. Nate sat with her all night in that hospital room, holding ice there, waiting as she moved to the front of the triage line for a doctor to sew her ankle up, tell her she could go home.
Maybe the memory comes back so strongly because the only other time she was in that hospital, she had been there alone, after breaking her wrist during a lacrosse game in high school. She hadn’t even been able to reach her father, let alone count on his caretaking abilities.
“I can’t believe you grew up here . . .” she says, and shakes her head.
“Are you overwhelmed?”
“Why would I be?” she says. “I don’t even have to worry about meeting your parents. I can pitch a tent on the cliff, and hide from them all weekend if I want.”
“Very funny,” he says. He smiles at her, happy. “But you like it?”
“Who wouldn’t like it?” She points at an acre of clearing near a swing, or what looks like a swing, near the edge of the cliff. “We could build a yurt for ourselves right there.”
“Well, that would involve coming back with some frequency.”
“And why i
s that a bad thing?”
He squeezes her knee, and, for a moment, he looks like he remembers something all over again, something he has to tell her. She doesn’t understand why: he has told her already, right? The financial stuff is already out there, the Champ name thing, even the high school nightmare-of-a-girlfriend thing. What else could he be worried about?
Before she can ask, she hears a screech of tires and turns to look out of the back windshield, just in time to see a large white van with two surfboards on the roof come barreling into the driveway, backward. The van is within an inch of them, of their car, before the driver slams on the brakes, but not quickly enough, the van lurching backward again, in two final jolts, and hitting the back of their wagon—hard.
Maggie jerks forward, her hand reaching for the dashboard, her head banging against her forearm, Nate bumping into her shoulder. Double impact.
“Jesus . . .” Nate says. “Are you okay?”
She feels around herself, feels her head. Nothing hurts, exactly, or not a lot. But it startles her, makes her lose her bearings for a second. She shakes out her head, opens and closes her eyes hard, tries to get them back. She saw the whole thing happen but couldn’t stop it, now she is seeing it again.
“I’m fine,” she says. “Are you fine?”
He nods. They get out of the car and head to the back to survey the damage, to see who it was that hit them. The other driver is flipping the van around so the front is facing them, and then she is out of her vehicle too. It is a woman, around their age—with red hair in low-flying braids, and a too-large chef’s jacket. She is staring at their bumper, and holding her hands to her head, her fingers running through the braids.
“Holy shit!” she says. “Holy. Holy. Holy. Holy. HOLY.”
Maggie follows the woman’s eye down to the indent she has made, the deep crack by the taillight. If it were a new car, as opposed to this old wagon, maybe the damage would look worse. But in the context of the rips and tears on the bumper alone, it is not that big of a deal. It isn’t a big deal unless you know to look for it, to make it one.
“I can’t believe I did that,” she says. “I was just trying to back in so I could turn around . . .” She points back toward the edge of the driveway, toward the direction she came from. “And I guess I wasn’t paying good attention, or I was paying attention to the wrong thing, because I flipped in here and I saw you in the rearview and I tried to stop but I should have just tapped the brake and I hit it too hard, and she bounced backward like she does and you know the rest . . .”
Maggie is staring at her face. Up close, she looks older than Maggie would have thought from a distance. Maggie is guessing she isn’t—is guessing that her first instinct is right and she is in her late twenties, probably younger than Maggie. Her body still young and wily, but her face weathered, creased, from too many days at the beach, in the ocean. Her face holding on to a little too much sadness.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “I didn’t wreck your car, did I? It doesn’t look like I did much of anything, but it’s hard to know. We should probably bring it in somewhere.”
Nate shrugs his shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a very old car. It’s seen worse hits than that. Probably today alone.”
“Really?” The woman looks totally relieved, motions behind herself. “Because I am catering this party next door tonight, and it’s a big deal. I’ve spent the last thirty-six hours getting ready.”
Maggie looks at the surfboards on top of the roof that are slightly wet and glossy, just used. Then she looks into the van, notices a guy sleeping in the passenger side.
“Or most of the last thirty-six hours,” she adds.
Maggie blushes, feeling caught. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“No, no . . . I mean, between us, I shouldn’t be catering this big of a party, but I didn’t know how to say no. Doing this gig tonight will pay my rent for a year. It will pay it for two years. Who could say no to that?”
Maggie shrugs. “No one.”
“But anyway, the housekeeper next door—at the Buckleys’?— is all confused, and told me to come over here. She says the party I’m catering is over here. That seems unlikely. I may be out of it, but I’m not that out of it.”
Maggie looks over at Nate, trying to ask him with her eyes: The Buckleys as in Murphy Buckley?
But he doesn’t respond, reaching out to shake the caterer’s hand. “You’re Eve?”
“How did you know?”
He points to the big Eve’s Kitchen, which is written in blue cursive lettering on the right side of the van. It has painted tomatoes all over it—in yellows, greens, and reds. Vines running between them, all along the front, down to the windshield.
Her face relaxes. “Yes, I’m Eve. And over here in the passenger side is Tyler.” She bangs on the window, and Tyler wakes up, albeit briefly, and gives them the peace sign.
Maggie gives him one back.
“I’m Nate. And this is Maggie. And that over there . . .” He points at Georgia, who is picking at a bush, still talking to Denis. “That is my sister. Apparently, she can’t be disturbed while on the phone, even for a car accident.”
Eve nods. “Got it. Do not disturb pregnant sister when she is on the phone.”
Nate smiles. “So, I’m a little behind. Are the Buckleys having a party too, or aren’t they?”
“No, the Lancasters.”
“The Lancasters?” He gives her a confused look. “Gwyn Lancaster, you mean? That’s my mother. That’s her maiden name. This is the right house, right here.” He points at Hunt Hall.
Eve pulls a small red notebook out of her pocket—a drawing of Karl Marx on the front. She looks between it and the house, like either might give her a clue about what she is missing.
“Weird,” she says. “I have written down that I am supposed to go next door.”
“Maybe she just wanted you to set up over there. The Buckleys are good friends of ours, so it’s possible.”
Good friends of ours? Maggie gives Nate a look, which he either misses or ignores. They are?
Nate is still looking at Eve. “Has my mother been difficult? My sister seems to think this party is causing her strain.”
“Your mother? Oh, no, she’s been lovely. I think her previous caterer had to cancel last minute. She just called me two days ago about this, totally desperate.” She pauses. “But nice, even in the desperation. And offering me a lot of money. Too much money. But I guess if you’re having two hundred people at your house—”
“Two hundred?” Maggie says, turning to Nate. I thought tonightwas small. . . .
Nate shrugs back, and for a second she thinks it is to say, Me too. But she sees the recognition fall over his face, as though he has been told tonight is this big, and has just forgotten to tell Maggie, or even to acknowledge it to himself.
“Well, let me get the keys from my sister so we can get out of your way, so you can get inside, and started.” He calls out to Georgia, but she doesn’t answer him, not even to say one second. So Nate gets louder, starts walking toward her. “Hey, Miss Huntington! Can we borrow those keys for a second?”
Eve reaches out and touches Maggie’s arm. “Wait, what did he just call his sister?”
Maggie turns and looks at Eve, who is looking more than a little pale and uncomfortable. She is confused at first, trying to put the chain of conversation back in order.
“You mean when he called her Miss Huntington? That’s her name, Georgia Huntington.”
“And he’s Nate Huntington? And so . . . they are the children of Gwyn and Thomas? Their parents are Thomas and Gwyn Huntington.”
The last part doesn’t seem like a question, so Maggie doesn’t answer, just stands there watching Eve compose herself, and wondering if they are that well known, her future in-laws, that intimidating. That a socialist surfer-chick—who strikes Maggie as someone who rarely allows herself to get too worked up about anything—looks like she’d rather do anything than deal wit
h them?
Maggie’s eyes inadvertently sweep back to the house. The widow’s walk near the top, luminous in the air. And she can guess at it: Gwyn using her maiden name to avoid this very moment when Eve is freaked out. Why shouldn’t she be? She imagines a party like this could be potentially huge for a young caterer. Lots of people with lots of money, who want to utilize the hot, new thing for their next event. For their next Friday night dinner, for their next clambake.
Eve looks beyond freaked out by this proposition, which makes Maggie feel compelled to joke, balance things out. “See, now you’re freaking me out here a little,” Maggie says. “It’s my first time meeting them.”
Eve shakes her head, and, as if remembering herself, clears her throat. “Don’t be freaked out, I’m sorry,” she says. “They are nice people. I’ve heard they’re nice people, at least. Mrs. Huntington just has a reputation around here.”
“A reputation for what?”
“For being Mrs. Huntington.”
But just then, before Eve explains, Nate heads back to the car—Georgia’s keys in his hand.
“Let me get this car moved for you,” he says, walking toward them. “And I’d be happy to help you carry some of this stuff inside. You can’t manage all by yourself.”
Maggie looks in the back of the van to make out platter after platter of hors d’oeuvres, which, from beneath their plastic covers, seem to be different variations of oversized mushroom caps.
“I’m okay. Tyler and I have it under control. Right, T?” She bangs on the passenger side of the van. The guy inside jerks awake, looks around, and this time stays awake.
“Well, consider this our open invitation to help you today in any way you need,” Nate says. “We can do runs for you, locate a hard-to-find vegetable. Even if it means we have to drive an hour away. Two hours away is fine too.”
Maggie gives Nate a look as if to say, very funny.
Eve smiles. “I’ll keep it in mind,” she says. “Thank you for the offer.”