Nancy Thayer

by Summer House (v5)

  Her cell phone rang, and she jumped. She’d forgotten she had it in her pocket. She answered and heard Coop’s voice.

  “Hey, you. Where are you?” His lazy voice was full of laughter.

  “Oh, Coop. Gosh, what time is it? I’m out at the end of our driveway.” In the background, she heard a woman’s voice. “Where are you?”

  “In your living room. Having a drink with Mee. I walked over on the beach. We decided it would be fun to drive to the theater in your family’s old Chrysler convertible.” When she didn’t respond immediately, he prompted. “Remember?”

  “Oh, Coop!” Charlotte hit herself in the forehead. “I didn’t really forget, it’s just that Teddy had an accident—”

  “I’ve been hearing all about it.”

  “Well, he smashed up my farm-stand table, and I need to get it cleared out and find a new table to use. I’m sure we have one somewhere in the house, probably in the attic—”

  “Look, forget about that for now. We should be leaving any moment. I hate being late for the theater. It’s just rude.”

  “Oh, Coop.” Charlotte paced around the wrecked Jeep as she talked. “Coop, I can’t go. I’ve got to get this mess cleaned up before tomorrow morning.”

  “But hey, come on, I bought tickets! And there’s the benefit party afterward. You don’t want to miss that. It only happens once a year.”

  “I know, I know, it will be great, but Coop—”

  “Look, Teddy made the mess, let Teddy clean it up.”

  Charlotte snorted. “Right, because Teddy is so responsible.”

  “Come on, Char,” Coop urged, his voice silky, “take an evening off. Everything will get done sooner or later, and who is it really going to hurt if a few people have to wait until nine instead of eight to get their lettuce?” He laughed. “You need to put things in perspective.”

  Charlotte hesitated. She wanted to remind him that her customers were flighty, fickle. If what they expected wasn’t there when they had made the effort to drive out into the country, they would be miffed and simply go somewhere else. She needed to build a reputation of reliability. She didn’t want any of them to see this jumble of wrecked wood and steel where her charming farm stand, portraying serenity and health, should be.

  “Coop—”

  In the background, she heard a woman speaking. Perhaps her mother, offering to help find a new table?

  “Listen,” Coop said, his voice still easy and light, “Mee just said she’d go to the theater with me. This way I won’t waste the tickets and you can stay here and do whatever you need to do.”

  Charlotte found herself looking at her cell phone, as if it had suddenly zapped her into an alternate universe.

  Suddenly Mee’s voice was on the phone. “You won’t mind, will you, Charlotte? Coop can take me to the party, and maybe I’ll meet some nice eligible bachelors!”

  Charlotte understood the tacit message: I’m not trying to steal your man. “No, Mee, I don’t mind. Have fun.”

  Coop’s voice came on again. “Good luck with your stand.” He clicked off.

  “I phoned the tow truck!” Teddy came sauntering down the drive, waving at her. “They’re on their way.”

  Charlotte gawked at him. She was exhausted and hungry and thirsty and confused and angry, she felt rumpled and grimy and overheated and rejected, and there Teddy was, ambling along with his good looks and his easy innocent smile. For that moment, she pure and simply hated him.

  “Teddy,” she said, and she was on the verge of tears, “Teddy, you drove drunk.”

  “Maybe I wasn’t so very drunk.” Teddy continued to smile as he leaned on the Jeep. “Maybe it was a Freudian thing, like most of the things in our family. Sort of semi-on-purpose. Maybe I resent the fact that you’ve stolen Suzette from me and made her part of your world.”

  “Stolen Suzette?” Charlotte threw her hands out in exasperation. “No, Teddy, I’m not buying that at all. You’ve seen way too many psychiatrists, and you’ve learned how to warp their theories to suit your transgressions. You were drunk. Just drunk. Admit it.”

  Teddy shrugged, and his smile faded. “I’ll admit it. But I have to say there is something about this family that would drive a saint to drink.”

  Just then they heard the familiar rattling of the old Chrysler convertible as it came along the drive. The top was down, Coop was at the wheel, Mee in the passenger seat, a scarf around her hair and a gigantic smile on her face.

  She leaned out over the door. “Aren’t we just the most glamorous people in the universe?” She blew Charlotte a kiss.

  Charlotte laughed and blew a kiss back. It was wonderful seeing her cousin so ebullient and animated.

  “I thought you were dating Coop,” Teddy said.

  “I am.” Charlotte glared at her brother. “I was going to the theater with him tonight, but instead I have to clean up your mess.”

  “Then why isn’t Coop out here helping you?”

  “Why should he be? He has tickets. There’s a gala afterward. I’m glad Mee’s going with him.”

  “Yeah, right.” Teddy snorted.

  Before Charlotte could retort, the tow truck came roaring down the road. Two burly men jumped out, surveyed the wreck, pronounced it not so bad, hooked the Jeep’s bumper to a chain, and rumbled off with the Jeep bouncing along behind. Teddy helped Charlotte lift the broken bits of table away from the tree. They hauled them back to the barn, stashing them next to the half cord of winter wood. They searched Nona’s house and found an old card table that could be used until something better was found. Charlotte preferred a long rectangular shape to a square one, but this would suffice. Teddy helped her lug it out to the road, where they leaned it against a tree in preparation for morning.

  As they worked, Teddy sobered up, and his silly, lighthearted mood changed. Charlotte could sense the dark mood sinking into him like a stain.

  “Hey, Teddy,” she said, as they walked back to the house. Light was leaving the sky. Birds were calling good night. Even the breeze had settled down. “It’s no tragedy, losing that table, you know. And for what it’s worth, I’m sure you wouldn’t have steered into it if someone had been there, Suzette or me.”

  Teddy nodded. “Thanks, sis. I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse. I mean, I have been jealous of how close you are to Suzette.”

  “Then you should have talked to me about it. I could have reassured you. I mean, I like her, and we talk about the garden and girly stuff and baby stuff, but Teddy, Teddy—you’re her guy. She adores you. The rest of us are just trying to make her feel at home.”

  “I don’t want her to feel at home, not here. I hate the way we are, we’re like a herd of lemmings crawling all over each other.” He sighed deeply. “Well, I love Nona, I do. And I love you, Char.”

  “I know that.”

  “Oh, well, I guess I love everyone, but I just feel claustrophobic in this family. Everyone’s pressuring me to be something I’m not. I’m so busy trying to escape I can’t figure out where I want to go.”

  “But you’ve found Suzette,” Charlotte reminded him. “You’ve found your person. Don’t be so down on yourself. Most people don’t know what kind of work they want to do. Most people don’t even get to choose.”

  “I know, I know, I’m fortunate, I’m rich, I’m educated—” His voice caught the edge of a whine.

  “Stop it, Teddy. You’re a husband and you’re about to be a father. You’ve got a place to stay while your wife has her baby, and before long you can all move back to Tucson, or wherever you want. Gosh, you could leave now if you wanted to. No one’s stopping you.”

  They reached the end of the drive. Suzette was there, leaning against the big concrete vase with the spilling fuchsia. “Existential crisis?” she asked.

  Charlotte gaped. Suzette was continually surprising her. She didn’t look like someone who had ever read Sartre. Before she could answer, Suzette reached out and pulled Teddy to her.

  “Let’s ge
t some food into you. Then bed. You’ve got to get up early for work tomorrow.”

  Charlotte followed them into the house. Collapsing on the bench in the mudroom, she unlaced her boots, then just leaned against the wall. She was tired. Plus, she had melancholy. She envied Teddy his particular sin. She envied him because everyone knew about it, and their anger or indignation was, if nothing else, a clean, true reaction. Her own offense was still a secret. She couldn’t imagine telling anyone in her family, and there was no reason to; it would only cause hurt and distrust by cracking open a family chasm. Besides, it was over now. It was done. She couldn’t change it. She could only go forward. And what she had done, really, had not been so terribly bad. She was not the devil. She wished she had someone to say, as she had said to Teddy, “Don’t be so down on yourself.”

  Later, she raided the freezer, indulging in a pint of ice cream for dinner, then taking a long soaking shower. She fell asleep the moment she tumbled into bed. But she woke several times during the night, wondering if she heard the old convertible crunching along the drive and hearing only the silken sound of the island breeze.

  The next morning, she was weeding in her garden when she looked up to see a familiar lean figure loping toward her. Not Coop, Whit. Whit in white ducks, a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a baseball cap shielding his face from the sun.

  He held up a plastic bag. “Just bought some of your arugula.”

  Charlotte unfolded herself from her squat in the dirt, rose to standing, dusted off her knees and rear, and brushed several stray hairs from her face. “Hi, Whit. Thanks for the business.”

  Whit looked around. “This is really something. I can’t believe you’re doing it all with just one helper.”

  “I’ve got two now. Suzette’s manning the farm stand.” Charlotte put her hands on her back and leaned into them, stretching her spine. “If business keeps growing, I’ll have to hire another worker.”

  “Do you want it to keep growing?” Whit stopped a few feet from her, his cap shading his eyes.

  “Of course I do.” She furrowed her brow at him.

  “It’s just that you never called about meeting the woman from Eat Local.”

  “What woman?”

  “Laura Riding. I gave Mee the information on the phone yesterday. Laura wanted to have lunch with you today, to get to know you, probably initiate an interview and an article for her magazine.”

  Charlotte’s jaw dropped. “This is the first I’ve heard about it.”

  “I guess Mee forgot to tell you.”

  “I guess she did! What an idiot! Whit, I’d love to meet her—is it too late?”

  Whit looked at his watch. “I’m meeting her for lunch in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll come with you. Can you give me a few minutes to change?” She looked down at her grimy shorts and shirt. “I think this is just a little too authentic!”

  “My car’s parked by your farm stand. I’ll get it and drive you up to the house.”

  Charlotte raced to the attic, stripped off her work clothes, pulled on a filmy skirt and clean T-shirt, let her hair loose, slipped on a pair of turquoise earrings, and hurried back downstairs. She caught glimpses of some of her family as she went, but she didn’t see Mee.

  Laura Riding was young, passionate, and energetic, and she possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of plants, farming, and food. They sat in the shade of the back patio at Even Keel, talking about local crops and Nantucket’s unique gastronomic heritage, and every word Charlotte said—mesclun, blueberries—sent Laura off on a quixotic soliloquy about a culinary utopia where everyone ate local, all diseases vanished, and small town economies flourished. She spoke with charming intensity, caused perhaps by her topic but also, Charlotte quickly realized, by what seemed to be a gigantic crush on Whit. She touched his arm, his hand, she actually batted her eyelashes at him, and when he spoke she was completely captivated.

  Charlotte was so engrossed, watching Laura flirt with Whit, that she almost missed Whit’s words: “—why we’re opening a branch of the bank on Nantucket.”

  “Wait a minute!” Charlotte forgot all etiquette and waved her hands to interrupt him. “I didn’t know this!”

  Whit aimed his steady deep blue gaze at her. “No? I’m surprised. Your father and your uncle and your cousin’s husbands have been doing most of the groundwork.”

  “But—but does that mean someone will have to live on the island year round? To oversee things?”

  “Yes.” Whit smiled. “That would be me.”

  Charlotte’s jaw dropped. “I didn’t know you wanted to live here year-round.”

  Determined not to be ignored, Laura leaned forward, gushing, “Oh, it must be wonderful to live out here in the winter! So atmospheric! And think of the food! Fresh fish! Shellfish! Mussels right off the jetties’ rocks. And I’ve seen the town at Christmas, with all the little trees lit up, so sweet. I’d love to live on the island!”

  Somehow, by the end of lunch, Laura managed to return her focus to Charlotte and arranged to come out to Beach Grass Garden with her photographer on Friday.

  As Whit drove Charlotte home afterward, she found herself gazing at him assessingly, as if she’d never seen him before, as if she hadn’t known him all her life. He was handsome and powerful-looking, relaxed yet confident. He was sexy. Oh, dear. He was very, very sexy.

  “So, that was a good meeting, right?” Whit asked. “Good publicity for your business?”

  “It was great. Thank you.” Charlotte looked over at him. “That young woman has quite a crush on you, Whit.”

  He shrugged. “She’s a good kid.”

  His answer exasperated Charlotte. She snapped, “Oh, come on, Whit! Don’t always be so—so noble.”

  He frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Charlotte shifted uncomfortably in her seat, puzzled by the force of her irrational irritation.

  “Would you prefer I be a cad?” Whit was still smiling, and suddenly he waggled his eyebrows and said in an oily voice, “Yeah, that Laura can’t keep her hands off me, wants to jump my bones.”

  Charlotte laughed. “I’m so grateful to you, Whit, for fixing up the introduction and coming out to get me for the lunch.”

  “Glad to do it.” His voice was warm, affectionate.

  Suddenly she blurted out, “Teddy got drunk last night.”

  “That’s too bad. What happened?”

  “He says he drank champagne in the shop with some customers. Then he drove the Jeep home and smashed into the farm stand. Totaled my table and crunched the hood of the Jeep.”

  “Wow. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Dad’s furious. Mom insists on driving Teddy to and from work every day.”

  Whit was quiet.

  “I know what you’re thinking. She’s enabling him. But Whit, what else can she do? What should she do?”

  “I don’t think anyone knows what to do, Charlotte. I think your mother’s doing the right thing. It’s good for Teddy to work, and it’s good for Suzette to have some relatives around to help her.”

  “But?”

  “No buts.”

  “Oh, come on, Whit, don’t you want to say that our family is a convoluted narcissistic mess that probably drives Teddy to drink?”

  “Perhaps, but Charlotte, I don’t think your family is all that different from mine.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, thinking. “We’ve got this strong central core. I’ve always felt as if my sisters and I were kind of like planets, revolving in a ring around the sun, and sometimes that track feels comfortable and right, but a lot of the time it feels like an awful rut and I just want to get out and get away.”

  It was shocking to hear this, to know that Whit, perfect Whit, might actually chafe at his family ties. Charlotte turned on her seat to face him. She’d never heard Whit talk this way before. Well, she’d never gotten to know Whit, she realized, she’d never looked past that familiar façade. “What do
you do when you have to get away?”

  Whit grinned at her. “I go off climbing two or three times a year. A completely selfish and expensive experience, if that makes you happy. I spend a lot of money for no good but my own pleasure. Last year I went to Norway and Switzerland and New Zealand.”

  “Wow.” Charlotte found herself looking at his long muscular thighs, so elegant in his white trousers. “I didn’t know that.” She lay back against her seat, conjuring up images of foreign terrain, fierce peaks thrusting into the sky, crystalline blue air. All that open empty space. “That must be great.”

  “It’s amazing.”

  “I’ve never been mountain climbing.”

  “You should try it.” They were almost to Nona’s driveway. “What do you do for pleasure, Charlotte?”

  She thought of Coop. Bed with Coop. She knew she was blushing. “Oh—well, I’ve pretty much worked on Beach Grass Garden for three years now.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you had some fun.”

  Suddenly she was foolish, tongue-tied. She’d never been this way around Whit before, but then she’d never really gotten to know him. She felt so close to him now, and the desire to touch him was stunning.