“Andrea’s twenty-one,” Amelia offered. “Do you think she’s making a mistake with Isaac?”
“No. I don’t know. I don’t feel particularly optimistic about anything right now, which isn’t very fair to Andrea,” Camilla returned.
The Edgartown lighthouse lurked just left of them, where the waters of the Atlantic churned into Katama Bay. Far out, a line of sailboats seemed to chase after one another; they looked like ghosts, with the sunlight catching them and bringing the reflection of the water and the sky upon their sails.
Sometimes, the world of Martha’s Vineyard seemed to swirl with perfect poetry. It was ironic, wasn’t it? That Camilla’s own life seemed the antithesis of all of that. What did it mean to enjoy the quiet of the woods or the surge of the waves or the glory of the summertime sky if you felt like a mere shadow of yourself?
“You know, I guess, that Jonathon’s construction company is the one building Oliver’s new resort,” Amelia said then. Her right cheek twitched strangely.
“I did. You told me.”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“So you must have seen him quite a bit over the past few weeks.” Camilla’s right hand was covered with melted ice cream. She felt, yet again, like a child.
“I deal more with the office,” Amelia explained. “But yeah. I guess I told you, I’ve seen him at the site. He’s so skinny these days. Anyway, I wanted to tell you. I heard some — um — gossip.”
Camilla’s heart dropped instantly, even more so now. She hadn’t known her body had more basement compartments for continued heart-falling. How low could she go?
“Gossip. About Jonathon?”
“Yes.” Amelia studied Camilla for a long moment, then whispered, “I don’t know if you want to hear it.”
“Come on, Amelia. Put another nail in the coffin of my marriage, okay? I need it.”
Amelia placed her hand over her stomach as though she wanted to shield her growing baby from the monstrosities of some men.
“I heard a rumor that he had an affair with his secretary.”
Camilla was surprised that the words didn’t immediately destroy her. She felt them like the last drops of rain at the end of a storm. She was already drenched, already miserable. The worst had passed, or so she thought. This was just insult to injury.
“Penelope?”
“Yes. I guess so,” Amelia offered.
“She’s what, twenty-eight? Thirty?”
“Maybe,” Amelia said. “I didn’t ask her.”
“Who told this to you?”
“I heard some people discussing it outside,” Amelia said. “They’ve seen Jonathon with Penelope on more than one occasion and not work-related stuff.”
“And are they together now? I mean, have you seen them together?”
“I saw them once,” Amelia said. “He was signing some paperwork. She was telling him about someone who’d called the office. It seemed like a pretty standard exchange.”
“I see.” Camilla rose and dropped her barely-eaten ice cream cone into the trash can to her right. She smacked her sticky hands together and continued to blink out at the waves beyond the lighthouse. In moments like this, she liked to think of Michelle — of all the life Camilla had been allowed to live while Michelle’s own had been cut short. Despite this devastation, despite the horrors of what her husband had done, she had been given this tremendous gift of life.
It only sometimes helped to think this way, though.
“Say something,” Amelia pleaded.
Camilla heaved a sigh, placed her hands on her hips, and then said, “I guess I’m not totally surprised.”
“You’re not?”
“No.” Camilla’s throat tightened as she turned back to gaze into Amelia’s eyes. “When we were away at college, he kissed someone else.”
Amelia’s eyes bugged out slightly. “What are you talking about?”
“I was too embarrassed to tell any of you. He was drunk. We had just gotten into a little fight. I had to study at the library, and one thing apparently led to another.”
“Oh my,” Amelia breathed.
“He told me immediately, but I broke it off for about a week. I was totally inconsolable. At the time, I was just so homesick for the Vineyard. He was my home. When he came to me crying, telling me I was the only woman he wanted in his life forever, I took him back. It was too easy. I should have known that once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“I mean, you guys were nineteen.” Amelia stood delicately and tossed the rest of her cone into the trash, too.
“To be honest, I hardly thought about it over the years. But now, I see the same Jonathon that I saw that day when he came to my door begging for forgiveness. He’s weak. He doesn’t know what he wants. It’s better that I don’t have someone like that in my life. I just hate that it affected Andrea at all.”
“He is her father,” Amelia pointed out. “You couldn’t have her without him.”
“Sure. But that’s a funny point to make, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
Camilla arched her eyebrow knowingly. “Come on, Amelia. The baby you’re growing in your belly? The father? Nathan something?”
Amelia chuckled. “I get your point. Every day, I remember less and less of what he looks like.”
“Exactly. Maybe I could get that way with Jonathon,” Camilla said wistfully. “Besides. I think I have a crush on someone.”
Amelia’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
Camilla didn’t feel that jump in her stomach, the one she remembered from long-ago when she had first met Jonathon. Still, maybe that had been just a teenage fantasy. Maybe this crush was the stuff of forty-somethings.
“He’s a doctor at the hospital,” Camilla affirmed. “And so handsome. He keeps flirting with me in the break room and in the hallway. And once, mid-way through surgery, he actually made eye contact with me, and I nearly dropped a scalpel.”
“Omg, that’s a little funny, but please promise me you won’t flirt in the operating room.” Amelia heaved with laughter.
“I know. You’re right. Wrong place and it's way too dangerous,” Camilla said. She stepped toward the railing along the boardwalk and lifted her chin. “I want to have hope again, you know? I don’t want to think about Jonathon, or his affair with this woman, or all the money he squandered on bad stocks. I don’t want to hear his explanations or excuses. And I don’t even want to say ‘men will be men,’ because, heck, why do we give them such an easy pass?”
“Damn right.”
“All I want to focus on this summer is Andrea,” Camilla breathed.
“And that doctor.”
Camilla gave a half-shrug. “Sure. If I happen to go out with a handsome doctor, after the year I’ve had, I’ll allow it. But I’m not counting on it. That’s for sure.”
Chapter Six
Memorial Day weekend on the Vineyard erupted with bright blue skies, glorious whipping white sails and the first batch of brave tourists, all wide-eyed and ready for late-springtime BBQs and island memories and late-night bonfires. Everywhere you looked, you could feel this apprehension and excitement for the approaching season — admittedly, sometimes, most of all at the hospital, where Camilla noted an uptick in silly accidents. “People lose their heads around springtime,” she told Amelia over tea. “You never know what you’re going to get this time of the season. A gender reveal party in Chilmark just took someone’s finger off.”
Camilla had Memorial Day off. Ordinarily, this would have excited her, as every year, a large part of her family gathered together for this holiday. Her parents, Carol and Mike Jenkins, her younger sisters, Janet and Tina, along with their uncles, Tyler and Hudson, with their families normally made their way to the Jenkins family home, which was located along the waterfront. It was always an all-day BBQ extravaganza.
The party started early, as her mother poured mimosas before lunch, Moscow Mules by three, and wine by five-thirty. Her father always brought out his best jokes
and lit fireworks into the night while copious amounts of food were consumed, including bratwursts, burgers, homemade onion rings and potato salad, along with ice cream. They always ended with s’mores around the fire. Needless to say, every other year, Camilla, Jonathon, and Andrea returned to their house, stuffed to the brim, occasionally angry at something one of the uncles had said but always overwhelmingly happy.
BUT THIS YEAR WAS DIFFERENT in every single way.
That morning, Camilla brewed coffee in the pot and glanced at her phone, distracted. Andrea wasn’t home yet, since she’d recently taken a new, grunt-work job at the docks, which required her attendance at four-thirty in the morning. Since Camilla frequently worked nights, they often missed one another, which bruised Camilla’s heart.
CAMILLA: Hey, honey. Do you think you can still be at the BBQ by noon? You know I don’t want to be there without you.
The text was sent, received and even read, but Andrea didn’t respond back to the text. Camilla chewed at the side of her cheek. The thought of facing her mother, who hadn’t stopped pestering her about Jonathon, about why they were divorcing, about why he left, chilled her to the bone. Her sisters, too, were full of questions. Camilla felt like fresh meat, splayed out on a platter. Everyone wanted a piece. It made no difference that Janet had just gone through her own divorce. Their mother, Carol, had never liked the guy, and there was a general air of “good riddance.”
Jonathon, of course, had been well-loved in her family. He was a Vineyard boy and, up till now, a respectable husband and father. Camilla didn’t feel up to breaking the news of what he’d done — losing their money and now, apparently, having an affair. It made her look weak; it destroyed his image.
She just wanted to eat a bratwurst in peace.
Suddenly, the front door swung open to reveal a sweaty, volatile Andrea. The door slammed closed as she huffed into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, which she filled up from the tap. Camilla watched, awestruck. She had never seen her daughter so angry.
When Andrea had finished her glass of water, she lifted her chin toward her mother and snarled, “They fired me. Can you believe it?”
Camilla almost wanted to laugh. After all, it wasn’t like her daughter, the fashion-forward beauty queen had any interest at all in life at the docks. Then again, this had been the only job she had been able to get and her frustration over the entire summer seemed insurmountable.
“Why did they do that, honey?”
“Because I messed up the stupid knot. And one of the boats floated out to sea,” Andrea growled.
Camilla snapped her hand over her mouth as a laugh erupted from her belly. Andrea furrowed her brow even more.
“Don’t laugh, Mom. It’s not funny.” Andrea stood with her hands on her hips, staring her mother down.
Camilla pressed her hand even harder over her mouth. For a long time, Camilla and her daughter held one another’s gaze as silence filled the air between them. They might have remained right there, in stunned silence, forever, if Andrea, herself, hadn’t burst into spontaneous laughter.
Andrea pressed her hands over her eyes and shook her head. “Mom, you should have seen it. I was almost done with my shift, and then I looked up, and that stupid sailboat was out in the middle of the bay. Everyone knew immediately it was my fault since I’m so new and learning the knots.”
Camilla joined her daughter in laughter. She shook with it, then wrapped her arms around Andrea and said, “I don’t think you were meant for the docks, anyway.”
“No. I wasn’t. But I needed that job.” Andrea exhaled and dropped back against the fridge; her body knocked several magnets to the ground. “Shoot. I really can’t do anything today.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything. All you have to do is sit around with me, drink a few Moscow Mules, and listen to your grandfather tell story after story,” Camilla offered.
“Right. The classic Memorial Day BBQ.” Andrea sounded doubtful. “I hope they don’t pester you about Dad again.”
“Yes, me too. I don’t have high hopes, though. Ah well. I guess that’s how we pay for being so close to family. It’s nice until it isn’t. Want to help me make up this cheese plate before we go? I plan to eat my weight in brie if Mom demands to know why your dad and I didn’t try counseling.”
THE JENKINS RESIDENCE stretched along the waterline, just west of Katama Bay, there on the Atlantic Ocean, within walking distance of the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa, which was one of the most popular spas and wellness lodges on the east coast. Once, when Camilla and her mother sat out on the porch that overlooked the water, they’d seen Katama Lodge visitors like Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Garner walk along the waterline, as though they didn’t understand that the Katama Lodge’s property line extended only so far. Still, it was pretty cool to see celebrities out and about on the island. Her father’s joke that maybe “women named Jennifer got some kind of discount” was pretty funny as well, something she recited to her own Jennifer later on.
Camilla and Andrea arrived just past twelve-thirty to find her father, mother, two sisters, along with Andrea’s cousins, Gretchen and Ben, out on the porch, enjoying what looked to be another helping of mimosas. Gretchen and Ben, both of whom were under twenty-one, looked miserable sitting there with their sodas in hand.
“There they are! The Franklin girls!” Her mother, Carol, popped up from her chair for hugs. She was youthful and spry, a retired nurse herself. She’d recently dyed her hair, and it seemed that her blonde bob glowed with the sun. “I hope we’ll be seeing Jonathon later? I sent him a text to invite him.”
“Mom! You didn’t.” Camilla’s heart hammered with anger.
“Come on, now, I’m allowed to text anyone I want,” Carol returned sharply. She yanked out a chair and gestured for Camilla to sit. “I’ll go pour you a mimosa. Andrea, you want one, too?”
“Hey, Andy!” Grandpa Mike hollered as he snapped a peanut into his mouth. “How’s it going down at the docks?”
Andrea’s cheeks flushed pink. “Um. It’s okay. I mean...”
“Bet it’s hard work,” Mike continued.
Andrea cast Camilla a frightened look. Camilla rolled her eyes slightly as her father began a long-winded story about his own experience “out to sea,” which consisted of a single sailing trip he had taken around the age of twenty-four.
“How’s it going, Big Sis?” Tina splayed her hand over Camilla’s knee and shook it gently. Her smile was kind, yet her eyes ached with curiosity.
“Oh, fine. You know—looking forward to another summer on the Vineyard.”
“This one might be a touch different than the others, I guess...” Tina attempted to probe already.
“Not so different,” Camilla returned. “Andrea’s back on the island with me. We have plenty of plans—lots of hikes and tons of swimming. We’re planning to shop for new bikinis this week. Andrea said I’m still allowed to wear a bikini until age fifty.”
Tina and Janet made eye contact across the table. Their faces seemed to reflect the same thing: that Camilla was delusional.
Carol appeared back with the mimosas. Andrea lifted hers and drank one-half of it almost immediately, which Carol called out. “Hey there, Andy. Be careful. We have a lot of drinking ahead of us.”
The afternoon staggered on. At one point, Tina’s husband, Ross, got up and started grilling bratwurst. Janet excused herself to go chop the watermelon, and Carol eased herself into the chair beside Camilla, which was dangerously close.
“I think it’s almost time for Moscow Mules,” Camilla tried when she felt her mother’s eyes upon her.
“Camilla, you look so thin,” Carol said, just loud enough for Camilla to hear. The others were entirely focused on yet another story from Mike.
“Thank you, Mom. I told you. I have to get into that bikini.”
“I don’t mean it as a compliment. I don’t think you’re taking care of yourself,” Carol offered.
“Gee. Thank you.”
>
“You know what I mean.”
“No, Mom. I don’t.” Camilla cast her mother a monstrous gaze, then jumped up and staggered back into the house. Once there, she hustled into the kitchen to find Janet over the top of a watermelon. The knife flashed menacingly.
But Carol was fast on Camilla’s heels. Janet dropped the knife to the side as they barreled in. Behind Carol, Tina was in tow, seemingly just for kicks. There they were: the three sisters and the mother who’d raised them. The air in the kitchen was volatile, and Camilla’s every instinct said: RUN.
“Janet. Tina. Tell your sister she needs to focus up,” Carol said. “Tell her to talk to me.”
Camilla’s chin shivered with sadness and rage. “Mom, there’s so much about this you don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do, honey. I understand what a marriage is. It’s hard. It’s not something you run out on after the first sign of hardship.”
“Twenty years of marriage didn’t exactly come without its hardships, Mom.”
“But honey, you won’t talk to me about it. You won’t talk to anyone. You’ve just closed yourself off and decided on this whole divorce thing, as though the rest of us, including Andrea, aren’t involved.”
Camilla seethed. “If you think for a minute that I don’t think about Andrea in all of this, in every single way, then you’re totally wrong.”
In the silence that followed, Janet lifted a slice of watermelon and tasted the edge of it. Her eyes looked glazed and bored.
“Honey, now that I’m divorced, I can tell you — you don’t want to get back out there,” she said.
Camilla rolled her eyes back in her head. “Janet. I wouldn’t go back out there if I didn’t have to. Whatever ‘out there’ even means.”
“It means you’ll be dating again. It means you’ll be meeting up with men, who are also divorced, and each of you will be talking about what it means that your first marriage failed or, god forbid, they’ve been divorced a few times...”
“Janet, come on. Olivia and Jennifer have both been divorced. It happens and life moves on,” Camilla pointed out.
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