“Seeds and membranes,” said Maggie. “I know.” She went at the jalapeño with grace and precision. A moment later, Maggie started to hum a song from Hamilton. “Helpless.” Her favorite. A good sign.
They kept at the salad: Maggie washing the lettuce, Joy seasoning the chicken to grill. Genius is patience, wasn’t that what Isaac Newton had said? Joy would be patient.
“Let’s go outside and sit for a minute,” Joy suggested. “While the chicken is grilling.” She poured a glass of wine for herself and a seltzer for Maggie. They sat on the love seat on the deck, with its view of Old Town Road. It was a glorious summer evening, and there was foot traffic and bike traffic and car traffic. Joy heard a child yell something about ice cream. She heard a car horn honk. She put her arm over the back of the love seat, cautiously, like a teenager on a first date at the movies, and she waited for Maggie to stiffen and pull away. But Maggie leaned against Joy, the way she used to, when she was young and her heart was whole and open. Joy was scared to breathe too hard.
Maggie got up to check the chicken on the grill. Her legs were so brown and skinny in her denim shorts, and her black Converse sneakers were so . . . well, it was all just so Maggie. It was too much. Joy’s heart seized. What a lot the world asked of us, when it asked us to love another human being.
What made Joy say what she said next? “So, listen,” Joy said. “Do you want to talk any more about Hugo?”
Maggie flinched. “No,” she said.
Joy had said the wrong thing, she was always saying the wrong thing. “I just want to make sure you know just how big the difference between sixteen and thirteen is. I don’t want you to feel embarrassed about . . . about what happened.”
“Nothing happened.” Maggie’s face closed up like a morning glory after sundown.
“Well, about what you may have . . .” Joy pushed forward, casting about for the right thing to say. “About what you may have expected. Hoped for.” (What had Maggie hoped for, exactly?)
“I said, I don’t want to talk about it.” Maggie stiffened. “Geez. I knew this would happen! I knew you’d bring this up, to embarrass me. I knew it. I’m going to Riley’s. Unless I’m still grounded. Am I still grounded?”
Joy studied her. “No,” she said finally. “I guess you’re not still grounded.” It was hard, deciding these things alone! She wished she had another grown-up to bounce the question off of. Was the grounding she’d given Maggie overdoing it, underdoing it, or just right? She was Goldilocks, with no guidance about which chair might fit. “But we haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not hungry,” snarled Maggie.
“We did all this work!” said Joy. “It’s almost ready!”
“I said, I’m not hungry,” said Maggie. “You can’t make me be hungry.” And with a stomp of one Converse and a curl of her lip she was gone.
Joy poured herself more wine and considered the possibility that in short order she had driven everyone away from her: Anthony, Maggie, even Bridezilla. The great alienator, that was Joy. On the way to the kitchen to pick up her cell phone she tripped over Pickles. Pickles looked up, possibly resentfully. “Not you too, Pickles,” she pleaded. “Don’t you turn on me. You’re my only hope.” Pickles raised one of her ears. She was probably wishing she had a bike so she could follow Maggie to Riley’s.
The phone at the auto shop rang six times before Joy looked at her watch. It was the end of the business day, of course they’d be closed. Finally her mother answered and Joy presented her question.
“You were awful to me!” said her mother cheerfully. “Of course, I had the boys, so that helped. As long as I fed them they were perfectly nice to me.”
Joy felt pained. “Well, what’d I do, exactly?”
“Where do you want me to start? There was the time you snuck out in the middle of the night and set off the car alarm when you were trying to turn the car on. The time you took the good whiskey my sister had brought me from Ireland and brought it to a party. Oh! And the time you said four days in a row you were going swimming at Lisa Costa’s house and your bathing suit came home dry every night. I never did find out where you’d been.”
“Well, I’m not telling you now,” said Joy. (She couldn’t remember.) “Did I at least apologize, for any of that? Please tell me I apologized.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Her mother laughed. “You were a teenage girl. The world revolved around you and only you. It was natural. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t infuriating. Just a moment, darling.” She put down the phone and called, “The second drawer down.” Then, to Joy, “Sorry, I’m at the shop. Well, you know that. You called me here.”
“So how did you ever forgive me? How’d you even stand me?”
“I said the second drawer down!” screamed her mother. “Honestly, that man couldn’t find an ear of corn in a cornfield. Your brother is just like him.”
“Which brother?”
“All of them, come to think of it. And I’m only here today because Mariana had to take Hunter to his baseball game. How did I forgive you? How did I stand you? It was my job to stand you. And I forgave you because that’s what parents do.”
Joy was hovering somewhere between relief and despair. “What do I do, though, Mom? I feel like I have to be so careful, but I’m never sure what I’m being careful of.”
“You wait her out,” said Joy’s mother. “You wait her out, and she’ll come back to you soon enough. You’ll see.”
Chapter 50
Anthony
Cassie was wearing pale pink gloss and a hint of shadow on her eyes when Anthony and Max met her at the ferry on the sixth. She had somehow scored a room at The 1661 Inn for the night (unheard of, in August; who knew what strings she’d pulled), and she wanted Max to stay with her. Her tank top was taupe, silk, pristinely pressed. She was carrying the Sonia Rykiel weekender bag she’d given herself two birthdays ago. Anthony reached out to take the bag from her. She bent to hug and kiss Max. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked. “That must have been very scary for you.”
“What?” Max asked, confused.
“Getting taken like that.”
“Taken on a fun trip,” Anthony corrected, casting a warning look at Cassie.
“I wasn’t scared,” said Max staunchly. “I was with Grandma.”
Cassie’s gaze took in the swarm of people by the ferry, the crowded veranda of the National Hotel, the glimpse of Fred Benson Town Beach. It was a glorious summer day, the pick of the litter. She nodded slowly. Her smile was tight and insincere. “I see how it’s been,” she said. “While Max and I have been at home alone, you’ve been having yourself a vacation.”
“It wasn’t a vacation,” Anthony said.
“You even have better weather than we have at home. You know we’re getting a big storm, right? At home? Practically a hurricane. I had to move in all of the pillows on the outdoor furniture by myself.”
Anthony was sure Cassie was exaggerating. “I haven’t heard about any storm,” he said.
“Of course you haven’t. You’ve just been here, in your little island paradise, not worrying about the rest of the world. Aren’t you lucky. Well, for your information, coastal Massachusetts is supposed to get pummeled.”
“It was the only place I could go for free, Cassie! Fitzy’s uncle has a cottage—”
Cassie straightened and said, “Oh, Fitzy.” She said it like a curse word. Fitzy had been at their wedding; he hadn’t accorded himself very well. He’d left the heart of one of Cassie’s friends in shreds on the ground.
“I had no choice,” Anthony said.
“Well,” she said. “I wonder if Max is hungry. Are you hungry, sweetie?” Max nodded somberly. He was holding tightly to Anthony’s hand. Max’s hand was small and warm and certain, with an overlay of inoffensive childhood stickiness. It was a perfect hand. “Is there somewhere around here we can get some lunch?”
“Yes,” said Anthony. “Of course.” It was Block Island in the middle of summer: there were
dozens of places to get lunch.
They went to Dead Eye Dick’s and sat on the deck overlooking Great Salt Pond. The harbor was lousy with boats and kayaks and Jet Skis and clammers and swimmers. You had to wonder how so many boats could move around safely in a relatively small space but they seemed to have it figured out, like dancers in a well-choreographed number.
“Should we share salt-and-pepper calamari to start?” Anthony suggested. It would have been a peace offering if calamari was something Cassie would eat.
Cassie shook her head. “Nothing fried.”
Anthony ordered a grilled fish sandwich with a side of fries and Cassie ordered a summer shrimp salad without the onions. Max ordered grilled cheese and a chocolate milk. Cassie said, “How about white milk?” and when Max said, “No, chocolate,” she sighed and flicked her hand: What did it matter?
“A drink?” suggested Cassie. She ran her forefinger up and down the cocktail menu. “The Summer Sunrise sounds good.”
“I haven’t been drinking,” said Anthony. The amber liquid in the decanter, and all the drinks that came after, had left him with a headache that remained for days.
“Fine,” said Cassie. She sighed. “I’ll have a seltzer.”
“Can I go look at the boats?” asked Max.
“Yes, but stay on the deck,” said Cassie. When Max had gone, she tented her fingers and said, “So.”
“So,” said Anthony.
“After what your mother did, honestly, I’ve been very worried. I wonder about the stability of your family. I wonder about your genes, Anthony.”
“My jeans are very fashionable, thank you very much. No need to worry about them.”
“I’m serious, Anthony. This isn’t a joking matter. Your mother kidnapped our son.”
“She didn’t kidnap him. She took him on a vacation! She left a note. It will be a memory that lasts him for the rest of his life. No harm done.”
Cassie squinched her eyes shut. “I disagree,” she said. “Ice cream for breakfast: That’s a terrible idea. Breakfast should be protein and fresh fruits or vegetables, plus, for a child, a serving of whole grains.” She rubbed her eyes and added, “Full-grown adults can generally get by without the grains.”
“It’s okay to do crazy things on vacation!”
Cassie snapped her eyes open. “It was child theft. It was not vacation.”
A woman in a blue bikini jumped into the water from one of the boats docked nearby. She let out a little whooping sound before she hit the water and three other people on the deck of the boat cheered.
“Anyway,” Cassie said. She tapped the saltshaker against the table. “I didn’t come here to talk about your mother. I came here to collect Max. And I wanted you to know . . .” She paused, then straightened her already straight back. “That it’s over with Glen. Like I said on the phone. It’s over.”
Suddenly all Anthony could think of was Joy on her deck, fiddling with her little grill, turning to talk to him with the tongs in her hand. And then this guy wants four iced lattes, he imagined her saying. So I told him . . .
“Anthony?” said Cassie. “Did you hear me, did you hear what I said?”
“I heard you.”
Cassie moved her hand over so it was covering his on the table. Her nails were freshly done in a steel-gray polish. Her hands were unblemished. Joy had small scars and burns all over her hands.
“And?” When Anthony stayed silent she put a little pressure on the top of his hand. “And I was thinking that since you and I have both made mistakes, well, I thought you might be able to come back home now. Max needs his father.”
Anthony opened his arms expansively. “He has his father. I’m right here.”
“He needs you home. We need you.” Cassie sighed and unrolled her silverware from the napkin. She said, finally, possibly reluctantly, “I need you.”
He knew what it must have cost her to say that. And yet. “What about all of those things you said to me before I left? You said some terrible things, Cassie.”
“I know I did.” She lowered her gaze and gave him the full view of her long, full eyelashes. There was a time when that view would have sent him into paroxysms of desire; there was a time when he could have spent the better part of a morning on one of those eyelids.
Then she lifted her gaze. “I know I did, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Anthony. I was too hard on you. I should have supported you. I never should have . . .”
She paused. Did she really not know how to complete the sentence? “You never should have slept with Glen Manning,” he offered.
She colored briefly; that delicate, porcelain skin had always been her tell. He could almost see her internal struggle through her skin, behind the lavender veins that showed under the surface of her wrists, along the temples. “You’re right,” she said finally. “You’re exactly right. I never should have. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t thrown away what we had, Anthony, for . . .”
“For an arrogant asshole?”
She let a small sigh escape. “Yes. For an arrogant asshole. But more than that, I wish I hadn’t hurt you.”
For so long he’d waited to hear her say those words. And now that she had, the funniest thing happened. He didn’t need to hear them anymore.
“I wish you hadn’t too, Cassie, but the fact is, you did hurt me. Not only that stuff with Glen Manning, which was pretty terrible in its own right. But what’s worse is the fact that you gave up on me. When all that shit with Simon’s Rock went down. You gave up on me, and you stopped loving me.”
She shook her head fiercely. “I didn’t stop loving you.”
“You stopped showing it.”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I guess I did do that. But I won’t again, Anthony. I won’t again. You’ll see.”
He felt not the vindication that he was expecting to feel. He felt only a great sadness, a tightening in his chest. The realization hit him like a wrecking ball, like a stream of cold water pointed straight at his forehead. Anthony and Cassie were not perfect in any sense of the word, either of them, but each of them was better apart than they were together.
Cassie had been the most beautiful bride, her hair in those flower-woven braids, her simple dress that accentuated the utter gloriousness of her skin. He’d felt so lucky to be walking down the aisle with her at the end of the ceremony. (What aisle? his mother would have said. I just saw cedar chips.)
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cassie.”
“You’re not going to come back?” Her voice cracked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Even for Max?”
He thought about Joy. She’d shown him that a certain kind of connection was possible—was as necessary to his happiness as food and air. He had never loved Cassie the way he loved Joy; he’d been drawn in by the shiny gossamer fabric that covered her, and then he’d been too caught up in his own problems to notice when it tore.
“I’m not going to come back especially for Max. Because living with unhappy parents would be the worst thing for Max, way worse than having divorced parents.”
“Divorced.” Cassie seemed to be turning the word over and over in her head, and then in her mouth. She put the emphasis first on one syllable and then on the other. Divorced. Divorced. It was a funny word, once you kept repeating it. But then again, weren’t all words funny, repeated again and again? Tangerine. Hiatus. Incandescent. Rhinoceros. Blue. Plagiarism. “Are we going to be a divorced couple?” she asked.
“Eventually,” he said. “Eventually, I guess we are.”
“And then what?”
“And then, I don’t know, maybe I’ll start writing again.”
Cassie let out a sharp, mean laugh. “Right,” she said. “Like that’s going to happen.” But it didn’t hurt him, not anymore, not the way it would have a few months ago.
“It could,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Lots of walking on the beach and thinking.”
“Alone?”
“Not a
lways. I started— I’ve been—” He cleared his throat. “That is to say, I was seeing somebody.”
“Somebody here?”
“Yes,” he said. “Somebody here.”
“Wait a minute. You have a girlfriend?”
The word seemed inadequate for his relationship with Joy—the word girlfriend implied youth, transitoriness. Joy deserved another word, a freshly minted, spectacular word. But: “Yes,” he said. Then, “No.”
“Which is it?”
“It’s complicated.”
“You’ll have to end it. Like I did with Glen.”
“Did you end it with Glen, or did Glen end it with you?”
Cassie didn’t answer, thereby making the answer clear. “I don’t think staying apart is the right thing for anyone,” she said instead. “We need to be a family unit again.”
“But we’re not, Cassie. We can’t be.” He believed that both he and Cassie were good parents—that was one piece of knowledge that had sustained him through his Max-less days, the certainty that Cassie would do right by their son. But they were not better together than they were alone, the way parents were supposed to be. In fact, they were worse.
He thought of Joy, bent over the account books in her office. He thought of Maggie teaching him to clam. It was so unlikely, so impractical, this little life they’d carved, really out of nothing, out of sand and sea and grit and determination and whipped cream. And yet. It was what he wanted, more than anything.
“Are you planning to stay with her? This girlfriend? On this . . . island?” She spat the word in a way that made Anthony feel protective of Block Island. “What about us? What are Max and I supposed to do?”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Anthony. “Max is priority number one. We’ll figure it out.”
The Islanders Page 27