Jason said, “I’ll have to ask my parents about some of these. My mom is very particular about her doctors and well, everything. I can tell you, whoever she uses are the best.”
“That’s why she’s so radiant!” Olivia said. “Would you ask Elaine to call me?”
“Sure!”
The big fat fish continued to elude Nick for the next few days. Nick would come in the house announcing that he had returned from battle.
Olivia would say, “Great! What did you catch?”
And after a sorrowful pause, Nick would call back, “More bait.”
This went on for a few more days until he finally took himself to Haddrell’s in Mount Pleasant and bought more respectable gear, sand spikes, and a cooler on wheels, which to him was a great personal indulgence. While he was going to hell with himself, he bought a Tilley T3 fishing hat. Parting with seventy-five dollars for a fishing hat was like twisting a knife in his heart, but dinner at Le Bernardin in New York was often several hundred dollars. Le Bernardin was strictly a restaurant for very special occasions. But no matter how deliciously unique the offerings were from their brilliant kitchen, they couldn’t compete with the uniqueness of a fish on the plate that was caught that morning. Well, he wanted to believe that.
Then he made another decision. He decided to fish very early in the day at Breach Inlet instead of Station Nine. Breach Inlet was really a fish funnel taking fish from the ocean over to the Intracostal Waterway. It was hardly a man-against-nature venture, but he was frustrated and demoralized by his empty bucket.
He cast out into the middle of the waterway. Then he anchored each of his four lines in sand spikes, sat down in his new nylon-webbed aluminum folding chair (ten dollars at Harris Teeter), and waited for a strike. Within two hours he landed three good-sized spottail bass, two whiting, and a three-pound flounder, the biggest one he’d ever reeled in. He pulled the hooks out with his new pliers and rebaited two of them with half of a small blue crab. He was hoping to catch some mullets. Red mullets adored blue crab. He did manage to get four mullets, and to his surprise he got a pompano on the hook of the rod baited with sand fleas.
“You’re not supposed to be in this water!” he said to the fish, pulling the hook from its cheek and dropping it in the cooler to thrash around with the others.
Nick realized then that he needed a fishing buddy because someone had to explain to him how a pompano wound up in Breach Inlet. And his sanity might be called into question if anyone noticed he was talking to the fish.
“My manly pride has been restored!” he announced as he came through the door before noon. “Tonight we will feast on the finest fish ever to cross your persnickety Manhattan palate! May I have a roll of paper towels and a soup pot?”
“Persnickety? Who are you calling persnickety?” Olivia reached into a cabinet and produced a pot. “Paper towels are in the laundry room.”
“You, my turtledove. And me too.” Nick stepped into the laundry room and took a roll from the shelf. “Come see the catch of the day!”
“You’re getting as brown as can be, except for the areas covered by your sunglasses.”
“Ha-ha! An occupational hazard shared by true sportsmen all over the world! A badge of honor! Now, come and see.”
Olivia followed him outside. Nick had discovered an old oyster table under the house and positioned it near the hose in a shady spot. He had his fish laid across the table by size and species, ready to clean and gut them with his newly acquired shiny serrated fishing knife.
“Wow!” Olivia said. “That’s a lot of fish for two people! If you keep doing this, I’m going to have to find us some friends!”
Olivia made a mental note to visit her neighbors to introduce herself to the neighborhood, although she had been expecting them to knock on her door. Wasn’t that how it went in the South? She’d have to ask Nick.
“True enough. I thought I’d roast the flounder and the pompano and make a fish stew with the rest, except for that whiting, which to my mind is too puny to be anything but bait.”
“And how are you going to cook the larger fish?”
“Over a wood fire with olive oil, lemon juice, and thyme. Maybe a handful of rosemary. And salt and pepper, of course. Just like the fish we had in Santorini.”
“And where exactly are you going to build that fire?” Olivia said, smiling.
“Oh. Right! I’ve put the cart before the horse. We don’t have a grill yet. Back to Haddrell’s! More money out the door!”
“We have some money for a grill. I just got a consultation check from Maritza.”
How much could a grill cost? she thought.
“Good. Maybe there’s a sale going on, with the Fourth of July being so close.”
“We really ought to be careful for a while, at least until Maritza and Bob close on the house and until I know what my audit is about.”
“What audit?”
“I didn’t tell you? I got some fan mail from the IRS and the State of New York. No biggie.”
“Bastards! Terrorizing a woman! Would you like me to give them a shellacking?”
Olivia smiled. “I don’t think they’re gender sensitive, baby boy. You clean your fish. I’m going to work on my presentation for Maritza and Bob for the Nantucket house.”
“I’m happy they’re buying it. I love you having rich clients.”
“Like Maritza would say, They ain’t rich. They’re stinking filthy rich! You want lunch? I got some Johns Island tomatoes this morning from the Co-Op.”
“You’re reading my mind now! I was just dreaming about a tomato sandwich on Wonder Bread with Duke’s Real Mayonnaise and a glass of iced tea!”
This kind of meal was something well within the range of her limited culinary skills.
“Done! I’ll call you when it’s ready. But I must say, it’s a peculiar combination.”
“Food of the Gods. I give you my most solemn word.”
Olivia, hoping to make the lunch slightly more genteel than a sandwich slapped together and cut in half on a platter, neatly trimmed the crust from the white bread and applied a thin layer of mayonnaise to two slices for him. Then she spread a thinner coating of butter on hers. Next she sliced the tomatoes so thinly one might read the New York Times op-ed page through them and placed a layer of tomatoes on their bread. Finally she sprinkled the tiniest amount of salt over the tomatoes and cut the sandwiches into triangular fourths. She minced parsley and basil together, applied the smallest layer of mayonnaise to the edges of the crusts, and dipped them in the tiny herbs, creating a green crust. She placed them one on the other in a row on sandwich-sized plates and poured tea. She put the plates on the kitchen breakfast bar with napkins and lemon wedges in a small dish. She’d seen this done on a YouTube video, entitled something like “Elevating the Mundane to the Sublime.”
This looks so pretty! she thought, feeling a bit of pride, and called Nick to come and eat.
Nick, like men are wont to do, was taking his sweet time getting to the table. She called him again.
“Darling! The sandwiches are getting soggy!”
She leaned over the porch rail and there he was, trimming away the inedible and truly disgusting parts of the fish’s digestive system. He threw the last cleaned fish in his pot and wiped the fish entrails into a bucket. She gagged and then congratulated herself for slicing the tomatoes so thin because they would not make the sandwiches soggy.
“Sorry!” He rinsed his hands with the hose, hurrying up the steps past her and into the kitchen.
He must be hungry, she thought.
She was right on his heels. “Wash your hands with soap.” There were stains of unknown origin on his shirt, and she wasn’t asking him to explain them. “Maybe you want to change your shirt?”
“Why?” He looked down and saw the spots. “After I clean up the table. It needs a good hosing down or we’ll have every cat on the island coming around howling. What’s this?” he said, laughing and pointing to their lunch. “Are we h
aving a ladies’ tea party?”
“What do you mean?”
Nick scooped Olivia into his arms and kissed her squarely on her pouting lips.
“Augh! You’re all fishy!”
“Sorry. Let me show you something, sweetheart.” He released her and put one of the dainty triangles into his mouth and ate it. “Not bad! But different.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Okay. Watch your ever-loving husband show you how this is done.”
He took a huge tomato from the vegetable basket and rinsed it. Then he set it on a paper towel. He pulled the cutting board from the dish rack and wiped it dry. He laid out four slices of white bread and smothered them with thick smears of mayonnaise. Then he salted and peppered the mayonnaise on the bread.
“Now, some folks skin the tomato and others don’t. Me, I like the skin. So here we go. We’re going to treat this tomato like a filet mignon.” Nick cut the bottom and the top from the tomato and sliced the tomato itself into four thick rounds. Then he cut the rounds in half. He arranged them on two slices of the bread so that the bread was entirely covered. He topped the tomatoes with the remaining slices of bread and cut the sandwiches in half.
“There are probably nine hundred calories of mayonnaise in there,” Olivia said.
“No, there aren’t. Take a bite,” he said, handing one to her. “Okay. Maybe two hundred.”
Because she was the obedient wife and because she wanted to please him, she complied, taking a large bite. Then she moaned with surprise and pleasure as she chewed. “Mmmmm!”
“I love to make you moan,” he said.
“Nick! This is ecstasy!” She wiped traces of mayonnaise from her mouth with a napkin.
“I know,” he said, smiling at her and very pleased with himself. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you. Oh, I have so much work to do,” she said and sighed, taking another bite.
“The Nantucket house?”
“Uh-huh.” After she swallowed she said, “Yes. I think I’m going to take a quick trip up there to meet this contractor before we go to Spain. I might even take Jason.”
“How come?”
“Another set of ears. I need someone on site all the time. And I want to get a clear sense of what restrictions we might be working with. You know, Nantucket has all sorts of rules and regulations, and I just want to be sure we do everything by the book and as expeditiously as possible. For Maritza’s and Bob’s sake.” And for the sake of our own bank accounts. “You want to come?”
“I’ll go next time. You might want to bring Roni along too.”
Olivia thought about it for a moment and realized Nick was one step ahead of her on fertilizing the budding romance.
“God, I love you so much, you are the smartest man in the universe.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far . . .”
“You’re so adorable. And you know what else?”
“What?” Nick had already consumed his sandwich and the ones that Olivia made. “Split another one with me?”
“Yes. Definitely. We have to get Daniel and Kitty a wedding gift. What in the world should that be?”
“Something they can exchange.” Nick was well into making another sandwich. “Those two aren’t going to like anything you like.”
“You are right about that. Tiffany’s all-purpose wineglasses. And maybe a muzzle for Gladdie.”
“You’re terrible. Good plan. Maybe a bushel of Johns Island tomatoes.”
“I am forever converted. I want more for supper. Why can’t we grow them here?”
Nick arched an eyebrow and smiled over her unconscious usage of supper. He said nothing.
“It’s all about the dirt. We’d have to sneak over to Johns Island and steal some dirt.”
“Maybe we can buy tomato plants over there already planted in the largest possible clay pots? You know, legitimately buy the dirt?”
“Witness the creative mind at work!” Nick said. “I would never have thought of that. It’s too obvious! I’ll make some phone calls. But after I find a woodburning grill.”
Nick left and Olivia decided to call Maritza to put together the meeting in Nantucket.
“Hi! Maritza! It’s Olivia. How are you?”
“Oh, Olivia! I’m just so sad. I’ve been crying for two whole days.”
“What’s happened?”
“We lost the Nantucket house. Now I have to start all over!”
Olivia’s heart sank.
“What do you mean? Bob was outbid?” Bob never lost a game of ticktacktoe, much less a bidding war.
“No, the sellers decided not to sell. They got all sentimental and just said they couldn’t do it. I’m so mad I could . . .”
“Spit?” Olivia said and thought, Well, so could I.
Chapter 11
Island Drumbeat
Every time Nick drove away with the car, Olivia was stranded. She was reconciled to that because she was delaying buying that second car until their finances were more predictable. But now that she didn’t have the Nantucket job, she had no finances to predict. She downloaded Uber and decided a walk on the beach might be a good idea to calm her nerves.
“I’m not trapped,” she said to the empty house. “I’ve got Uber and I’m going to find work.”
She wished she could Uber the whole way back to the early nineties, when she had more business than she could handle. It was hellishly hot that afternoon and the world was still. It was almost four o’clock, dead low tide, and not a breath of air was coming off the water. She grabbed a hat, her cell phone, and her sunglasses. And for the first time, she left the house unlocked and empty.
How absolutely weird it is, she thought, to leave your doors unlocked. The whole concept of unlocked houses was without question counterintuitive to a native New Yorker. In Manhattan, there were doors and doormen and more doors through which one must pass to gain entrance. And you had to have your own set of keys, because there was not just one lock but always a dead bolt and yet another key that would give you access with a click and a twist of the doorknob. And then there was always the conundrum of whether to trust the superintendent with the dead bolt key as well as the other? But here, doors were unlocked everywhere, at least on the beach side of the homes. Was there that much less crime on the island, or were the people more honest? Olivia didn’t know, but it was an interesting thought to ponder.
As before, she slipped off her sandals and left them in the white sand above the waterline. Then she had the thought, Who’d want my beat-up old shoes anyway? If someone was that desperate, they could have them.
She began to walk toward the lighthouse, and as she did most days, she wondered when, if ever, she would stop feeling so foreign. And what was it that made anyone feel like she belonged somewhere? Growing up in one place, to be sure, would give you that sense of ownership of a town or a neighborhood or a particular house. People in all the boroughs of the city talked about going back to the old neighborhood to see if it had changed and how it changed, and if it had changed at all, they said it broke their hearts. They’d stand around and reminisce about the old corner candy store or about a bar they sneaked into for an underage beer or the playground where they got their first kiss. Those people had a sense of place like Nick did. But what about all the millions of people in the country who grew up and moved all the time? Especially military families. How good were they at adapting? Pretty darn good at it, she guessed. She needed to sharpen up her acclimating skills.
Olivia looked out across the water and spotted the dorsal fin of a dolphin. She stopped and watched. She had not been swimming in deep water since her near drowning, venturing in only up to her thighs, just to cool off on extremely hot days.
The dolphins came around in the early morning and late afternoon, and she loved to watch them, feeling an odd kinship. Suddenly there were two, then three, arcing above the water, and then they spun around and started to chirp. Oh, how she loved their song! She waved at them and lau
ghed, wondering if they were from the same pod that saved her life.
Three teenage boys jogged past her and one said, “You waving at the dolphins?”
She was about to give him a dose of New York with a You got a problem with that? Instead she laughed and said, “Yes! That’s my old pal Danny.”
At that point the young man was jogging backward and said, “Really?”
She looked at the dolphin and back at the jogger and said, “Maybe! Who’s to say?”
She watched the kids jog off into the distance and waited and waved at the dolphins until they swam away. She decided it was time to call Roni and give her the lowdown.
Roni answered and Olivia said, “Bad news.”
She told her the story and Roni said, “Something else will come along. Or maybe they’ll buy another house.”
“Maybe Nantucket is loaded with those kinds of houses. I should go online and look, but don’t you think her broker already has?”
“I would, but who knows? Olivia? What does a twenty-six-million-dollar house on Nantucket look like?”
“I’m going to guess it looks about like a seven- or eight-million-dollar house down here on Kiawah Island but with a deep-water dock.”
She walked until she felt her anxiety fading away, and then she turned to return to their house. She’d had problems in business before, but never like this. For the very first time, she couldn’t see the future because she’d always gone from one job to the next and often handled many jobs simultaneously. Maybe it had been a mistake to take control of their finances when they got married, because now she had huge problems and huge secrets. She had played it cool long enough. It was time to level with Nick. She gave the ocean one last look, and sure enough, a dolphin breached the water. When it came back up for up for air, it chirped at her.
“Send me some clients!” she called out and thought, Well, now I’m officially losing my mind.
When she reached home, Nick was in the front yard with two men and a delivery truck directing them to where to put the grill. It was the biggest grill she had ever seen, except for the ones she designed into the homes of the mega-rich. It was all stainless steel, with side extensions, a backsplash, and storage underneath. There was no way Nick could have handled this behemoth himself. It took two burly men and a dolly on wheels to move it.
All Summer Long Page 20