by Nancy Thayer
Keely hadn’t spoken with Donna for years. Here in the gallery, Donna was cool. Glancing sideways, she saw Sebastian watching her. When he caught her glance, he lifted an eyebrow and smiled, and something about his expression brightened her heart and made her remember all the times over the years when Keely and Isabelle or Sebastian—especially Sebastian—had done some stupid tween thing to try Donna’s patience.
She tuned in to Donna’s words.
“Yes, it’s true,” Donna Maxwell was saying, with the most tremendously smug smile, “having a grandchild is the most wonderful experience in the world.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Sebastian joked.
“Oh, don’t be silly.” Donna rapped her son’s arm lightly. “You can’t complain.” She turned back to Eloise. “Somehow, a grandchild makes the universe magical. And, well, right. There seems to be a reason for things, and a rhythm. And the beauty, the sweetness, the pleasure…it’s like falling in love for the first time.”
“You’re fortunate,” Eloise told Donna. “To have your grandchild here on the island with you.”
“That’s true.” Donna flicked a cold glance at Keely. “I suppose if Keely ever marries and has children, you’ll have to travel to see them. Now that she lives in New York, or wherever.”
Keely bristled, and before she could stop herself, she wrapped her arm around her mother’s waist and said, “Nantucket is my hometown. I might move back someday.”
“Really,” Donna said. “Well, that would be interesting.”
Eloise squeezed Keely’s waist. “I would love that, darling.”
Sebastian said, “I would, too.”
Keely didn’t dare look at his face for fear she’d break into an adolescent-in-braces wide-mouth grin. But his remark gave her the courage to say to Donna, “How is Isabelle? I’ll bet she’s loving motherhood.”
Donna preened. “Isabelle is happier than she’s ever been in all her life!” She looked at her watch. “I must dash. I’m meeting Al and some friends for dinner. It was nice to see you again, Eloise.” She did not say it was nice seeing Keely.
With a twinkle of her fingers at Eloise and Sebastian, Donna surged away to the door. For just a moment too long, Keely, her mother, and Sebastian stood silent.
Eloise spoke first. “Your mother is so lovely, Sebastian.”
Sebastian smiled. “I could say the same about you, Mrs. Green.”
Flustered, Eloise waved her hand, as if shooing away the compliment.
Keely mouthed “thank you” to Sebastian, surprised at his kindness and sensitivity.
Sebastian asked, “What’s your cell number?”
Keely’s heart leapt. She told him.
“Keely, I’m rather tired. Would you mind if we went home?” Eloise asked.
Hmm, Keely thought and wondered if her mother felt she’d been overshadowed, shrunk merely by Donna’s presence. She had never before considered how her mother might have felt, if she’d compared herself to the blazingly confident Donna. “Sure, Mom. I think I’ve had about all the excitement I can handle, myself.”
“We can watch Midsomer Murders together,” Eloise said, linking her arm with Keely’s.
Keely looked over her shoulder as they walked away from Sebastian. She wanted to exchange one more heated glance with him. But another group of people surrounded him, asking about his work. Keely spent the rest of the evening sitting on the sofa in front of the television with her mother, but her mind was beavering away, thinking of ways she could get in touch with Isabelle…for so many reasons.
Keely and her mother awoke energized. Coffee sweetened with sugar and cream helped, too. Together, Keely and her mother tore through the boxes and plastic bags in the basement, uncovering old winter clothes, thick white linen tablecloths that had been waiting for years to be ironed, stacks of Keely’s father’s National Geographic magazines, clusters of children’s birthday party paraphernalia—plastic silver tiaras, not one but two broken piñatas, Little Mermaid paper plates, cups, and napkins—and several shoeboxes of old photograph negatives. After they’d loaded up the back of the Civic, Keely and her mother showered and dressed, and Keely took them out to the Seagrille for dinner.
Keely kept checking her phone to see if she’d had a text from Sebastian.
No, nothing from him. Two brief texts from Gray.
* * *
—
“Hey, Keely, Mrs. Green, good to see you!” The hostess, Mindy Saffel, had worked with Keely for Clean Sweep years ago.
Keely hugged Mindy. “Good to see you, Mindy. We’d like a table, not a booth.” When she had been here before, years ago, Keely had loved the privacy of a booth, but that had been when she was with a friend, gossiping, or a guy, flirting. Now she was with her mother and she wanted her mother to see and be seen.
“You got it.”
As they settled at their table and studied the menus, Keely knew she’d made the right choice. Several of the other diners were either women Eloise’s age or nurses. By the time Keely had ordered prosecco for herself and her mother, some people had waved at Eloise, and Priscilla Hart was headed toward their table.
“Eloise! I haven’t seen you in such a long time! Is it true you’ve retired?”
Eloise blinked several times, as if a spotlight were suddenly shining in her eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. “I have.”
“I’m so glad! You have to join our bridge club! We meet every Monday evening, and we take turns hosting it, and we always take a break in the middle of the evening for dessert and coffee. You’d love it.”
Sadly, Eloise admitted, “I don’t know how to play bridge.”
Priscilla waved Eloise’s objection away. “Don’t worry about that! You’ll pick it up in no time. Learn the basics on your computer. Come on Monday and observe. We’ll be at Nancy Grossman’s.”
“Well,” Eloise began.
Keely kicked her under the table.
“I’d like that,” Eloise finished.
“Good! Six o’clock.”
After Priscilla returned to her table, Eloise took a long sip of her prosecco.
“Good for you, Mom!” Keely said quietly. “You’ve always liked Priscilla. And Nancy Grossman.”
Eloise took another sip of her drink. “I was Priscilla’s nurse when she gave birth to Peter.” She smiled. “Priscilla cursed like a sailor. And when Peter was finally in her arms, she said to Harold, ‘Meet your only child.’ ”
Keely laughed with her mother. “Gosh, Mom, I never thought about it this way, but there must be scads of people on this island you helped give birth.”
“Not only that. Years ago, I wasn’t just a labor-delivery room nurse. I did a bit of everything.” She looked around the room. “I’ve probably seen the hind ends of half the people here.” She giggled, her cheeks flushing.
Keely’s spirits lifted. It was working. Her mother was out of the house and had plans to be with friends. “What was the craziest thing you ever saw when you were at the hospital?”
Eloise thought. “Once, long ago, I was taking the pulse of a woman who’d had a hysterectomy. A movement caught my eye. I looked down, and a snake was sliding out from under the bed. It probably came in with a pot of flowers from someone’s garden.”
“Eeek,” Keely said. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t blink an eye. I recorded the woman’s pulse—it was one of the Stanley sisters—and slowly left the room. Then I ran to the nurses’ station and told them to get a custodian up to the room right away.” Eloise laughed. “But Jessie, she grew up on a farm here, you know, back when people actually had real farms. She went in, bent down, scooped it up, and put it in a pillowcase. ‘For heaven’s sake,’ she said, ‘it’s only a harmless garter snake.’ She took it outside and let it loose. We don’t have any poisonous snakes on the island, so I wasn’t really terrified, but
I was glad when that thing was gone.”
Keely laughed. The waiter came for their orders, and when he went off, Keely asked for another hospital memory. The food was delicious and her mother was brightening, at last almost her old self. They’d have to go out to dinner more often, Keely decided.
Sebastian walked into the restaurant, accompanied by a tall, curvy blond wearing Manolo Blahniks and a fabulous black dress.
“Oh, look, dear, there’s Sebastian,” Eloise said, starting to wave.
Keely caught her mother’s hand, brought it to the table, and held it there. “Don’t wave, Mom. He’s on a date. He doesn’t want to say hello to us.”
“Why wouldn’t he? We’re friends…”
“Mom, stop staring. Look at me. Look at me now.”
Eloise frowned. “I thought Sebastian and you…”
“It’s fine, Mom. We’re just friends. Enjoy your dinner. Isn’t it delicious?”
Keely smiled, but her food had turned to chalk in her mouth.
* * *
—
The moment she got home that night, Keely called Gray.
“Hey,” he said.
“Is this too late?”
Gray laughed. “Keely, it’s only nine-thirty.”
“Oops. Well, that tells you everything about my life with my mother. I just took her out to dinner at the Seagrille. Reservation time: six o’clock.”
“It’s good though, that you’re getting her out to dinner.”
“Yes. Yes, I think I am cheering her up.” She fell back on her bed, stretching out as she told him about the excitement of sorting through her mother’s treasures. “Tell me, how is your visit with your parents?”
Gray laughed. “Mother’s cooking more food than I could eat in a month. Prime rib, twice-baked potatoes, carrots in brown sugar, apple pie with ice cream…I’m sure I’ll split all my trousers when I get back to New York.”
Keely laughed. “You could use a few pounds.”
“Really? Would you like to elaborate?”
She laughed again. “I’ll do it in person.”
They continued to talk, their voices growing more and more affectionate. When Keely finally clicked off and got ready for bed, she felt a glow in her heart from Gray’s humor and from the life she shared with him in the city, the city that never went dark. She clicked the Photos icon on her phone and scrolled through photos they’d taken or had taken of them together. Here she was at Lincoln Center, by the fountain, during the intermission of the ballet. She wore a floor-length, narrow rose silk gown with a spectacular silk wrap, rose on one side, white on the other. Her hair was piled high on her head, her lipstick was red, her eye makeup was dark and dramatic. She looked beautiful. Really, she looked amazing. She looked the way she had dreamed of looking when she was a little girl.
There was another photo taken in the grand foyer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art during a charity dinner. Here, Keely wore a little black dress with her dark hair sweeping down past her shoulders, accentuating her heavy pearl drop earrings, the only jewelry she wore that night. Gray was standing next to her in a tux, his lush dark hair and green eyes gleaming. They were holding hands, and both were smiling. Keely looked more than happy—she looked radiant. She remembered how she felt that evening, that at last she was living the life she’d always imagined.
All of her photos taken in the city seemed like glamour shots. The city behind them, the bronze statues, the Art Deco interiors, the gleaming shop windows, the avenues of cabs and Ubers and buses and pedestrians hurrying along the sidewalks, all of it looked like the sparkling center of the world. With Gray, she could have all that, and with Gray she knew she would be loved. After his confession that night as they lay together so close in bed, she knew he would be faithful to her, that he had entrusted her with his deepest secrets, and he believed she would keep those secrets safe. That was a gift of devotion.
She fell asleep, dreaming of the bright lights of New York.
* * *
—
“Keely?” It was Sarah B., one of her old high school friends. “Listen, I’m teaching tenth grade English, and I wonder…would you consider coming out sometime to talk to the class about writing? What it’s like to be a writer, how you get published, that sort of thing?”
Keely brightened. “I’d love to!”
“Oh, my kids will be thrilled. Can we pick a day next week?”
“Absolutely.”
After they said goodbye, Keely straightened her spine and focused on her writing. It always took a few minutes for her to write the first sentence, as if her mind was blocked and she had to patiently push it forward. After she got that first sentence out, her writing flowed.
She was almost finished with her day’s work—it felt as if her work was finished with her. Her cellphone, set on silent, vibrated on her desk.
Impatiently, she checked who was calling: Sebastian Maxwell.
She kept her voice cool. “Hi, Sebastian.”
“Hi, Keely. Do you have some free time tomorrow afternoon?”
“Can’t your blond friend join you?”
“What? Oh, the restaurant. Mae-Brit is an artist in Stockholm, a friend. Also, she’s a lesbian. And she left the island today for New York. So no, she can’t join me. Anyway, I want to take you to do one of my favorite things.”
Keely tried not to sound too delighted about Mae-Brit. Calmly, she replied, “Well, that’s intriguing. What’s one of your favorite things?” She imagined sailing or walking on a beach.
“Let me pick you up tomorrow at two and you’ll find out.”
“Aren’t you Mr. Mysterious. Okay, I’ll be ready at two.”
“Dress casually.”
So it was going to be sailing, Keely decided. Fine. She’d be glad to swim with the sharks if it meant doing it with Sebastian.
Her cell buzzed again.
“Hey,” Janine said, “listen, Keely, a bunch of us are going out to Surfside this afternoon to drink margaritas and eat chips and gossip. Want to come?”
Keely laughed. “What can I bring?”
It had been a long time since Keely had hung out with her high school friends, and she’d forgotten how much fun it was, especially after her first margarita. They set up beach chairs in the sand, or tossed down towels to lie on for a maximum effect tan in the late afternoon sun. They had bowls of chips and dips and young radishes with salt and bluefish pâté Norah had made from fish her husband had caught. Keely thought they’d want to know all about her life in the big city. Instead, they regaled her with all the gossip she’d missed since she’d been gone. Two married—and sexy even if they were thirty-eight—teachers ran off with two other married and not quite so sexy teachers and no one could understand why. Stanley Keene had embezzled ten million dollars from his boss’s real estate business and was now serving time in jail. Cathy Higgins, a girl from their class, had married an older man with a house in Squam and a house in Boston and had gotten divorced a year later. Nothing was too terrible, and the fresh sea air and the sun glancing off the tips of the waves made it all seem material for laughter. When Sarah B. finally asked Keely about life in New York, she told them about Gray. Actually, she bragged about Gray, and brought out her phone to show them photos of the two of them together in their evening dress, and everyone screamed with admiration and jealousy.
“Marry him!” Norah ordered. “Marry him and make him buy a house on the island!”
Keely laughed. “I’ll have to wait for him to ask me first.”
Later that evening, as she showered off the sand and shampooed her hair and checked out the healthy glow on her cheeks from the sun, Keely couldn’t help laughing, and she didn’t know why. She was, quite simply, happy.
* * *
—
Sebastian arrived the next day in his ancient, rattling, but beloved
Jeep, the one he’d bought with his own money in high school. He wore board shorts and a T-shirt. Keely wore capris and a T-shirt, too, one of the three thousand tees she’d tried on that morning to find the most attractive one that also seemed less flirtatious. All of which was a lot to ask from a T-shirt.
He didn’t just honk his horn, but came to the door and knocked. Keely was waiting. She called, “Goodbye, Mom!” and squeezed outside before Sebastian could get a look at her mother ensconced in her recliner in front of the TV.
“Hey,” Sebastian said, and kissed Keely’s cheek.
“Hey.” As they walked to the Jeep, she said, “So now will you tell me what we’re doing today?”
“Nope. But I guarantee you’ll love it.”
He drove from Keely’s house, away from town and down the road to Madaket.
“Hmm,” Keely said. “I don’t think you have a boat moored out there.”
“Nope.”
“You’re driving us to Take It or Leave It to treasure hunt.”
“Uh-uh. That will be our next date.”
After that remark, Keely didn’t speak, because she couldn’t get her breath. Sebastian thought there would be another date? She sneaked a sideways look at him. Yup, as gorgeous as always. Maybe even more so, now that an early tan set off his blue eyes and blond hair. Had his legs always been so long or was it simply that she hadn’t seen him in board shorts for a while?
He turned off onto Crooked Lane, a short, winding street leading to Cliff Road.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Keely said.
He made a left turn and pulled into the parking lot of the animal hospital.
“You’re going to have a chip put in my neck so you can find me whenever you want me,” Keely joked.
