Pauline’s choice of Irina over many other qualified candidates might have seemed odd, but Maren thought she understood. After years of submitting to William’s subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) abuse, she suspected Pauline actually liked doing battle. A tough-as-nails White Russian, Irina was impervious to Pauline’s feistiness. She was certain her time in America would be brief, lasting only until her people finally rose up and reclaimed the homeland. They fought “like Kilkenny cats,” as Clara put it, which didn’t wear well on the rest of the household.
And then, that spring, Pauline purchased Sassafras. It was hard to believe a creature just a foot tall could bring such chaos to a home, but chaos was Sassafras’s particular talent. She was tiny and slender like Pauline, with small hands that looked eerily human. She was a disgraceful slob, and tended to bite when she was nervous, which was almost always. Irina could no longer wear sandals, as Sassy bit her toes at every opportunity.
Initially the children were thrilled—a monkey! They soon discovered, in addition to biting, Sassy liked to throw her own droppings. Annie still held Sassy in grudging admiration (any creature who got away with such misbehavior deserved some respect), but overall, the kids had cooled toward her.
“I think you are taking too much on, Maren,” Dorothy said.
“Maybe…” Maren trailed off. Part of her longed to tell Dorothy that Oliver’s usual summer neglect was the least of their problems, but she did not know how to explain what she barely understood herself.
She was spared the need to do so by the appearance of the children, who had been out hunting for sea glass.
“Look! Four reds! And one of them is big!” Annie said, after they clambered onto the porch. She dumped her box of treasure on the wicker coffee table.
“I got some, too!” Charlie put his hand in his pocket, grimacing as he worked to reach the bottom with his chubby fist.
“Here!” He opened his hand to reveal some small pieces, all green, the easiest to find.
Billy opened his mouth, and Maren flinched, certain he was about to school Charlie about how little his sea glass was worth. Billy was not unkind, but he was terribly literal. Charlie had a hair-trigger temper, and he hated being bossed or corrected. Maren was about to step in, but Annie beat her to it.
“That’s good, Charlie!” Annie shot Billy a look.
From the time he had made his dramatic entry into the world, Annie had adored Charlie. He was difficult and prickly, but Annie had a miraculous ability to keep him happy. She had his unswerving loyalty in return.
After a few minutes, Billy and Charlie followed the smell of Clara’s cookies inside. Annie swept her sea glass back into the cardboard box and then looked up, as if an idea had struck.
“I’m going to the Donnellys,” she said. She jumped up and darted down the porch, blond ponytail swinging behind her. Annie never planned. She just did.
“The Donnellys?” Dorothy asked, eyebrows raised, as she and Maren rose to get ready for the ladies’ golf cocktail party at the country club. “Of gaudy mansion fame?”
“Annie’s friendly with their son, Patrick. He’s nine, just a year older than her.”
“How does Oliver feel about a Donnelly breaching the Demarest ramparts?”
“He hardly knows him.” Maren shrugged. “Patrick isn’t intimidated by Annie. She needs that.”
However great Finn Donnelly’s influence, it had not been sufficient to throw the world off its axis. The Donnellys had not been admitted to the Haven Point Country Club. A few people were willing to relent, but Harriet Hyde Barrows was not going to let that happen.
Finn had his revenge, however. A family from Phippsburg owned land on the other side of the rocks at the end of Haven Point Beach. Finn had bought it and built his palace: a sprawling marble house with pillars, cupolas, and an enormous turret on the southeast corner.
“Besides,” Maren continued as they walked upstairs, “all the kids go over there now. It’s like an amusement park. Trampoline, croquet, a chip and putt course. You name it, they’ve got it.”
“I bet the country club wishes they’d bought that land when they had the chance,” Dorothy said.
“It was a terrible lot, rocky and uneven. They never imagined anyone building there. They didn’t reckon on a buyer with an entire construction company at his bidding.”
“And the desire to stick it to this place for saying he wasn’t good enough,” Dorothy added.
“Precisely.”
* * *
From the start, something about the party felt off.
At first Maren thought it was the atmosphere. When they entered, Percy Faith’s “A Summer Place” was floating feebly from the old RCA record player. Maren loathed the tune, ubiquitous that summer. The doors facing the bay were open, but the breeze was listless and did little to cool the room. Japanese lanterns cast an odd, mournful light, exacerbating the gloom.
The only thing Dorothy noticed initially was that Bert, the bartender from the Red Lion Inn in Phippsburg, was pouring drinks.
“Oh, thank God. You’ve got that big fellow serving. Come on, he makes the best Tom Collins.”
Maren smiled. Some years earlier, Dorothy had obliged her mother by finally marrying well and becoming a card-carrying member of New York society. Dorothy enjoyed visiting Haven Point. It gave her a respite from unrelenting social demands and extravagant entertaining of East Hampton. She missed the Hamptons’ cocktails, however. Bert, she claimed, was the only person within fifty miles of Haven Point who could mix a decent drink.
As they made their way to the makeshift bar, Maren felt eyes on them. At first, she thought Dorothy’s gorgeous yellow sheath dress was attracting the attention. It was when they turned to speak to Margeaux Peabody and Dee Ballantine, who had been in their foursome that morning, that Maren realized something was wrong. Both were civil, but Dee’s smile seemed unnaturally bright and Margeaux struggled to maintain eye contact.
A short while later, Maren noticed Harriet in the corner. She was talking to Frances Morrell, who had a hand cupped to her ear to better hear whatever gossip Harriet was pouring in it. When Frances realized Maren was looking at her, she quickly pulled her hand down.
This didn’t necessarily mean anything, since irritating Maren was one of Harriet’s chief and constant ambitions. But as the evening wore on, the strangeness intensified. For every normal interaction, there was a conversation that stopped abruptly when Maren and Dorothy approached. For every friendly face there was an uncomfortable or sheepish one. Taken in isolation, no one incident or interaction would have registered, but together they added up to something amiss. Maren grew increasingly uneasy. She wished her normal social anchors, Maude and Georgie, were there, rather than at a family event in Portland.
The awards ceremony was the final straw. The golf pro approached the podium, and the women gathered. Maren felt as if an invisible buffer had formed around her and Dorothy. Everyone stood just a little bit apart, as if she’d contracted a terrible social disease, and they feared it was contagious.
Maren knew she was not particularly popular on Haven Point, but it had never bothered her. Her friendship with Georgie had been enough to satisfy her, and, to some extent, everyone else. While she would never be at the top of anyone’s guest list, Georgie’s and Maude’s esteem acted as a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Tonight, however, she felt a sense of alienation she hadn’t experienced since her first visit after she and Oliver were married.
“Let’s go,” Maren whispered to Dorothy when the golf pro had finished his remarks. Dorothy nodded and they slipped out.
“That was odd,” Maren said as they walked along the causeway toward the point, following the bobbing beams of their flashlights. It was dark under the cloudy sky, and the air was still thick.
“Agreed,” Dorothy replied. She had been to enough Haven Point events through the years to know there had been something singular about this one.
“What do you think was going on?” Maren
asked.
“I don’t know.” Dorothy was in shadow, but Maren saw her nose wrinkle, as if she had picked up the scent of something and was trying to place it.
That night, Maren struggled to sleep in her warm room. She woke up in the middle of the night, her mind traveling to the darkest and grimmest places, as it always did during her rare bouts of insomnia. By morning she had only managed to cobble together three or four hours of sleep. When she arose, the air still hung heavy over the point. She wished it would go ahead and storm, so they could get past the terrible stillness. She made coffee and stumbled through the morning, getting the kids fed and out the door to a sailing event.
She and Dorothy were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and idly talking, when a knock came at the door. On Haven Point, a knock was not a request for permission to enter, but rather a warning one was about to do so. Maude limped into the kitchen, huffing a bit.
Maren greeted her, surprised. She visited Maude often, but not so much the reverse.
“Maren, can I speak with you for a moment?” she asked after the niceties were behind them. She appeared to have a purpose, and not one she was happy about.
“Of course. Please sit down.” Maude lowered herself into a kitchen chair.
“I need to get upstairs to pack,” Dorothy said. She took her coffee and headed up to her room.
Maren poured coffee for Maude, and watched as she stared into the mug, hands clenched around it as if she was warming them, though she surely wasn’t cold.
“Maren, I have something to tell you. It’s hard to know how,” she said finally.
“What is it?” Maren asked. Somehow, she knew she needn’t panic. A death or illness wouldn’t elicit such awkwardness.
“Harriet has been spreading a rumor about Oliver.”
“About Oliver?” She briefly wondered if it was something that denigrated him professionally, but she discarded the idea almost as soon as it struck her. Maren was the enemy, not Oliver. “What sort of rumor, Maude?”
“You’ve met Harriet’s friend Betsy Chase, haven’t you? She’s up here all the time.” Maren nodded. Betsy was one of Harriet’s hangers-on from Hartford.
“Betsy called Harriet from New York yesterday. She said she saw Oliver at the Waldorf Hotel. He was getting into an elevator with some woman, and they looked rather, um…”
Maren felt a horrible jolt, as if something or someone had yanked her underwater. Maude continued to speak, but Maren couldn’t hear her over the swirling rush, the great white noise that filled her ears.
It took an enormous effort, but Maren forced herself to the surface. Maude had been so uncomfortable, coming to deliver this terrible message, and she did not wish to make it harder for her. She grabbed on to that scruple as if it were a life ring and tried to keep her head above water.
“They looked … intimate?” Maren managed. As her mind emerged from the turmoil, something else was beginning to take hold—humiliation and the seeds of rage.
“Yes,” Maude replied, still clutching her mug. She looked as woebegone as Maren had ever seen her. “Of course, I don’t know if it is true, or if it means anything, but I thought you should know she was saying it.”
Maren took Maude’s hand. “I know you don’t like being the messenger. Thank you,” she said, as warmly as she could manage.
Maude looked up from her mug. Though her expression was still filled with regret, Maren saw some of her customary self-possession reemerge.
“Maren, you know you don’t have to tell me anything, and I’m not fishing. But if you don’t mind my saying, you don’t look surprised.”
Maren thought for a moment. The greatest surprise, in fact, was how possible it seemed. She should be thinking Never! It’s not true! But with the initial shock behind her, Maren found she was able to believe the story, even given the source.
“I don’t know if I am surprised,” she said finally.
Her mind flashed to a street artist in Washington. A performer of sorts, he attracted a crowd when he worked. His paintings appeared abstract until the final brush strokes revealed them to be something recognizable, a famous person or landmark. Maren felt as if an artist were putting the final touches on a painting of her marriage. She’d seen all the brush strokes, but only now was the full picture emerging.
“We don’t know that it’s true. Harriet would make the worst out of whatever she heard. And Maren”—she looked at her directly—“I know your husband loves you.”
It was such an uncharacteristically tender thing for Maude to say. Maren felt a catch at her throat.
“Thank you, Maude,” she said.
“I don’t want to be thanked for this,” she replied. She got up and headed toward the door, shaking her head sadly.
A half hour later when Dorothy entered the kitchen, Maren was still at the table, staring into the middle distance.
“What on earth is going on?” Dorothy asked, sitting in the chair next to her. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have, in a way. And now I know why last night seemed so strange.” Maren relayed what Maude had told her.
“I don’t believe it,” Dorothy said firmly. Though Dorothy had railed against Oliver’s neglect the previous day, it was clear this had never entered her mind.
“You know what? I do believe it, Dorothy,” Maren replied. “Or maybe I should say I can believe it.”
“What?” Dorothy’s eyes were wide.
“Doro, he’s changed so much lately. I don’t know how to explain it. I might not have come up with the possibility on my own, but when Maude told me, I just had this sense … it rang true.”
“Maren, are you sure? It seems so out of the blue. Just yesterday you wouldn’t even fault him for spending so little time up here, but now you’re willing to believe he’s seeing another woman?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I have been sitting here thinking about it, and it’s like puzzle pieces are coming together. I hadn’t wanted to face it.”
“An affair? You can’t think he is capable!”
“He’s been so distant, especially since William died. I wrote it off as grief, but that never made sense. You know Oliver wasn’t close to his father—to either of his parents, for that matter. I kept waiting for him to climb out of this … this thing … but he didn’t.”
“Climb out of what, exactly?”
“It’s hard to describe. I know you think he’s never here, but it’s not just his absence. He’s never been here much. But before, even when he was incredibly busy and overwhelmed with work, when he did finally see me, it was like he was relieved.”
Dorothy pulled her chair closer, took Maren’s hand, and looked at her questioningly. Sweet and shrewd in equal measures, Dorothy was a gift at this moment. Maren took a breath and tried to summon the words for what had been percolating in her mind.
“I used to feel like I was home to Oliver, and he was so glad when he finally got home. He was never much for words, but I could always see it, especially in his eyes. The way he would look at me, Doro … it was like I was the most important thing in the world, that he couldn’t believe his great luck.” She blushed at her immodesty. But it was true. Oliver had treated her like his miracle.
“That look made me feel safe. Even through all of the absences. But he hasn’t looked at me like that for a long time. I meant what I said earlier. It’s not that I need him here all the time. But Septembers were awful. It took longer and longer to get back to normal after summer, until it never did get back to normal. When his father died last year, it felt as if we went off a cliff. Never mind looking at me like I’m so vital to him. It’s as if he doesn’t see me at all.”
“I know other marriages where couples grew apart. That happens all the time. It doesn’t have to mean this. I just don’t think it fits. Oliver cheating? He worships you.” Now poor Dorothy looked distraught.
“I don’t know what to say. Except again, the second Maude told me, it was like a light bu
lb went on. It would explain a lot, actually.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“Well, there’s only one thing to do then,” Dorothy said finally, a touch of her businesslike demeanor returning. “You need to call Georgie.”
“Georgie?”
“Yes. Get her to watch the kids. We should go to New York. He’s still there, right?”
“Yes. He’s supposed to be there until Tuesday.”
“I don’t really have to be back in the Hamptons for a couple of days. Let’s just go, Maren.”
“What’s the point?”
“Because if Oliver is there with someone…” Dorothy hesitated, not wanting to say it out loud.
“I have a chance of catching him with her?” Maren’s stomach turned.
“I believe Oliver loves you more than anything in the world. But in spite of that, or maybe because of it, you know he would lie like a rug if you confronted him.”
Dorothy’s plan seemed like a reach. Oliver usually stayed at the Waldorf when he was in New York, so that part fit. Still, how likely was it they could catch him with this woman, or some artifact of hers? What if it was a one-night stand? Even if it wasn’t, she might not be staying with him at the Waldorf.
Long shot or not, however, Maren felt like the only thing worse than going would be to stay on Haven Point, sitting on her hands. It seemed like a sign that Dorothy was with her when she’d received this news. She couldn’t imagine anyone better to have at her side.
Three hours later she had made arrangements with Georgie, and they were in Dorothy’s red Cadillac convertible, speeding down the Maine Turnpike. Sleek and straight, the “Mile-a-Minute Highway” was a boon to summer travelers. Given where they were racing, Maren almost wished they were still bumbling along the rough, two-lane roads closer to Haven Point.
“What will we do when we arrive?” Maren asked.
“Leave it to me,” Dorothy said. “I’ll do the thinking. You know how I like to be useful.”
Though Dorothy gave her a gentle and encouraging smile, Maren saw no glint in her eye, none of the adrenaline-fueled chatter Maren would have expected had they undertaken this adventure on behalf of someone else. Still, she knew Dorothy’s mind was clicking away on all cylinders. She had always thought Dorothy would make a marvelous detective. She was as clever as they came.
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