by Nancy Thayer
“Not even Jesse.”
“Oh, come on. I’ve got to tell Jesse something! I can’t say, well I saw Lexi and we talked and I have no idea what the past ten years were like.” Clare folded her arms stubbornly over her chest.
Lexi looked down at her various rings and turned them this way and that. “Well, could you give him a sort of expurgated version?”
“You mean this is going to be an X-rated tale?” Clare waggled her eyebrows.
Lexi hedged, “You know what I mean, Clare.”
“All right,” Clare agreed. “Just spill.”
A truck rumbled past, clanking and banging like the timpani section of an orchestra.
“My gosh!” Lexi strained to stare down at the truck. “I can’t believe old Mr. Wallins is still doing trash removal.”
“That’s not old Mr. Wallins,” Clare informed her.
“But I saw—”
“That’s Dougie Wallins.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“He’s thirty-three now. He married Alyssa Santos. They have three kids. One is ten years old.” Clare waited until the last bang and rattle faded into the distance. “You’ve been gone a long time, Lexi. A lot has happened.”
Lexi shook her head, trying to take it all in.
“You were saying?” Clare prompted.
Lexi capitulated. “Okay. Remember that summer. How it was for me. My parents were overworked at the shop, and totally freaked out about money. They were going to have to take a second mortgage out on the house to pay my tuition at UMass. Adam was off in veterinary school. And you were totally with Jesse.”
“Not totally,” Clare started to object, but shrugged and grinned ruefully.
Lexi continued, “So I didn’t have you. I didn’t have anyone. At La Maison I was the outsider who couldn’t do anything right.” She unzipped her boots and kicked them off, then pulled her knees up against her chest. She hugged her knees and nestled her chin in her arms and sat there for a moment, reflecting. “I was so lonely.”
“Have another chocolate,” Clare suggested quietly. “Try this one.”
Lexi accepted it, took a small bite, and closed her eyes while she savored the taste. “Nice.” She ate the rest of it and this time she licked her fingers. “So that’s how it was for me that summer. It was like I was invisible. Then Ed came into the restaurant and saw me. Chose me. A wealthy, important, powerful man like that.”
Clare made a noise of disgust, then immediately waved a hand. “Sorry. Sorry. So he whisked you away on a cloud to Shangri-La.”
Lexi smiled. “In a way, yes. I mean, Clare, it was amazing. Listen, I have traveled everywhere. Stick a pin in a map, and I’ve been there. I’ve met some important people, Clare, curators of museums and conductors of European orchestras. And everything was first class, too.” She hugged herself. “And the clothes. Oh, I wish you could have seen my clothes! It wasn’t just that I could buy the newest breathtaking outfit, I was supposed to. It was my job as his wife to show up looking fabulous.”
“I saw pictures of you a few times. In the Style section of the Times or Boston Magazine. You looked like an American princess. I remember thinking you must be having so much fun, finally getting to play dress-up with the big kids. It made me happy for you.”
“That’s nice to know. That you thought I was having fun, that you were glad I was having fun.” Lexi ran her hands through her long blond hair. “You never answered my letters.”
Clare shrugged. “While you were sunning in Bali or skiing in the Alps, I was in college, working nights and weekends, trying to learn bookkeeping, or I was on the island, working two jobs, sixty hours a week, trying to save money to start my shop. I was still pissed off at you for marrying that douche bag. And I didn’t think you, out there sipping champagne in the stratosphere, would be interested in my boring, provincial little life.”
“Clare, I’m so sorry I said those things.”
“I know. And I’m sorry for the stuff I said. But you know, Lexi, it was like you left the room and slammed the door in my face.”
The singing wind shifted the clouds again, flickering shadows and light over Clare’s face. Lexi thought she saw tears in Clare’s eyes. Her own eyes stung in sympathy. How could she make this better? She couldn’t do it by herself, that much she knew. “Clare…”
Clare shook her head. “Never mind. That’s in the past. Done. Fast forward. Tell me why you’re not still married.”
“Oh, well.” Lexi wasn’t sure she could ever tell Clare the truth about her marriage. Just remembering made her burn with shame at her naïveté. So she flipped her hands out in a what-can-you-do kind of gesture. “I left him. To be honest, I don’t think he was a very likable guy.”
“Well, hello.”
Lexi jumped up and looked out the window. “There’s the ferry!” She whirled around, clapping her hands. “The moving van will be here any minute. All my stuff—tonight I’ll have a bed! Clare, thanks for the coffee and the chocolate. Maybe we can—”
“That ferry will be at least fifteen more minutes getting to the dock.” Clare stood, clamped her hands on her hips, and glared. “Is this the way you want it? Everything superficial, all air kisses and cotton candy friendship?”
Lexi flinched. “What do you mean?”
“For one thing,” Clare counted on her fingers, “you were married to that man for ten years. Two, you’re suddenly divorced. Three, you’re moving back to the island. But you’re not telling me why. If you’re just going to give me a greeting card version of your life, fine. But don’t expect anything more from me.”
Lexi started to argue, then changed her mind. “I’m kind of out of the habit of exchanging confessions, Clare. I’d like to tell you everything, but it’s all a bit, well, just sad. And I want to be happy right now. I want to be jubilant. I’m starting my life over, and I want to enjoy it, and you know what, I haven’t even figured out where I want my furniture and stuff to be. I really do need to make some decisions before the movers get here.”
Clare said, “Fine.”
“Look—want to go out to dinner tonight? My treat.”
Clare looked insulted. “You don’t have to treat me. I make a perfectly good living—”
“Oh, stop it. I didn’t mean it the way you’re taking it. I just—You just gave me coffee and chocolates, why can’t I treat you in return?”
But Clare was miffed. “I’m busy tonight. Jesse and I have plans.”
“Another time, then?”
“Okay,” Clare agreed grudgingly.
“Great. I’d better go get organized.” Lexi hurried to the connecting door between their spaces. “Damn, I’d better change out of these boots before I fall and kill myself.” She looked back at Clare, wondering if she could give her a hug. Clare was gathering up the coffee things, an obstinate expression Lexi knew so well on her face. “See you.”
“See you,” Clare echoed.
Lexi turned back from the door. “Clare, do you think Jesse could do some carpentry work for me? I need cubicles built downstairs for my shop, and a couple of counters.”
Clare just looked at Lexi.
“I know Jesse doesn’t like me,” Lexi said, “but right now nobody here likes me, and if Jesse does the work, I’ll know he’ll do a good job and get it done on time, because you’ll kill him if he won’t.”
Lexi’s logic made Clare laugh. “I’ll talk to Jesse.”
“Thanks.” Lexi waved, went through the door, and shut it behind her. Now she was in her own space, her unsullied, unmarked, starting-over-fresh place.
FOURTEEN
While the movers carried in Lexi’s handsome furniture, Clare knelt by her window, hiding her face behind a curtain as she scanned the scene on the street below. She didn’t want to seem curious. Or, Heaven forbid, fascinated, like some witless troll with nothing better to do than ogle the royalty. But she was fascinated, which made her so mad at herself she wanted to fling herself out the window onto the cobblestones.
At home that evening, after dinner, as they sat in companionable silence in the living room, Clare put her finger in her book to mark her place and told Jesse Lexi needed some carpentry work done in her new shop.
Jesse lounged on the sofa, his feet on the coffee table, engrossed in a handheld Nintendo DS electronic game. “I already have a job.”
“It’s April, Jesse,” Clare reminded him. “You can take a few hours off whenever you want.”
“Fine,” Jesse grumbled, not looking up from his game.
Over the next week, whenever Clare went into her shop, she heard sounds of shoving and dragging from next door. Lexi was obviously getting her furniture in place. Clare considered knocking on the connecting door to ask if she’d like some help, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do that. Instead, she used her emotional energy as fuel while she cleaned up all the paperwork she’d let pile up on her desk.
A storm battered the Northeast, sending gale-force winds that stopped all ferries and planes to the island and kept everyone indoors. Clare spent the time folding the flats she’d ordered into handsome gift boxes. Usually her assistant, Marlene, helped her with this rather tedious work, but Marlene was down with the flu. Plump, uncomplicated Marlene was a great worker and a compulsive chatterer, currently obsessed with Dancing with the Stars. Whenever she had the opportunity, she’d regale Clare with descriptions of the dancers’ costumes or intricate steps. Clare was sorry Marlene didn’t feel well, but she was relieved not to have her there chattering away. Clare was quite content to sit in the quiet packaging room, a cup of cocoa by her side, folding and fixing Tab A into Slot B. Slowly the table grew with towers of handsome green boxes. She didn’t even play a CD. She was too busy listening to the noises coming from the other side of the wall.
On the fourth day Clare heard the phone ring in Lexi’s apartment. She heard Lexi’s muffled voice as she spoke. Clare wondered who Lexi was talking with. An island person? Maybe her brother?
Maybe a museum curator or the conductor of a European orchestra.
You are going insane, Clare told herself. Just call her. But somehow she couldn’t pick up the phone.
By Sunday afternoon the storm was over, the air was clear, and Clare was restless. Jesse had gone fishing in Maine with two buddies. Penny and her husband and baby had gone off-island to visit his brother and family.
She’d already started a rich beef stew simmering. It would be ready tonight for her to share with her father, and there was another depressing thought, being alone with her father. Clare had asked him to go with her to church that morning, but he’d refused, and she’d asked him if he wanted to attend the afternoon concert, and he’d refused. He was still in his pajamas and robe and it was two in the afternoon. Sometimes Clare felt as if she was in charge of a very large, very sulky child.
She could watch a DVD, or read one of the novels she’d brought home from the library. She wouldn’t play around with chocolate today. She always tried to take Sunday completely off from work. She could clean out her closet—she’d been meaning to do that for years—
The phone rang. She nearly broke her neck getting to it.
Lexi said, “Clare? Hi, listen, I know this is very last moment, but I wonder if you’d like to go to the concert with me.”
Clare hesitated.
“It’s at four o’clock.”
The thought of walking into the concert with Lexi made Clare feel just a little, well, actually, glamorous. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like to go.”
“Cool! I’ll meet you at the bottom of Main Street.”
Clare pulled out a crimson velvet shirt to wear with her jeans and added the garnet earrings she’d been saving for “good”—an occasion that so far hadn’t arrived. All the red made her dark hair seem glossier, made her skin glow—or perhaps it wasn’t the garnets that made her eyes as full of spice and mystery as her homemade chocolates.
FIFTEEN
When you’re a six-foot-tall female, there’s no way to be invisible. Lexi had certainly tried. Life with Ed had taught her to stand up straight, wear high heels, and flaunt her height and her skinny body, but here on Nantucket, Lexi panicked at the thought of walking into a crowded room. She’d stand out, as she always had, like a flamingo in a crowd of penguins.
Still, something in her, something she understood was probably perverse but had been bred into her probably defective genes, made her dress for the concert in her tightest, lowest-cut jeans, pink Uggs, a tight little pink cashmere sweater, and a leather jacket with brass studs on the cuffs, collar, and waist. She added her big fat diamond ear studs for the hell of it. She was who she was, and she had returned to Nantucket because she loved the island and everyone could just deal with it.
At least she was trying to think that way as she stood with Clare at the end of Winter Street, watching people walk through the wrought-iron gates and up the brick sidewalk to the dignified, forthright brick building that had been, long ago, the island school. Now it was the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies, with a collection of historical seascapes on the walls of the large assembly room used for concerts, lectures, and meetings.
Clare leaned close to Lexi and whispered, “Before we go in, can I say something?”
Lexi clenched her fists. “What?”
“You might want to take some deep breaths. You’re hyperventilating.”
Lexi glared at Clare, who looked as comely, wholesome, and natural as an apple. In comparison, Lexi felt like Carmen Miranda with an entire basket of bananas on her head. “I’m not hyperventilating. I have a slight cold.”
Clare looked irritated. She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Look, Lexi. I know you’re nervous about seeing everyone again.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“Well, you should be. It was a very big deal when you eloped with Ed Hardin. It was like you went off with, oh, I don’t know, Osama bin Laden.”
“Ed wasn’t that bad.”
“That’s highly debatable, but we don’t have time for that now. The point I’m trying to make is that we’ve all changed. Not just the kids we went to school with, but everyone. Like Penny—she never even spoke to me in high school, but now she’s my best friend.”
Lexi flinched. “Lucky you.”
“Yes, lucky me. And it didn’t happen overnight, believe me. We hadn’t seen each other for years, not until I burned my hand when I was just starting up my business. I went to the ER and she was the nurse there, and she was so calm and confident; all those qualities she’d had in high school were just what anyone would want in a nurse, and I brought her chocolates later to thank her for…”
Lexi started walking. “It’s lovely for me, hearing about your new best friend, but I don’t want to be late for the concert.”
“Fine. But get ready. People will stare. People will whisper. Remember, it’s April. We don’t have much to entertain us. My advice is, smile at people and say hello and forget high school and start fresh. Give everyone a chance.”
“I intend to!”
“Then stop gritting your teeth and clenching your jaw and flaring your nostrils like some racehorse being dragged into a barn full of mules.”
Lexi stopped walking. “That’s how I look?”
“That’s how you’ve always looked when you’re out in public.”
Lexi cast a desperate glance up at the heavens.
“Oh, cut it out,” Clare chided. “This isn’t surgery you’re facing. Loosen up a bit. Think of something funny. Remember when Amber and Spring did karaoke night?”
Lexi smiled at the memory. She shook her arms out and stamped her feet and tossed her head. “Right. Okay, I’m ready now. Thanks.”
The ticket table was at the front of the building, where the stage was also located. Clare’s lecture and Lexi’s fidgeting had made them almost late, and as they gave the pretty teenage girl their ten dollars, they saw that the room was completely filled. The only empty seats left were either in the back row, or the front, and everyone
was staring at them. The thought of all those eyes on her for the next hour gave Lexi the heebie-jeebies. “Back,” she said tersely to Clare.
Lexi didn’t feel like a flamingo now, she felt like a chicken, with the eyes of one hundred slavering foxes following her as she and Clare hurried to the last row and sat down. The few people who turned to mouth hello to Clare performed classic double takes when they spotted Lexi. In row after row heads bent to those next to them as the community went into a whisper-fest.
Patricia Moody, the chorus conductor, walked onto the stage and began her few announcements. The audience settled down. The concert began.
The program was an upbeat mixture of Gilbert and Sullivan, Broadway show tunes, and Cole Porter. As Lexi listened, she scanned the chorus for familiar faces. It took her brain a moment to adjust for the passing of the past ten years. Age, weight, wrinkles, gray hair, and glasses transfigured many of the older folk, while those who had been just kids when Lexi left now wore a look of authority and, in some cases, exhaustion. Lexi understood. Life was expensive here. People her age had to work two jobs to get by, and most of them lived with their parents because summer rents were impossibly high. Clare still lived with her father, and Lexi bet that when Jesse married Clare, he’d move into her parents’ home. It was a nice, big old house with room enough for everyone. She spotted the Barbie Dolls in the front row of the audience. Amber Young and Spring Macmillan weren’t related by blood, but in high school they’d been inseparable, rah-rah, gum-chewing cheerleaders who’d never been especially nice to Lexi—or especially mean, either. She was surprised at how pleased she was simply to see them again.
Old Marvin Meriweather was still singing. His rich baritone had been corrugated with age so that his voice vibrated like a galloping elephant’s. Of course, Patricia Moody would not have asked Marvin to leave the chorus. That would have been too cruel, and this ensemble was about the community as much as it was about music.
