Hello, Sunshine

by Laura Dave

  Ethan smiled. “How could I take that the wrong way?” he said.

  I motioned to his outfit. “You’re almost dressed up,” I said. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I have a dinner later tonight,” he said.

  “With the nameless celebrity?”

  He smirked. “You’ll have to peek in the dining room and see,” he said. “Z is going to fit me into the second seating.”

  “That’s incredible,” I said. “I now have the answer as to who can get into 28 without a reservation without any advance notice.”

  “What can I say?” He shrugged. “The man loves me.”

  “Many people do.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “My sister was bragging about your accomplishments the other night. You didn’t mention that you founded the whole fishing community.”

  “The whole fishing community?”

  “You know what I’m saying, Yalie.”

  “I don’t think you’re called that when you teach there.”

  He heaved the cooler up higher.

  “So you guys were talking about me the other night?”

  “A little. In between her lectures on what a terrible person I am.”

  He grinned. “I’ve got to run, so you’ll have to tell me another time.” He paused. “And by the way, try not to feel too badly about Taylor. Z fires people from Cordon Bleu. I’d give you until the end of this shift.”

  “Would you put in a good word? I kind of need to hold on to this job at least for a little while.”

  “Chef Z is the most influential chef on the East End. He’s eighty percent of my high-end business in the Hamptons.”

  “So you will?”

  Ethan nodded, started walking away. “Absolutely not.”

  30

  Ethan did come in for dinner, but he was with an older man I didn’t recognize. There was no celebrity in sight.

  I peeked at him through the small kitchen window.

  “What are you doing?” Chef Z said.

  He was still standing on the line, facing away, so for a second, I didn’t think it was me he was talking to.

  He motioned to one of the line cooks. “Is she hard of hearing?” he asked.

  I froze. Was it me?

  Chef Z was putting the finishing touches on the grilled sardines with pickled onions. Light on the citrus, heavy on the capers. Vinegar and sugar and salt. A pickled feast.

  “Why are you looking through my window, Samantha?”

  I pointed toward the door. “Sorry, Chef,” I said. “I’m friends with Ethan Nash.”

  Name-dropping—trying to save myself. I wasn’t proud.

  “Do you spy on all your friends while they eat?”

  “No, Chef.”

  He inspected another plate, still not turning around. “So stop spying on this one,” he said.

  I didn’t have an opportunity to talk to Chef Z again until the end of my shift. Twelve thirty A.M., the restaurant nearly empty.

  He came over to my station, already in a huff, and asked for a report. I was ready to make up for the earlier mishap. I’d procured from the garbage a small plate of the least popular item, which was still fairly popular, but which had been left fairly regularly on people’s plates. Braised fennel. Z had served it alongside a ginger-infused cod. People didn’t leave even a piece of the flaky fish on their plates—its gentle yellow sauce admirable—though their fennel was apparently less enticing.

  Chef Z called out to Douglas. “Get me a fresh dish of it,” he said.

  Douglas ran over with a small bowl of the fennel, piping hot, the butter seeping out of its skin.

  Z started to lift a forkful to his mouth. Then he turned to me instead. “You taste it,” he said.

  It felt like an opportunity to redeem myself. I took a bite eagerly, already thinking of something smart to say so Z would know he could trust my palate. I would tell him that the fennel was the ideal texture—hardy and light—and how the aromatics were lovely, the anise highlighted by the garlic.

  These were words of praise I was familiar with. I had offered a similar review on my show, regaling in a fresh fennel dish (my fennel sausage and eggs were a particular hit) hot out of my own phony oven. Now I would recycle them for Z.

  But something was off. The fennel was sour and wrong in my mouth.

  I tried to hide the reaction, but he saw it. Disgust. I thought I was going to be fired right there. Fennel sticking to my tongue as I tried desperately not to throw up.

  But Z walked away, not saying anything.

  I caught Douglas’s eyes, trying to decipher if I was fired.

  “That’s the closest thing to praise you’re ever going to get,” he said.

  31

  The fennel episode led to several nights in a row where Z sought out my opinion—where it felt, for a moment, like I was falling into the rhythm of the restaurant. But how many times did I need to relearn the same lesson?

  At this moment in time, there was no rhythm for me to find.

  On Friday morning, I woke up to Rain moving fast around the kitchen, pulling Sammy by the arms. Sammy was laughing.

  “Mom! I can’t go that quick.”

  I looked up at them from the couch, rubbed my eyes. “What’s going on?” I said.

  “We’re playing hooky from camp,” Sammy said.

  “But you love it there,” I said.

  “Sorry, did I ask your permission?” Rain asked, annoyed.

  Sammy looked back and forth between us, and I saw it. She was going to defend me. Rain must have seen it too, because she pulled back.

  “I’m not going into work today or to see Thomas,” Rain said. “I need a day. We’re going to the park.”

  That was great news. There would be no driving Sammy to and from camp. Maybe I’d get to work early and get some points during pre-service.

  “Come with us!” Sammy said.

  I saw Rain flinch, not sure whether to jump in and rescind the invitation. I decided to throw her a lifeline.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m just waking up.”

  She paused, as if considering whether to say it. “Do you want to come?”

  I was so surprised to hear her actually offer. I did. “Really?”

  “Don’t make me ask twice.”

  When my sister said they were going to the park, she meant they were going to Montauk Point Park. It was a state park on the easternmost tip of the Hamptons. There were places to fish and trails for hiking. Picnic tables and a great playground. And, of course, it was adjacent to the fabled Montauk Point Lighthouse, which was something of a tourist destination, and also Rain’s favorite place in the Hamptons. Most people liked that it was pretty—an imposing force on top of its hill—but Rain loved its history. I always wished she had volunteered at the museum there while we were growing up so she could bother other people with all the details, not just me.

  Every Sunday, Rain and I bagged sandwiches for lunch and went to the lighthouse. While we were there, we agreed that there would be no fighting. Not about Dad, not about his money troubles (quickly becoming ours), not about anything. One Sunday, Rain told my father we were heading there at precisely the wrong moment. He was having trouble with a movie score he was working on, and he decided that the lighthouse had become bad luck. He went so far as to ask Rain not to go—in the way he asked for things, which was to tell her.

  It was the first time I’d ever heard her refuse him. She reminded him that we had been going to the lighthouse long before the rules were in place—that he used to take us. That maybe the unlucky part didn’t come from us going, but from his not going.

  He seemed wooed by that argument. When we left for the lighthouse, my father even came along. Or, rather, my father dropped us there. Because, on the way, he had an idea for his score and went immediately back home. Also, he had a rule about being off the property for too many hours on Sunday, and he probably didn’t want to risk losing track.

  Rain chalked i
t up to a victory. It made it harder to convince her that validating his insanity was just the opposite—and the very way that his insanity could trap her too. When I told her she should have just told him the way it was, she put up her hands and said, It netted the same result. I kept my lighthouse safe. She wasn’t going to be forced to justify the means by which she did it—not in her favorite place, not in the one place we promised we wouldn’t fight.

  So it made it a little weird to be there with her now—her daughter with us, so many years later—when we weren’t even close enough to fight, and we didn’t particularly want to make up.

  We sat on the rocks, Sammy between us, and had peanut butter pie that Rain had made.

  If peanut butter pie sounds elegant—if you’re thinking of a professional mix of whipped peanut butter and homemade crust—that’s not the kind I speak of. Rain’s pie was peanut butter stuffed into cupcake liners with smushed bananas and Hershey’s chocolate chunks. Old-school. And, really, not even pie. She would freeze the whole enterprise, and it would come out tasting like the sweetest, creamiest brownie you’d ever tasted.

  Her peanut butter pie had been my favorite treat growing up, and it felt like a gesture when she took it out of the bag.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it tasted wrong. The chocolate chunks were bitter. The bananas were too ripe, or not ripe enough. And the peanut butter tasted sour. Could peanut butter go sour? Apparently Rain’s had.

  Sammy finished her second piece. “This is great, Mom,” she said.

  Rain licked her wrapper clean. “It’s pretty good, right?” she said.

  I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I nodded enthusiastically. And asked for another.

  “Mom, can I go down to the water?” Sammy asked.

  “Go ahead,” Rain said. “Just stay close.”

  Sammy ran down the hill, and it seemed like she was heading toward a group of kids who were eating pizza. Instead she turned away from them, and started picking flowers alone.

  I looked at Rain.

  She put her hands up to stop me. “Don’t say it.”

  “I’m just sitting here, eating pie.”

  “I know she doesn’t have a lot of friends,” she said. “She’s different.”

  “That’s a good thing,” I said.

  “I think so.” She looked over and caught me playing with the wrapper. “What are you doing?”

  “Savoring it.”

  She shot me a look, trying to decide whether she believed that. “Anyway, I never had a lot of friends growing up. And I’m fine.”

  Was this a good moment to say, That’s debatable? “I think Sammy is fantastic,” I said. “So no argument from me.”

  She looked at me with something I almost didn’t recognize coming from her. Gratitude.

  “Well, her counselor, this woman who runs the camp, I should say, she doesn’t think so.”

  “Kathleen?” I said.

  She nodded. “Kathleen,” she said. “I mean, she thinks Sammy is great, but she is concerned . . .”

  “About what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know . . .”

  I held my breath, not wanting to interrupt her, not wanting her to stop when she realized it was me she was confiding in.

  “Kathleen thinks Sammy needs certain challenges in order to excel. To reach her potential. And I’ve heard that from her teachers, too, which is why I’m putting her at a private school next year in East Hampton.”

  Private school. The good ones had fifty-thousand-dollar price tags out here. That’s why she sold the house.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “She thinks the private school here isn’t the answer. She wants me to send Sammy to this gifted program in the fall. She never nominates anyone and she nominated Sammy, and she got in.”

  “That’s great.”

  “There’s nothing great about it. It’s in New York. I’ll never be able to make that work.”

  There were apartments in New York. And there were jobs at other hotels. Didn’t she owe it to Sammy to get her the best education she could—to help her find a place where she would find friends?

  But Rain wasn’t going to leave Montauk. And I wasn’t going to convince her that she should. It was a fight I’d had with her when I meant a lot more to her—and I’d lost it then.

  “And Thomas is no help,” she said. “He’s so impressed by the program. Loves talking about how families move from California in order for their kids to go.”

  “Sounds like he’s trying to be supportive.”

  She turned toward me. “There is a way to be supportive. Quietly.”

  I nodded, knowing that was the only tack I could take here. If she was mad at Thomas, whom she loved, she would be furious with me for saying a word.

  “I just don’t need him telling me that he and I could make it work,” she said. “As though the issue is about the two of us. The issue is that we live here. Right here.”

  She motioned around herself, as though that were the end of it. As though people didn’t move all the time. She didn’t want to hear it, though.

  So I looked out at the shoreline, the water hitting the rocks, letting Rain have the last word.

  Then I saw her. Meredith. I did a double take.

  She walked along the water’s edge, one kid in her arms, two by her feet. She was wearing the black pants she never seemed to take off. And she was on the phone—with Ryan?—laughing loudly.

  I tried to catch my breath. There was something about seeing her there. It brought it all back. Ryan and New York. The night of the party. That look—that horrible look she had given me—as she raced out the door.

  The pie did a hurdle in my stomach.

  I tried to ignore it. And to ignore what I was feeling. Something I hadn’t felt, at least in terms of her. Guilt. I felt awful about Danny. And I was sorry I ever touched Ryan. But looking at Meredith with her kids now—even as she rudely talked two decibels too loudly—I was overcome with guilt. It was all I could do not to walk over and apologize to her.

  I threw up instead.

  “Seriously?” Rain said, jumping back. “That is so gross!”

  It was too late. My sticky throw-up landed right on the edge of her dress. A little extra goo dripped down her legs.

  “That’s disgusting,” she said.

  “Sorry.”

  She started patting herself down with paper napkins. “You’re not forgiven.”

  I pointed down to the water. “Meredith is here.”

  She kept patting, following my eyes to Meredith. “Is that the wife? Or the scorned girlfriend?”

  “The wife.”

  She put down the napkins and moved farther away from the small puddle of vomit. “Serious overreaction.”

  Then I looked closer. It wasn’t Meredith. The hair was more red than blond. The legs were thicker than Meredith’s had ever been. And whereas Ryan had two boys and a girl, this woman had only girls, towheaded beauties following the fake Meredith around.

  “Never mind. It’s not her.”

  “So definitely an overreaction!” Rain said. Then she looked at me, handed over a paper napkin. “What’s going on with you?”

  “I just don’t feel very well. I ate fennel at the restaurant the other night, which didn’t agree with me. I haven’t felt great since.”

  “That would be your fault, not the fennel’s.” She paused. “Maybe you’re allergic to Montauk.”

  I laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” she said.

  I started to tell her I’d had that exact thought when my thermos of coffee hadn’t agreed with me.

  Then I threw up again.

  32

  There is something that people don’t tell you about trying (and failing) to get pregnant. That every time you take a pregnancy test you get the same result. The NO shining at you, a condemnation that you dared to hope for a different result. So you stop trying. Stop counting days. Not interested in even knowing
when you should have taken the test. Not interested in more of that hateful condemnation.

  So when my sister suggested that maybe the reason I had thrown up three times in an hour was that I was pregnant, I thought she was wrong.

  I argued with her on the car ride home when she insisted I take a test, just to be on the safe side, spelling the implicating words for Sammy’s benefit.

  Then gave in when Sammy spelled back, A cousin!

  Of course, when I got back to the guesthouse and was sitting on my sister’s bathroom floor and I actually got a YES, it was surreal. It was like there was a mistake of nature or something.

  I looked at the box, unsurprised to see that it was expired.

  Rain went to the store and got another test, not expired, and it also said YES. It said it without equivocation. It said there was going to be a baby.

  “Now what’s the excuse?” she asked.

  “It’s just . . . we had been trying for a while. Like, really trying.”

  “And nothing good?”

  I shook my head. Pregnant.

  The nausea these last several weeks, the dizzy feeling that I’d attributed to the upheaval in my life. It hadn’t been that—or hadn’t been entirely that—it had been a little baby, trying to make herself known.

  How had I missed it? My strong reaction to the fennel, to Ethan’s smell. I had missed it because it hadn’t even occurred to me as a possibility. Danny and I hadn’t been particularly active recently. We’d put the trying on hold until we got to Italy. We’d put a lot of alone time on hold—and for once that had been his choice more than mine. He’d been so busy prepping the Upper West Side job, he was almost never home.

  Though, apparently, he had been there at least one time.

  I could figure out when. It was either the night he came home and found me in an old University of Oregon sweatshirt in my egg chair watching When Harry Met Sally. Or the night when he came home and found me in his sweats on the bed, half-asleep. Despite all of my stylish work dinners over the last few months—meeting the players at the Food Network, prepping for the new cookbook—the times he was actually up for having sex were probably the times I looked the worst. A weird guy, my husband.