“We did. It was a massive misunderstanding,” Christine said.
“Of course it was,” Lola said with a shrug. “Everyone always knew Zach had the hots for you.”
“Whatever,” Christine offered, although her heart felt warm.
They watched as the burly sailors, all seasoned and some Vineyard locals and others, tourists, along with several race-happy celebrities, boarded their sailboats and thrust their sails into the wind. The horn blared, and the race began with a chorus of Edgartown partiers cheering out over the Nantucket Sound.
When the last of the sailboats drifted out into the distance, Charlotte turned around and brightly said, “I guess it’s time for some more drinks!” Together, the cousins and Rachel returned to the bar and hovered around other locals. Suddenly, the stage performer changed to reveal Zach, his guitar in-hand and his smile electric. From the crowd, Christine felt woozy as she clutched her sparkling wine. Zach strummed a few chords on the guitar and began to address the crowd.
“Hey there, everyone,” he said. “Welcome to all of you. Vineyard residents, Edgartown locals, tourists—everyone is welcome here, especially on one of my favorite days of the year. The Round-the-Island Race. I have a few tunes to play for you today. This first one is about second chances.”
Christine’s heart hammered. Lola whispered, “I have a sneaking suspicion that I know who he’s talking about.”
Zach began to sing. Parts of the crowd quieted down to listen in, as Zach’s voice swam through poetic verses. “You can’t know how much I wish I’d known what we could have been.”
“A little hammer on the nail, isn’t it?” Lola continued in Christine’s ear.
“Shhh,” Christine whispered back. “I’ve never had a song written about me. I mean, not since that obsessive guy I dated in Brooklyn in my twenties.”
“Ah! So many long lost stories you’re keeping from me.” Lola grinned.
After Zach’s set, he joined Christine, Lola, and their cousins for a drink in the crowd. Another guitar was strummed in the distance, as Christine clutched Zach’s elbow and said, “You really do amaze me, you know.”
Zach’s eyes glittered with happiness. “I could say the same for you. And for this food baby, I’ve almost constantly since you started baking at the bistro.” He tapped his flat, muscular stomach as Christine rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, right,” she scoffed.
The sky seemed to burn impossibly blue. As minutes ticked past, expectations for the race’s end ramped up. Lola seemed like an anxious bird. Christine assumed it was all because she wanted Tommy Gasbarro to win the race.
“There he is,” Lola said suddenly, gripping Christine’s elbow so hard, she jumped.
Together, Lola and Christine stepped out toward the edge of the dock. Sure enough, Tommy Gasbarro swept toward the finish line, in first place, his black hair swirling in the wind. Lola looked captivated. The nearest boat in second place was at least fifty-yards behind; he seemed like the clear winner.
“This is going to make the story all the better,” Lola whispered.
Suddenly, a gale wind rushed across the dock. It forced itself down on Christine’s head, then swirled out across the water, thrusting itself against the large sail. Christine had gone sailing only a few times, but she knew, almost immediately, what would happen with his sail so full-flung, like it was now.
The boat tipped quickly. As it flung to the side, the boom smashed itself against Tommy Gasbarro’s skull. Immediately, Tommy fell into the water, as the sailboat floated alongside him.
The crowd cried out, then grew hushed. Lola gripped Christine’s hand hard like she had as a younger girl. Her eyes were like reflective pools.
“He’s unconscious,” Lola murmured, as Tommy floated face down.
“Oh my, God,” Christine whispered.
A bright red medical boat motored toward Tommy’s boat. Two lifeguards leaped into the water and propped Tommy up on red floaties, then delicately placed him on a floating stretcher. In all her years of living on the Vineyard, Christine had never seen anything like it.
“Oh, my God. Oh my, God,” Lola said, over and over again. Her hand squeezed Christine’s harder and harder.
As the lifeguards motored back to the dock, the first-place sailor surged over the finish line. Naturally, since he was meant to be second, nobody really clapped. The mood at the event had shifted considerably. Quickly, the lifeguards hustled down the dock, the stretcher lifted. When they reached the end, they slipped the stretcher delicately into an ambulance. Already, officials had cleared the sailboat from the race-arena, so that someone could prop it back up safely and return it to land. Everything had happened so quickly; it left Christine reeling.
When Christine turned around, she found Zach in a similar state of shock. “Did you recognize that guy?” he asked. “I think he won last year. Maybe even the year before.”
“We kind of know him,” Christine said. “Barely.”
“I think we should go to the hospital,” Lola blurted.
Zach looked incredulous. “Really? For someone you barely know?”
“He doesn’t have people to check on him, really,” Lola insisted. “Come on, Christine. Let’s go.”
Christine gave Zach a half-shrug, just as Lola yanked her through the crowd and snaked her back toward their car. When they reached it, Christine said, “I mean, he does have someone to check on him. And that’s someone we might not want to run into today of all days?”
Lola seemed sure of herself, though, and not in the mood to argue. She snapped her seatbelt and frowned at Christine as she ambled into the passenger seat.
“Do you have to move so slowly?” she demanded.
They rocketed toward the hospital, with Lola cursing almost every passenger-crossing, every slow car. Her hands over the steering wheel were bright white. Admittedly, if something like this had happened to Zach, Christine might have reacted much the same way. It was still more proof that, as weird as it was, Lola had a pretty big thing for Stan Ellis’s ex-step-son.
Hopefully, he would be all right.
They yanked into the emergency room parking lot. As they sprung out, Lola muttered, “I never thought I’d be spending so much time in hospitals.” Christine didn’t respond. They hustled toward the lobby of the emergency room, which was a flurry of activity. After all, the Edgartown Round-the-Island Race was one of the bigger parties of the year, which normally paved the way for several minor accidents. A teenager with a broken arm sat in the front line of chairs, trying not to cry. When Christine’s eyes met his, he said, “I didn’t even want to go skateboarding today.” Beside him, his mother glowered and said, “I told you that thing would kill you.”
Lola hustled up to the front desk and asked, “Was the sailor from the race already taken back?”
The woman blinked big, dull eyes at her and said, “What’s his name?”
“Tommy. Tommy Gasbarro,” Lola said.
The woman glanced at her notes and said, “There’s really not a lot I can tell you right now. He’s just arrived. In fact, you almost beat him here.”
When Lola returned to Christine, she muttered under her breath. “They never know what they’re doing at places like this.”
“Yes, they do,” Christine said. “Just give them a few minutes to figure it out.”
Again, Lola muttered, but this time, too quietly for Christine to understand. She imagined the words were about her, anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Christine coaxed Lola toward the brighter line of chairs near the window. Lola clenched her hands over her knees and peered into space, while Christine headed toward the vending machines to buy two bottles of water and a bag of peanuts. They hadn’t eaten properly that day, despite the insanely fatty, rich, and marvelous options at the street food fair in Edgartown. They would have to subsist on peanuts until Lola allowed them to leave; there was no telling when that would be.
When Christine returned to Lola, she dotte
d several peanuts out across Lola’s palm and watched her chew slowly. When she swallowed, she muttered, “Thank you. I think I have low blood sugar. I just...” She closed her eyes tightly, then said, “When Tommy and I talked briefly about Stan, he said that he actually met Mom a few times. He’s only a bit older than you, I guess, which means he would have been around Susan’s age when Mom died.”
Christine’s heart hammered. She understood, more and more, why Lola had latched onto this guy and didn’t want to let him go.
“We didn’t get a chance to talk about it much,” Lola continued. “He had to head off to visit Stan, and the news of it actually shocked me so much that I had to step away from it for a while and focus on the story for my editors. But gosh, Christine. Think about it. Our mom was so close with Stan Ellis that she actually met his ex-step-son, the person he felt closest to in his life. She had this whole other secret existence. And Stan and Tommy are the only two people on the planet who really know about it.
“But there’s so much more to it, I’m sure,” Lola added, taking a few more peanuts and speaking almost violently with her hands. “Regardless, Tommy saw Mom as a thirty-seven, thirty-eight-year-old woman. That’s how old I am right now, before my birthday later this month. God. It’s wild to think about it, isn’t it?”
“Did he seem to know about the accident?” Christine asked in a hushed voice.
“Of course. Bits and pieces. He didn’t go into it very much,” Lola continued. “One thing he did mention was... Once, Stan and Dad got into some kind of fist-fight years ago, outside the Edgartown Bar. He had to make some kind of bail for Stan. Apparently, Tommy was the only person Stan could call.”
Christine contemplated this for a long time. “Did he know about us? About Mom’s daughters?”
“We didn’t get that far.” Lola bit hard on her lower lip. “Now that Audrey is about to be a mother, I’m thinking so much more about time, and how it all seems to slip through our fingers. I’m thinking about how we all get this particular perspective on everything that happened. And I...”
Christine felt a strange pang in her gut. Over the past few days, she had struggled with explaining to Lola the discussion between Audrey and herself. Audrey, whose mood had been lifted by the ordeal, had spent most of that time swimming and reading and avoiding her mother at all costs.
“We all have a very unique perspective,” Christine echoed. Her eyes scanned the back of the emergency room as she drummed up the courage to say it. “Listen. Lola. I really am not sure how to say this to you.”
“I just, I know Stan Ellis is evil. I know he’s the enemy, and I know we have to talk to him about Mom at some point. I just have to think it’s all a little more nuanced than that...” Lola continued.
“That isn’t what I mean,” Christine said. Her voice wavered so much it forced Lola’s eyes toward her.
“What’s going on?” Lola demanded.
Christine swallowed. How could she possibly describe all the thought that had gone into this decision? How could she make Lola feel as though she hadn’t gone behind her back?
“More secrets, huh?” Lola said. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take.”
“It’s just. Audrey and I had a conversation about the baby,” Christine finally blurted out.
Lola crossed her arms tight over her chest. “And?”
“And we floated the idea that maybe, well. Maybe I could help raise the baby until she’s ready to stand on her own two feet.”
Lola’s eyes became enormous. “Christine. You do know that Audrey is only nineteen, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. That’s kind of the point,” Christine returned.
“No. I mean. She only just left the house we shared together. Every step of her first eighteen years, Audrey and I made decisions together. The two of us,” Lola continued.
Christine’s heart sank. “I understand.”
“You can’t just barrel into our relationship like this and start offering up big ideas,” Lola said.
“You see how depressed she is about all this, don’t you?” Christine demanded. “She misses her life. She wants the kind of career you want for her. She feels like she let you down. This is... I don’t know. The perfect option?”
“That isn’t for you to decide!” Lola cried. “Just because you’re depressed doesn’t mean everyone else is depressed.”
Christine set her jaw. This last attack hurt the worst. “She just needs help,” she muttered steadily. “If you’d just stop being so damn stubborn all the time, maybe you would understand it.”
Suddenly, the automatic doors in the emergency room burst open. Stan Ellis surged into the lobby, his cheeks bright red. Sweat billowed down the back of his shirt and in his pits. The second he entered, he locked eyes with the Sheridan sisters.
He staggered to a halt. It was almost exactly like at the Edgartown Bar: all Stan Ellis wanted to do, at that moment, was get as far as he could away from Christine and Lola Sheridan.
Slowly, Lola and Christine got to their feet and walked toward him. Stan looked like a frozen deer in the center of the road, unsure of which direction to go. As they approached, the skateboarder kid with the busted arm howled with pain. It was a perfect soundtrack.
Stan spread his palms out in front of him and stepped back. This seemed almost comical like the Sheridan sisters had plans to eat him whole.
“Let’s just have a little chat, Stan,” Lola said.
“Nothing major,” Christine said. “Just a casual catch-up between old friends.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” Stan mumbled, hardly loud enough for them to hear.
“That’s funny, Stan, because neither did we,” Lola returned.
“I just want to check on Tommy,” Stan blared.
“And you can. That’s why we’re all here,” Lola said.
Stan’s nostrils flared. As he walked backward, the doors sprung open behind him. With the sound of them opening, he tugged around and burst back into the summer air. Lola rushed toward the doors, but Christine reached out and grabbed her elbow.
“What are you doing?” Lola demanded. “He’s getting away.”
Christine’s heart thudded. “His only family was just hurt badly in a sailing accident. I don’t think right now is the perfect opportunity to do this.”
Lola’s eyes were fiery. She dropped her arms to her sides and nodded, although she looked on the verge of another angry outburst. Christine was reminded again that Lola had always been the sister who cried the most. Big, emotional highs and lows were her thing. This scene was another in a long story of Lola’s life.
The receptionist stood from the desk and called Lola’s name. “You said you were here for the sailor, didn’t you?”
Lola hustled back to the counter and said, “Yes. Tommy Gasbarro.”
“And you’re family?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Lola returned. Immediately, she turned her head back to Christine, who gave her a crooked shrug.
Soon after, Lola disappeared between the double-wide emergency room doors. Christine hunkered in the corner for a while, staring at her toes. The conversation about Audrey’s baby hadn’t been fruitful, exactly, although she had to hope and pray that Lola would find the light in the tunnel eventually. Already, Christine’s arms ached with hope for that baby. She wanted to carry her, to hold her against her, to sing songs to her when she couldn’t sleep at night.
Already, she called the baby “she,” as though she already knew the gender.
But how could the Sheridan sisters have anything else? Except Susan’s Jake, of course. But he looked like Richard, through-and-through.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was just after four-thirty. Lola had been in the hospital room for over fifteen minutes, with no sign of reappearing. Christine’s phone buzzed with a message from Zach.
ZACH WALTERS: Hey. How’s it going at the hospital? I’m headed to the bistro. I think it’s going to be extremely busy so soo
n after the race. If you’re not busy with family stuff, would you mind stopping by? I need a competent head in there tonight.
Christine wrote to Lola that she was headed to the bistro. After all, she was no good to anyone in the emergency room lobby. She hustled up and grabbed a taxi out near the main entrance, which took her back to Oak Bluffs. When she reached the bistro, she found Zach in his office, tying a white apron around his trim waist.
“You called?” she said with a wide grin.
“My savior,” he said.
They hovered there for a second, both of them analyzing the other’s face. Christine wanted to beg him to kiss her; maybe he wanted her to make a move. Still, after too much time had passed, Ronnie yanked the door open to make the announcement.
“We have a lot of drunk people out here, and they’re all hungry!”
Christine and Zach burst into action, both probably a tiny bit grateful that neither of them had had to be brave. At least, that’s how Christine felt about it. She scrubbed her hands while Ronnie had his seemingly-daily fake-panic, saying, “I just hope I can keep up with everything! It seems like it gets crazier every single day.”
“You’re a fantastic busboy, Ronnie,” Christine returned. “Probably the best I’ve ever seen.”
“You say that every day!”
“I know. And I mean it every day, too,” she said with a grin.
One of the waiters called out that every table had been filled. Zach and Christine locked eyes. Baskets of in-house baked bread flew off the kitchen shelves and were placed on the center of each table, as a way to keep everyone calm. Their meals wouldn’t take too long if everything went to plan, but anytime at all was a bit too long when it came to hungry drunk people.
Yet again, it seemed like they had never been stacked up like this at the bistro, but Christine had seen many nights just like that one at Chez Frank and she was always perfect under fire. She found herself giving orders and pep-talks, side-by-side, and flipping burgers, dressing plates, and firing crème brûlée on a constant rotation. She caught Zach watching her a few times, those blue beauties searing into her.
Firefly Nights Page 15
