Island Girls: A Novel

by Nancy Thayer

  “Why not?” Meg asked. “You’ve certainly spent a lot of time with him this summer.”

  “He’s arrogant, opinionated, bossy, and a workaholic,” Arden said.

  Jenny cleared her throat loudly.

  “Okay, I am, too,” Arden agreed. “But Palmer’s high-powered. Type A. He’s at the top of the ladder. I’m still working my way up and I want to deserve any advancement I get.” She turned the conversation back to Meg. “Well? Are you going to talk to Liam?”

  Meg equivocated. “He’s up there, I’m down here.”

  “So invite him down here,” Jenny told her. “If you need an extra bed, there’s the front bedroom, empty and waiting. If you really need an extra bed.”

  “Or go up there,” Arden suggested. “I’ll hold the fort down here.”

  “I know!” Meg clicked her fingers. “Jenny and I will go to Boston if you invite Palmer here for an intimate little dinner while we’re gone.”

  “That is so lame,” Arden sighed.

  “I don’t think so.” Jenny was grinning now. “It makes lots of sense to me. If Meg and I have to do something difficult, so do you.” She leaned toward Arden, getting right in her face. “Or are you scared of him?”

  Arden rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The car ferry was booked, so Jenny and Meg agreed to pool their money to rent a car when they got to Hyannis. The plan was for Jenny to drop Meg at her apartment in Sudbury and pick her up in three days, keeping in contact by cell phone.

  Zipping north on 495 in the cherry-red Toyota, they chose a rock station featuring Coldplay, Arcade Fire, and Foo Fighters, tacitly allowing the music to prevent any kind of serious conversation, which in both cases would probably have been a long, repetitive shriek of: What am I doing? Should I go back? Is this the right thing to do?

  Jenny left Meg at a white gingerbread Victorian where Meg rented an apartment two blocks from the campus. Meg insisted she’d be fine without a car; she could walk to a small health food store for what she needed, and if she called Liam—when she called Liam—he could drive her anywhere she had to go. Or just come to her apartment, as planned.

  Justine still lived in the French provincial mansion she’d shared with Rory in the posh Boston suburb of Belmont. Its grounds were stunning, with lots of topiaries, a “water feature,” and even a few statues. As a real estate agent, Rory insisted he needed to live in a house that would inspire respect. Jenny had a room of her own for her occasional visits from the island.

  Parking on the familiar circle drive, she pulled out her overnight bag and walked around to the back of the house. Here, glass doors opened into the fragrant, lush conservatory, which led to the Mexican-tiled steam, sauna, and shower room Justine relaxed in after exercising in her private gym.

  Justine wasn’t there. It was just around one, so perhaps her mother was in the kitchen fixing herself lunch. Jenny headed that way.

  Canned laughter led her toward the small private den—as opposed to the larger, slightly overwhelming media room, with its movie theater seating and enormous screen.

  Justine was curled up on the sofa in a winter robe, eating Smartfood popcorn from the bag and staring listlessly at a talk show.

  “Mom.”

  Justine jumped so fast half the popcorn flew from the bag. “Jenny! You startled me!”

  “Oh, Mom, you look terrible.” Jenny entered the room with a sinking heart.

  Justine’s hand went to her unwashed hair. “I haven’t organized myself for the day.”

  Observing other bags of junk food, empty cans of diet soda, and slithered stacks of tabloid magazines that occupied all the other surfaces in the den, and smelling the unmistakable odor of an unclean woman’s body, Jenny understood that Justine hadn’t organized herself for many days.

  “Where’s Estrella?”

  “I told her to take a month off with pay so she could go back to the Dominican Republic and visit her family. I don’t want anyone around. Right now I don’t need a housekeeper.” Justine set the popcorn bag on the coffee table. The bag slowly slid off onto the floor. “Jenny, what are you doing here? Why didn’t you phone?”

  “It was very spur-of-the-moment,” Jenny said. Sitting on the sofa, she reached out to take her mother’s hand. “Mommy. Look at you.”

  Tears welled up in Justine’s eyes. “I miss Rory. Why should I bother about anything when Rory’s gone? Who cares what I look like, what anything looks like, without Rory?”

  Jenny started to argue, but changed her mind. “Let’s get you showered and dressed, okay?”

  With almost childlike willingness, Justine allowed Jenny to lead her by the hand through the echoing chambers of the mansion and up the stairs to Justine’s suite. Jenny pulled her mother’s slightly disgusting sticky robe off and tossed it into the laundry hamper. She guided Justine toward the shower and turned on the water. Slid the door shut and waited. After a moment, she heard a sigh ease from her mother as the hot water washed over her, providing its generous, natural relief.

  While Justine showered, Jenny went into the bedroom and changed Justine’s stale and wrinkled sheets. She gathered up miscellaneous items of clothing for the laundry hamper and stuffed even more bags and boxes of junk food into wastebaskets. The surfaces of the end tables, dressers, desk, and bookcase were thick with dust.

  “Miss Havisham, I presume,” Jenny muttered.

  Justine had a closet full of silk robes and kimonos to swish around in back in the days when she watched Rory eat breakfast as she drank her juice and green tea. Jenny chose a kimono in what she knew was her mother’s favorite shade of lavender. She wanted Justine to feel well groomed and serene. She handed the kimono into the now-steamy bathroom, waited a few moments, entered the bathroom, and found Justine combing out her long, dark hair.

  It shocked her that so many gray roots showed on her mother’s head. Jenny hadn’t realized her mother colored her hair. Hadn’t realized her mother was getting older.

  She dropped a pair of feathered mules by her mother’s feet.

  “Let’s go downstairs for some coffee,” Jenny suggested.

  For an hour, Jenny treated her mother with the attention and kindness due a grieving widow. She made a pile of cheesy scrambled eggs and toast and set the plate in front of her mother. She phoned the agency and asked that a substitute housekeeper be sent over. She arranged for a hair appointment, facial, massage, manicure, and pedicure for Justine. She punched in the numbers of several of Justine’s good friends and set up lunch dates. She watched color appear in her mother’s cheeks and the glaze disappear from her eyes.

  When she’d done what she thought she could for Justine and sensed her mother had achieved some kind of self-control, Jenny said, in a smooth, sweet tone, “Mom, I need to tell you why I’m here.”

  Justine smiled. “Oh, Jennykins, you know you’re always welcome.”

  “I know, and I’m glad. But I have a specific reason for coming here today.” Her pulse throbbed uncomfortably in her throat. This was harder than she’d expected. “Mom, I want you to tell me who my biological father is.”

  “That doesn’t matter—” Justine began, moving her hand as if brushing away a fly.

  “But, you see, it does matter. Rory will always be the man who cared for me and raised me, but another man’s genes are in my body, and I need to know who he was.” When Justine’s lips shut tight, Jenny’s temper flared. “Were you promiscuous? Were you sleeping with so many men you can’t narrow it down, or you didn’t know their names?”

  Justine’s eyes blazed. “Jenny, what is wrong with you? How can you be asking me these hideously insulting questions!”

  “I’m asking you because when I was a little girl, you told me you didn’t know where my father was, and I had to be satisfied with that. But I’m older now, Mom.”

  Justine shifted on her chair, folding and refolding the fabric of her kimono about her. “Of course I knew your father’s name.”

&
nbsp; “Tell me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to know his health record. Does he have a family history of diabetes, cancer, mental illness …?”

  With a start, Justine’s face changed. She went white. “Jenny. Are you ill?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Not ill. Perfectly healthy. But I’ve been talking with Meg and Arden, and they encouraged me to find out who my biological father is.”

  With a sniff, Justine flipped the brilliant silk sails of her kimono over her legs. “Those girls always make trouble.”

  “Please. Don’t start. Don’t try to sidetrack me. I don’t want a grand sentimental reunion with my birth father. It’s a reasonable request. I need to know about his medical history.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. There was so much more she hoped to learn. Merely to see his face would be a dream come true.

  “He’s perfectly healthy.”

  “He is? How do you know?”

  “Well, I don’t know now. But he was, back when you were … conceived.”

  “Mommy, I’m not trying to embarrass you or make you sad. I just want you to tell me his name, and anything else you remember about him. I’ll search for him. I’ll do the investigation. It might be that I can do this all online. I won’t even have to meet the man. But I can e-mail him about his family medical stuff. Don’t you see?” When her mother didn’t answer, she played her ace. “I mean, what about when I have children? Some traits skip a generation.”

  Justine’s head whipped up. “Are you pregnant?”

  “Are you kidding? I haven’t had sex in months.”

  With a momentary flash of her normal charm, Justine said, “A simple yes or no would have sufficed.”

  Jenny exhaled a sigh of relief and leaned back in her chair. She sipped her coffee and waited.

  With a decisive little shake of her head, Justine faced Jenny straight on. “All right.” Her face softened, and a gentleness brightened her features as she allowed herself to remember. “I was in love with him, Jenny. I want you to know that.”

  Jenny only nodded, not wanting to stop her mother’s words.

  “He was in med school. I was just nineteen. I was in college at Tufts. I was a virgin. Saving myself.” Tears sparkled in her eyes, but now she was smiling at the same time, and she let her head fall back in a kind of luxurious swoon as she surrendered to her memories. “William Chivers. Willy. We met in a coffee shop in Harvard Square. He was my first real sweetheart, and I was his. Oh, I’m sure I was not his first sexual encounter, but I was his first real love. He was tall, dark, and handsome, all of that. Only”—she laughed, and her long hair swung from side to side—“he always smelled like antiseptic. Well, med school, you know.”

  Jenny was breathless at this image of her father, her real father, a medical student named Willy. Gooseflesh broke out all up and down her arms and legs. She could almost see him.

  “He was enchanted by the technology of medicine,” Justine continued. “I’m sure that’s where you got your affinity for computers. He wasn’t brilliant, though; I mean he had to work hard to keep up with his studies. We both knew that when he became a resident, the work would be relentless and we wouldn’t see each other as much.” She hugged herself, and now the words flowed as she gave herself over to memory. “Six months. We were together six months. Jenny, we loved each other so much. We were so romantic with each other. We said such exaggerated things, like ‘Our passion will last till the end of time,’ you know the sort of things young lovers say, but I meant it and I know he did, too.” A shadow crossed over Justine’s face. Her eyes closed. She murmured. “I was fortunate in my first and last beloveds.”

  Jenny waited. She had his name. She could start there. She wanted to hear more, though.

  At last, with a little shiver, Justine said, “Well, I got pregnant. I was on the Pill. I don’t know how it happened. He was interning at Mass General. His supervising doctor was ruthless, a perfectionist, a bully and a tyrant. Will and I saw each other less and less. He was so stressed-out. He was always exhausted. But Will had such enormous ambition. He wanted to become a transplant surgeon; his grandfather had died of liver disease.”

  Jenny’s hand flew to her mouth. Justine was so caught up in her thoughts, she didn’t realize what importance her words might have for Jenny.

  “I was nineteen, Jenny, remember that. Nineteen.” She nodded, and now the tears that came were tears of sorrow. “For three months I hardly saw him. When I did see him, he was nauseated with fatigue, which was kind of funny because I was nauseated for a completely different reason, although he didn’t know it. He could hardly see straight. We didn’t fight, but we … drifted apart. I broke off with him. I left school and went to live with my grandmother in western Massachusetts. I suppose he could have found me if he’d tried, but he would have had to make an effort to do it. In my heart I wanted him to try to find me.”

  Jenny reached over to touch her mother’s hand. “You must have been terrified.”

  Justine nodded. “My grandmother helped. She absolutely thought you hung the moon. The early years were sweet, really. But when Gran died, I had to find a way to make a living. You were old enough to go to school. I returned to Boston to work. I did try to find out where Will was—and I finally located him. By then, he had married someone else.” She pressed her hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry you didn’t have a father when you were a little girl.”

  Aiming for lightness, Jenny said, “Oh, I think I turned out all right.”

  Gratefully, Justine smiled. “And Rory was a wonderful father to you.”

  “Yes. Yes, he was.” Jenny waited a few seconds. “Do you know where Will Chivers is now?”

  Justine averted her face. “Google,” she mumbled.

  Jenny laughed. “I know. It’s irresistible. I’ve looked up all my old boyfriends.” Quickly she added, jokingly, “Not that I ever slept with any of them!”

  Justine was still in her own world. “Will’s in Boston. He’s at Mass General. He’s married, he has two children. He lives in Back Bay. I’ve walked past his place, a row house on Beacon Hill. Very posh.”

  “You’ve never seen him again in all these years?”

  Justine shook her head. “No. Kind of odd, really. Boston isn’t such a big place. But I’m glad I’ve never run into him. I went on with my life. I had you. And I wouldn’t have missed being with Rory for anything in the world.”

  “Mom, I’m going to go see him.”

  Justine had stopped weeping, but she looked very tired. “I suppose I can understand that. Fine. Someday. Perhaps in the fall, when—”

  “No. I mean I’m going to go see him today.”

  Shocked, Justine choked out a harsh laugh. “Goodness. Couldn’t you write him a letter first?”

  “I have to get back to the island. I have work to do. Plus, the whole legal matter of staying on the island for the summer.”

  Justine drew her fingers over her forehead. “Jenny, this is a lot to throw at me, especially right now.”

  “I know, Mom. But you’re okay, really, aren’t you? I mean, you’re grieving, but you’re okay?”

  Justine’s face reflected her struggle to be honest. “I feel better with clean hair and some real food. I don’t want you to worry about me or think I’ve gone off the deep end. I’m just sad.”

  “I’m sad, too, Mom. I miss Dad every day. But I’m going to try to see Will Chivers.”

  Emotions flickered over Justine’s face. “When are you going back to the island?”

  “I’ll stay here tonight. We could go out to dinner. Maybe even a movie. There’s a new comedy with Steve Carell. You like him, don’t you? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “I guess.” Justine sagged in her chair. “God. Will Chivers.” She closed her eyes. “I think I’d like to take a nap now.”

  “I’m going to try to see Will Chivers,” Jenny repeated.

  Rising from the table, Justine waved a listless hand. “Fine. You can tell me about it late
r. I don’t think I can take anything more just now.” She left the room.

  Jenny took her time cleaning the kitchen. She washed the skillet and dishes by hand, letting her thoughts settle. Then she sat down at her mother’s computer on the small kitchen desk and searched for liver transplant physicians in Boston. And there he was.

  William Chivers, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, chief of transplantation.

  He was thirty minutes away. Her biological father.

  A small photo on the hospital website showed a slender balding man with glasses and a kind face.

  There was a phone number, but she didn’t want to phone him. That didn’t seem right. Nor did e-mail. She didn’t want to wait, either. Now that she’d come so close, she didn’t want to wait another second. She looked at her watch. It was a little after two o’clock.

  She hurried out to her rented car and drove.

  Again, she played music to cover the panicky absence of thoughts, or perhaps it was a collision of thoughts, like white being all colors. Urgency pressed on her skin, pinched her lungs, abraded her lips against each other as she drove along the crowded roads, carefully not speeding, but still deftly steering around slow-moving vehicles, sputtering trucks, and old people clutching the steering wheel with both hands.

  The Longwood Medical Area along Brookline Avenue was a complicated stretch of brick buildings, parking garages, fast-food restaurants, medical supply stores, pharmacies, and doctors’ offices. She parked on the fourth floor of an echoing garage, took an elevator to the street, and crossed over to the entrance to the hospital.

  Inside, at the information desk, they told her the location of Dr. Chivers’s office: wing L, second floor.

  Jenny marched through the long corridor, head high, aiming for a resolute and slightly officious walk, as if she were supposed to be here. No one stopped her. No one even looked her way. Probably he wouldn’t even be in his office, she thought. It was summer, after all. Probably he wouldn’t be back from vacation for weeks. Maybe months.

  Still, her heart tripped and fluttered. Her breathing went wonky, uneven. She could feel her toes, fingertips, and lips going numb. Well, if she had a heart attack, at least she was in a hospital! A nervous giggle rose in her throat.