“I think it’s actually out of the west,” Xander said with a wink.
Kelli laughed as she dropped her head back. “My mother would kill me if she knew I was out here with you. And I somehow like that feeling. It reminds me of being a kid again. I miss getting into trouble. How boring it is to be an adult. Always paying your bills on time. Always saying and doing the right thing.”
Xander stood again and slowly walked toward her. His blue eyes caught the light wonderfully; they seemed to reflect back the immensity of the ocean around them.
“You have freckles today,” he told her. “I’ve never noticed them before.”
“They used to always come out beneath the sun,” she said. “But I guess I haven’t spent so much time in the sun lately.”
“You look beautiful,” he told her softly.
He then splayed a hand across her cheek as she closed her eyes; her knees locked, then unlocked, as his soft, pillow-like lips fell over hers. Her heart pulsed and then quickened. They floated there, in the impossibility of this moment, beneath the July sunlight and over the fury of the ocean. Nothing seemed real— not this kiss, nor her emotions, nor the bright rock just to the left of them, the island on which she’d been born and where she knew, one day, she would die.
KELLI RETURNED TO HER house around five-thirty. Lexi remained at the boutique until six. Kelli decided to change clothes and head to the real estate office to discuss various properties with her other employees, check on the status of everyone’s sales, and investigate further into the issue of the Cliffside Overlook. Perhaps she had overlooked a paper. She hadn’t heard from Mike since his threatening phone call. He’d probably made the whole thing up to poison her mind and mess with her. That was a very Mike-like thing to do.
On her drive back to the real estate office, she received a call from Brittany.
“Hey girl!” she called into the speaker system as she continued her route. “I’m headed your way.”
“Oh. Gosh, good,” Brittany returned. Her voice sounded panicked. “There’s someone here to speak with you.”
Kelli’s heart quickened. “Oh?”
“Just get here as fast as you can, okay?”
Kelli parked her car and rushed for the door, grateful she’d donned a summer dress with a business jacket and a pair of heels. She’d had half a mind to keep her beach-garb on, just a little flowered dress and a pair of sandals.
Brittany removed the phone from her ear as Kelli entered and mouthed, “He’s in your office.”
Kelli furrowed her brow. “Mike? Tell me it’s not Mike?”
Brittany shook her head. Kelli’s heart slowed the slightest bit. At least it wasn’t him.
The man who awaited her on the other side of her desk was a stranger. He was formidable, a clear lawyer-type with a Type-A haircut and an overly-shiny face, as though he couldn’t manage to grow a proper beard. He stood and lifted a hand, which Kelli shook.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Montgomery. My name is Jackson Reynolds.”
“Good afternoon.” Kelli shifted the door closed. She felt utterly exposed. “Can I help you?”
Mr. Reynolds placed a file folder on her desk and then opened it with the flick of his hand. The papers within were clear copies of an old deed. Kelli clicked her heels toward the desk and peered down.
It appeared to be the old deed for none other than the Aquinnah Cliffside Overlook Hotel.
Her lips formed a round O in surprise.
Her eyes flickered up toward Jackson Reynolds. “Did Mike send you?”
Jackson Reynolds shook his head, disgruntled. “I don’t know anyone named Mike.” He said the word “Mike” as though it was the lowest form of a name. “I’m a representative of the James Peterson Estate. It’s come to our attention that you have been attempting to sell the property on the Cliffside, which has belonged to James Peterson since 1943, as you can see here.” He flashed a finger toward the bottom of the page, where James Peterson, whoever that was, had signed his name and the date: September 17, 1943.
“Huh.” Kelli was incredulous. She lifted the page higher. She wasn’t entirely certain, but she was pretty sure that the hurricane that had destroyed the hotel had occurred sometime around September. “Bad timing?”
“If you proceed with this sale, you will find yourself up to your ears in legal consequences,” he told her then. “Good afternoon, Ms. Montgomery. My information is located on a card within the folder.”
He then headed toward the door and exited without another word. Kelli’s stomach felt soured. Sweat billowed up across her neck and along her forehead. James Peterson. Who on earth is that?
She took to the internet first. She typed his name into the search engine. Unfortunately, James Peterson was a pretty common name, with hundreds of results. The search: “James Peterson Martha’s Vineyard” came up dry, as well.
As if on cue, her phone rang again. This time, it was the antiquarian Frederick Bachman who announced that he had finally been able to stabilize the blueprints. “They’re all flattened out and much easier to read,” he explained in a dry tone. “Perhaps you’d like to come by and pick them up?”
“Yes. I would love that,” she told him. “I’ll be there in the next half-hour.”
It had been an incredibly emotional day. Kelli’s eyes filled with tears as she drove to the man’s tiny cottage, filled with his collection of treasures. When she parked in his driveway, she dry-heaved for nearly fifteen seconds before her brain found a way to calm itself down. She swiped at her cheeks and around her eyes, then muttered, “Pull yourself together,” at the mirror. It would have to be enough.
“Mr. Bachman,” she said as he eased open the door slowly. It creaked bit-by-bit as he revealed just a sliver of the outside light to his inner dungeon. “So good to see you again.”
Kelli would have bet a lot of money that the man hadn’t seen the outside world since she’d last seen him. How much of that time had he spent poring over the blueprints? Did he ever make time to sleep?
“This has been a very exciting project for me,” Frederick told her as they hovered over the blueprints. “As you know, the document was incredibly damaged over the years, but with a few tricks of the old trade, I managed to bring it to life again. Rumor has it that the old Cliffside Hotel might be built back to its former glory. Goodness me, if I had a hand in making that happen... I would be thrilled.”
Again, Kelli’s eyes glazed over. She gazed at the glorious blueprints, merging this architectural calculation with the photographs she’d seen from the twenties.
“It must have been like a fantasy,” she whispered.
“No. The fantasy is now,” Frederick corrected her. He flicked the side of his head playfully. “For now, the place only exists in our minds— and therefore, it’s far more beautiful than any place in the world because we get to give it the magic it needs.”
“But wouldn’t it be incredible if we could share in that magic together?” Kelli asked.
Frederick, who was forever a loner, couldn’t quite comprehend this. He gave a slight shrug and stepped away as she continued to study the document. She then reached for the folder that the lawyer had brought her and lifted the old deed toward Frederick.
“I’ve just learned that the hotel belongs to someone I’ve never heard of. I’d always been told it ran in my family,” she said, her eyes still trained on the blueprints in front of her.
Frederick’s eyes twinkled. “A secret.”
“I suppose so,” she admitted. “Although it seems to make everything much more complicated.”
Frederick chuckled. “Why don’t you go down to the library? There are many books about the old hotel written prior to its collapse. Photographs that the internet has never seen. Maybe you could uncover something. Who knows?” He tapped his nose playfully. “Isn’t it a strange thing that humans are the only animals on earth who claim to own property? I’ve always been amazed by this. None of us really own anything. Our lives are so finite. Maybe
things and property own us, instead.”
Chapter Fourteen
1943
September 16th.
Marilyn scribed the date at the top of her diary and then blinked up to catch the last rays of the glistening autumn sun as it bobbed at the top of the cliff. She whispered goodnight to another day on Martha’s Vineyard, and her heart dripped with panic at the loss of time. James had told her point-blank that if Robert continued to retreat from his advances regarding the hotel, they would return to the city within the week.
Since that first horseback ride outing, Robert had managed to steal Marilyn away five additional times. James was quite easy to convince to do anything; Robert had simply to insinuate that the particular event or get-together was something high-caliber, for only high-rollers upon the island. Each night, Marilyn watched as James prepared himself for the evening ahead, donning a tuxedo and running a comb through his hair as he informed Marilyn, yet again, that these sorts of events weren’t appropriate for women. Marilyn feigned interest until the moment James clipped the door closed. Then, she flung herself into action, dropping her hair into loose curls and donning a dress. Often over the past week, Robert had had something set aside especially for her so that they could dine in his room alone and gaze into one another’s eyes.
They’d taken things too far already. Marilyn had never thought of herself as dishonest, yet here she was, acting out the dramatic part of a cheating wife. Robert had made it very clear already that he would do anything to be with her, to keep her on the island with him. But James was the competitive sort. No, he didn’t love her, not really— but he would never give her up. Not even for this hotel. She knew that.
September 16, 1943
I don’t quite know what to make of all of this. I feel caught in the center of a storm. The winds whip around me and pull me deeper into these tumultuous, dark, yet impossibly beautiful clouds of emotion. The idea of returning to our life in New York City, where I’m only a ghost in the midst of the rest of James’s life, fills me with a sense of loss and horror I can’t fully explain. It’s as though I’m pregnant with the idea of something— and I’ll have to kill the idea, eventually, in order to survive.
Robert won’t sell the hotel. It’s latched to his heart, a symbol of his respect for Mr. Johnson and all they went through together. But James won’t remain on the island without the hotel in his grasp. Oh, men and their sinister egos. Oh, how many wars have been fought in the name of just this? In fact, we fight one now— we’re entrenched in Germany, waging war with a madman, while I remain here with my own madman, a man so rich he managed to con his way out of the service. In Robert’s case, he longed to go, to fight alongside his countrymen, but there’s something off with his leg. I notice it sometimes. A slight limp. Apparently, he had an accident when he was a teenager. He calls them his “reckless” years. How I long to sift through the pages of his mind and read those stories.
Suddenly, James bolted through the door. Marilyn snapped her diary closed and spun round to catch him. His eyes were frantic, his hair a wild cloud around his head. He muttered to himself as his hands shifted over his pockets. Often, he would get drunk too early before dinner and his empty stomach made him hyperactive and boyish.
“James. Are you all right?” She felt like a doting mother.
“Just fine. Just fine.” He sniffed as he dropped down on the side of the bed. “I’ve planned to meet Jefferson again this evening in Oak Bluffs. He has a business proposition—a potential doozy. I’ve told him I still have the intention to buy this place — and he laughed in my face and told me to tag along with him instead. ‘Old Robert is too sentimental to sell the place,’ he snapped. I suppose that’s what this island operates on. Nostalgia. Belief in their own bullshit. I believe in nothing more than profit and revenue and I believe that makes me smarter than most men in America.”
Marilyn cooed even as her heart darkened. If she agreed with him, he would leave sooner. Then, she could slip down the stairs and weave her way to Robert’s bedroom, where she would inform him of James’s dividing line: if he wouldn’t sell, he would leave, with Marilyn in tow. Perhaps they would never see one another again. The island would represent a failure in James’s life. And James never liked to look twice at his failures.
ROBERT’S BEDROOM WAS utilitarian. It had a single bed, a grey comforter, a single lamp. When he called for her to enter, she found him seated at the edge of the bed with his neck bent down and his hands clasped together. Her heart jumped into her throat.
“Are you all right, Robert?” She hurried into the room, gently closing the door closed behind her. She had the sudden urge to leap upon him and throw her arms around him. She held herself back as his eyes shifted upward.
There was silence for a long time. It ballooned between them and became so powerful. Marilyn’s ears rang.
“I saw you and James together at lunch,” Robert breathed. “And I remembered the other night. How strange I felt, as though I’d known you my entire life. Then to see you there with your glass of wine and your conversation and the way you could act with him, as though you’d never been with me at all...”
Marilyn again thought of the bullish nature of male egos. But she also had felt something similar, something akin to jealousy, when she’d seen Robert in conversation with one of the other female guests. She’d made him laugh, and the laughter had rocketed off the walls and crept into Marilyn’s brain. Her brain had caught fire.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Marilyn whispered.
Robert shook his head delicately. “I don’t want to lose you, either.”
“James has told me that he will leave soon if you won’t sell,” Marilyn explained, taking a step closer.
Robert dropped his chin. “And I suppose you would go with him.”
“I have to,” Marilyn returned. “I can’t disappoint my family. I have to ensure they’re all right. This marriage has given them endless comfort. It’s allowed them to breathe again.”
“But what about your breath? What about your time? What about your life?”
Marilyn gave a lackluster shake of her shoulder. Robert stepped up from his bed. He looked volatile and brash, as though he might have punched anyone who stepped in his path. He didn’t look like a man who owned the luxury hotel in which they now stood.
“If the world were different, I would fall in love with you, unencumbered,” Marilyn told him, surprising herself with her honesty. “If only the world were different.”
Robert’s smile was almost sinister in its sorrow. “Why do you think it can’t be different?”
“You know things don’t change so quickly. Even after war, we fight hard to try to make things go back to the way they used to be. Maybe a small part of me also understands that. Maybe a small part of me wants to cling to all I’ve ever known.”
“Then that small part of you wants to die in misery,” Robert blared.
Marilyn’s eyes glistened. “That’s a horrible thing to say.” Her heart pounded. He glared at her severely. Perhaps this was his animal instinct, wanting to destroy her before she could rip into him.
She lurched around, gripped the door handle, and swept herself into the hallway. She’d never truly fought with someone before, not like this, not with this much passion bubbling beneath the surface. She’d normally just let James get whatever he wanted, as it was easier that way— like interacting with a toddler.
“Marilyn. Wait—” Robert cried as she fled.
But it was too late. Marilyn ran up the steps and rushed into the presidential suite, where she collapsed onto the sheets and cried. Outside, a strong wind pressed itself against the gorgeous old building making the wood and stones creaked. The sound felt like some kind of warning. Marilyn lifted her eyes toward the window and marveled at the anger of the wide world around them, as though summer had been a farce before the real drama of autumn.
“Is that you, God?” she whispered. “If it is you, I hope you hear me. I hope you know wha
t pain I’m in. And I hope you show me a way through all of this. Whatever that route may be.”
Chapter Fifteen
When Kelli reached the library, she discovered that a number of historic Martha’s Vineyard books had already been checked out. She smacked her fist on her thigh and ogled the gap in the shelf. Who on this earth had such a burning desire to discover the inner mechanisms of Martha’s Vineyard in the previous century?
Still, she had a funny hunch that all luck wasn’t lost. She rushed from the library and made her way down the little stone staircase as she hunted for the appropriate cell phone number. By the time she reached her car again, a familiar voice had sprung up on the line.
“Kelli! So good to hear from you. What can I do for you?”
“Lola. I wonder if you might be able to help me with something. It’s kind of an emergency.”
“Of course! Anything for my beautiful cousin.”
Sure enough, Lola had the books. She’d set them all aside on a large wooden desk in the house she shared with Tommy Gasbarro. They were piled high, monstrous in their density, and Lola clucked her tongue from a few feet back and said, “Yep. It’s a huge undertaking, and I am just not sure how to attack it. I told you my editor wants a fun little book about the historical life of Martha’s Vineyard. But there’s nothing fun about giving your entire life away to reading.”
“I don’t know about that,” Kelli teased.
Lola hurried to the kitchen and brewed them each a cup of tea. As the water boiled, she rubbed her eyes and complained of fatigue. “You probably didn’t see that Max is here sleeping over there in his crib. But it means I didn’t get so much sleep last night. I wanted to give Audrey a break, and I think she’s slept the previous twenty hours, maybe more. But I’ve been lonely since Tommy left again a few days ago and I haven’t heard from him. He’s probably halfway across the Atlantic by now.”
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