“I know. I know you are.” Elsa’s smile widened as she began to draw open the packages of cheese and craft a charcuterie board. She then lowered her voice still more to add, “And what about Janine’s ex-best friend?”
Nancy buzzed her lips. She drew open the antique cabinet toward the far end of the kitchen and began to collect wine glasses, slipping the stems through her fingers and hanging them from her hand.
“I’ve known Maxine as long as Janine has,” Nancy breathed. “The girls were thicker than thieves. Always getting themselves into every type of trouble you could imagine. Once, when Maxine did something wrong at school, Janine piped up to say she had done it too, just so they could have detention together.”
“Wow, that’s funny. Typical best friends,” Elsa whispered.
“I know. It was the kind of friendship that should have extended across every decade. It was a powerful love between two girls, women. Something that I always thought was too magical to break. And then, as everyone knows...”
That moment, Janine stepped into the kitchen and brightly asked if Elsa needed any assistance. Her voice didn’t skip a beat; probably, she hadn’t heard the previous discussion. Nancy and Elsa caught one another’s eye for the briefest moment; their looks were filled with relief that Janine hadn’t listened in.
It wasn’t like Janine needed reminding that her best friend had stolen her husband.
It wasn’t like she needed reminding that they both would attend her daughter’s wedding that weekend.
It was expected that they’d already arrived on the island and would be at this evening’s dinner.
As Janine whipped past Nancy with two wine glasses in hand, Nancy placed a tender hand on Janine’s elbow. Janine’s manic energy swelled off of her like waves onto a beach.
“Are you doing okay, Jan?”
Janine’s eyes widened the slightest bit. “Yes, of course. My girls are here. What more could I want?”
Nancy nodded. “You’ll tell us if you need us to do anything, right?”
“Of course.”
This felt like a lie— one of the common lies women tell when they want to seem far stronger than they are. The phrase “fake it till you make it” was assuredly invented by a woman.
Elsa placed the immaculate charcuterie boards at both ends of the porch table and helped Nancy pour white wine silently. Rex told a detailed tale of Maggie’s recent bridezilla meltdown over the wedding appetizers— something that had culminated in tears on the bathroom floor.
“I asked her, Maggie darling, do you think the world will end if we don’t have stuffed mushrooms at the wedding? And she said point-blank, Rex, if we don’t have stuffed mushrooms at the wedding, the world will end. Mark my words.” Rex laughed uproariously at that as the others at the table joined in. Maggie’s face turned beet-red.
“And I swear, that wedding planner, Charlotte Hamner, became a permanent fixture on our computer at the apartment,” Rex continued as his smile widened. “Constantly telling Mags it would be all right. She had everything under control. And then every morning, like clockwork, Maggie would come up with another list of potential terrors and call Charlotte all over again.”
Maggie laughed wildly. “I have a feeling Charlotte won’t be too sad to see this wedding in her rearview mirror.”
“You can’t be the worst client she’s ever had,” Alyssa pointed out. “She did that crazy Ursula Pennington wedding last Thanksgiving. Charlotte is so brilliant that she managed to throw it together in just less than three weeks. I read about it in People magazine.”
“Okay. Second worst, then,” Rex insisted.
“Hey!” Maggie cried, her voice vibrant. Rex leaned over and kissed her gently, lovingly, on the cheek.
The immensity of their love brewed out from them and seemed to brighten everything else. Nancy dropped her eyes to her glass of wine. Again, the fatigue returned, and her brain swam with fears and anxieties of what her test results would eventually reveal.
Let me stay here, her mind echoed. Let me be with the women I love the most. Please.
Chapter Four
The Hesson House was a newly opened boutique hotel just north of Edgartown. Olivia Hesson had been given the keys to the old-world mansion in the wake of her Great Aunt Marcia’s death. In the months since, she and her boyfriend, Anthony, had worked tirelessly to craft a gloriously artistic space— one that upheld the minute detail of previous architectural and design areas while offering all the luxuries of the modern day. Charlotte Hamner had suggested The Hesson House’s restaurant for the Thursday night dinner, and as they stepped through the foyer, they muttered agreements that this was the perfect locale.
Off to the right, a young woman sat at a grand piano and tapped her fingers across the keys delicately; her eyes were half-open as though with each chord and flick of her wrist, she dove deeper into a fictional, dream-like world.
Maggie’s bridesmaids awaited them at a long table near the back. Also, two of Maggie and Alyssa’s uncles from their father’s side sat on the opposite end, along with a few cousins and their other grandfather and grandmother. Nancy nodded toward the grandmother, who, in truth, looked like a rueful and monstrous billionaire women— one of these women who had only ever gotten what she’d wanted in life and still refused to feel happiness.
For about the millionth time, Nancy cursed herself for not being around when Janine had gotten together with Jack Potter. Perhaps Nancy could have put a stop to it.
Not that Janine had been in any position to listen to what Nancy had to say. Nancy wouldn’t have listened to that previous version of Nancy, either. She had been a near-constant train wreck— fun at parties and terrible at everything else.
Janine paused several feet from the table. Maggie bent to kiss her violent-looking grandmother on the cheek. There were muffled hello’s until Maggie whipped around to hug her bridesmaids so hard they nearly popped.
“Where’s Jack?” Janine whispered.
Nancy’s heart hammered in her chest. She yanked her head around as though this would produce any sort of answer. Instead, she found only Carmella and Olivia Hesson in conversation near the piano. Carmella tossed her head beautifully and laughed at something Olivia said. Again, Nancy had this tremendous, ballooning feeling of loss; Carmella never laughed with her like that. Perhaps she never would.
“He should be here by now,” Janine said, speaking again of Jack.
Maggie stepped behind her bridesmaids. Her eyes snapped up toward her mother and grandmother. Alyssa’s nose pressed between Janine and Nancy’s heads as she whispered, “Where the heck is Dad?”
Rex’s parents arrived after that. There were introductions and hugs. Rex’s father looked remarkably like him, and Elsa joked to Nancy that these Manhattan socialite people seemed almost built in a factory. Their perfection was top-notch.
“Shh,” Nancy whispered into Elsa’s ear. “Don’t let them hear you say that. They’re programmed to attack the minute someone guesses where they come from.”
Elsa pretended to zip up her lips and throw away the key. Across the table, Carmella eyed them and then dropped her gaze almost immediately. Jealousy was laced across her face, probably at Nancy and Elsa’s powerful mother-daughter relationship. Something Nancy had no idea what to do about.
Maggie was seated two chairs away from Nancy, with Janine between them. Nancy thought she heard Maggie’s whispered words as she curled against her mother. Janine then passed along the information to Nancy’s ear.
“Apparently, Jack and Maxine aren’t going to make it tonight or for the rehearsal tomorrow.”
Nancy’s eyes were wide as saucers. “You’re kidding.”
Janine looked on the verge of spitting fire. She drew her chair back and beckoned for Maggie to follow her. Alyssa and Nancy leaped from their chairs and hustled behind the two of them to a side hallway that led to the bathrooms. Maggie’s eyes were rimmed red.
“I can’t believe he’s doing this,” Alyssa blared sud
denly. “It’s like he wants to make some kind of stupid point.”
“But what kind of point is he making? Just that he doesn’t love me enough to be around for the most important events of my life. My wedding!” Maggie demanded.
“I don’t know! I’ve never been the master of Jack Potter. You know we fight like cats and dogs,” Alyssa returned.
“Don’t fight, girls. It gives him too much power over the situation,” Janine insisted. She splayed her hands over her cheeks and stared into space.
“It’s just that I told him over and over again not to bring her,” Maggie said then. She crossed her arms so tightly over her chest that her elbows could have been used as swords. “And now, he’s decided to punish me by not showing up at all.”
“Is that something he would do?” Nancy asked softly, looking at each granddaughter.
Alyssa and Maggie both nodded their head unanimously. Janine eyed the ground, clearly panicked. Perhaps she didn’t want Nancy to think badly of her, as she’d married this man and built a life with him.
People did crazy things with their lives. People acted wildly outside the bounds of reason. Nancy knew this better than most; it had been her MO for years. Nancy placed a hand over Janine’s. More tears fled down Maggie’s cheeks.
“I don’t think we should worry about him tonight,” Nancy interjected.
They ogled her, shock and confusion marring their faces.
“He didn’t show up for this beautiful meal? That’s his loss,” Nancy affirmed. “He’s going to look back at this moment when he’s an old man and realize that he missed so, so many beautiful moments with his daughters, and he’s going to regret it. I know because I regret every day I didn’t know the two of you girls.”
Alyssa wrapped an arm around Nancy’s shoulder and leaned her head alongside hers.
“You’re right.” Maggie lifted her chin and set her jaw. “Let’s not let him ruin this any more than he and Maxine already will.”
“Gosh. I just can’t stand it,” Alyssa said pointedly.
“She was like our aunt,” Maggie confessed to Nancy.
Janine turned back toward the table. Her hands shook slightly. “Let’s go back to your guests. Your father’s paying for this meal, isn’t he? We should eat our weight in whatever we can get our hands on.”
Janine and Maggie headed back toward the table. They walked side-by-side, as their Louboutin heels clacked against the hardwood in unison. This left Alyssa and Nancy a bit behind. Alyssa hung her head so that her hair swung forward like curtains.
“What Maxine did to my mom makes me so fearful about everyone I’ve ever known,” Alyssa said somberly.
“What do you mean?”
It was a rare thing for these girls to open their hearts to their grandmother like this. To confide in anyone meant giving something of yourself, something you couldn’t ever fully get back.
“Maxine and Mom loved each other like sisters. Their relationship was as close as me and Maggie’s is, I swear. And then, Maxine just turned her back on Mom like that. It makes me wonder who you can ever really trust in your life, you know? Like, I tell myself that no matter what, I’m not alone. I have Maggie. I have Mom. And I now have you, Grandma.”
Again, Nancy’s heart swelled.
“It’s one of the huge problems in life. You never know what will happen next or who will hurt you later. All you can do is love and love hard. The rest will fall into place.”
Alyssa furrowed her brow. “I know you’re right. I know you are. And although I spent so long feeling terribly for Mom and what Maxine did to her, I look at her life now— at you, Elsa, Carmella, and the Lodge and, of course, her new Henry, whatever it is she’s calling him these days, and I realize that in many ways, she’s better than ever.”
When Janine reached the table, she remained standing. Alyssa squeezed Nancy’s hand, nodded toward her mother, and breathed, “At Maggie’s engagement party, Mom wanted to make a speech so bad, but Dad wouldn’t let her. He thought he was the only one worthy of making a speech, you know?”
“But now, it’s your mom’s time to take the floor,” Nancy said.
“Exactly.”
“Good evening, everyone.” Janine’s smile was electric. She looked fit for any movie screen. “I want to welcome you to a weekend I, for one, have looked forward to for many, many months. It’s the wedding of my eldest daughter and, therefore, first love, Maggie. Maggie, since you came into my world, you’ve been a boundless bundle of energy; you’ve made me laugh and cry and think bigger thoughts than I ever thought possible. And when you met Rex, I could see it in your eyes: you knew that everything had changed— and that nothing would ever return to what it had been before. And you knew you had to be brave enough to hold onto it with all your strength.”
Janine lifted her glass of wine and spurred the others to do, as well.
“Here’s to the first of many toasts this weekend,” Janine held up her glass. “To Maggie and Rex. May your happiness be lifelong. May you always turn to one another with love and compassion, and may you understand that life has no guidebook, no perfect next steps. The only real thing to have in this world is someone to laugh with. And as I’ve spent a good deal of time with both of you, I know you know how to do that.”
“Cheers!” Everyone called out, as they clinked their glasses, and sipped.
Maggie beamed up at her mother and mouthed, “Thank you. I love you.” Nancy turned toward Elsa then, wrapped her arms around her, overwhelmed with sorrow, tenderness, and love.
When their hug broke, Elsa reached across the table and collected Carmella’s hand in hers. Carmella’s eyes watered with tears, as well. She grabbed a bottle of wine, refilled her glass, and then added more into Elsa and Nancy’s.
“I have a feeling it’s going to be a waterworks of a weekend,” Carmella said. She attempted to make eye contact with Nancy but soon fell away.
Their food arrived: crab legs, lobster bisque, and freshly-baked pieces of bread. Olivia Hesson arrived to greet them properly and congratulate the happy couple.
“The Hesson House only recently opened in July,” she informed them. “You’re only our third engagement celebration. We’re so grateful to host you.” She then snapped a photo of everyone at their table, explaining that she wanted to keep a record of these early days at The Hesson House.
“I never imagined that my dream would be to have a place like this,” she said as she analyzed the photographs on her phone. “But seeing people like you gather together here, all under one roof, to celebrate these particularly magical moments in your lives? It brings me to my knees.”
That night, outside of The Hesson House, Rex’s various groomsmen kidnapped him. They stuffed him into the back of a limousine and waved goodbye to Maggie, explaining that they would take good care of him. Peter ran off with the boys as well, which left Janine, Alyssa, Maggie, Carmella, Elsa, Nancy, and Mallory all together at the house, yet again.
“That Peter guy of yours is handsome,” Mallory said to Alyssa, her eyes wild.
Alyssa shrugged and weaved a curl through her fingers. “I just can’t ever tell with these Manhattan boys. Does he like me? Or did he just want an expensive celebration on Martha’s Vineyard? It’s difficult to say.”
“He likes you,” Maggie affirmed. “Come on. He looks at you like you’re a queen.”
“Grandma. What do you think?” Alyssa turned earnest eyes toward Nancy. “You’ve probably dated your share of boys over the years.”
Nancy’s laughter rang out, as vibrant as music. “What makes you say that?”
“The life you’ve lived.” Alyssa lifted a slender arm to grab a bottle of wine and refill her glass, then Nancy’s, then Mallory’s and Maggie’s. “All the men you must have known.”
Nancy gave a half-shrug. “I suppose so.”
“Who was your favorite?” Maggie’s question was earnest, bright.
“Well, of course, Neal Remington.” Nancy gestured around the porch, to the
open ocean below, along with the immense house. “He gave me a life I’d never dreamed of and more love than I’d ever imagined.”
“Yes. Yes. We know Neal was a saint,” Maggie said, teasing her. “But we don’t want to know about the saints.”
“You know, Grandma, we want the good stuff.” Alyssa leaned forward, mischievous. “Give us your wild stories!”
Janine appeared in the doorway of the porch. “What are you guys trying to get your grandmother to do?”
Nancy felt her cheeks burn bright red. She heaved a sigh, turned her eyes toward the ceiling, and said, “Okay. Well, if you must know. There was this one man I met in Beijing. And he — well — he had the most beautiful motorcycle I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Whoa! Grandma!” Maggie and Alyssa cried in unison.
Janine clucked her tongue and said, “Don’t give them any ideas, Mom.”
“I think I have some ideas,” Alyssa teased.
“Oh Lord have mercy,” Janine joked. “Let’s just get through this wedding before you run off with a circus performer or something, okay?”
“I can’t make any promises,” Alyssa returned.
Chapter Five
The rehearsal and then the subsequent dinner went past in a flurry of wine drinking and wild conversation and tear-soaked speeches— mostly from Janine and the groom’s mother and father. They drowned in the language of, “What a beautiful couple,” and, “Aren’t they going to just have the most beautiful children?” and, “Rex treats her like a princess, doesn’t he? And it’s what she deserves.”
All the while, whispers about Jack and Maxine’s disappearing act fluttered through the growing crowd. “I can’t believe he would do this to Maggie,” was the consensus, while others suggested that the fact that he had broken up his marriage for Maxine was proof that he would stoop to the lowest of lows.
Throughout, Nancy was mesmerized by the way Janine handled herself. She walked like a queen with her shoulders back, and her chin held high, and she greeted everyone warmly— even Jack’s dear socialite friends— without embarrassment, as though the fact that Jack had abandoned their marriage and all they’d built together had hardly grazed her at all. Naturally, everyone knew this wasn’t true; her very public breakdown had hit the tabloids hard. Still, that was what life was, wasn’t it? Acceptance of the ways you’d faltered; belief in the ways you could build yourself up again.
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