She sent along a few shots she’d taken that morning of the island from the sailboat. It was a funny thing how bad photos were at capturing reality. Each glowing photograph was a representation of Janine’s most heartbroken moments.
ALYSSA: Wow! It looks so beautiful.
JANINE: How are you doing?
ALYSSA: You didn’t answer about Grandma. Haha. How is she?
JANINE: She looks like a supermodel. I should have known she would rebound.
JANINE: And apparently, she lived in Thailand for a full year.
ALYSSA: What? She’s such a surprise.
JANINE: True.
ALYSSA: Maybe I could come to the island to meet her? It’s been twelve years since the last time, so I don’t remember her that well.
Janine pondered this. After a long pause, she wrote back.
JANINE: Maybe.
For reasons she wasn’t entirely sure of, she kind of wanted to keep her “real” loves, Maggie and Alyssa, from this strange poison that lurked between herself and Nancy. It seemed bad luck to join her two worlds together.
JANINE KEPT A LOW PROFILE the next few days. She enjoyed occasional lunches and dinners with Elsa and Nancy, who seemed to always have something to say to one another — the perfect mother-daughter combo. Then, Janine either walked the beach, or went jogging, or swam in the salty waters. She read her book, found a local bookstore to purchase even more books, and started to try to write out a list of possible options for the rest of her life.
After all, she’d come to the island to hide and to heal and to think. The sooner she figured out what to do next, the better off she was.
And, of course, a text from Jack stating that he needed an address to send out the divorce papers didn’t exactly thrill her.
At the top of the list, she wrote:
THINGS TO DO WITH REST OF LIFE
1. Remember what it was you liked to do before you were rich.
But what was that, exactly? Janine had been “rich” since age nineteen when she’d given birth to Maggie, who was the heir to Jack Potter’s fortune. She still remembered the first taste of caviar, the first thousand-dollar bottle of champagne, the first private jet. All that had fallen down upon her, and she’d reveled in it.
And then, of course, it had just been commonplace. It had been like the weather.
When Janine had been twenty-eight, she’d had something of a crisis. She had hardly spoken with Jack about it, as she hadn’t wanted to bother him. But she had talked about it extensively with Maxine, who’d helped her come to the conclusion that she needed to do something with her time that wasn’t affiliated with being a “Manhattan socialite” and “care for the children.”
This had led Janine to pave her path toward becoming a respected Naturopathic doctor among her peers.
At first, Jack had said that it wasn’t medicine or that they were quacks. Then, she’d treated him holistically for some back pain he was having, and he hadn’t said a bad word since. After Janine had begun her own practice, she’d lined up a number of clients, all of whom returned to her week after week, month after month. She was once written up in a Naturopathic Medicine Magazine. The memory of that still thrilled her. Seeing her standing in her own spotlight enthralled her. Janine was no longer in the limelight of her husband as the wife of a rich socialite. She’d earned her own accolades and was proud of that.
But two years prior, Janine had closed up her practice. She’d set aside her love of Naturopathic Medicine, passed on her clients to others, and busied herself with her Manhattan social scene and her supposedly loving husband. Deep down, she wasn’t sure if Jack resented her for going out on her own and achieving such a large goal which most of the other wives never did or even attempted. At the time, she’d told herself she’d finished with Naturopathic Medicine. But now that she thought back, the origin of her departure was rooted to a particularly strange exchange she’d had with one of Jack’s friend’s wives. “I could never work outside the home,” she’d said. “I need to make sure I dote on my husband. I know that if I don’t, someone else will.”
Janine had told herself at the time that she hadn’t left her practice for Jack or for anyone.
Now, she wasn’t so sure.
Toward the end of her first week, Janine slipped out of her bedroom and made her way downstairs. She found the kitchen empty, sparkling clean as ever, and neither Elsa nor her mother’s vehicles were in the driveway. She was grateful to have the place to herself, but even as she sat at the kitchen table and peered out at the grey and cloudy afternoon, her soul felt anxious. Without thinking, she rushed to the closet, grabbed her coat, pushed her feet into tennis shoes, and then headed out the door.
Janine walked east along the Atlantic Ocean until the waterline cut north into the Bay. As weather threatened rain, and there was a chill to the air, the beaches were largely empty, and she enjoyed her ability to march directly across the sand as though she ruled the island. She listened to nothing on her headphones and the sound of the waves rolled in fast due to the frantic winds.
When she stood at the edge of the waters, she tried to call Maggie. When Maggie didn’t answer, she tried Alyssa. Both of her girls were out in the world, doing their best to be a part of it. Janine was in hiding. She wondered what they thought of that. She hoped they understood — that she felt broken, and she wasn’t entirely sure how to put herself back together.
When she reached the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa, she stopped short, surprised she’d walked so far. The place looked much more enormous from the beach. The curtains had been drawn over the windows, which gave it a strange, haunted feel. In fact, Janine might have passed right on by had she not noticed a dark blue vehicle, which snaked up the driveway and parked on the far end of the Lodge itself.
Then, there was the screech of a door opening, which led out onto the porch that overlooked the water. Not wanting to be caught gawking, Janine jumped around the side and back toward the front entrance, which led in from the driveway. Once there, she watched as the driver of the blue vehicle marched in, her hair in a ponytail. It whipped around behind her as she entered.
Curious, Janine followed the woman into the foyer. Once there, she found herself in a bustling foyer, with Carmella, the step-sister she hadn’t met yet, there at the front desk, the woman in the ponytail checking in, and three other women seated in chairs, waiting for appointments. Through a door in the distance, soft light streamed in, as did a number of friendly female voices.
Janine was reminded of a club she’d belonged to back in New York City — an exclusive one for rich families, which had filled with beautiful women throughout the afternoons and early evenings. Although Janine had spent quite a bit of time there, she’d never felt such warmth coming from the space, not like here.
In fact, even as she stood there, Carmella lifted her beautiful eyes and said, “Good afternoon. Welcome to Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa. I’ll be with you in a second.”
“Thank you,” Janine replied.
Of course, Carmella had no idea that she was Janine. This meant Janine could introduce herself.
Although, wasn’t that kind of weird, especially since it seemed like Carmella and Nancy and Elsa didn’t all get along?
When Carmella finished checking in the woman with the ponytail, she turned her full attention to Janine. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t, actually.”
“Oh, oh no. I’m sorry to say that I’m pretty booked this week,” Carmella said.
“What about the rest of the lodge and spa?” Janine asked.
“Unfortunately, we’re only running our acupuncturist clinic right now.” Carmella furrowed her eyebrows. “I hope we’ll have the lodge and spa back up and running by the end of the summer, but there’s no way to know.”
“That’s too bad,” Janine offered.
“It really is. I miss it.” Carmella paused for a moment and then tilted her head out toward the hallway, which led to the beautiful, sim
mering voices. “Listen. We have some cucumber water, smoothies and margaritas out on the back porch. A few of the girls who’ve already had their sessions for the day stuck around to hang out. You can join them if you want to. Sometimes, I think that’s what I miss most about this place—the communion.”
Janine walked tentatively toward the voices to find a covered porch, with six beautiful women, all wearing fuzzy robes and drinking either cocktails or bubbly waters or some of both. A woman with long, sleek dark hair turned her head languidly toward Janine and delivered a relaxed smile.
“Hello there. Did Carmella just poke you?”
Janine laughed. “No. She’s booked. I’m just checking out the space.”
“Oh, you have to sit with us,” another girl, blonde, said as she tapped the closest chair. “Have a margarita. Mila makes them about as strong as ever. Unfortunately, Amelia can’t drink them.”
The woman, who was clearly named Amelia, scrunched her nose and said, “Pregnant,” with a funny shrug.
“Ah,” Janine nodded as she slid into the chair next to the blonde woman. The pregnant Amelia seemed maybe around her own age, which surprised her. She was grateful she didn’t have to birth babies any longer. Those painful days and sleepless nights were far, far in the past.
Someone handed her a margarita, which she sipped slowly as the women around her fell into conversation again. It wasn’t for another few minutes, when one of them pressed her on the knee, that she fully realized that they’d asked her a question.
“What brings you here?” the woman with the sleek, brown tresses asked.
Janine parted her lips with surprise. “What do you mean?”
The woman giggled and lifted her margarita. “Apologies for the forward question. It’s just — you seem like it’s your first time at the Katama Lodge. Most of us end up here for a reason. Like me. A few years back, my husband died unexpectedly.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that,” Janine breathed.
The woman nodded. “It was a terrible time. I have twins, but luckily, my good friends here cared for them for a few days while I checked in here. Nancy, Neal, Carmella and Elsa were all so kind to me during that time. I really regained my strength.”
Janine felt, again, the strangeness of being told what a remarkable woman her mother, Nancy, was.
“We all felt so heartsick when Neal died,” Amelia said. “We know how much Nancy loved him. He was such a good man.”
“And how much Neal loved Nancy,” the woman with the dark hair said.
“I don’t blame her for closing down for a bit,” the blonde woman murmured. “And Elsa is a wreck, too. I saw her out with her grandbaby recently. She carried him and cried and — well. It just about broke my heart.”
Janine’s heart sank.
“What do you think Elsa thinks of Carmella reopening the acupuncture area?” Amelia whispered.
“I don’t know,” the blonde woman said. “But you know there’s all that bad blood between them. I have a hunch they bickered about it.”
“Nancy tries to stay out of it,” the woman with the dark hair said. “Oh, but I wish she knew how much this place helps all of us. I feel totally at peace here. Like I can breathe again.”
The other women agreed as the blonde woman turned toward Janine and said, “I’m sorry. My friend, Mila here, forgot she asked you a question.”
“Oh. Right. What brings me here,” Janine repeated.
The women turned their complete focus toward Janine. They were honest and open and curious — but there was none of that Manhattan malice, which Janine had grown accustomed to over the years.
“Well. I mean, it’s the age-old story, isn’t it?” Janine whispered. “I’m getting divorced. I’ve lost my way. I’m just not really sure who I am anymore.”
The women nodded. Some of them closed their eyes and muttered, “I understand completely.”
It was a safe space. It was a place to forget and to heal.
Janine sipped her margarita.
Maybe her mother’s world wasn’t so poisonous, after all.
Chapter Thirteen
When Janine arrived home from the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa, she found her mother dressed in a summer dress, hovering at the hallway mirror, dotting lipstick tenderly across her lips. Janine had another flash of memory — her, age seven or eight, and her mother, just a child herself, around twenty-two or twenty-three. She stood a beautiful creature, at a different mirror, a mirror with a jagged crack down the right-hand side, and performed this very action. She’d then turned swiftly and peered down at little Janine to say, “I won’t be gone late.” It was implicit back then that Nancy couldn’t afford a babysitter. Janine wasn’t invited out on her dates with men— men who would inevitably go on to treat her mother terribly.
Janine often didn’t learn the full details of whatever had gone wrong with each. She only heard the screaming and crying, then watched as her mother fell into a dark pit and wrapped herself up in blankets and drank herself into a stupor.
Nancy turned now to find Janine stationed near her, wordless and overly quiet. Nancy jumped slightly, then forced a smile.
“Oh, darling, I didn’t see you there,” she said.
“You look nice,” Janine returned. “That lipstick suits you perfectly.”
Nancy glanced again toward the mirror and arched an eyebrow. “Do you think so? Elsa helped me pick it out the other day. I realized a few years ago that I couldn’t get away with all that bright red lipstick any longer. Oh, but you were probably never such a red lipstick wearer, were you?”
Janine’s voice quivered with her answer. “Jack’s family wasn’t so keen on bright red. I wore it exactly once, and I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.”
Nancy’s lips parted with shock. After a dramatic pause, she burst into laughter, then dropped into the little hallway chair. “I have a feeling you have quite a few stories like that.”
“Not many in recent memory,” Janine offered. “Although those first few years...”
“The Potters aren’t exactly known for their kindness,” Nancy returned. “Every person in America knows that.”
“And there I was. Smack-dab in the middle of them.”
“And you even carry their last name.”
They held the silence for a moment. Janine was surprised she’d been so suddenly candid with her mother, as she had set out to be the exact opposite over the previous week. She thought about telling her mother that she’d just met some of the Katama Lodge’s favorite local regulars, but she didn’t want to toss Carmella into the flames before a proper introduction.
“What are you getting ready for?” Janine finally asked.
“Oh, it’s silly, really.” Nancy popped back up from the hallway chair to finalize her makeup. “There’s a festival over in Oak Bluffs, and they want to honor Neal. I said I’d go and make some kind of speech. I don’t know. I’m not really one for the spotlight.”
There was the creak of a floorboard. Suddenly, off to the right, Elsa appeared on the steps. She wore a beautiful light butter yellow dress, which hugged her curves beautifully, and golden earrings dangled from her lobes. She gave Janine a tentative smile, then said, “Oh, I hope Nancy told you about the festival tonight? You really must join us.”
“She won’t want to go to some silly island festival,” Nancy returned.
Janine turned her attention back to her mother. She wasn’t entirely sure how to read Nancy’s tone. Did she not want her daughter to attend? Or did she just not think Janine would want to waste her time doing such a thing?
“But it really is something special,” Elsa said as she continued down the steps and joined her step-mother at the mirror. “You never got to meet Dad, but I know you would have loved him. Everyone did.”
Janine caught her mother’s eye. Nancy tilted her head as her irises glowed.
“I can stop by for a bit, sure,” Janine said suddenly. “Just let me go change clothes.”
Jan
ine hustled up to her bedroom. Her decision to go to the festival both pleased her and annoyed her, all at once. On the one hand, what did she care about her mother giving a speech? And this island, with its festivals. This was exactly the type of thing she was trying to avoid—attention of any kind. But on the other hand, her afternoon at the Katama Lodge had piqued her curiosity all the more. It was clear that Nancy Grimson Remington wasn’t the woman Janine had grown up with any longer.
It was up to her to really see this woman for who she was.
THE FESTIVAL LINED the Oak Bluffs Harbor. Near the line of sailboats, a large stage had been set up, and as they approached, a local band played a classic rock song, which had several festival-revelers tapping their feet and singing along. There was booth after booth after booths of fatty, greasy, absolutely delicious foods, and lights were strung from building to building to stall, which gave the entire festival a feeling of magic and of union.
Janine, Elsa, and Nancy walked through the crowd slowly, as many people reached a hand out to speak to Nancy, congratulating her on the award and offering their condolences for Neal.
“He was such a good man,” one woman said as she shook her head.
“He changed my life,” Nancy agreed. “As did this island. As did all of you.”
When she said this, her eyes found Janine’s again. It felt like a loaded statement.
“I’m sure you changed him just as much as he changed you,” the woman said knowingly. “Neal had a hard road before you. Thank God he met you when he did.”
At this, Elsa’s face shifted strangely. Janine again felt a number of secrets beneath the surface.
“We sure do miss him,” Nancy offered as her voice wavered.
Janine, Elsa, and Nancy gathered around a nearby local wine stall, where Elsa ordered them three glasses of chardonnay. This left Nancy and Janine at the stand-up table alone. Janine shifted her weight and watched as her mother scanned the festival-goers, seemingly nervous.
“Did you write your speech already?” Janine asked. She couldn’t bear the silence a moment longer.
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