The rain had been falling hard for days and we were all bored and grumpy. Of everyone, I was the least bothered by the weather because I had my books and the foundation work. I loved my room, especially with the wind and rain beating on the windows. But the bad weather didn’t allow for the tennis, golf, and trips to the beach that usually kept the family out of the house most of the day. We were all holed up together and even I was feeling the strain of it.
What made it worse was that Guy came every day at around lunchtime. I felt that no matter how comfortable I was upstairs, the only polite thing to do was to go down. The thing I didn’t like about Guy was probably the thing my family liked most—his constant prattle. He could talk about anything for hours. The only word that wasn’t in his vocabulary was silence. Sometimes, if I didn’t go downstairs right away, he’d come up to get me. He’d shout from the landing, then I’d hear his feet on the stairs. He had a jaunty way of taking the steps two at a time, and somehow he always caught me unprepared. I might be pulling a shirt over my bra or zipping up my pants, and he’d burst right in as if he had a proprietary interest in me.
I entered the living room just as Miranda said, “I’m so bored, I think I might die of it.” And she did look like she was about to expire from something. She was draped over the sofa like a wet rag.
“I could go out and rent us some movies,” Dolores offered.
Teddy looked up from his paper.
“That’s not a bad idea. Very nice of you to go out in this rain just to get us some movies.”
No one moved.
I took a seat and looked out the window. I liked the island bluster, the dark skies and gusting wind. There was something primordial about the roughness of an island storm. It made me feel like cozying up with a good book. Of course, as anyone would have been quick to point out, just about anything made me feel like cozying up with a good book.
“What did you think of the Buffingtons’ party, Guy?” Miranda asked. That was several days ago and I wondered what made her bring it up now.
“They always have good parties,” Guy said noncommittally.
“And what about Glenda, what do you think of her?”
“She’s on the thin side,” he said. “Makes her look a little pinched.”
“I’ve never heard a man complain about a woman being too thin,” Miranda said. She ran her hand over her eighteen-inch waist.
“Some men like a little meat on the bones, don’t they, Guy?” Teddy said. Unlike Charlie, Teddy was not a natural man’s man. Whenever he made a reference to anything remotely sexual, it made me feel queasy. Maybe it was because he was my father.
“Glenda told me that she volunteers at a home for battered women. It sounds very cloak-and-dagger. They can’t tell anyone where the house is in case the husbands find out,” Miranda said.
“You can’t fault a woman who does good works. Don’t you think so, Jane?” Guy asked.
“Of course,” I answered, but I was barely paying attention. I was looking at a wren flitting about trying to find some shelter from the wind and rain.
“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Dolores said. “When my husband hit me, I just hit him back.” Her voice was so casual she might have been talking about what she had for breakfast. She obviously had no idea what effect her statement would have on this group. Everyone in the room stared at her in shocked silence. Dolores worried the edge of her blouse with a manicured nail.
“Howard Mudd?” I asked. I had a hard time imagining a gay makeup artist taking a whack at Dolores.
“No,” she said. “My first husband. It was a long time ago. Let’s just forget I said anything.”
I was sure we would all be happy to forget she’d said anything—if we could. Teddy spoke first.
“I’m sure if Michael Buffington were alive, he wouldn’t like Glenda to do that. People could imply things.”
“Like what things?” I asked.
“That she has a special interest, so to speak. So many people get involved in causes for personal reasons. Someone gets cancer and they become a cancer research advocate. A brother dies of AIDS and suddenly homosexuality is no longer a problem. In fact, it’s a cause célèbre. People are like that. They are basically self-interested,” Teddy said.
“Do you think that, Guy?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t want to disagree with your father, but I don’t think all people are self-interested.”
“What about you, Miranda?” I asked.
“I agree with Daddy.”
“And you, Dolores?”
“I don’t think much about it. All I was trying to say before is that women have resources. That’s all I was trying to say. Not all women are helpless.”
I was beginning to see that Dolores was one of the least helpless of them all. It might look like, as a family, we were in a downward spiral, but we still lived like rich people. She had seen something she wanted, a man or a lifestyle—I wasn’t sure which—and she was doing everything in her power to get it. And it looked like her powers were considerable.
“Whatever happened to your first husband, Dolores?” I asked.
My father shot me a look. I was treading on the thin ice of decorum. I felt a little like the probing Priscilla.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she said. “He was a very unusual man—a boy, really. He wanted to be Hemingway and he drank a lot and read A Moveable Feast over and over again until he could recite it by heart.” She smiled as if this memory was not unpleasant.
Guy walked over to where I was sitting and perched on the arm of my chair. I felt stifled. I couldn’t make him out. For all his chatter, good looks, and general attempts to please, I still felt that there was something missing in him—something hollow at his core. He read the books everyone was reading, saw the exhibits that were reviewed well in the Boston Globe, went to Symphony Hall in winter and Tanglewood in the summer. He grabbed for all the beautiful things the world had to offer, but I felt that he did so only because he wanted to be able to make effective dinner-party conversation.
“Let’s go out,” I said.
“In this?” my father asked. He barely looked up from the paper. “Not me. I’ll leave that to the young and foolish.”
“You’d have to include yourself, then,” Dolores said. “The young part, not the foolish part, I mean.” She blushed and it was a pretty blush.
“Nonetheless, dear, I’m not going,” my father said.
Guy, Miranda, Dolores, and I put on rain gear and headed out to a pub in Oak Bluffs. Guy insisted on driving in his small BMW sports car, which required me and Dolores to sit in the back with our chins resting on our knees.
The rain pelted down, the windows fogged, and Guy kept playing with the defogger. Finally he opened a window which sent a wedge of rain back onto Dolores.
“I’m soaked,” she said. “That’s just great. Just add that to what I said to your father and my day is complete.” She squeezed her wet hair with a fist.
“Teddy understood what you meant,” I said.
“I never want to look stupid,” Dolores said.
Miranda and Guy were in the front seat, and because of the wind, they couldn’t hear us. I felt sorry for Dolores. What she didn’t understand was that it didn’t matter whether she looked stupid or not. It was the fact that Teddy and Miranda felt Dolores was inferior that endeared her to them. Should she suddenly find the cure to a deadly disease—as unlikely as that appeared to be—they’d want nothing more to do with her.
The pub was crowded. We were not the only people on the island who were going stir-crazy. On a sunny afternoon, the place would have been deserted, but that day the pub felt like a party of wet survivors who had made it to a place where they thought they might have some fun. The jukebox was playing “Brown-Eyed Girl.”
Miranda, Dolores, and I slid into a booth while Guy, ever the gentleman, went to the bar to get us drinks. I had a view of the front window and I saw something that made me, for a moment, unable to catch my breath.
Miranda asked me if I was feeling well. She said that I looked green, which I’m sure was hardly an exaggeration. My mind was playing tricks. For just an instant, I thought I saw Max Wellman walking across the street under a golf umbrella. It couldn’t be Max. What would he be doing here? He was still on his book tour.
Before I had a chance to flog myself mentally for being such a complete ass—now that the fantasy of Jack Reilly was gone, I was subject to delusions—the door opened and Winnie and Charlie burst in.
“Surprise!” Winnie shouted from across the room as if she weren’t just surprising us but every other person in the pub. Winnie was bedraggled from the rain, but her face was smooth and pink, and she was smiling. Charlie wore a yellow rain slicker and had the air of a person who never let the weather stop him. They charged over to our table and squeezed into our booth, even though it was made for only four.
“Daddy said we’d find you here. We just missed you by a hair, didn’t we, Charlie? Nasty day. Couldn’t be worse. Almost upchucked on the ferry.”
Charlie put his hand on Winnie’s arm.
“She’s fine now, though,” he said. Charlie got up to get drinks. As soon as he left, Miranda turned to Winnie.
“Are you staying with us?” she asked. She tried to keep her voice light, but she sounded nasal and inhospitable. We had an extra guest room, even with Dolores staying, but it was a small one, under the eaves, with just a single bed. Miranda’s room was the largest in the house, a master suite, with a California king. This was the room to give the Maples if they were staying, and it would mean that Miranda would have to move into the small room.
“We took a couple of rooms at a B and B. Hard to get, but some people canceled and voilà! We came down for a little romance and we’re not likely to get it if we stay with you, now, are we? Besides, we brought Heather and that boyfriend of hers, Buddy,” Winnie said.
Charlie and Guy, who met up at the bar, came back with the drinks, distributed them, and crowded into the small booth.
Dolores had been sitting there, unintroduced, and Miranda introduced Guy first, then Dolores.
“I remember you, Guy,” Winnie said, ignoring Dolores almost completely. “We met you on the mountain.”
He nodded.
“How’s Lindsay?” I asked Winnie.
“You’ll never believe it. Not in a thousand years—not in a million,” Winnie said.
“She’s okay, isn’t she?” I asked. She was doing well the last time I’d asked.
“Well, she’s fine, if undergoing a complete personality change is fine—and in her case, well…’’ Charlie gave Winnie a sharp look. “I haven’t told you the best part. She’s getting married.” I felt as if my heart were contracting into a fist. “You won’t believe who she’s marrying—not in a million years, not in a zillion.”
“Who’s marrying who?” Miranda said, obviously bored.
“Lindsay is marrying Max Wellman,” I said, putting it out there on the table. It was my way of taking control of the inevitable.
“Oh, right, that famous author. You already told me that, didn’t you, Jane?”
Winnie looked at me.
“No she isn’t,” Winnie said.
“She isn’t what?” I asked.
“She’s getting married, but not to Max Wellman. That’s what’s so strange. She’s marrying Basil Funk.”
I couldn’t make sense of this right away so I drank my beer, swallow after swallow, without saying anything. I think I had gone completely blank.
“The thing is,” Charlie said, “Basil went to the hospital every day. He sat by Lindsay’s bed and read to her. He was the first face she saw when she woke up—very Sleeping Beauty and all that. Max had gone downstairs for a cup of coffee. They shared that moment and then a bunch of others. Basil was there every day, every hour, at the hospital. Even more than Max. When Lindsay went home, Basil went with her. He wouldn’t leave her side.”
“Isn’t it romantic?” Winnie asked.
“I think it’s bizarre,” Charlie said. “Lindsay was, supposedly, in love with Max. Where did that go? Did it just disappear? It’s embarrassing to have such a fickle sister, despite the head injury. And Basil, how do you explain Basil? He was supposed to be so grief-stricken over Cynthia that he couldn’t even leave the Franklin estate. I don’t think it makes the slightest bit of sense. I can tell you, it wasn’t easy to explain it to Max.”
“Was he very upset?” I asked. My drink was empty and Guy, seeing that, got up to get me another.
“That was another weird thing,” Charlie said. “If anything, Max seemed relieved, so relieved that he couldn’t even hide it, though it would have been nice for him to hide it from me, her brother, if only for show.”
Guy came back with another beer, put it on the table in front of me, and shoved in beside me.
“And Max’s gone. We haven’t heard from him since,” Winnie said.
“He did buy a house before he left,” Charlie said.
“There’s that,” Winnie said.
Max, however, was not as gone as Winnie had led us to believe, because at that moment he came through the door, closed his enormous umbrella, and walked up to the bar. If a person’s heart can actually stop beating, I’m sure mine did, though I breathed on, smiled and nodded at the appropriate places in the conversation, and pretended I was still alive.
Guy was sitting on my outside and I needed to get past him with a desperation I’ve rarely experienced. I nudged him and he turned and smiled at me as if I were looking for some intimate physical contact.
“I need to go to the ladies’ room,” I said.
“Oh, sorry, of course,” he said. He slid out of the booth.
I didn’t even pretend to go toward the ladies’ room at the back of the pub, but instead went straight for Max at the bar and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hi,” I said. He did not seem very surprised to see me, but his smile was welcoming. “May I sit down?” I asked. There was a stool beside him and I hoisted myself up without waiting for his answer.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.
“I’ll have a white wine, please.” Guy had bought me a beer, but I preferred wine. Max motioned to the bartender. We sat quietly side by side. “What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I have a book signing at the Bunch of Grapes tomorrow night.” I usually kept track of who was reading at the local bookstore and I hadn’t seen anything about Max. More silence. Then, “You look good, Jane,” he said.
“I’m the same as I always was.”
“Maybe that’s what it is.” His smile was warm and knowing.
As tempting as it was, this was not the moment to mention that the first time he saw me after fifteen years, he had said I was so changed he would never have recognized me. “I just heard about Lindsay,” I said.
“Can you believe Basil. That dog. Who would have believed Basil had it in him? Lindsay’s turned into a freak for modern art.”
“I guess she doesn’t write anymore, then. Did you ever end up reading anything she wrote?” I asked.
“Of course. I was sleeping with her.”
I laughed, a short bark of a laugh in which mirth was joined with mild hysteria.
“How was it?” I asked.
“The sex or the writing?”
“The writing, of course. I don’t want to know about the sex.”
“Wretched.”
“Oh, Max. Did you think that at the time, or only after she left you.”
“I thought it at the time.” He turned toward me so his knees were touching my hip. Max’s hair was longer than usual and it flopped into his greenish eyes, but he stared out from under it as if keeping eye contact with me was one of the most important things he’d ever done.
“How are the Franklins?” I asked.
“They’re a little shocked by all this,” he said. “Duke’s meeting me down here tomorrow. He wanted a change of scene. He has a book he needs to finish so he checked into a hotel. We won’t see much of him, but I’m glad he’s coming.”
Max’s hand was on the bar. It was the same hand I’d seen on the table at the cottage in Hull, the same hand that would stray occasionally to my knee while we were talking. Max moved his hand to my knee now and I looked down, then up.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I said. I wanted those words to say everything I felt, but they were only a few words and could only say so much.
I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around. It was Guy.
“Oh, Guy. Hi. Max, this is Guy Callow. I think you might have met him briefly up in Vermont.” Guy offered his right hand and put his left on my back, laying claim to me. Max removed his hand from my leg. I turned toward Guy and shrugged him off the best I could, but he was slow to take the hint and I had to do it twice.
“Very nice to have a real chance to meet you, Max. Love your work.” He turned to me. “We’re going now.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll come along later.”
I turned around and saw that the whole table was staring at us.
“No, I really think you should come now. Must leave with the girl you came in with—isn’t that true, Max?” Guy was mock jovial.
I looked at Max, willing him to say that he’d drive me home.
“I don’t have a car. I didn’t bring one to the island,” he said.
“How are Winnie and Charlie getting back? Are they going to our house or to their bed-and-breakfast?”
“I think they’re going to the bed-and-breakfast. Either way they have to go back to Vineyard Haven. Max, where are you staying?” Guy asked.
“I’m in Vineyard Haven too.”
“How about this? My car is small and seven of us won’t fit, so why don’t I take two trips. I’ll take three people now, and then come back for three more. The rain hasn’t let up and it’s for shit out there.”
“That’s very nice of you, Guy,” Max said. What else could either of us say? Guy was being so agreeable. He was the ultimate manipulator—you couldn’t even see him doing it. He didn’t even insist on taking me first.
“How about if I leave Dolores with you and start with the family?”
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll go over to sit with her.” What else could we do? It would be impolite to leave her there all alone.
Max and I took our drinks and went over to the booth. We didn’t have much to say to each other with Dolores as chaperone. Maybe that’s just what Guy had planned.
When Guy came back to get us, he was all flushed from the cool wind. He loved taking charge, just like that night at the Figtree in Wellesley. At the car, he opened the front door for me and tried to stick Max in the back with Dolores.
“Max is too tall for the back. He should sit in front,” I said.
“It’s okay,” Max said.
“No it isn’t.” I insisted that he take the front seat. He and Guy made small talk on the way back to the inn where Max was staying. The rain was letting up. When Max got out of the car and waved goodbye, I told Dolores to get into the front. Guy looked back at me. He obviously thought that the seat beside his was my rightful place.
Too bad I didn’t want it.