That evening I went to see Isabelle. She had a summer cold and was bundled up in a large chair. She had a box of tissues nestled in her lap. Jimmy was waiting on her, but she kept waving her hand at him and telling him to go out with his friends.
It took both of us to convince him, but finally Jimmy got ready to go.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said.
Isabelle smiled.
“Fine, fine,” she said. As soon as he was out the door, she said, “He’s a good kid, that Jimmy.”
“You’ve done a good job.”
She shrugged.
“I’m not sure that I had much to do with it. Kids are what they are. I’ve been lucky.” She paused. “Listen, Jane, I’m glad you came by. I have something I need to tell you.” I waited. “I hear you’ve been seeing a lot of Guy Callow. There’s talk on the island that you’re a couple.”
“Who would bother to talk about me?”
“Everyone talks about everyone. That’s not the point. Is it true? Are you and Guy a couple? I would have thought you’d say something to me, but you were always pretty closemouthed about that sort of thing.”
“We are not a couple. First, I don’t really like him, and second, he used to be Miranda’s boyfriend. I’ve never even slept with him.” I felt a little guilty saying this, since I’d come so close, but the fact was, I hadn’t slept with him and had no intention of sleeping with him. In this day and age, how much of a couple could that be?
“You don’t like him?” Isabelle looked incredulous.
“Not much.”
“But he likes you.”
“That may be, but if you want to know the truth, he’s a thorn in my side. He’s always where I don’t want him to be. I don’t know what he wants from me, but I think whatever it is, he’s getting a little desperate. I used to think he was just a benign annoyance, but today he showed up in town and insisted we’d made a plan for lunch when I knew we hadn’t, and then, right in front of everyone, he said that I must have been drunk—that’s why I didn’t remember.”
“Oh God,” Isabelle said. “Thank God you finally told me. It makes this easier. That Guy, that manipulating little prick, is the Guy Callow I know.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I thought he might have changed, that something good might be happening for you and I didn’t want to ruin it.”
Isabelle moved in close to me and peered into my eyes.
“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m trying to see if you’re telling the truth, if you really have no feelings for Guy.”
I appreciated that she was trying to read me, but I’d be grateful if she would keep her cold to herself.
“Why would I lie? I never lie.”
“That’s true, you never do—not about the important things.”
That was true. I didn’t lie about the important things, but I had told Winnie that her painted pottery was beautiful.
“Anyway, where are you getting all this information?” I asked.
“From the girl who works for the Buffingtons.”
“I still don’t see why anyone would care.”
“You wouldn’t.” She sneezed into a tissue. “You’re fairly well known on the island. Not just because your family has had a house here for so long. People like you, Jane. They know you from the Review and you’re a bit of a celebrity. You’ve been single all these years and now this absolutely breathtaking man is hitting on you—people are talking.”
“Whatever,” I said. “It’s silly.”
“So you really aren’t in love with him?”
“Isabelle, do you want me to write it out in blood?”
“Okay, then this is what I want to tell you: it’s about Jimmy’s father.” In all these years, she’d never said anything about Jimmy’s father, and I was afraid now that she was going to reveal that it was Guy Callow, that he’d been the man who’d impregnated her, then left her with a child to support.
“Guy?” I asked. I must have looked like a wide-eyed caricature of surprise, because Isabelle started to laugh almost uncontrollably. When she caught her breath, she continued. “No, of course not. Jimmy’s father is named John Boyd. Guy was his best friend. We spent a lot of time together, the three of us. John and I were in love—you know, the way you are with first love—nothing else matters. This was just after Guy and your sister, but before the supermodel. When I got pregnant with Jimmy, John asked me to marry him. John came from an old Virginia family. His father was in politics and John was slated for politics too.
“John’s parents, with the help of Guy, talked John into walking away from the ‘whole mess.’ John’s parents paid Guy to talk John out of marrying me. That was the money Guy used to go to Europe. They said that marrying me would ruin John’s life—and it might have—the life they’d planned for him.”
“How did you find out about this?” I asked.
“From John—years later. He’d gotten sober and was doing something called ‘amends.’ He was going around to all the people he had harmed and apologizing. He came to the island and cut a substantial check for back child support. I had never taken him to court. I couldn’t. I was so ashamed. Not because I got pregnant, but because he didn’t love me, not the way I loved him.”
Isabelle sat back and blew her nose.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I asked.
“Aren’t there important things you haven’t told me? We’re both the type of people who tell things when we’re ready, when we think it’s time. Maybe that’s why we get on so well.”
“Where’s John now?” I asked.
“He’s a state senator in Virginia. Married with two kids. And this is the part I have to tell you so you’ll know exactly what kind of man Guy Callow is. Every time Guy needed money—before he ran into Ooh-Lala—he tapped John. It was an insidious sort of thing. He’d ask John for a loan, knowing that he couldn’t refuse. There was always an implied threat that Guy would tell his secret. John told me this—almost in passing. It was so long ago, and after Ooh-Lala, Guy didn’t need him anymore.”
“What do you think Guy wants with us?” I asked. I could hardly breathe.
“From what I hear, he is really crazy about you, Jane.”
“That’s ridiculous. Does he know about our ‘reduced circumstances’?” I asked.
“Honey, the Fortunes in reduced circumstances live better than ninety-nine percent of the population—but that’s not it. He has money. He’s not interested in your money.”
“Then what?”
“He’s written a novel.”
“What?” I was having trouble taking this in. Wasn’t this the man who said that writing was dead or soon would be? Maybe his novel would be the thing that would ultimately kill it.
“He has money, but what he doesn’t have is fame. Guy Callow, even when we were in our twenties, always wanted a fast and famous sort of life.”
“Why has he been hanging around me, then?” I asked.
“You don’t get it, Jane, do you? You never have. If you were to put your stamp of approval on his novel, you could get it published. You could take him from obscurity into the limelight.”
“I doubt that very much,” I said.
“You could,” she insisted.
“Not if the novel isn’t any good,” I said.
“Even if it’s marginal, you could. And if he were married to you, the door to that world would be open to him, and that’s what he wants.”
“I don’t even live in that literary world,” I said.
“But you could. All you’d have to do is accept a few more invitations.”
I smiled. “Well, you and Guy have thought it out much more completely than I ever could.”
I remembered, in Vermont, thinking that if Lindsay married Max, she could walk into his world. It had never occurred to me that someone would want to walk into mine.
The evening was chilly.
“You warm enough?” I asked Isabelle.
“I’m okay. You?”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. Despite Isabelle’s cold and her rumpled tissues, I sat on the arm of her chair. “Thanks for this.”
“You’re very welcome.” She paused and looked toward the window. “God, Jane, I’d better go to bed. I feel like shit.”
“I’ll take you up.”
“I can manage on my own.”
“But the thing is,” I said, “you don’t have to.”