“Oh, Felicia! You’re such a Manhattanite,” Palmer says with yet another charming giggle. “Aunt Cis doesn’t have a shrink. She’s a New Englander!”
“She needs one. I’m sorry but there’s dedication and there’s obsession and your mother’s flown past both. She wouldn’t talk to me for a month after I refused to get married at the house.”
“Well, that’s your own fault,” Bess says. “You were already on shaky ground after buying that place in the Hamptons.”
“Oh God, the ‘eschewing of Nantucket’ garbage!” Flick throws her head back. “I spent an hour explaining that I needed something closer to the city since I work approximately all of the damned time. Anyway, we have Tea Time. And here I am. Back. Getting married on-island and therefore not eschewing.”
“Sorry excuse,” Bess says with a smirk. “You could’ve at least gotten married at her house to compensate for the injustice. But instead you’re ‘mocking her.’”
“Yes. What was I thinking? Oh, that’s right. I wanted my wedding venue to still exist when the guests showed up. Well, my dear cousin,” Flick says, and taps Bess’s hand. “All your mother’s kvetching about the ‘hundreds of weddings’ on the lawn, and your marriage to Brandon will end up being the last.”
“Felicia!” Palmer chirps as a tremor runs across her flawless face.
“I meant the last marriage at Cliff House,” Flick hastily adds. “Not, you know, for you. Unless you want it to be.”
“It’s fine.” Bess waves her away.
Suddenly a phone on the counter buzzes—Flick’s, no doubt. Palmer always forgets to turn hers on or bring it in from the car. Messages collect for days before she thinks to check them.
“Shit,” Flick says, studying the screen. “Oh fuck me. I knew I should’ve stayed a full week at the office. I’m working on this convertible debt offering…”
She punches in a number and then holds up a finger to “shush” Bess and Palmer, though Flick is the only one talking.
“The board says what?” she asks before stepping out onto the patio. “I thought they already approved it!”
The door swooshes behind her as Palmer turns to Bess.
“I’d apologize,” she says. “But you know Felicia.”
“Yep.” Bess smiles. “That’s your sister, through and through.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
For a moment Bess feels an undeniable ache, that of missing her own sister, or what her sister should’ve been. Bess has never been as close to Lala as she’s been to Palmer. Or Felicia for that matter. Never as close in terms of miles, or years, or even heart. She loves Little Julia, sweet Lala, but the seven-year gap sometimes seems like an entire generation. And in many ways it is. Bess certainly didn’t have a phone in her backpack when she was in high school. She knows how to write in cursive.
“So how are you, Bessie?” Palmer asks, forehead rising in concern. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yes, I’m doing okay. Just barely.”
Bess gives a tight smile as she fiddles with a blue-striped dish towel.
“Is … is it still true?” Palmer asks as she leans forward. “The … ya know?” She lifts her eyebrows three times. “The people?”
“You mean the hookers?” Bess asks. “Yup. That still cannot be undone.”
Palmer gulps, as if hearing it for the first time. Her face goes even paler than porcelain, just this side of blue.
“It’s still so shocking,” she says.
Bess nods as she pulls her cardigan snug around herself. It’s hard to fathom he’s the same Brandon she fell for those six or so years ago.
They met at a party. Bess can’t remember at whose house, but there were purple rugs and floor-to-ceiling mirrors involved. She spotted Brandon across the seventies-era monstrosity, he dorky-hot with his wavy sun-streaked hair, stone cheekbones, and black glasses. He’d spotted her in return and within seconds sidled up.
They chatted as young unattached people do—who are you, what do you do, who will you be—and then Brandon stopped short. He stared at Bess, curiously, as if someone had asked him to opine on a movie with decidedly mixed reviews.
“Well, nice to meet you, Brandon…” she stuttered, and began to back away.
“Wait.”
He placed a hand on her forearm. Even today she remembers being surprised by the strength of his grip.
“This is going to sound silly,” he said. “But coming to talk to you was calculated.”
“Uh, what now?”
“I had to see for myself. I figured you couldn’t be as smart as you are beautiful. Then I thought, well, okay, she’s smart and beautiful, but she can’t possibly be as cool as she is those two things. But, I was wrong.”
“Um?” Bess said, blinking. “Thanks?”
He’d tease her about this later, mostly in front of other people.
I made this big romantic gesture, if I do say so myself. And she answered “um.”
“One day,” he said after Bess’s fabulous display of graciousness. “One day, probably within the year, I’m going to ask you to marry me. You’ll say yes because you and I, we’re meant to be.”
Brandon was decisive like that, one of the things Bess appreciated most about him. Usually when Bess acted with such resolve it resulted in some sort of calamity.
“We will get married, Beth,” he said.
“Bess,” she told him.
“Either way.” He shrugged. “Within the year.”
After a great, long pause Bess replied deftly: “Okay.”
Brandon took this as advance acceptance of his future proposal. A preapproval, if you will. Alas, Bess would never be sure what she meant by her reply. “Okay.” It’s what you say when you lack real words.
“I’ll get over it,” Bess says, to herself as much as to her cousin. “One day it will all be a bad dream.”
Palmer doesn’t nod. She’s not buying it, not yet.
Outside, the winds are beginning to pick up, the drizzle turning to hard rain. Thank God the vote is tonight, because with every gust it feels like Cliff House is one inch closer to the end.
But the vote is tonight.
Which means it’s Tuesday and then it will be Wednesday. If she were to look at her calendar, Bess would see all of tomorrow blocked off. She still hasn’t canceled her appointment, but it’s not a matter of simply rescheduling. Suddenly Bess wants to leap on the next plane. Or straight off the Sankaty Bluff.
“So, I’m going to change the subject,” Bess says, stomach wobbling and turning.
“Understood.”
Palmer gives her an ardent thumbs-up.
“Is everything set for the wedding?” Bess asks.
“Just about!”
Her cousin perks at once. Really, it’s downright rude to talk to Palmer Bradlee about anything other than cake and tulle. Not that she can’t handle it; it just doesn’t seem right.
“Lala’s sorry she can’t make it,” Bess says. “Flights from Sudan are hard to come by.”
“At least Clay and Tiffany are coming!”
“You act like that’s a good thing.”
“Bess!”
“I love Clay. But Tiffany…” Bess rolls her eyes. “Luckily it’s only for the day.”
Tick, tick, tick, says the clock in her mind.
“You’d think by pregnancy number three,” Bess goes on, “Tiff wouldn’t be so dramatic. People do give birth around here. We have a legit hospital on Nantucket, believe it or not.”