When Ruby was young, a local boy told her about the curse of the sea. Mother scoffed at the legend as she cuddled a sobbing, shaky daughter in her pink-walled room. Those stories were for the whalers, Sarah said, and the fishermen. Her daddy dealt in rubbers and plastics. There’d be no curse with them.
The sea carried with it many misfortunes, that much was true. But man himself caused a few tragedies as well. Yes, Topper, it was a helluva summer. The parties. The sunshine. The golf. All that, and the last days of peace.
33
Thursday Morning
It’s hazy, blustery. Bess again has sand in her teeth and on her skin, a sign she’s at Cliff House all right. In ranking cold and windswept places, San Francisco has nothing on Sconset.
And as far as being at Cliff House goes, this morning Bess is all alone. Cissy is off rabble-rousing and pot-stirring in anticipation of the town meeting tonight. Where she is and when she might be home Bess doesn’t bother to speculate. When she staggered out of bed at seven, Cissy had long since flown the coop.
After two hours boxing and bagging and tossing, Bess needed a break. Which is why she is now tromping down Baxter Road in the gloom as her face stings, her teeth chatter, and drizzle collects in a damp sheen on her windbreaker.
It’s about a mile to the post office, a brisk walk, a bit of exercise, a chance to clear her mind as well as the dust from her lungs. Bess will grab a muffin at the market, or some coffee, or a breakfast sandwich from Claudette’s. The weird thing about pregnancy, and residing on a cliff, is that constant sense of being simultaneously nauseated and outright famished. Half the time Bess can’t decide if she’s hungry or about to puke.
Despite the weather, Bess isn’t the only one walking Baxter Road—she never is—and between the admiring of homes and exchanging hellos with other pedestrians, her mind stays if not fixed on Evan, at least flirting with him greatly. Never has a person been so wound up by a kiss that didn’t happen on the lips.
She’s thinking so much about the guy, that when Bess sees him get out of a car in front of the market, it’s as though she’s conjured him from the mist.
“Ev—!” she starts to yell.
A woman exits the driver’s side. Bess lets out an involuntary gasp and then trips over a curb. Three quick strides later, she finds herself squatting behind a rack crammed with bikes. Bess Codman, the world’s least stealthy spy. Within seconds even little kids are clucking about her behavior.
No matter. Evan and his companion haven’t noticed, and so Bess retains her stakeout.
This woman, she’s in a pair of skinny jeans, a red baseball cap, and a navy and gray Nantucket High School sweatshirt. A Whalers hoodie isn’t exactly early-in-a-relationship attire, Bess notes with irritation. She looks to be about Bess’s age, or older, and is attractive though not alarmingly so.
At first the woman’s reasonable appearance is a relief. This is not the sexy Costa Rican. On the other hand—what the hell? Bess can compete with that—absent the pregnancy and Evan’s stance on “repeating mistakes,” of course. Why can’t he be with some twenty-two-year-old scientist-model hybrid? Out of Bess’s league would be much easier to take. There is exactly no justice in this world, she decides.
Not that Bess has any romantic interest in Evan Mayhew. It’s all just “in theory.” Another chapter for her fake Nantucket novel, her extremely fictional fiction.
Outside the market (“Fancy Groceries, Deli Meats,” the sign promises), Evan puts a hand at the woman’s back and leads her inside the store. This is quaint, way too quaint. Bess drops an f-bomb, much to her own surprise.
Bess waits. Her heart is thrumming. She moves when people need to retrieve their bikes.
“Just stretching my lower back,” she mumbles to someone, who doesn’t believe her at all.
Finally, Evan and the Ball Cap exit the store, carrying multiple bags. Bess crab-walks closer but can only make out a tube of salami, two baguettes, and what she hopes is sparkling water. The makings of a picnic, if Bess were to guess. How delightful for a Thursday morning. Don’t these people need to work?
He takes the woman’s bag. They’ve come in her car, a wagon of sorts. No wonder Bess didn’t recognize it. As Evan relieves her of her load, she gives him this look, like he’s just plucked a rainbow from the sky and looped it around her neck. Bess can’t blame Ball Cap one goddamned bit. It’s the exact way she looked at him last night.
And just like that, both doors slam shut and they drive away. A burp rises in Bess’s throat. She spits on the ground.
Bess’s knees crack and sting as she rises to standing. Some dude in yellow spandex scowls in her direction. She’s been holding on to his bike and he makes a big show of unlocking it. Words cannot express how little Bess wants his toy. With a muttered and quarter-hearted apology, Bess turns and heads back up Baxter Road.
She’s forgotten about the possible coffee and food, the things that seemed so appealing only half an hour before. Bess kicks the road as she shuffles along. She’s mad at Evan, or mad at her situation, who knows. In Sconset, it’s hard to remember that sometimes people get on with their lives. Tears prick at Bess’s eyes, or maybe it’s only the sand. Either way, it’s back to Cliff House for Bess. Back to wrapping up and plowing forward. Here’s to new beginnings. Here’s to new mistakes.
34
Thursday Afternoon
“Forty-six,” Bess counts. “Forty-seven.”
Forty-seven pieces of workaday dinnerware are spread out before her. Bess suspects they hold no inherent market value, but they’re her grandmother’s, so what then? Everything in the whole house was Ruby’s first, adding a layer of meaning to dishes and tchotchkes and everyday junk. She’s starting to think there are only two answers to the Cliff House problem. Keep everything, or throw it all away.
Be reasonable, Grandma Ruby would say.
Maybe Cissy’s right. Bess has lost her solid New England sense. But she’s knocked up, almost divorced, and living in San Francisco, so good luck getting it back.
As she remains befuddled by the sheer amount of stuff, Bess’s stomach roars. With the morning’s aborted failed coffee-and-muffin mission, Bess’s entire sustenance that day has consisted of two handfuls of almonds found in the kitchen. And they were stale, softer than nuts should be. She refuses to eat Cissy’s peaches and Brie.
The doorbell rings. The sound is so unexpected, Bess wonders if it’s merely the internal clang of her own exhaustion. Lord knows Cissy doesn’t have visitors these days. Gone are the bridge games and tennis matches and drinks on the veranda. After all, it’s hard to play tennis without a court, difficult to lounge on a smattering of bricks.
The bell rings again. Bess goes to answer it.
“Oh!” she exclaims, both tickled and peeved when she wrenches open the sand-and-salt-stripped door. “Evan! Hi!”
He smiles in return, a tray of coffee balanced in his left hand, a white bag clutched in his right. Suddenly she remembers that Evan Mayhew is a lefty. It’s why he made a choice first baseman back in the day, according to Cis anyway. Bess just thought he looked hot in those pants.