She was one of them. She was still there, yes? She smoothed her shaking hands down the thick silk bunched around her waist, to feel herself. Alive. She downed a mimosa—the citrus tang and bubbles heavenly as it glided down her throat. She remembered her favorite Oprah quote—she wouldn’t dare admit it to Maddie. Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping-stone to greatness. The Champagne bubbles gone to her head, she tried to remember her mission. Exactly what was she trying so hard not to fail at?
She reached the end of the dessert table, passed the marbled cheesecake and etched crystal bowl filled with tiramisu, and there was Maddie. Pretty in a pink sundress. With her beau, Brooks. The two lovers were Veronica’s only remaining mission. She’d make certain her granddaughter was safe and happy before the island fell to pieces.
The little Marshall girl was holding Maddie’s hand, all dressed up in a flowery frock with a full skirt. A yellow satin ribbon tied around her waist.
“Darling,” Veronica cooed. “You are the prettiest lady in this entire room.”
The girl—Eva was her name, Veronica remembered—smiled, ducking her head shyly, rocking side to side so the skirt of her dress twirled.
The sight of Julius refilled her high.
“Oh! I was so hoping you’d be here today.”
“Ms. Veronica.”
He laughed quietly, the dimple in his cheek showing. Then he raised his eyebrows and checked to see if anyone had noticed. Was she being too loud? Who cared!
“There’s no time for subtleties anymore, I’m afraid. The clock is ticking,” She looped her arm through his and dragged him from the dessert table toward the center of the room—the laid-down dance floor where guests mingled in groups, sipping cocktails and nibbling puff pastry. Playing make believe, she thought, pretending the island wasn’t on the edge of DEFCON 1. “Tick, tick, tick!” she sang brightly.
“Um,” Julius began to protest, looking back at his little girl.
“Oh, nonsense. Maddie will watch her.” She called over her shoulder, “Won’t you dear?”
“Of course, Grandmother,” Maddie said.
Julius stumbled to keep up with Veronica.
“The theme of the day is ‘whatever,’ dear Julius! Which reminds me. I have a message for Leslie.”
She pulled him into a quiet corner, where an enormous ice sculpture in the shape of an F4F Wildcat poised ready to land on a platter piled with empty oyster shells.
“My Leslie?” He looked confused.
“Yes, silly! What other Leslie do we have in common?”
He glanced around and she realized he was searching for his wife now. Poor Julius, he felt the bad news coming.
“You tell Leslie,” she paused. “Our Leslie, that the war is over.”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Mrs. Pencott … if you wait here, I’ll go find her.”
“No need. We’ve already flown the white flag. We’ve surrendered! Grudder is no longer. Now it’s Tangeman Grudder. And my time here is finished.”
She was ready, finally, to confess. Tell someone she was dead. Then she saw how scared the big man was. Understood that Leslie had kept him in the dark all this time.
“You do know why you’re here, don’t you?” she asked, speaking slowly because he seemed suddenly childlike in his confusion. “Why Leslie brought you here? Why she came back to the island?”
He shook his head. As if, she thought, he was dizzy.
“Never mind,” she said. “Now, where is Clara Friedrich? That stuck-up … Thinks she knows all there is to know about roses. You need to teach her a thing or two.”
“Um, okay,” he said tentatively. Like he feared she might be mocking him, Veronica thought. “I did do a three-month research fellowship on hybrids at the Smithsonian Botanical Institute.…”
“Of course you did!” Veronica squeezed his arm, drawing him closer. This handsome, brilliant man. This—what was it she’d heard Maddie say—clueless man. She wouldn’t rain on his parade. Not today, at what she knew would be her last visit to the stuffy Oyster Cove Country Club. Good riddance. “You are a genius and it’s time we spread some of that wisdom around, don’t you think? Sowed it like seeds, yes? If you can forgive the pun.”
“If you say so, Mrs. Pencott.”
“Please, dear. When will you ever start calling me Veronica?”
He bowed his head and whispered in her ear, “Veronica.”
His warm breath made her clip-on pearl earring wobble and she knew that, in a past life, in a different body, a different time and place, she could’ve swooned for this man.
“Oh, there’s Clara.” She pointed at the table where boiled shrimp hung on the edge of a massive carved ice bowl. “She won last year’s blue ribbon at the annual Avalon Flower Festival.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Everyone knows she broke the contest rules and used some experimental fertilizer from China. Those American Beauties didn’t get that way all on their own. No sirree! Let’s go show her a thing or two.”
She pulled Julius forward, calling, “Clara, dear! I have someone you must meet.”
32.
Jules
He had eaten five lobster tails, using the same technique that had worked so well at the progressive dinner party. Keeping his mouth full so he only had to nod and lift his eyebrows in agreement when one after another old biddy greeted him, asked how he was enjoying his first clambake. He nodded and smiled and stuffed his face with shellfish, sausage, and corn baked in a potato sack deep in the sand under layers of seaweed and hot stones, so it was salty, like he was eating the sea itself. But he couldn’t enjoy anything really, not when he was worried about Brooks. Waiting for the right moment to pull his son aside and ask what the hell was going on.
And now the old woman, Veronica, had taken him hostage. He had no idea what she was talking about. Messages for Leslie. Something about the factory. Her creepy predictions, like she was a witch crystal-gazing. Things are about to change.
It was her warning that had unnerved him most. Be careful, Julius. Nothing is as it seems on the island. Especially when at war. Now he understood—the woman was demented. The country had been at peace since the end of the Gulf War. But as she pulled him around the dining room, like a new pet she wanted to show off, her congested breath rattling, the atmosphere in the room changed. The women spooning globs of chocolate mousse and creamy tiramisu, the men dropping shots of whiskey into mugs of beer with a foamy splash, suddenly, they seemed to Jules, desperate and famished and scared.
He and Leslie had fought back at the Castle. Why should he go to the Fourth of July party, he’d asked, when she’d only ignore him, sashay from guest to guest, leaving him to trail after little Eva and make sure she didn’t pull down a tablecloth covered in Bellini-filled flutes. Another Leslie Day Marshall schmooze-fest, he’d said, and Brooks had snorted, which, Jules knew, could’ve meant allegiance or insult. Or both.
Leslie called him passive-aggressive.
He called her a narcissist.
Brooks called them both downers.
Eva cried.
In the end, he’d ironed the seersucker suit he’d worn the night of the progressive dinner party, even sprinkled baby powder over a wine stain, a trick his mom had shown him.