The FBI? Ainsley thinks. Her aunt is way more interesting than Ainsley realized.
“I didn’t corrupt any child,” Harper says. “The ‘child’ in question was already plenty corrupted when I encountered him. Ann-Lane can stick a Pop-Tart up her ass. And I can assure you she will not be at this reception. Unless you invited her. Did you invite her?”
“No,” Eleanor says.
“Who is Ann-Lane?” Ainsley asks.
“A busybody,” Harper says.
“My roommate,” Eleanor says. “From Pine Manor.”
There is a loaded silence, during which Harper’s driving becomes markedly more aggressive. She honks her horn and flips people off. By way of explanation she says, “It’s so early in the season that the taxi drivers don’t know where they’re going. They’re accidents waiting to happen.”
“So,” Tabitha says, leaning forward. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“You haven’t said boo to me in fourteen years,” Harper says. “And now you want me to answer personal questions?” She puts on her turn signal and makes a left down a long driveway bordered on both sides by white fencing. The sign says: FARM NECK GOLF CLUB. PRIVATE.
“We’re here,” Harper says. She seeks Ainsley’s eyes out in the mirror again. “This was your grandfather’s favorite place on the island. Farm Neck.”
“This is private?” Eleanor asks.
“Yes, Mommy.”
“How did your father manage to get in?”
“He knew people. Unfortunately, you can’t pass the membership on. This died with Billy, but we get to use it one last time.”
“I didn’t even know Gramps golfed,” Ainsley says.
“He was an abominable golfer,” Eleanor says. “He downright embarrassed himself at the country club with my father in 1968, the summer we were married.”
“He was a better drinker than a golfer,” Harper says. “I’ll agree with you there. Made him popular in a foursome. Everyone could beat him, and he told good stories at the clubhouse.”
“Please don’t glorify alcohol consumption in front of my daughter,” Tabitha says.
Ainsley rolls her eyes.
Harper parks the Bronco, then hurries around to help Eleanor out. When they are all standing in the parking lot, Harper holds her arms akimbo. She looks off balance, like she might topple over. “Welcome to Farm Neck,” Harper says.
The grounds of the club are pretty. There’s a line of golf carts, some with bags of clubs in the back, and there’s a putting green by the front entrance. The air smells like cut grass and french fries. Ainsley marvels that Billy managed to belong to a private club when she knows that both Eleanor and Tabitha have been languishing on the list at the Nantucket Yacht Club for nearly a decade.
“Obama played here,” Harper says. “And Clinton.”
“I wouldn’t advertise that,” Eleanor says.
The reception is being held in a tent off the side of the clubhouse, and although it’s a much smaller affair than Ainsley anticipated, it’s still very nice. The tent is decorated with white lanterns and potted plants; there are high-top tables scattered throughout, and a waitress holds a tray of champagne flutes filled to the brim, greeting people as they walk in. There’s an easel holding a picture of Ainsley’s grandfather in his later years, after he’d lost his wire-rimmed glasses and his white patent leather belt. In this photo, he’s on a boat. He wears a visor, his face is tan and weather-beaten, and he’s holding up a striped bass. Above the photograph, it says: REMEMBERING WILLIAM O’SHAUGHNESSY FROST, APRIL 13, 1944–JUNE 16, 2017. There’s a table beneath the easel on which rest blank name tags and a Sharpie marker.
“Are we doing name tags?” Ainsley asks her mother.
“Heavens, no,” Tabitha says. She lifts a flute of champagne off the tray. “Hello, gorgeous.”
The waitress seems to think Tabitha is speaking to her instead of to the champagne. “Harper?” she says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear heels before.”
“I’m not Harper,” Tabitha says. “I’m her twin sister, Tabitha.”
“Seriously?” the waitress says.
Ainsley picks up a name tag and writes: BILLY’S GRANDDAUGHTER, but she doesn’t leave enough room for granddaughter, so she has to crumple it up and start over. She affixes the name tag to the front of her black Milly butterfly-sleeve dress. The tent is hot; she’s going to melt. She wishes she’d worn something more summery, but Tabitha and Eleanor had insisted on black. They are the only people who dressed up. Everyone else is in regular daytime clothes. There is a group of men in golf shirts, a couple of middle-aged women in slacks and comfortable shoes, and a frosted-blond woman of “a certain age” wearing a Lilly Pulitzer sundress and sandals.
Harper is over in the far corner of the tent talking to a policeman, and for a second Ainsley wonders if her aunt is in trouble. But then Ainsley sees tender gestures. First the officer touches Harper’s cheek, then the two of them start kissing. If Eleanor sees them, she’ll have a conniption fit; she deplores public displays of affection, and although Eleanor isn’t blatantly racist, she is old-fashioned. She calls black people Negroes, no matter how many times both Ainsley and Tabitha have informed her that the term is not acceptable. Will Eleanor care that Harper is kissing a black policeman in front of the assembled guests? Was that the reason Harper deflected Tabitha’s question about whether she was seeing anyone?
Eleanor and Tabitha are busy signing the guest book, each with a glass of champagne in hand, and they don’t notice Harper and the policeman going gangbusters in the corner.
Ainsley misses Teddy. She feels a dull pain—like her heart has a cramp—when she thinks about Teddy with Emma.
Finally Harper pulls away. The policeman strolls out of the tent past Ainsley, close enough for her to hear the static of his walkie-talkie and smell his aftershave. He’s cute. He’s young, possibly closer to Ainsley’s age than her aunt’s. Go, Aunt Harper! Ainsley thinks. Tabitha broke up with Ramsay, which is another reason Ainsley hates her mother. She brought Ramsay into Ainsley’s life, encouraged her to love him—and Ainsley did love Ramsay very much—then she gave him the boot. Now Tabitha jokes about taking a younger lover. She jokes about the guy who teaches surfing lessons at Cisco Beach and about Mr. Bly, Ainsley’s chemistry teacher. Every time Tabitha brings it up, Ainsley thinks: Ew. But thinking about her aunt dating a policeman does not inspire the same distaste.
Tabitha could never catch or keep a guy that young and hot, Ainsley thinks, despite the fact that she and Harper are identical twins. Tabitha is too stuck up and absolutely no fun.
Harper speaks to the gentlemen in golf shirts. She says something that makes them laugh, then she approaches Ainsley.