Eleanor sits down next to Tabitha, sips her champagne, then starts to cry. “Your father is gone,” she says. “He’s dead.”
Ainsley leans forward. “Did you love him, Grammie?” She seems genuinely interested.
“With all my heart,” Eleanor says. “I met your grandfather on December 22, 1967. He was my cousin Rhonda’s date to my parents’ annual Christmas party at the country club. Rhonda showed up stoned, and my parents made her leave.” Eleanor closes her eyes, and Ainsley can feel her transporting herself to another time, back when people went to parties in horse-drawn carriages. “Your grandfather stayed, and we danced all night.”
“That sounds romantic,” Ainsley says.
“And you know who else I love?” Eleanor says. “Your aunt Harper. I’ve missed her desperately.”
“Really?” Ainsley says, delighted.
“No,” Tabitha says. “That’s the champagne talking.”
Eleanor reaches across Tabitha to lay a hand on Ainsley’s knee. “Here’s the secret to all human relationships,” she says. “We humans want what we don’t have. Harper went with Billy, and I’ve longed for her ever since.”
“Mother!” Tabitha says. “That is simply not true.”
“You aren’t privy to the secrets of my innermost heart,” Eleanor says.
“Aunt Harper is so cool,” Ainsley says. “But I’m not talking about how she dresses, obviously.”
Eleanor nods. “Her ensemble today was a travesty. I’m going to send her some inventory tomorrow.” She turns to Tabitha. “What size are you, dear?”
“I’m a size four, Mother,” Tabitha says. “You know I’m a size four.”
“I’m going to send Harper twos,” Eleanor says. “She looked a little thinner than you.”
“It’s just that she acts cool,” Ainsley says. “She’s chill. By which I mean the opposite of uptight.”
Tabitha can’t believe she’s hearing this. Eleanor has been pining for Harper ever since Harper left with Billy? That is revisionist history at its most interesting. Tabitha knows for a fact that Harper used to go visit Eleanor regularly in Boston, although she probably hasn’t been since the ghastly drug bust. But still, it’s hardly as though they’ve been kept from each other. The champagne is turning Eleanor into something from Lady Sings the Blues. And Ainsley thinks Harper is chill? Harper is cool? Did Ainsley miss the part of the reception when the wife of Harper’s lover—who also happened to be Billy’s doctor—slapped Tabitha across the face, mistakenly believing it was Harper? Is it cool to be called a tramp? It’s possible that Ainsley doesn’t realize the quagmire Harper got herself into three years ago, delivering three pounds of cocaine to a landscaping client. Harper should rightly have gone to prison. They should be going to visit her at Framingham instead of Martha’s Vineyard. Would that be chill? Ainsley may not realize that her aunt now delivers packages for a living. She didn’t get hired by UPS or FedEx because she had no decent references, so instead she works for a local operation called Rooster Express. Billy had shown Tabitha a picture of Harper on his phone: Harper was wearing a red collared shirt and a baseball cap emblazoned with an offensively grinning bird. The job is not chill. It is not cool. Harper’s life is a shit show. If Tabitha is the only person here who can see that, then fine.
Tabitha goes to stand by the window and gaze at the water, which is probably a mistake because the feelings of intense self-reflection return. Billy is dead. Everyone assumes that Harper is the only one who feels this loss, but Tabitha is grieving as well. He was her father, too. She wasn’t present for his illness; she wasn’t at his bedside the way Harper was, but still Tabitha aches. One more person who was related to Julian is dead. During his annual visits to Nantucket, Billy accompanied Tabitha to the cemetery to place flowers on Julian’s grave every August 15, the anniversary of the day Julian died. They would bow their heads, and Billy would say a simple prayer and squeeze Tabitha’s hand until she thought it would break. “He’s with my mother in heaven,” Billy would say. “She’s taking care of him. You can count on that.” Tabitha had never been particularly religious, but the ritual of going to the cemetery with Billy had comforted her as nothing else had.
Have you ever lost anyone? Tabitha has now lost her father.
And Harper, Tabitha admits to herself. Seeing her sister today was a trial. Years of anger and hatred had blanketed the truth, which lay underneath like a sediment, nearly disguised but not quite. Tabitha lost her best friend, her sister, her twin.
Did Tabitha remember the way Harper used to ride on her back when she was a pony? Of course. Tabitha remembers a lot more than that. She remembers their switching classes at Winsor—Tabitha would double up on art, Harper on English. She remembers them both candy-striping at the Brigham, intentionally confusing senile Mrs. Lawton—Tabitha would walk out one door at the same time Harper walked in another—and giving themselves side stitches from laughing so hard. She remembers summer camp at Wyonegonic and how the other girls thought Tabitha and Harper would hate each other, as the twins in The Parent Trap did, but they had been best friends, inseparable. They waited together in their bathing caps at the end of the dock before diving into freezing-cold Moose Pond in perfect tandem. They paddled together in the canoe, Tabitha in the stern, Harper in the bow. Tabitha would steer; Harper added power. They lined up side by side in archery, their bows poised exactly the same way.
She remembers rock, paper, scissors and Harper rolling away with Billy, leaving Tabitha behind to suffer through a future of living up to Eleanor’s impossibly high standards. Tabitha had waved good-bye, standing on the brick sidewalk in front of the house on Pinckney Street, but Harper hadn’t bothered waving back; she had been too busy fiddling with the radio.
Tabitha remembers Harper showing up on Nantucket to help Tabitha take care of Julian.
Tabitha stops herself there.
When they get home, there’s a brown box sitting on the front porch of the carriage house. It’s Ainsley’s new phone, which cost Tabitha seven hundred dollars, making it more punishing to Tabitha than to Ainsley.
“My phone!” Ainsley shrieks, and she jumps out of the FJ40—which still smells like cigarettes—while it’s moving.
Tabitha slams on the brakes. She tries to remind Ainsley that she is grounded from her phone until Friday. But there will be no taking it away from her now. Or, rather, Tabitha can take it away, but it will no doubt involve a physical fight in which Tabitha may well get struck for the second time. She isn’t up for it.