You’re right, Ramsay, she thinks. I’m a piss-poor parent. I crumble like a day-old cookie every time.
She watches Ainsley disappear into the carriage house with the box. Tabitha continues down the long white-shell driveway to her mother’s house, Seamless—a 4,500-square-foot edifice with three floors, six bedrooms, six and a half baths, and a glassed-in porch that perches on the edge of a cliff, offering uninterrupted views of Nantucket Sound. Tabitha has always assumed that someday this house will be hers—as well as the town house on Pinckney Street—although lately Eleanor has been dodgy about money. The ERF boutique on Newbury Street folded the year before, and Eleanor must have sustained a hit to her finances and her ego, although she was predictably stoic about both. Tabitha has always assumed that Eleanor is sitting on a comfortable cushion of cash, but obviously it wasn’t enough to save the flagship store. The Nantucket store will be the next to sink—short of a miracle—despite Tabitha’s efforts to diversify the inventory. The Palm Beach store is just fine because… well, because the clientele in Palm Beach is old. Older.
“Do you need help getting inside, Mother?” Tabitha asks.
Eleanor inhales dramatically. “You have no idea how today taxed me.”
“It taxed all of us,” Tabitha says. I got slapped! she thinks. And doused! Her dress looks pretty good considering—another selling point for the Roxie. It can absorb a full glass of champagne without showing a stain or a wrinkle. “He was my father.”
“He was my husband,” Eleanor says.
“Ex-husband,” Tabitha says. “You were divorced from Billy longer than you were ever married to him.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Eleanor says.
“I don’t understand,” Tabitha says. “I find this sudden mourning and this heartbreak a little manufactured and more than a little self-serving. Billy lived eleven miles away. Did you ever go to see him? When he was here, on Nantucket, did you ever offer to take him to lunch? Or to invite him inside this house? No! When his name came up, you insulted him. You outgrew Billy long ago. You divorced him, then you forgot about him, Mother. I can’t believe you’re now telling my daughter that you loved him with all your heart.”
“You’ve never been married, Pony,” Eleanor says. She reaches into her purse and pulls out a newspaper clipping. She hands it to Tabitha
“What’s this?” Tabitha says. She unfolds the clipping; it’s well worn, softened, and smudged. It’s a photograph of Billy and Eleanor, Eleanor smiling as though she’s won fifty million dollars in the lottery, Billy kissing her cheek. The caption reads: Boston Royalty—Fashion designer Eleanor Roxie-Frost and husband, Billy Frost, enjoy an evening out at Locke-Ober to raise funds for the Boston Public Library. Ms. Roxie-Frost wears a gown of her own design.
Tabitha has seen dozens of such photographs of Billy and Eleanor together, and she always thinks the same thing. Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end… but end they did. Still, this photograph prompts Tabitha to acknowledge her mother’s sorrow. Eleanor thought to bring this clipping to Billy’s memorial reception; it means something to her. Even after all the years of contempt and disregard, she might still have loved him.
Tabitha can’t deal with the emotion right now; she is too exhausted. So instead she says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that dress.” It’s a long strapless column of dark silk with a pleated top reminiscent of a Japanese fan.
“I still have it,” Eleanor says. “Someday it will go to the Smithsonian.”
“I’m sure it will,” Tabitha says. “It’s very…” She nearly says pretty, but pretty has never meant anything to Eleanor. “Strong. Makes a statement. Perhaps you should bring it back.” She returns the clipping to Eleanor.
“Perhaps I should,” Eleanor says. She tucks the clipping into her purse before laboriously getting out of the car. She’s less steady on her feet these days, especially when she’s wearing heels—slingbacks, at that—and she’s had at least half a dozen glasses of champagne. Tabitha should walk her to the door, help her get situated inside—make her a cup of tea, fix her a snack, fetch her a robe.
But no. Tabitha won’t do it. Not tonight. She’s too angry, and the things Eleanor has said today are too hurtful. Eleanor longs for Harper. Fine. From now on, when Eleanor wants something, she can ask Harper for it. Harper can manage the Nantucket store, maybe sell meth or heroin in addition to the Eleanor Roxie-Frost label. That, at least, would put an end to their cash-flow problems.
“Have a good night, Mother,” Tabitha says.
Eleanor makes her wobbly way up the flagstone path toward the steps of the front porch. Tabitha studies the grandness of the house and decides that she will throw a party there in a few weeks, when Eleanor goes to New York to meet with the tailors and ERF manufacturing people. Ha! Tabitha is no better than Ainsley! But really, Eleanor’s house is ideal for entertaining—cocktails on the porch, buffet dinner in the dining room, dancing in the living room. Maybe Tabitha will invite Captain Peter. Maybe she’ll invite young Zack, the bartender from Nautilus. She will definitely invite Stephanie Beasley now that Ainsley and Candace are friends again. And maybe Teddy’s uncle Graham while she’s at it.
She needs more friends, she thinks. Ainsley is right. Eleanor has ruined her life.
Eleanor climbs the stairs holding on to the rail. It’s like watching paint dry, Tabitha thinks.
She’ll invite the Tallahasseeans!
Harper has been conducting an affair with Billy’s married doctor. Does no one but Tabitha find this disgusting?
Eleanor reaches the porch and turns around to wave, or maybe not wave, maybe signal, because she is now crying. She steps forward—possibly she wants to apologize to Tabitha or maybe she’s left her reading glasses in Tabitha’s car—but she misjudges her footing and falls down the porch stairs, landing in a heap at the bottom.
AINSLEY
She is so busy getting her phone up and running that she doesn’t know anything is wrong until she hears the ambulance sirens. At first they’re distant, and she barely registers them, but then they get closer, and then they’re basically on top of her, and she looks out the window and she sees the flashing blue and red lights pull into their driveway. She spies the distant figure of her mother waving the ambulance over in the direction of Grammie’s house.
Ainsley dashes out the front door in time to see the paramedics sliding Grammie onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance. Tabitha gets in her car, does a doughnut in the driveway, and follows the ambulance out. When she sees Ainsley, she puts down her window.
“Grammie fell. I’m going with her to the hospital. Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
“Stay here,” Ainsley says. She feels bad for that choice, but her mother actually looks relieved.
“Does your phone work?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll call you,” Tabitha says. And off she goes.