Summer Secrets (16 page)

I fit right in. I fit as if I have always belonged here. The only person who hasn’t accepted me is Ellie. I have tried and tried, but at best she is coldly polite. Julia’s warmth, Aidan’s kindness, and my own father’s attention, however, more than make up for it.

Early morning walks with Brooks have become part of the daily routine. We wander to the beach, then finish up at the Hub for coffee and the papers, Brooks stopping every few feet on Main Street to greet people he knows. And to introduce me, his daughter, to everyone’s surprise and delight. A third daughter they never knew about, but look at me! So clearly a Mayhew if ever there was one! And with an accent! Welcome to Nantucket, they say. You will never want to leave.

They may be right, all these strangers. The longer I stay here, the more I think I don’t want to leave. I know it’s a holiday, I know people don’t really live like this the entire year, except … I think that maybe they do here. They work really hard, but they play hard.

Which is the hardest part for me. How can I possibly stay sober when everyone around me drinks as if it were nothing? And maybe it is nothing. Sobriety suddenly seems like a really bad idea. I’m on holiday, for God’s sake. On Nantucket, where I am supposed to be having fun.

*   *   *

“Look at you!” Aidan lets out a long whistle as I walk into the kitchen in one of my new outfits, bought the other day. White capri pants and a turquoise tunic top, beaded prettily around the neckline. “Is that outfit new? You look like you’ve done some serious damage in town.”

“Does it still count as new if it’s five days old?” I grin, hiding my slight worry at the amount I have been spending, although given the exchange rate it really isn’t that bad at all. At least that is what I will continue to tell myself. “What do you think?”

“You finally look like an islander!” he says, walking over to the fridge and pulling out two beers, cracking them open and handing me one.

“Isn’t it a bit early?” I take the beer, for it would have been rude not to, but I have always tried not to drink before lunchtime.

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” he says with a shrug and a grin, clinking his bottle with mine and a hearty “Slainte,” so what else am I supposed to do other than drink up?

*   *   *

Everyone is out, Brooks at his studio, Ellie with her children and nanny at the beach, Julia visiting a friend. It is just Aidan and I, and the more beer we both drink, the better time I find myself having.

He, like Brooks, is a storyteller, but this time the drink loosens my tongue, and we try to outdo each other with stories of our outrageous drinking behavior.

“Well, I once woke up on a ferry on the way to Ios in Greece, with absolutely no idea how I got there,” Aidan says. “The last I remember I was in a nightclub in London. The next I was in my underwear on the deck of a bloody great boat.”

“You win!” I shout, as we both collapse in giggles.

“No more bloody beer.” Aidan peers into the fridge. “Shall we make a start on the vodka?”

“Yes!” I stumble ever so slightly on my way to get glasses as Aidan goes to get the vodka, and for a second, just a second, the disappointed, disapproving face of Jason flits into my mind. And for a second, just a second, the church hall flits into my mind, the chairs pulled into a circle, the eager, earnest faces of the people who all talk of the hell of their former lives, and how they have found happiness, and peace, in these rooms.

But I push those thoughts aside with a loud, internal “fuck it.” I’m on holiday. If a girl can’t drink on holiday, what the hell is the world coming to? I drain that glass of vodka in about two seconds, to loud cheering from Aidan, who follows suit, and we both refill, both equally delighted at having found a partner in crime.

*   *   *

“Jesus!” I open my eyes, taking a while to focus on a stern-looking Ellie, who is shaking me with a look of abject disgust on her face.

“Wha?” I try to sit up, dizzy, drunk, knowing that I cannot let her know how drunk I am. That whatever I do now, my future depends on it. I have to do everything in my power to hide quite how much we have had to drink.

Her face contorts into a sneer. She turns. “Summer?” I see her daughter behind her. Oh God! Her daughter! Of course. “Go upstairs. You can play in Mommy’s room. There are toys under Trudy’s crib.” Cheering, Summer thunders upstairs as Ellie turns back to me with a sneer. “You’re drunk,” she says, and I find myself squinting, then opening my eyes wide, in a bid to get her face into focus.

“I’m not drunk.” I sit up. “I’m just a bit tipsy. I took some headache pills, and I think they reacted with the beer.”

She reaches behind her and picks up a vodka bottle that looks like it’s just about empty. “That’s not beer,” she says.

“Oh, leave her alone!” I am relieved that Aidan has now swum into my focus, leaning on the doorjamb of the kitchen. “We had a few drinks, that’s all.” I register that Aidan does not seem to be as drunk as I am, which is a good thing. Perhaps it means that I did not drink as much as I fear, that I just don’t hold it as well. “She’s on holiday,” he continues.

“And she’s a guest in our house,” says Ellie, her voice icy. “As in fact are you, even though you’re not actually staying here. This is unacceptable, Aidan. Where the hell is Julia? How can you have spent the entire day getting drunk? Both of you. I’m just appalled.” She turns back to me, shaking her head in disgust, and I am so filled with shame I want the ground to open and swallow me up.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, trying to stand up, except the floor starts swimming, and even though I am desperate to get away from the grand inquisitioner, it doesn’t seem that it’s a very likely proposition right now. It’s far easier to slump back down on the sofa. As soon as I do, my eyes start to close, which is one way, I suppose, to turn down the noise.

“Wake up!” hisses Ellie, shaking me awake. “You need to get to your bed.”

“Right,” I agree, although my body doesn’t seem able to move.

She hoists me up by my arms, and once I am up, I narrow my eyes to stop the room dancing and walk, very purposefully, and in as straight a line as I can manage, to what I think is the door, which unfortunately, once I get there and search for the handle, turns out to be the fireplace.

“The door’s over there,” says the wicked witch disguised as Audrey Hepburn.

“I knew that,” I say, in as imperious a way as I can manage, stopping as another person walks into the room, this time Julia. I steel myself for more criticism and judgment, but Julia just starts to laugh.

“Oh God!” she says. “Both of you? Hammered? Really?”

“I’m not hammered,” disputes Aidan, putting his arm around her and pulling her in for a kiss, and I’m really quite impressed with how nondrunk he seems. “I am quietly merry, as is Cat, who is also on holiday and therefore entitled to have some fun.”

“Isn’t it a bit early?” asks Julia, who does not push Aidan away in disgust but instead folds into him with an indulgent smile. “Even for you?”

“I don’t have to be at work until later,” he says. “I’ll have a nap and be as right as rain by the time I have to work.”

“I’m speechless,” Ellie says, her features contorted with rage. “Once again your boyfriend has shown a complete lack of respect. As for…” She looks at me, and I know she can’t even bring herself to say my name. “Her. What kind of a person shows up to visit her family, who she’s never met, and gets so shitfaced she can’t even walk properly?”

Aidan lets out a bark of laughter. “At least you know she’s related to you!” he says. “No question about that.”

“And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh come on, Ellie. Get that poker out of your arse. The number of times I’ve been here and seen your father drunk as a skunk. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I might add. It’s a family trait, and one I heartily approve of, by the way, my family being much the same way.”

“How dare you tell me to get the poker out of my arse? And how dare you talk about being drunk as if it’s something normal, something fun? I grew up with it, with a father who’s always drinking, and I know just how damaging it is for everyone around them.” She turns to Julia. “I get it, Julia. I get why all of your boyfriends are alcoholics or drug addicts. I get this is all to do with our father, but keep it out of the house, for God’s sake. I have young children here. Keep it out of the goddamned house!” Her voice isn’t loud, but as cold as ice as Julia disentangles herself from Aidan.

“Don’t you dare say a word about my father. I’m lucky to have him. Jesus,
you’re
lucky to have him, especially given the mess your mother made of your life. You’re always so damned judgmental, Ellie. Everything in your life is always so perfect; you look down your nose at everything and everyone around you. Including your own family. It makes me sick. So what if Aidan’s drinking? Or Cat? Or me, for that matter? We’re young. We’re supposed to. Just because you’re on your high horse and living the life of a fifty-year-old Park Avenue matron doesn’t mean the rest of us have to. Get over it.”

I want to applaud, and then, with slight dismay, I realize that everyone is looking at me in horror. Oh
shit.
That thought somehow moved into my hands and I realize I actually did applaud. I stop. Quickly. And Ellie lets out an anguished groan and runs upstairs.

“Let’s get Cat to bed,” Julia says, and as I refuse all help, weaving my way out of the room, one sober and sobering thought makes its way into my head:
Nothing is as perfect as it seems.

Fourteen

I wake up with the familiar pounding head and no idea where I am or what time it is. I am completely disoriented, it is dark, and it takes a few seconds for the full mortification of what I have done to set in.

I cannot believe I got drunk today. I cannot believe I showed myself up like that with my family, gave them such a terrible impression of me so soon after arriving here. I can’t believe I drank that much, after these past few weeks, after determining never to do that again.

What is the matter with me? Why didn’t I stop after two beers? Or even three? What the hell is wrong with me that I am so easily influenced I dived into that bottle of vodka with barely a second thought?

I lie in bed, disgusted, utterly disgusted with myself, awash with shame. How do I ever face Jason again? How am I supposed to tell him what happened? I can’t. I couldn’t. The look on his face would be unimaginable. After all the effort he’s put into me, taking me to meetings, finding me a sponsor, what kind of a terrible person must I be that this is how I repay him?

I should find a meeting. Right now. That’s what I should do. I should get myself off to a meeting, confess my sin to a roomful of strangers, and go every day while I’m here so I can get off the plane back in London and feel something other than this horrific mortification.

There is a knock on the door. Julia. With a glass of water and three pills.

“I hoped you were awake. How are you feeling? I brought you some Advil.”

“Advil?” My voice is croaky as I try to sit up.

“Painkillers.”

I manage to sit up, overcome with a sudden bout of dizziness and a wave of first hot, then cold. I leap out of bed and make it to the bathroom just in time, practically falling on top of the loo as I throw up, my stomach heaving until there’s nothing left to come up. I lay my head on the seat, as unsanitary as it is, feeling the coolness, knowing that in a little while I will feel better.

“Are you okay?” she asks, coming into the bathroom and stroking my back, and I think that even though I barely know this girl, I might actually love her.

“I’m so sorry,” I croak. “I’m so embarrassed. I can’t believe I did that.”

“First of all, I’m more than used to it. We all like a drink. Apart from Ellie, obviously. I’m really sorry for everything that she said. I guess we react to the drinking very differently. She has always been disgusted by everything to do with alcohol, and people drinking, and getting drunk. When we were kids and my dad would have too much to drink, she would behave in much the same way as she did with you this afternoon. She’d stand there and scream at him, try to shame him into not drinking.
If you loved us,
she’d shout,
you wouldn’t do this.
”

I raise my head and turn to look at her. “You didn’t feel the same way?”

“I tried to make everything better. I was never a shouter. I think I thought that if I behaved better, if I was better, maybe that would make him stop. And then when he didn’t, I’d be the one that ended up looking after him. No surprise, I guess, that every man I’ve ever dated has liked the booze, or drugs, a little too much, and I’m always the one that ends up looking after them.”

“Aidan’s so nice,” I say. “He seems to look after you too, although maybe in different ways.”

She smiles. “That’s why I love him. He does. Very occasionally I think our partying might be a bit much, but what the hell. We’re young, we’re supposed to be having fun, right? This is the time to party, before settling down, before kids, real responsibilities.”

“Exactly,” I say, thinking of Aidan and understanding exactly why she forgives his transgressions; thinking of Jason and wondering if he would forgive mine. And then I think that Julia would probably know if there were AA meetings on the island, and if so where I might find them, and I mix the words around in my head hoping to formulate a sentence that would come out without me wanting to die in shame, and I can’t figure out a way to do it, so I end up saying nothing at all.

“It’s nine o’clock,” says Julia. “At night,” she adds helpfully, seeing my confusion. “Ellie’s so furious she’s checked everyone into the Wauwinet, which is what she always does when we have fights, so I thought maybe you and I could go down to Aidan’s restaurant and grab some dinner.”

“Where’s your dad?”

“Tonight’s his night at the Chicken Box. He’ll doubtless get a ride home and roll in sometime in the early hours. We tend to stay out of his way on nights like these.”

“Will you give me a minute to get ready?” I say, really not wanting to go out, nor have dinner, food being the very last thing on my mind, but experience has told me the best way to go about getting rid of a hangover is painkillers and food in my stomach. And hair of the dog. But I’m definitely going to give that one a miss tonight. This is it. No drinking from now on. It’s just not worth the shame.