Winter Storms (14 page)

The committee looks—intrigued? Impressed? Ava mists up, then reins in her surging emotions.

The headmistress beams at her. “Thank you, Ava,” she says. “We value nothing at Copper Hill more than heart.”

Ava is all dialed up when she leaves the school. She wants to call her mother but Margaret is filming a
60 Minutes
interview with Ellen DeGeneres. Ava doesn't feel she can call her father, Mitzi, Kevin, or anyone on Nantucket; she fears they won't understand her brand-new love affair with the city. Shelby will be at school, and even if she took Ava's call, she would be the worst of the lot. Every time the topic of Ava moving to New York comes up, Shelby starts to cry.

Nathaniel? No.

Scott? Definitely not.

Who does she know who will appreciate her imminent leap into a new, urban life?

Potter Lyons is so excited to hear from Ava that Ava gets excited as well.

“I have a seminar from one to four today,” he says. “Otherwise, I would take you out drinking. I can't believe you're
here!
I can't believe you're
moving
here!”

“Definitely moving,” Ava says. She has the offers from the Albany and Bainbridge Academy, like two gold coins in her pocket. “The question is… great job or
dream
job?”

“Copper Hill is such a utopia,” Potter says. “If the chairmanship of the literature department became available, I would snap it up.”

“You'd leave the Ivy League?” Ava says.

“The students are ruined by the time they get to me,” Potter says. “I love the wonder of high school kids. Middle school, even better. You can actually mold them, influence them, make a difference.”

He's speaking her language. That's what Ava wants. A classroom filled with kids who want to learn.

“You have to have dinner with me tonight,” Potter says. “Can you? There's a place called Fish down on Bleecker. It's basically a dive with cold PBR and a ridiculous raw bar. A guy shucks ten kinds of oysters while you throw peanut shells on the floor.”

“Sounds divine,” Ava says. Margaret and Drake have a benefit for the Boys and Girls Clubs tonight, so she was on her own anyway. “I'll meet you there at seven.”

It is only when Ava sees Potter standing in front of Fish that she wonders if this counts as a date. Potter is wearing jeans and a black crewneck sweater and black suede loafers without socks, even though it's November.

He is too good-looking for her, yet he beams when Ava emerges from the cab.

He nearly picks her up off the ground in his embrace. She feels the surge of desire she experienced on the Sunfish in Anguilla and then again at the Bar after her mother's wedding.

Fresh perspective,
she thinks. She raises her face, and Potter doesn't hesitate. He kisses her until she feels light-headed and has to grab his arms. His sweater is so soft. It's cashmere.

Two things occur to Ava in that moment: She is going to owe Shelby dinner at the Club Car. With caviar. And no matter which job she takes, she will never have to teach the recorder again.

I
t's a quiet Thanksgiving this year. Patrick, Jennifer, and the boys are going to San Francisco to spend the holiday with Jennifer's mother, Beverly, and Ava has chosen to stay in New York with Margaret, a decision that shows where her heart is. It has taken thirty years but Ava has finally—and inevitably, he supposes—turned into Margaret. On Wednesday morning, she was offered the job of her dreams, as the director of musical studies at Copper Hill School on West Seventieth Street.

Kelley writes this down word for word so he can put it in the Christmas letter.

Kevin, Isabelle, and Genevieve will be on the island and Kevin has suggested that Kelley and Mitzi allow Isabelle to cook and that they eat in the pocket-size dining room of the cottage they're renting.

Kelley is too embarrassed to express how he feels about this. He feels irrelevant; he feels like he's being replaced as patriarch. For years and years, Kelley has wished for Kevin to find his way. But now that he has—Quinns' on the Beach is an enormous success—well, he feels jealous. He's not ready to pass the baton yet and certainly not where Thanksgiving is concerned. If they eat at Kevin's house, Kevin will want to carve the turkey. The notion is outrageous!

Kelley expects Mitzi to side with him. She will say no way to eating at Kevin and Isabelle's. Mitzi
loves
Thanksgiving. She loves getting one of the sought-after fresh turkeys from Ray Owen's farm and making her famous stuffing with the challah bread, sausage, pine nuts, and dried cherries. Kelley can't imagine Mitzi allowing Isabelle to make the stuffing. What do the French know about stuffing? Nothing, that's what.

But when Kelley tells Mitzi about Kevin's invitation, she says, “What a lovely idea!”

She sounds genuine. Kelley blinks. Mitzi spent last Thanks
giving in Lenox with George. It was the nadir of her depression and she couldn't bring herself to boil a potato or end a bean and so they ended up going out to the Olde Heritage Tavern, where Mitzi cried into her cranberry relish. She definitely wants to make up for what was, essentially, a lost Thanksgiving last year, and besides, she has to keep busy. That's how she survives. She has the inn to run, but any additional distraction is welcome—Margaret's wedding in
August, and Kevin and Isabelle's impending nuptials. Thanks
giving too—or so he'd thought.

“You
want
to go to Kevin's?” Kelley asks.

“Sure,” Mitzi says. “It'll be fun.”

“Fun?” Kelley says.

“Something new and different,” Mitzi says. “They're getting married; they moved into the new house. It's only natural they would want to host us.”

Natural?
Kelley thinks.
Fun?
These aren't words Mitzi should be using. Their son, Bart, their
baby,
is missing. Kelley has counted on Mitzi to be the more emotionally vigilant of the two of them; she worries all the time at the maximum level so that Kelley doesn't have to. But now, instead of being thrown into a tailspin by the holiday, she's relaxed. It's almost as if she's
forgotten
about Bart or is, somehow, getting used to the agony of their circumstances. Kelley remembers when his brother, Avery, died of AIDS. His parents had been
destroyed;
his mother, Frances, especially. But the day had come, hadn't it, when Kelley had called his parents' house in Perrysburg, Ohio, and Frances had been hosting her bridge group.

Bridge group?
Kelley had said.
What about Avery?

Frances said,
Avery is with the Lord now. There's nothing I can do about that. So I might as well host bridge group.

The next thing Mitzi says really knocks Kelley's socks off.

“If we go to Kevin's, I'll be able to do the Turkey Plunge.”

“The Turkey Plunge!” Kelley says. “Since when have you been interested in doing the Turkey Plunge?”

“Since forever,” Mitzi says. “It's a Nantucket tradition! But I've always been too busy cooking. This is my year. I'm doing it.”

Kelley is speechless.

“Do you want to do it with me?” she asks.

“No,” Kelley says. The Turkey Plunge is a fund-raiser for the Nantucket Atheneum in which scores of crazy people put on bathing suits and run into the water at Children's Beach. Nothing sounds less appealing to Kelley. That has always been true, but this year Kelley feels like a husk. He has no energy and lately has been plagued with a headache that never seems to go away. Just discussing the Turkey Plunge exhausts him so much that he wants to lie down in a dark room.

Mitzi harrumphs. She calls Isabelle to accept the invitation for Thanksgiving, then signs herself up for the Turkey Plunge.

Ten o'clock on the day of Thanksgiving finds Kelley bundled up in jeans, duck boots, an Irish fisherman's sweater over a turtleneck, his navy Barbour jacket over his sweater, a hat, and leather gloves standing down on the green at Children's Beach along with every other person on Nantucket, locals and visitors alike. One of the visitors is Vice President Joe Biden. Kelley has heard that Biden comes to Nantucket every Thanksgiving but he's never seen him in person until today. Kelley would love to bend the vice president's ear about Bart and the other missing Marines but the man is surrounded by a crowd ten people deep. He seems to be more popular than ever now that he's about to be replaced. If Margaret were here, Kelley would have her make the introduction, but she's not—and besides, it's Mit
zi's big moment. She is out and about, chatting and
schmoozing with people and reminding them all about the Christmas Eve party at the inn, which will also serve as Kevin and Isabelle's wedding reception.

“We're moving all of the furniture out of the living room,” Mitzi says, “and getting a band.”

The spirit of the Turkey Plunge is convivial and festive, the weather freezing cold but sunny. Kelley sees people he has known for so long they feel like family.

Mitzi pulls off her Lululemon yoga pants and her jacket and gives them to Kelley to hold. She's in an orange one-piece that Kelley has never seen before.

“That's a great suit,” he says.

“Bought it just for today,” she says. She kisses him on the lips and runs to line up with all the other hardy souls on the beach.

The gunshot sounds and the swimmers charge into the water, laughing and shrieking. Mitzi is easy to pick out in her pumpkin-colored suit. Her curly hair flies out behind her as she runs, then high-steps through the water, then submerges. Kelley winces, imagining the shock and burn of water that cold. He gets Mitzi's towel ready.

When she approaches, dripping and shivering, he wraps her up and gives her a squeeze. “You are a very brave woman,” he says. “Now I see where our son gets it.”

Mitzi asked Kelley which of her Thanksgiving dishes he can't live without and his answer was “All of them.” He loves the stuffing, the sour cream mashed potatoes, the corn pudding, the creamed onions, the butternut squash, the fiesta cranberry sauce, the snowflake rolls. But if he has to pick one, he'll pick the corn pudding, made with Bartlett's Farm corn that Mitzi bought and froze this past summer and topped with buttery Ritz crackers. To Kelley it's the ideal blend of island-grown produce and the midwestern-housewife fare that he and Avery were raised on.

And he'll also pick the fiesta cranberry sauce. Mitzi completely reinvents the dish, adding orange peel, cilantro, and jalapeño peppers. It's so addictive, Kelley craves it all year long.

“Okay,” she said. “I'll make both.”

When they get home from the Turkey Plunge, Mitzi goes to work in the kitchen. The TV has been left on, and the huge balloon floats of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade roll past on the screen.

Margaret is there, as she is every year. And today, so is Ava. Kelley feels a sharp pain at the back of his skull. He misses Ava. He has taken her for granted all these years and now she's leaving, possibly for good. Mitzi has also accepted
this
with equanimity.

Ava's breaking up with Scott and Nathaniel is the best thing she ever did, Mitzi says now. “Ava needed to find Ava, and the Ava she found wants to move to the city. I lived in the city when I was young, and so did you. The good news is… she's teaching. I'm sure she'll come home every summer.”

Summer isn't enough!
Kelley thinks. He knows how unreasonable he sounds, how rigid. His head is splitting. He tells Mitzi he needs to go take a nap.

“Good idea,” Mitzi says. “I'll cook and watch a little pregame, then I'll come wake you. Isabelle wants us at three.”

Kelley has one of his dreams. He and Bart are in a car; Kelley is driving. They are in a desert. It looks like pictures Kelley has seen of the American Southwest but Bart keeps telling Kelley they're in Australia.

Australia?
Kelley says.
That doesn't sound right. Shouldn't we be in Afghanistan?

No,
Bart says.
They got it all wrong. Everyone thought we were in Afghanistan, but we weren't.

Kelley drives to the edge of a cliff. Far, far below are jagged, red rocks.
Is this a gorge?
Kelley asks. Bart gets out of the car. He starts to walk away.

“Kelley!
Kelley!
”

Kelley opens his eyes. His head is killing him, and that's not a euphemism. It feels like his head is trying to pull away from the rest of his body.

“Kelley!”

With effort, Kelley sits up. Mitzi? She's calling for him.

“Kelley!” she's screaming. Really screaming. Maybe her apron caught on fire or she missed a step and the corn pudding spilled out of the casserole dish all over the floor. Kelley gets out of bed and stumbles to the door. He sees Mitzi at the end of the hallway. She's wearing an apron—it's not on fire—she's crying, she's sobbing, breathless, pointing in the direction of the kitchen. What? She's holding something, Kelley sees. It's the telephone.

This is it,
he thinks. This is how he's always imagined it. They have news.

Kelley falls. He hits the floor, but there is no pain. Not yet, anyway. It is dark. Quiet.

 

T
he Wednesday night before Thanksgiving, Margaret takes her assistant, Darcy, for a farewell dinner at Eleven Madison Park. Eleven Madison Park was recently voted the best restaurant in America, and although Margaret has long outgrown being impressed by the “best” this and the “best” that, she has to admit, this dinner is pretty unforgettable. Eleven courses with wine pairings, each course based on a food tradition of New York City. The meal starts and ends with a black-and-white cookie. The first cookie is savory; the final cookie, sweet. Margaret's favorite course is the one they eat
in the kitchen
—this, the VIP treatment because she is Margaret Quinn—which riffs on the Jewish deli. They are served tiny, open-faced Reuben sandwiches—slow-cooked corned beef with homemade sauerkraut and some kind of heavenly sauce—and a petite bottle of celery soda. When Margaret sees it, she says, “I'm sorry,
what
is this?”

Celery soda.

It's bright green and fizzy, and Margaret tastes it tentatively at first, then determines it's the most delicious, refreshing, original elixir ever to cross her taste buds. It's bursting with fresh celery flavor and it's carbonated with just a hint of sweetness. It pairs beautifully with the fatty succulence of the corned beef and the piquancy of the sauerkraut.

When she and Darcy leave, Margaret agrees that Eleven Madison Park is the best restaurant in America, but she won't be able to explain why—even to Drake—beyond gushing over the celery soda.

Margaret has to bid Darcy good-bye outside the restaurant, a moment she has been dreading. Darcy has been her assistant for four years and four months. They have been a couple longer than Margaret and Drake. Being Margaret's assistant can hardly have been easy, but Darcy is one of those super-capable, incredibly knowledgeable people who take everything in stride. She is unflappable, and if she made a mistake during her tenure, Margaret hasn't found out about it. She has never been sick, never been late, never been hungover, cranky, or cross. She has been faithful, discreet, loyal, and funny, and although she has helped Margaret with innumerable details of her personal life, she has never crossed the line into acting too “chummy.” Are they friends? No, Margaret thinks. Not really. This dinner aside, they have never socialized other than at work functions. Even when Margaret was on location and Darcy traveled with her, they kept their private time private. In many ways, Darcy is closer than a friend. She is family—no, not family. She is, somehow, another manifestation of Margaret Quinn, Margaret in another, younger body.

“I'll never find another assistant like you,” Margaret says. “Never.”

“Margaret, stop,” Darcy says. “I'll cry.”

“Okay,” Margaret says. She is on the verge of tears herself. “If you need me, any time, for any reason…”