Winter Storms (8 page)

Potter looks at Ava. “Are we going home, or are we going out?”

“Out,” she says, surprising herself. “Let's go out.”

Kevin and Isabelle take Genevieve home, and Zack and Shelby do the same with Xavier. Mitzi and Kelley take Paddy's three boys and they invite George and Mary Rose to join them for a nightcap back at the inn.

“Who's the woman in the hat?” Potter asks Ava.

“Mary Rose,” Ava says. “George's girlfriend.”

“And who is George?” Potter asks.

“He's…” Ava isn't sure how to explain. “He's our Santa Claus at the inn every year.”

“Ohhh… kay,” Potter says.

Margaret's assistant, Darcy, and Drake's nephew, Liam, are young enough that they want to go to Straight Wharf, but Ava is dressed in a silk sheath and all she can picture is someone spilling a Goombay Smash down the front of it. She lobbies for someplace more adult. She and Potter and Patrick and Jennifer decide to go to the Summer House in Sconset. The Summer House has an old-time-Nantucket feel that Ava loves. There's a piano player and a log burning in the fireplace and exposed beams and overstuffed chairs.

“I never do this,” Ava says once she settles down to order, “but I'll have a martini. Dirty.”

“Me too!” Jennifer says, and Ava laughs. She has noticed a huge change in Jennifer since Paddy's been back. She is joyous; she is loose.

After the first martini, which goes down way too easily, Ava and Jennifer excuse themselves and head to the ladies' room.

Immediately, Jennifer grabs Ava's arm. “I love him!” she says.

“Who?” Ava says.

“Potter!” Jennifer says. “He's the best! He's so smart! He's an academic, but he's not stuffy. He's funny. And he's worldly! He's been everywhere on that sailboat. And he has emotional depth. That story about losing his parents and being raised by his grandparents had me in tears. He loves his grandfather.”

“Gibby,” Ava says. Potter has mentioned Gibby twice that evening. Apparently, Gibby isn't doing well, and Potter is worried about him. It does give him soul, Ava thinks, the way he is so attached to his grandparents, sailing around in a sloop named after his grandmother. And he is smart, intellectual even—but without making Ava feel stupid. “I don't know. When I met him, I thought he was too good-looking.”

“So you're not going to date him because he's too good-looking?” Jennifer says. “He is so into you! You should have seen the way he watched you when you walked down the aisle.”

Ava blushes. She did catch his eye for an instant, almost by accident.

“You should marry Potter,” Jennifer declares.

They've just come from a wedding, so obviously marriage is on everyone's mind, but for some reason, Jennifer's comment hits Ava the wrong way. It might be the vodka, or it might be the fact that, right after he delivered Margaret to the altar, Kelley sat down next to Ava and whispered, “I can't wait to walk you down the aisle.”

Honestly!
Ava thinks. It's as if Ava won't count as a person until she has settled down with a husband!

“I'm not marrying Potter Lyons,” Ava says to her sister-in-law. “I'm not marrying anybody.”

From the Summer House, they take a taxi to the Bar, where Maxxtone is playing. It's Scott's favorite band, but Ava tries not to dwell on this as they walk in. They are able to sidle in through the back door, avoiding the long line, because Kevin managed the Bar for almost a decade.

“Wow,” Potter says. “In all the years I've been coming here, I've never been able to pull this off.”

Patrick slaps Potter on the back. While Ava and Jennifer were in the bathroom at the Summer House, Patrick and Potter found they had half a million friends and acquaintances in common, the most amazing discovery being that Potter was a fraternity brother of Patrick's boss, Great Guy Gary Grimstead. And Potter has sailed with guys who went to Columbia Business School with Patrick. Ava begins to see Potter as just another version of her older brother, but then Potter takes her hand as he leads her through the crowd at the Bar. It's the first time he's touched her all evening, and although the circumstances couldn't be more different, Ava has an instant sense memory of walking along the sand in Anguilla and the three kisses on the beached Sunfish. Potter must be having the exact same memories because he stops and pulls Ava close to him. He takes her face in his hands and he bends down to kiss her. It's wonderful. They are surrounded on all sides by people drinking and laughing. The Bar is pulsing with live music, and Ava feels young and wild for a second. It's late, she's drunk, and she's kissing a near-perfect stranger. It's been a while since she has experienced this particular trifecta.

Potter stops kissing her as Patrick approaches with their beers.

“Don't let me interrupt,” he says.

Ava accepts her beer. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a guy sitting at the bar who looks like Scott.

Is it Scott? His shoulders are hunched and he appears to be holding his head off the bar with his palm. His eyes are at half-mast. In front of him is a highball glass of brown liquid. Ava blinks; she doesn't trust her eyes. Could that be Scott, visibly drunk and looking like Eeyore with a whiskey in front of him? She has never known Scott to drink whiskey. He's a three-beers-and-done man.

It's not Scott,
she tells herself. And even if it were Scott, they've ended the relationship cold turkey, and so it's not as though she can go up and say hello. Nope, even that is off-limits. But it can't be Scott, because what would Scott be doing at the Bar at midnight when Roxanne is at home, pregnant with their child?

“Do you know the guy in the green shirt?” Potter asks. “He's staring at you.”

“Kiss me again,” Ava says.

Potter doesn't have to be asked twice.

Ava breaks away, breathless. “Let's go dance,” she says.

 

W
hen Mitzi told George that Margaret Quinn's boss was married to the editor of
Vogue
and that both would be attending the wedding, he knew he had to RSVP yes, despite Mary Rose's objections.

“I feel funny,” Mary Rose had said when the invitation arrived. “This is the wedding of my boyfriend's ex-girlfriend's husband's ex-wife, who also happens to be Margaret Quinn. Do I belong?”

George had wondered himself at the source of the invitation. After much pondering, he decided Mitzi had been behind it. The invitation was a peace offering and to turn away an olive branch would mean twenty years of bad luck. They were all adults. George and Mitzi had conducted an affair every Christmas for twelve years, but when they tried to make their relationship work full-time, it had fallen apart. In a way, George's failings with Mitzi were what had led her back to Kelley. Plus, he could say that he was one of very few non–family members to attend Margaret Quinn's wedding.

Yes, they had to go. And George would design Mary Rose the hat of a lifetime.

They wouldn't stay at the inn, George decided. That would be too awkward, returning to the lodging and possibly even the room where Mitzi had secretly come to visit him for so many years. Instead, George booked a room at the Castle, down the street. The Castle had a large, brand-new fitness center, which was a bonus, as both George and Mary Rose have been on a health kick since the first of the year. George has lost nearly thirty pounds. By Christmas, he hopes to be a very skinny Santa indeed.

All of George's gambles have paid off. The night before the wedding, George and Mary Rose wander the streets of town. It's the first time Mary Rose has been to the island in the summer. They stroll the docks and ogle the great yachts that are in Nantucket for Race Week. They have a romantic dinner on the beach at the Galley. And then, in the morning, at Mitzi's invitation, they swing by the inn to enjoy one of Kelley's famous breakfasts—lobster eggs Benedict, made especially for the wedding guests.

George had feared the initial interaction with Kelley and Mitzi would be strained—there was nothing like welcoming your wife's former lover into the fold!—but it was surprisingly joyous. Kelley and Mitzi greeted George and Mary Rose like old friends; a stranger watching might have thought George and Kelley had once been college roommates or that the four of them had forged a lifelong bond on a cruise to Alaska.

And the hat! Well, the hat makes quite a splash. No sooner has Mary Rose taken her seat at the ceremony than a murmur ripples through the assembled guests. They are talking about the hat—a classic boater made from finely
braided leghorn straw with a twelve-inch brim and a lime-green
satin band that trails halfway down Mary Rose's back. At the reception, Mary Rose is approached by none other than Ginny Kramer, the editor of
Vogue,
who asks who designed the hat.

“Why, my boyfriend, George Umbrau,” Mary Rose says as she tugs on George's arm. “He's a milliner.”

“I'd love to feature his hats in the magazine,” Ginny says. She hands George her card. “Send me a few samples?”

“Of course!” George says. He can't believe his good fortune. His hat business has just hit a plateau after two years of upswing, thanks to a selection in Oprah's Favorite Things, and he's been wondering how to reinvigorate sales. A feature or even a mention in
Vogue
will do the trick. He is in his late sixties and ready to retire. He would like to sell his business to a large retailer such as Talbots or Ann Taylor, and he'd like to get a good price so that he and Mary Rose can travel the globe in style.

After the wedding reception, George and Mary Rose catch a ride back to town with Kelley and Mitzi, and George tells them about his stroke of good fortune.

“It's not good fortune,” Kelley says. “She recognizes your talent.”

George can't believe how generous Kelley is being with his praise. He feels almost embarrassed.

“They're beautiful hats, George,” Mitzi says. George thinks about how Mitzi had gamely tried on several styles before admitting to him that she hated to wear hats. He had known then that things would never work out between them. Mary Rose is a woman who would sleep in a hat if she could.

“Well, thank you both,” George says as Kelley pulls up outside the Castle. “It was a most delightful evening.”

“Yes,” Mary Rose says. “Thank you for including us.”

“The pleasure was ours,” Kelley says. He gets out of the car to help Mary Rose to the curb and to shake George's hand. “I want to let bygones be bygones. I don't see why the four of us can't be friends. Would you guys consider coming back and staying with us at Christmas? Maybe don the red suit one more time?”

“I'd love to,” George says. He can't believe how happy the offer makes him. He dresses as Santa for a variety of Lions Club events in Lenox but nothing gives him more pleasure than playing Santa on Nantucket.

“With your new svelte physique, you'll have to get the suit altered,” Kelley says.

“Or I could fatten him up by Christmas,” Mary Rose says, and she and Mitzi laugh.

As Kelley and Mitzi drive away, Mary Rose and George wave good-bye, then George leads Mary Rose by the hand up the stairs of the Castle. He imagines his hats being featured in the windows of Bergdorf Goodman.

“They're such a nice couple,” Mary Rose says. “I can't believe you nearly broke them up. Shame on you, George.”

 

A
t eight o'clock the morning after Margaret and Drake's wedding, despite a tremendous hangover, Jennifer laces up her running shoes.

Patrick rolls over in bed and tugs on her shirt. “Don't go,” he says. “Come back to bed.”

She turns around and smiles, but even that small effort feels like it's enough to crack her face in half. After Ava saw Scott at the Bar, she and Jennifer ordered Fireball shots. What a rotten idea! And it had been Jennifer's. “I'll be back between nine thirty and ten.”

“Not only a run, but a long run,” Patrick says. “You go, girl.”

Jennifer hopes to slip out of the inn unnoticed, but she bumps into Kevin on the back stairs.

Kevin. Of all people.

“Hey!” he says. He checks his watch. “Where are you off to?”

Jennifer tugs on her tank top. “Going for a run,” she says. She wonders if Kevin remembers the conversation they had the evening before. Did he tuck away the particulars? He's looking at her strangely, with his head cocked, as if he's trying to see her from another angle. He thinks she's having an affair; Jennifer would bet her life on it. Well, let him think that. In some ways, it's preferable to the truth. “I'm off,” she says.

“Enjoy!” Kevin says.

She goes out the back door of the inn and heads down Liberty Street to Gardner. She figures it'll take her forty minutes to run to Norah Vale's house, ten minutes to do the deal, and forty minutes to run home.

She needs more drugs. She has been trying to wean herself off the oxy and at one point, when Patrick was first home, she had made it through an entire day with only one pill. But after that, she felt moody and headachy and sick and she deeply craved the high of the oxy, the sense of order and focus it brought her. She couldn't live without it. Could not, would not. She had met Norah once in July at their usual spot on Route 3, thinking that would be it. But now that she's on Nantucket where Norah
lives,
the temptation is too great to resist. She's going to buy sixty pills. These sixty will be the end, she tells herself. But she has to get these sixty. The mere thought of so many pills puts her at peace.