Deacon shook his head, but even that looked as though it hurt.
“Apparently, you and Taryn hoovered up most of an eight ball; then you told her you wanted to show her Nantucket, so you got in her car. With a nice bottle of bubbly.”
Deacon closed his eyes. “Did I drive?”
“No,” Buck said. “The girl was smart. She held the keys.”
“Good,” Deacon said. “Is Ellery okay? Does Scarlett know?”
“Ellery is fine. Angie took care of her. Scarlett is at the ashram or whatever, and so she may know, or this surprise may be in her future.”
“Okay,” Deacon said with a big exhale that smelled strongly of whiskey. “I’m sorry, Buck. Things are tough right now.”
“It’s like you have a death wish,” Buck said.
“I don’t,” Deacon said. “I’m going to stop drinking.”
Buck stared at him.
“I’m serious,” Deacon said. “And no more drugs. I have to learn to live with myself.”
When Scarlett got home, Deacon told her the PG-13 version of the story: McCoy’s, lost track of time, completely spaced on picking up Ellery. He was beyond sorry, and he realized he had a problem. He was going to stop drinking.
I don’t believe you, Scarlett said. She pulled Ellery out of school, she packed two suitcases, she flew to Savannah.
Now, Deacon was dead, and Scarlett was out of money. Initially, upon reading Deacon’s will, Buck had been uneasy about informing Scarlett that she was only inheriting a third of the Nantucket house and that the other two-thirds were going to Laurel and Belinda. But now, that was a moot point. One third of nothing was nothing.
Buck trudged through the sand to the water’s edge and let the waves lap at his feet. Then he shed his shirt and set it and his phone out of the ocean’s reach. He charged into the water. This is okay, he thought as he paddled out, letting the waves swell up and over him. This was what he needed to clear his head and prepare for what lay ahead.
ANGIE
JP delivered Angie up to the house but declined to come inside. “I just wanted to drop off the strawberries,” he said. “I’m getting your family a boat on Monday so you can spread the ashes. I’ll meet everyone else then.”
Angie said, “Do you know who Dad’s caretaker is these days? Nailor retired, but did someone else take his place? There’s a rotten floorboard in the porch that has tried to kill me twice.”
“Your dad hired my friend Tommy A.,” JP said. “But he’s flat out this time of year, and besides, I don’t want him to see you, or there go my chances.”
Angie smiled into her lap. The guys in the kitchen teased Angie all the time, but it had been a while since anyone had flirted with her. Well, except Joel.
JP said, “I can come fix the board myself tomorrow morning…”
Angie said, “You don’t have to…”
“Angie,” JP said. “I want to.” He ran a hand over his beard. “It’s hard not knowing what to do to help. It would be an honor if you let me fix the board.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” She jumped out of the Jeep and headed up the front steps to the porch, stepping carefully around the board. She waved at JP as he backed out of the driveway.
Belinda was standing sentry right inside the front door.
“What are you doing, Mother?” Angie asked. She grabbed the handle of the suitcase and headed up the stairs.
Belinda followed her. “That friend of yours is darling.”
“He’s not a friend of mine,” Angie said. “He was a friend of Deacon’s. JP was the one who found Deacon out back.”
Belinda’s voice fell flat. “Oh.”
Angie ducked into her bedroom, where her eyes fell on her old dollhouse. She could remember rearranging the furniture again and again with Scarlett. She remembered setting out butter and eggs on the rough-hewn kitchen table and saving the three-tiered party cake and the tiny, tiny teacups for the formal dining room. The living room sofa was upholstered in rose chintz, with throw pillows the size of postage stamps. Angie had loved very few physical things as much as she had loved that dollhouse. She sighed.
“I’ll switch rooms with you,” Belinda said. “This room doesn’t even have a closet. At least Clara’s room has a closet. Of course, it’s filled with skeletons.”
“I don’t need a closet,” Angie said. “I didn’t bring any couture.”
“Please, darling, don’t be nasty,” Belinda said. “This is all hard enough for me as it is.”
Angie lay down on her bed. The pillowcases smelled like home. At least that was comforting. “Go away, Mother.”
Belinda shut the door, but she was still inside the room. This was not okay, but had Angie expected her mother to change? Here was her modus operandi. She was largely absent, away on location, but when she was around, she didn’t leave Angie alone for one second. Angie was twenty-six years old, and Belinda was a helicopter parent.
“I think your father would want you to get a boyfriend,” Belinda said.
“I have a boyfriend,” Angie said. She squeezed her eyes shut. This always happened: she gave over precious pieces of information just to prove to Belinda that she didn’t know everything.
“Who is it?” Belinda asked.
“No one,” Angie said. Joel Tersigni, she thought. She longed to say his name out loud. The problem with conducting a secret love affair was that she couldn’t talk about it with anyone. If Angie had had a close girlfriend, one she could have confided in, then the situation might be a tiny bit more bearable. Growing up, Angie had had Scarlett, who was the person she told the things she couldn’t tell her mother. Then, in high school, there had been Pierpont Jones. Pierpont had been fun and wild but not great with secrets. In culinary school and in the kitchen at work, Angie’s friends had all been men.
Could she tell Belinda about Joel? Angie wondered. Would it make things better between them, or would Belinda take the information and ruin it, the way she ruined everything?
Angie knew what her mother would say. She would tell Angie to call Joel and figure out what was going on. She would say, You deserve to be treated with respect. And she would be right.
Angie stood up. “Excuse me,” she said. “I have to make a phone call.”
She walked past her mother, out of the room, down the stairs, and out of the house. When she got a signal at the bottom of the driveway, Angie dialed Joel’s number. There was no way he was going to answer. Joel was a coward. Why had it taken Angie so long to realize this?
The phone rang once, then a woman’s voice said, “Hello, Angie.”
Angie stammered. “I—I—”
“This is Dory Tersigni, Angie,” the woman said.
Hang up! Angie thought. Hang up! Joel had handed his phone off to Dory—or, more likely, Dory had stolen Joel’s phone and had been waiting for Angie to call.
“I know you’ve been having an affair with my husband,” Dory said. “Since December twentieth, after the Christmas party. I know the affair took place primarily in your apartment on East Seventy-Third Street. I know there were texts—literally thousands of texts—as well as explicit photos, and hundreds of phone calls. I know everything, Angie.”
Angie opened her mouth to speak. Retaliate! she thought. She knew things, too. She knew that Dory was an anorexic and a bulimic, that she was a corn-husk doll, dry and unappealing in bed, unable to meet Joel’s voracious sexual appetite. She knew that Dory controlled Joel with money, and guilt about the boys. She knew Dory was a crackerjack attorney, a bulldog in negotiations, tough and unrelenting. She never loses, Joel had told Angie once, but he had made that seem like a negative. Now that Angie found herself in direct competition with Dory, Angie wished for a less formidable opponent.
“I’d like to speak to Joel, please,” Angie said.
“That’s not going to happen,” Dory said. “Your little fling is over.”
“‘Fling,’” Angie said.
“What?” Dory said.
“It wasn’t a fling,” Angie said. “I’m in love with him. And he’s in love with me.”