Yes, Deacon says right away. He doesn’t ask Belinda her opinion, which is a mistake. She becomes hysterical when he tells her. She takes the clamshell that Deacon got so many years ago with his father on Nantucket, and which sits in a hallowed place on the mantel, and she throws it into the swimming pool. Deacon is so livid that he grabs Belinda by the forearm. Her arm is delicate; he could easily break it with just one hand. He could throw her into the pool and watch her drown. But then he comes to his senses. He lets Belinda go, and he dives to the bottom of the pool to rescue his shell.
He takes the job at Raindance.
He signs a forty-page prenup, after which he and Belinda are married by her yogi on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Buck is the only other person in attendance.
Belinda decides she wants to adopt a baby. She somehow finds a newborn in an orphanage in the Australian outback, and the next thing Deacon knows, Belinda is flying to Perth to pick up their new daughter, Angela. They will call her Angie, after the Rolling Stones song that is their favorite.
When Angie is five years old and ready for kindergarten, Deacon lobbies to move back to New York. He is there half-time anyway, and he doesn’t want L.A. to be all Angie experiences. She deserves better. She is the coolest kid that Deacon has ever known, and, despite the fact that Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolis in the country, it’s not as racially integrated as New York. Look at Rodney King!
It’s impossible for Belinda to argue about Rodney King. It’s impossible for Belinda to argue that California is not, at its essence, a dominion of blond girls. Angie might not be discriminated against, but she could easily be ignored or overlooked.
Belinda succumbs. She will allow a move to New York. They will get an apartment in the Waldorf Towers. Angie will go to private school—at Chapin, Spence, or Nightingale-Bamford.
But… Belinda won’t be around as much as she was in L.A. (Was she around in L.A.? Deacon spent all his days off with Angie, teaching her how to squeeze the juice out of a lemon, crack an egg, measure flour.) Belinda is in negotiations to play Mai Hanh in The Delta—a role she wants more than she wants to breathe—but this will mean three to six months of filming in Vietnam. It won’t matter where Deacon and Angie are, because Belinda won’t be home either way.
We have to get a proper nanny, Belinda says. Not a Mexican housekeeper, like they had in L.A., but someone professional and organized and whimsical and kind. A Mary Poppins.
Belinda interviews thirty girls. There are fat girls, Goth girls, British girls; there is a woman with a mustache who scares Deacon with her list of rules. There is a woman who has a graduate degree in molecular biology; there is a girl with red, chafed nostrils who clearly likes to party downtown.
And then, number thirty-one: Scarlett Oliver, from Savannah, Georgia.
Deacon happens to be in the apartment when Scarlett arrives. She is tall and slender, with dark hair to her waist and a pearly-white smile. Too pretty, Deacon thinks right away. Belinda will never hire her.
Scarlett reveals that she is a debutante from Savannah. Belinda will never hire her. This will be one of those interviews that lasts four minutes.
Belinda says, “What exactly does that mean, ‘a debutante’?”
“Well,” Scarlett says. “It means I had a debut. It’s a ball where one is presented to society.”
“I was presented to society half-naked in Brilliant Disguise,” Belinda says, then she laughs at herself. “Have you ever seen it?”
“Only about forty times,” Scarlett says. “It’s my favorite movie.”
Oh boy, Deacon thinks. To a one, all the nanny candidates have been gushing fans. To a one, all have asked Belinda for her autograph, even the Goth girl.
“Let me introduce you to Angie,” Belinda says.
What? Deacon thinks. Meeting Angie means Scarlett made it through the first gate. Is that possible? Deacon pokes his head out of the kitchen and sees Scarlett’s lovely long legs in denim shorts. He doesn’t know whether to pray that she gets hired or pray that she doesn’t.
She gets hired. Frankly, Deacon can’t believe it. She is way too beautiful, and Belinda, as famous as she is, finds other beautiful women threatening.
“What made you hire Scarlett?” Deacon asks.
“Gut feeling,” Belinda says. “She was so good with Angie. Angie hung on to her neck when it was time for her to go. She hasn’t done that with anyone else. I feel like she’s meant to be in our lives.”
What Belinda says, goes. Scarlett is around 24-7 in the apartment, wearing shorts and halter tops and half shirts that show off her perfectly flat, pale stomach. Deacon tries to make himself immune to her beauty and her innocence. And her Southern accent. She teaches Angie the phrase “Gimme some sugar.” When Scarlett says this, Angie purses her lips and gives Scarlett a kiss. Then Scarlett says, “Now, give Daddy some sugar.” And Angie gives Deacon a kiss while Deacon looks at Scarlett.
Belinda films in Vietnam for so long, Deacon forgets what she looks like. He is very busy at Raindance, but he manages to wrangle ten days off in August to go to Nantucket with Angie, who is six, and Hayes, who is fourteen. Deacon is under the delusion that Hayes will be able to watch Angie and earn some pocket money. But this notion is quashed in an email from Belinda.
Hayes is not a suitable babysitter, she writes. If he goes chasing a girl down the beach or gets wrapped up in his skim-boarding, Angie will drown.
Take Scarlett, please, Belinda writes. I implore you. It will put my mind at ease.
And so, the four of them go on vacation together—Deacon, Scarlett, Hayes, and Angie. Everyone on Nantucket assumes Scarlett is Deacon’s mistress; he grows weary of explaining that he is still married to Belinda, but she is on location overseas, filming. Scarlett is just their nanny, like Mary Poppins. Eventually, he stops bothering.
Hayes is fascinated by Scarlett and follows her around as night follows day. Deacon can only imagine that Hayes is entertaining some pretty impure thoughts about Scarlett, which serves as a distraction from Deacon’s own impure thoughts. Deacon sleeps in the master bedroom, and Scarlett takes the bedroom right next door. She is so close, he can hear her turning over in bed at night, which leaves him with an aching erection.
And then one evening, Deacon is lighting the grill on the back deck while Scarlett is in the outdoor shower. He hears her squeal as the water goes cold. She shuts the water off and says, “Deacon?”
He freezes. He feels caught.
“Yes?” he says. He’s trying to figure out where the kids are. Angie is upstairs, he guesses, playing with her dollhouse, a pastime that occupies her for hours on end.
“Is there anything I can do to get the water hot again?” she asks.
“Nothing,” he says. “Except to wait forty-seven minutes.”
She peeks her head over the shower door. “You could come in here and wait with me,” she says.
Here it is: the invitation. Inevitable, he supposes. Belinda is far away, and he and Scarlett have been masquerading as husband and wife, going grocery shopping together and sharing an ice cream cone when they take the kids to the Juice Bar—he licks first, then she says Gimme some sugar and she licks.
Plus, they are on vacation, on an island thirty miles out to sea; they have been plucked out of their usual roles. They feel removed, safe.
“Scarlett,” he says. His tone hits halfway between stern (How dare you!) and pleading (Please don’t).
She smiles at him. She is so, so pretty! So sweet! So helpful! But Deacon will not be that guy. He heads inside and decides to cut the vacation short. They leave Nantucket the next day.
Fluffy White Champagne Cake with Champagne Candied Strawberries
MAKES ONE 8 × 8–INCH CAKE
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter
1½ cups white sugar
1 whole large egg plus 2 large egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup whole milk
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Grease an 8 × 8–inch baking pan with butter, then pour some flour in the pan and shake it around until the bottom and sides are covered. Dump the excess flour out.
In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.