“Let’s go get Joel,” Angie said. “He’ll want to swim, too.”
“I didn’t know Joel was coming here,” Ellery said.
“No, me neither,” Angie said.
When Angie and Ellery went out on the deck, Angie found Joel standing behind Scarlett’s chair, massaging her shoulders. Scarlett lolled her head back and groaned with delight, saying, “Oh God, don’t stop. That feels so good.”
Angie was hit by a wave of disgusting, ugly jealousy, the likes of which she had never experienced, even when thinking about Joel with Dory.
“You have magic hands,” Scarlett said. “I didn’t realize how tight I was.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” Joel said. He continued to knead her shoulders and upper arms. “You’re in knots.” He took a deep inhalation. “Are you wearing Chanel, by any chance? That is my favorite scent on a woman.”
“We’re ready to go swimming!” Angie said.
Scarlett’s eyes popped open. “Baby, you look edible in that bikini. Honestly, I could eat you!”
Angie rolled her eyes. Scarlett constantly announced how edible Ellery looked, as though Ellery were a cookie, or a muffin, which was all tied in with her deep-seated fear of and desire for food—or so Angie and Deacon had surmised on one of their Tuesday-night dinners.
“Joel?” Angie said. “Are you coming with us?”
“Can you believe Joel is here?” Scarlett said. Years in New York had sanded away Scarlett’s Southern drawl, but when she wanted something, she turned it on heavy and sweet, just like her namesake from Gone with the Wind. “Here” became “he-ah.” Angie watched a dopey expression cross Joel’s face.
Yes, I can believe it, Angie nearly said. Joel is my boyfriend. But Angie wasn’t confident enough to make this announcement. She wasn’t even sure it was true. She had never had the freedom to call Joel her boyfriend. And now that he was free of Dory, Angie realized, he could go after any woman he wanted. Angie might have been good for him while he was attached, but what if he now found someone more desirable? What if he bided his time, then moved in on Deacon Thorpe’s new widow, Scarlett Oliver? Scarlett obviously had no idea why Joel had turned up. Possibly she believed he had come solely to comfort her.
“Are we going swimming or not?” Angie asked. Her voice was harsher than she’d intended. If there was a brat in the family, it was now her. But really, the time had come for Joel to step up. If he had come to Nantucket because he loved her, she wanted him to say it. If he had shown up here because he had nowhere else to go, then he could go pound. She thought these words with bitterness, just like the tough girl everyone believed her to be, but the truth was, she wasn’t equipped to deal with this situation at all.
“I’m going to stay here with Scarlett,” Joel said.
Angie blinked, thinking she had misheard.
“Thank you,” Scarlett said. “I could use a friend right now.”
“So you’re not coming with us?” Angie said.
Joel smiled at Angie patiently, as if she were a slow student. “I’m going to stay here with Scarlett.”
“But you came here to be with me, right?” Angie said. “You came here because we’ve been lovers for six months.”
“Angie,” Joel said. He nodded toward Ellery, and Angie felt an immediate sense of shame. The girl had lost her father and didn’t need the extra baggage of hearing about her sister’s sex life. Joel’s hands moved down Scarlett’s back, and she moaned; she was so delirious with his touch that she didn’t seem to have heard Angie’s words.
“Can we go?” Ellery asked, tugging on Angie’s arm. “You and me?”
“Thanks for taking Ellery,” Scarlett said, her eyes closed and her head falling forward on her neck. “I really appreciate it.”
“I’m sure you do,” Angie said, with as much venom as she could muster. “Enjoy that back rub.” She turned and all but lifted Ellery off the ground in her attempt to get away.
“See?” she heard Scarlett say. “They all hate me. I think even Angie hates me.”
As they walked down the driveway, Ellery said, “Why are you crying?”
Angie wiped at her tears. She hated Joel Tersigni! Hated him!
“Daddy is dead,” Angie said. She stopped and crouched down so that she could look Ellery in the eye. Ellery had green eyes, like Scarlett, pretty and clear, with dark rings around the irises. Her nose was dusted with freckles. She was a pretty girl—not beautiful, but cute and pretty, and Angie was glad for this. “You understand, right? Daddy is dead, and he isn’t coming back.”
Ellery nodded solemnly, and her eyes filled with tears. Angie felt like a monster. Who talked this way to a nine-year-old child? She, Angie, was hurting, and she wanted Ellery to hurt as well. Angie gathered Ellery up in her arms. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, baby.”
Ellery patted Angie on the back, as if she was the one who needed comforting. “It’s okay, Buddy,” Ellery said. “It’s not your fault.”
Intermezzo: Deacon and Scarlett, Part II
Scarlett is having an affair, and Deacon can’t blame her. They have nothing in common except for Ellery. Deacon works all the time, and when he’s not actually running the kitchen, he’s developing recipes for his cookbook. Tuesday nights, when the restaurant is closed, he eats dinner with Angie because Scarlett doesn’t eat dinner, ever. Lately, on Tuesday nights, Scarlett has gotten a sitter and “gone out with the girls.” But then, at some point, Deacon realizes that she’s not going out with the girls; she’s going out with Bo Tanner. Bo, the old beau.
The way Deacon discovers this is an old story. He’s looking for tweezers because he has a piece of cucumber skin jammed up his thumbnail, and his thumb has grown hot and is starting to throb. Scarlett keeps tweezers in her nightstand drawer. Also in Scarlett’s nightstand drawer is a stack of notes, letters, and cards from Bo Tanner, the last one dated three days earlier.
Deacon sighs deeply and looks up at the ceiling. He is happy, in a way, that he didn’t come across emails or text messages. Letters seem old-fashioned; they seem Southern and genteel. They seem sincere, and, although he doesn’t sit down and read them through, the glimpses he does catch tell him the story. Bo loves her, he has always loved her; he should never have married Anne Carter. The only reason he did was because Scarlett came north while Anne Carter stayed behind.
He puts the letters back. He finds a pair of tweezers in the bathroom.
Six weeks later, Scarlett starts crying at the drop of a hat, and when Deacon asks what’s wrong, she says she has her period and she’s gained three pounds. Deacon suspects Bo has broken things off, but he doesn’t ask.
It’s December 21, the night after the restaurant’s holiday party, and Scarlett’s uncle, the Honorable Calhoun Oliver, is coming to the restaurant with his wife, Abigail, and Scarlett. Judge Oliver is one of the six investors in the restaurant, although he has never eaten there—mostly because he doesn’t like to travel north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But Abigail has long wanted to see New York at Christmastime—the Rockettes, the windows at Bergdorf’s—and, since the judge isn’t getting any younger, they decide to make the trip.
Deacon can sense things going wrong before the judge even arrives. First of all, his entire staff is hungover, tired, cranky, irritable, and half a step off. Lily, who is normally Deacon’s nomination for Best Server in the Five Boroughs, had been dancing on the bar until five that morning, and she dozes off as Deacon gives them the night’s specials, then naps all through staff meal. Joel Tersigni has dark circles under his eyes, and Deacon considers sending both him and Lily home, but there isn’t time for last-minute changes.
That’s it, he thinks. They will never have another holiday party.
When the judge arrives, Joel comes rushing back to the kitchen. They have an extra guest in their party, and Joel is caught in a quandary. He can either squeeze the four of them at a table meant for three, or he can put them at a four-top in Siberia, the table that is treated to a frigid blast of air every time the front door opens.