Ray Jay Jr. had still worked at the beach club when Deacon and Laurel first bought American Paradise. Deacon used to see him occasionally coming and going in a little white Ford Escort, smoking a cigarette—but Deacon had never been comfortable enough to reintroduce himself because he didn’t want to tell Ray Jay Jr. that Jack Thorpe had left shortly after their visit to Nantucket and Deacon had never seen him again. Then Deacon read in the Inquirer and Mirror that Ray Jay Jr. died of a heart attack—and there went the last person on Nantucket who had remembered Jack Thorpe other than Deacon. It was sad but also something of a relief.
Deacon walks into the beach club through the swinging front doors, and he feels an old, familiar sense of not quite belonging. He has no idea if this part of his plan is going to be successful, but what the hell, he’ll give it a shot.
The blond, round-faced teenager at the check-in window is too young to be a fan, and she turns a skeptical glower on Deacon when he admits that he’s not a member but rather a person on a nostalgic mission, and that he’d love to have lunch. He says he’s an old friend of the former manager, Ray Jay Jr.
“I don’t know who that is,” the teenage girl says. “I’ll get my boss.”
The boss is a young man—about Hayes’s age—with a trim beard and rectangular glasses. Deacon nearly laughs. Now he has seen it all—hipsters have infiltrated the Sankaty Head Beach Club! But from ten yards away, Deacon notices a look of recognition cross this fellow’s face.
“Hi there, I’m Claude,” he says, offering a hand. “What can we do for you, Chef Thorpe?”
Deacon shakes Claude’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Claude. I came here for lunch forty years ago with my father, and I’d love to do it again today.”
Claude nods. “The pool just opened for the season on Monday. It would be our honor to have you as a guest of the house for lunch.”
The Sankaty Head Beach Club has changed very little in forty years, although there are now new chaises and new canvas umbrellas and new towels—yellow and white striped. Deacon sits at a table overlooking the pool, which is smaller and paler than he remembers. He orders a double cheeseburger, fries, and a frosty Coke.
“Are you sure I can’t get you a beer?” Claude says.
“I’m sure,” Deacon says. As soon as Claude leaves to put in Deacon’s order, Deacon takes off his shirt and walks to the edge of the pool. At the far end is a woman with twin girls a few years younger than Ellery, both of them wearing water wings. The lifeguard is a strapping college kid wearing red trunks and a gray hooded sweatshirt, spinning his whistle. The sun goes behind a cloud, and Deacon shivers, but he tells himself to toughen up. He has bigger worries than cold water.
He dives in.
After lunch, he thanks Claude profusely and signs autographs for the two line cooks in the back—and then he’s back on his bike, and it’s off to the beach in Sconset.
The weather is still fine and sunny, but it’s spring, not summer, and Deacon isn’t sure how long he’ll last at the beach. He sets his towel in the sand and charges into the water. It makes the pool at Sankaty feel like a bathtub, but Deacon isn’t deterred. He swims out, letting the waves crest over his head. This is it, he thinks. His last day on Nantucket for the foreseeable future. Of course, one never knows what will happen. Maybe a big investor will pop up, maybe Deacon will finally finish his cookbook, maybe, bit by bit, the Board Room will become more profitable and Deacon will be able to buy another house on Nantucket.
But it won’t be the same; this he knows. American Paradise was where he raised Hayes and Angie and Ellery. That was the house where he lived with his three wives, the most beautiful, complicated women he has ever known.
Deacon swims until his limbs are numb with the cold. He’s having some stomach pains; possibly he swam too soon after eating. He climbs out and collapses on his towel in the mellow late-afternoon sun.
It’s the golden hour. Deacon can remember watching his father walk toward him from down the beach; he can still picture the inscrutable expression on his father’s face. It was sadness and regret, Deacon supposes. His father might have wished he’d lived his life another way or been a more noble man—a better husband, a better father.
Deacon is overcome with emotion. Everything comes to an end—the day ends, the summer ends, an era ends. In a minute or two, Deacon will get on his bike and pedal back to American Paradise, where he will sit on the back deck, smoke a cigarette, drink a cold Diet Coke, and watch the sun go down.
But before he does that, he will stay and enjoy the last of the day’s warmth and the sound of the waves hitting the shore.
He thinks of the words he wanted to say to his father so many years earlier.
Let’s stay here, Dad. Please, let’s just find a way to stay.