Elin Hilderbrand - Here’s to Us

“Here’s the answer to one mystery,” she said.

Buck was elbow deep in sudsy water at the sink. “He invested a hundred thousand dollars in that stuff.”

“She probably got a lifetime supply,” Laurel said, pitching the can in the trash.

“I can’t believe Deacon was such a sucker,” Buck said.

“He knew he was going to lose the house,” Laurel said. “I’m sure he was grasping at straws. Then he came up here to say good-bye to it.”

“I’m sure he knew when he went out that night and ended up at the strip club,” Buck said. “He wanted to drive that girl to Nantucket. That was the act of a desperate man.”

“I wonder what he was thinking about at the end,” Laurel said. “He was supposed to go fishing with JP the next morning, so maybe he was thinking about that-casting a line, feeling a tug, getting that rush you get when there’s a fish on.” She started to blubber. Of everyone in the house, only Laurel had known Deacon as a child. He had never believed himself worthy of any of the good things that had come his way-starting with Laurel. He used to say to her, You are the first good thing that ever happened to me. God, she hadn’t thought of that in years and years. When they were in high school, he used to squeeze her hard when he walked her to her door, as if he was afraid she would disappear overnight. So… when he found out he was going to lose the Nantucket house, he might have seen it as his fears finally coming true. He was going to lose the thing he loved the most.

“The ashes come tomorrow,” she said, wiping her eyes. What remained of Deacon Thorpe would fit in a shoe box. The chef and the swearer and the incredible kisser and the proud, loving father were now chunks and silt that they would throw in the water. It was inconceivable. It was wrong. And yet, everyone died. Laurel herself-with all her thoughts and feelings and all her love and compassion-would someday cease to be, and once she was gone, she would never be back. Never was a long, long time.

She dried the dishes that Buck had set in the drainer, then replaced them in the cabinet. Existential thinking terrified her. She preferred to believe that she would have another thirty or forty years in relative good health, with some meaningful companionship.

She threw down her dish towel and hugged Buck around the middle from behind as he hosed the scraps out of the sink.

“Would you take me upstairs and make love to me?” she asked.

He shut off the faucet. “What did you say?”

Laurel laughed, embarrassed at herself. “Never mind,” she said.

“No, I’m sorry. The water was running, and I didn’t hear you.” He took her by the chin. “What did you say?”

She could retract her statement now, or amend it, but it felt as if she were being spurred on by some invisible force. “I asked you to take me upstairs and make love to me,” she said.

“You did?”

She bit her lower lip. Should she explain that she was all of a sudden very afraid to die?

No need to explain to Buck. He took her hand and led her up the stairs, and it felt natural and meant to be, as though it would be the first time of many, many times, thirty or forty years’ worth.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. Her eyes flew open. Sunlight filtered into the room through the bottom of the window shade; it was morning. Joel lay splayed across the bed, buck naked. Angie hastened to cover him up with a sheet and the meager chenille blanket. The last thing she wanted was Ellery marching in and seeing Joel in Angie’s bed. Angie scrambled to put on shorts and a T-shirt. She opened the door. Laurel was standing there in her bathrobe, her hair mussed, her eyes at half mast behind a pair of glasses that Angie had never seen her wear.

“Sorry to bother you, sweetie,” Laurel said. “But JP is downstairs? He said you two had plans this morning?”

Angie gasped. “What time is it?”

“Eight thirty,” Laurel said.

Eight thirty already? JP, being reliable and prompt, had come to collect Angie for her archery lesson. But now that Joel was here, Angie didn’t want to go. She didn’t need to go. She didn’t have to prove anything to herself or anyone else. Joel had shown up. She, Angela Thorpe, was desired; she was loved.

Oh, how she wanted Laurel to go downstairs and break the bad news to JP, but that was unfair. Angie would do it.

She hurried down the stairs in her bare feet and squinted at the burst of sunlight pouring in through the front door. JP stood respectfully outside, wearing his visor and Blues Brothers sunglasses, grinning.

“Look at you, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “Get your shoes on. I have coffee for you at my cottage.”

Angie smiled ruefully. She felt awful about this. If Joel hadn’t shown up, she would have been happy and grateful to have gone with JP. It would have made the sad day in front of her bearable.

“I’m going to have to take a rain check,” she said.

“Oh,” he said. He took his sunglasses off so that he could study her. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is great,” she said. She lowered her voice. “My boyfriend, Joel? The one I told you about? He showed up last night. He’s upstairs.”

JP’s face fell into an expression halfway between dejection and skepticism.

“I didn’t know he was coming,” Angie said. “He literally just appeared.” Then she said, “I can’t believe I just used the word ‘literally.’”

“Okay,” JP said. He didn’t bother hiding his frown, and Angie wondered what exactly he was unhappy about. Angie had wasted his time, making him come out here from Coatue, but only twenty minutes at the most. Maybe he didn’t approve because Joel was still married. Or maybe… maybe JP had been looking forward to spending time with Angie. She sort of thought this last thing was it, and she felt really bad, but she hadn’t lied to JP-and she certainly hadn’t made him any promises.

She said, “I’m sorry you had to come all the way out here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” JP said. “I’ll see you tonight on the boat.”

“Right,” Angie said. She wondered if Joel would want to come out with her family to spread the ashes. She wondered if her mother or Laurel or Scarlett would have a problem if he did. While she was thinking about this, JP turned and walked down the driveway to his Jeep. Angie wasn’t sure why, but she followed him.

“Listen, JP, I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel terrible. Honestly, I forgot you were coming this morning.”

JP laughed. “This guy must be pretty terrific if you forgot about your shooting lesson,” he said. He gave her a genuine smile. “I’m glad he showed up. You deserve to be someone’s everything, Angie.”

For some reason, tears pricked Angie’s eyes. “I was someone’s everything,” she said. “But he’s dead now.”

JP reached out and wiped away the tear that fell. Then he climbed into his Jeep, started the ignition, and gave her a wave as he backed out of the driveway.

“Wait!” Angie shouted. She waved her arms for him to come back. She would get her shoes on; she would go with JP, strap on the bow, nock an arrow, line up the pin, and-whoosh!-hit the target.

But JP didn’t see or hear her. He took off down the road, and after he was out of sight, Angie turned around and made her way back to the house.

Joel was sitting up in bed. The window shade had been raised.

“Who was that?” Joel said.

“Who?” Angie said.

“Um… the guy in the Jeep in the driveway? The guy you chased? The guy who touched your face? Who was that guy?”

“That was JP,” Angie said. “He’s the ranger out at Coatue.”

“‘The ranger out at Coatue’?” Joel said. “Am I supposed to understand what that means?”

“No,” Angie said. “You’re not. I’m sorry.”

“Are you hiding something from me?” Joel said.

“No,” Angie said. On the one hand, she wanted to tell Joel all about JP: He spends the summer in a shack out on a deserted stretch of beach, he gets up at dawn and fly-fishes on Coskata Pond, he goes clamming and scalloping, he makes a mean Concord grape jam, he reports shark sightings, he rescues sunburned tourists whose Jeeps are stuck in the sand. He’s a bow hunter, and he’s teaching me to shoot. But on the other hand, Angie wanted to keep JP to herself. “He’s a friend. A friend of mine.”

His morning dreams were about pizza. He was awake enough to know he was dreaming, awake enough to remember that he hadn’t really slept because he had spent most of the night making love to Laurel Thorpe, awake enough to feel Laurel rise from bed and to think, No, please, don’t go anywhere, awake enough to see the promise of morning sunshine-another beautiful day, living the life on Nantucket-and yet, he was also still asleep and dreaming of pizza.

He had been born and raised in New York City, so to him, the only real kind of pizza was pizza with a very thin, crispy crust, tomato sauce, and loads of gooey mozzarella cheese. Buck had to have his cheese gooey; he lived for pulling the strings and winding them around the tip of the triangle before popping it into his mouth. Deacon had liked his pizza well done, hard and a little brittle, which was not a preference Buck was ever able to understand. When they went out for pizza-maybe two or three hundred times over thirty years-they each got their own pie, because two men so particular and opposite about their cheese could never share. Buck was a purist about toppings-pepperoni only. Deacon would throw on anything-meatballs, onion and mushrooms; olives, green pepper, sausage. Deacon accepted white pizza as pizza, which Buck did not. Deacon would eat square Neapolitan slices and the “tomato pie” that people from Philadelphia called pizza, which Buck did not.